Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent Page 5

But now he was following her, at least. She waited till he was closer then clambered up the rock a way, and sat, waiting till he caught up with her.

  CHAPTER 27

  Loa

  The rubbish dog was taking him somewhere. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly understood where.

  She had found a way out of the cove.

  If he hadn’t been so tired, in so much pain, he might have seen the track too: a narrow passage where the rock had crumbled, leaving a rough track up between the boulders and blocks of cliff. Other animals had used the path, treading silt into packed earth bridging the gaps between the broken rocks. He could even faintly smell them — not just dog and seagulls, and not pig or human either, but animal scents he didn’t recognise.

  He leaned against the cliff face again to help support his weight, hopping, dragging his leg, until they reached the top. He paused, out of breath. The pain exhausted him, the storm and fright and strangeness.

  He gazed around, panting. On one side the sea stretched blue and bare. On the other golden tussocks of grass spread to dull green hills in the distance, the earth between them a patchwork of cracks, parched from the sun. It looked like a land crying for water to make it live. But this was the Dry, he told himself. Rain would come to this land too.

  Or would it? The land looked wrong. The colours weren’t right — the green too drab, the grass too brown. Only the sea on his other side was as it should be, the bright and fearless blue. Maybe this new land never had a Rain Season to bring it back to life.

  The sun glared at him, swollen as his knee. He could see the beach he’d hoped to land on from here too: a vast stretch of trackless sand. No sign of the canoe. No sign of people either. No smoke, even on the horizon.

  He had tried not to think about that. It was bad being alone. No fire was worse. Now the true terror flooded over him. Fire kept the wild animals away in the night. Fire drove away the spirits of the dark. Fire warmed the body on windy nights and cooked his food.

  He’d once seen his grandfather make fire by turning a dry stick in a patch of rotting wood. It had been a show-off trick. The clan always carried fire with them when they moved camp — a live coal in a slow-burning pig’s tusk.

  It had taken a long time for Grandfather to get the rotten wood smouldering. Could Loa even remember how it had been done?

  He shut his eyes for a moment, in pain and weariness. The pain in his knee felt like knives. He needed water: soon, or he would die.

  He opened his eyes. The dog was still there. ‘Water?’ he whispered, as though she might understand.

  The rubbish dog gave a short ‘hff’. She sounded impatient. She padded away, then stopped to wait for him. Loa lurched along the animal track towards her, along the cliff, then down into a sort of gorge, where two ridges met.

  He stared.

  There was a pond down there in the rock, almost perfectly round. Smooth cliffs surrounded it except on this side, where the path led down to it. The water was shallow, but clear. Impossible for a croc to lurk there, or even a snake.

  Could it be fresh water? Or was it salt water, splashed here by some high tide?

  As if to answer him the rubbish dog ran down to the pool. She drank briefly, then looked up at him as though to say, ‘This is how you drink, you fool.’

  ‘Water,’ he whispered. He lumbered clumsily down the rock to the pool, then lurched into a sitting position next to the water, injured leg in front of him, and lifted up a handful.

  It was warm and sweet and wonderful.

  The dog gazed at him. He drank again and again, then dunked his head into the water to get rid of the salt and heat. At last he hauled himself onto his good foot again and scrambled up the path onto the rocky ridge.

  He was safe from crocodiles up here. A croc could climb the path. But it wouldn’t bother. The other animals that used this path, whatever they were, would be crocodile food too. Again he closed his eyes. For the first time in two days he let himself sleep without forcing down terror first.

  CHAPTER 28

  Loa

  He dreamed of home. His mother spilling tubers out of her bag; his father grinning as he held a fine spear against the sky. He held on to the dream even as he woke up, hoping desperately that he’d find himself on the leafy branches of a sleeping platform, the chatter of family around him.

  He opened his eyes. The rock was growing chilly against his skin. The sun had sunk to the horizon. The rocks were shadowy, with vague rustlings that he didn’t understand.

  Back home he knew the sound of every animal. It was like he’d been dropped by an eagle far from where he should be — home, the sounds of the clan, the mutters of grandmothers, the cries of babies — to here, with just the sounds of wind and sea and strangeness.

  Where was the rubbish dog? There was no sign of her — and still no smoke or canoe or people. He forced himself to lurch down to the pool again, drank, then made his way under a rocky overhang near the water. At least he’d be out of the wind down here.

  He sat with his back to the rock, feeling the last of its warmth fade with the daylight. He shivered, from hunger and loneliness as much as cold.

  Something warm touched his hand. For a moment he thought it was the rubbish dog’s nose.

  It was a bird. A dead bird, with strange red and green feathers. The dog sat next to it, looking at him.

  The bird was a present for him. He picked it up. It was freshly killed, the marks of teeth where it had been choked to death.

  The rubbish dog had a few feathers around her muzzle too, either from this bird or another she had eaten.

  He’d eaten raw meat before, when he had been too hungry to wait for it to cook after a hunt. This wouldn’t be good, but it would feed him, and not hurt him either.

  He looked at it, and then at the dog. He would have died of thirst tomorrow, or died from lack of food the day after, or the day after that. The rubbish dog had given him his life.

  Why?

  Suddenly he began to cry. He cried like a baby, on and on, letting the tears flow and the sobs well out of him. He screamed up into the sky and felt the scream echo back. At last the sobs came quietly.

  Something warm pressed against him. It was the dog. She sat next to him, her front legs poking out by his. It was almost as if they were old men sitting together.

  We are, in a way, he thought. He and the dog had been through as much in the last two days as many old men had experienced in their whole lives.

  The dog knew it too.

  He pulled the feathers off the bird, then chewed its still faintly warm flesh. He couldn’t face the guts, so the dog ate them from his fingers, licking them clean.

  Then they sat together as the blanket of the night covered them, and the fruit bats made long sweeps against the sky.

  CHAPTER 29

  The Dog

  She waited till Bony Boy was asleep, slumped on the rock, his leg stuck out awkwardly, then padded out and along the track, up to the highest point on the cliff above them.

  For a while she just sat there, letting the smells seep into her. Some were familiar, like Bony Boy, the sea, the fruit bats that flapped above the mangroves. But mostly they were strange.

  There was no scent of dog at all.

  At last she lifted up her nose and began to sing. It was a howl of longing, of hope. It was a song that called, ‘If anyone hears this, please answer.’

  But no dog did.

  This new land was empty. It had no dogs at all.

  She felt the moon rise out of the sea. She sat silent, then padded down to Bony Boy again.

  He was all she had.

  CHAPTER 30

  Loa

  He slept till the sunlight washed down the cliff, dazzling him as he opened his eyes.

  It was long past dawn. The tracks around the pool told him that animals had drunk and gone while he was asleep. Hunger gnawed at him, but he felt stronger after the water, the food and sleep. He sat up, glanced at his knee, then looked away again.
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br />   A shadow moved above him. It was the dog, her fur golden in the sun, lying on the rock, watching him. ‘Hello,’ he said.

  Her head tilted to one side as though she was trying to understand. He almost grinned. He pushed himself to his feet. He needed food. He needed to explore this world.

  He drank, then hopped up to the ridge again. The dog pushed her way in front of him. It seemed like she wanted to be with him too.

  He gazed around. Over on the horizon, clouds lingered like round blue mountains. The air felt different: heavy and moister. The Thunder Season is coming early, he thought. That was why the storm had caught him unawares. But he felt relief too. This new land had the same seasons as the world he’d known.

  Still no signs of people — no canoes, no smoke. Could a land this size really be empty?

  Suddenly he felt small. Tiny. The sea went on forever … and so did the land … and the sky above — and he was all alone. He looked down at his body. It was a good body, for a boy his age. But was it strong enough for him to survive alone?

  ‘Yes.’ He said it aloud, even though there was only the dog to hear. She pricked up her ears, looking at him thoughtfully. ‘We got here, didn’t we, girl? The sea didn’t get us. We’ll manage.’

  The dog’s tail thudded on the ground. Did that mean anything?

  I’m talking to a dog, he thought. And then, No. I’m talking to the animal who saved my life. All at once he knew that, no matter what, he was safe with her. He could be injured, helpless, and she wouldn’t attack him. And even if he was starving, he would never see her as food again. If a crocodile attacked he’d fight for both of them.

  Meanwhile they needed to eat.

  He limped slowly along the path. It led to another muddy mangrove cove, bigger than the one where he’d been wrecked. The tide was low again, leaving a vast stretch of mud and trees.

  He hopped down to it, the dog padding after him. His leg still hurt enough to make him giddy with pain if he tried to put all his weight on it or twisted it, and it gave way if he tried to stand on it, but if he went slowly, dragging it, lifting it where necessary, it was all right.

  The raw bird hadn’t even begun to satisfy his hunger. He looked at the fruit bats hanging from their roosts, at the holes in the mud that meant crabs lurked below. Fruit bat and crab were good food, but both had to be cooked.

  Some foods like pandanus nuts killed you if you ate them raw. Others made you sick.

  He hauled himself from tree to tree again, through the soft bubbling mud the tide had left, then used his knife to prise through half-rotted timber.

  Yes! There was a mangrove worm, small and white …

  … and useless. White mangrove worms had to be cooked, or they left your throat sore and swollen. Every child had tried eating one when they were small; none ever tried it again.

  He thrust the knife into another tree, then grabbed at the flash of pink and grey, laughing with delight. The giant worm dangled from his fingers to his elbow, fat and succulent. Not quite as fat as the worms would be during the Wet, but so good. He nipped off the sharp head with his teeth and spat it out, then sucked the creamy inside.

  The dog made a small noise beside him.

  ‘You want one too?’

  ‘Gff,’ said the dog.

  He laughed again, and threw her the rest of the worm. She leaped up and grabbed it out of the air, then chewed it thoroughly, swallowing finally as though she had decided it was good.

  He lurched over to another tree, and another, digging and feasting and throwing worms to the dog till he was full. The dog looked satisfied too.

  He looked at his hands, covered in worm juice.

  Babies’ food. Women’s food. Men hunted pigs. They speared giant rats or fish. They didn’t gather worms that any toddler could find.

  What were they doing back at the camp? Had Leki told them he was leaving? Or was she so rapt in Bu that she never even noticed Loa was gone?

  For the first time he was glad that there was no one to see him. Not Loa the pig hunter, but Loa the cripple, digging mangrove worms.

  He needed fire.

  If he had fire he’d be a man again. He could eat cooked fruit bat. Arrowroot plants grew where the water seeped from the rocks. Their tubers would be sour and stringy at this time of year, but better than nothing. But they too needed to be cooked, like fruit bat.

  He limped back up the track, trying to work out what he needed most. Fire first, and wood and tinder to make it. Then the right sort of rock and wood to make a spear. Fire would give him hot sand to straighten the spear shaft, but the rock here was crumbly. It would never pierce an animal’s hide — it probably wouldn’t even spear a fish, which he couldn’t do anyway till his leg was better.

  The path wasn’t as steep down to the grasslands. He took his time, hauling down dead bits of branch as he walked, the crumbliest, driest wood he could find, then two long hard sticks. At last he sat, the tinder in a small pile next to him, and pressed the hard stick onto the long rotten one.

  This was how Grandfather had done it, wasn’t it?

  The dog watched from a rock nearby, curious at first. Eventually she shut her eyes, though her ears stayed pricked.

  Loa began to rub the vertical stick between his palms. Patience, he thought. It had taken Grandfather a long time to get the tinder smouldering so he could blow in it to produce flame. Rolling and rolling the stick into the rotten wood …

  The sun shone above him, hot and white. How long had he been rolling the stick? Far longer than Grandfather. He touched a finger to the tinder.

  It wasn’t even warm.

  He let the sticks fall. It wasn’t going to work. Not unless he could remember some other trick Grandfather used to make a spark.

  He glanced up at the dog. She snapped lazily at a passing fly and crunched it.

  Not a fly. A bee!

  He sat perfectly still and listened. There was no telltale hum from any of the nearby trees. He watched the air instead, till he found another bee, then blinked.

  The bee had vanished into the ground!

  Bees lived in trees back home. But he was sure that had been a bee.

  He grabbed one of the sticks he’d hoped to use as firewood, and used it to help him limp over to the tiny hole in the ground. He put his head down to the soil and listened.

  A hive!

  He grinned. He poked the stick into the hole, making it bigger and bigger still. The bees poured out. He brushed them away, glad that bees couldn’t sting like biting flies, then bent down and scooped out two handfuls of honey and wax.

  It was wonderful, though not as sweet as the honey he’d known before. This was runnier and slightly green-tinged. He ate handful after handful, spitting out the wax onto a little mound that grew as he ate.

  A shadow sat next to him. The dog. He held out a hand, sticky with honey.

  The dog licked it, blinked, licked again, then gave an almost-grin of distaste. It was so funny he had to laugh.

  At last he gathered the wax and stood up. The wax had given him an idea. He mightn’t have a spear point, but he had his knife. He could use wax and twine to fasten it to a long stick.

  It wouldn’t be a proper spear, not balanced enough to hunt with, not until he could straighten the stick with hot wet sand. But it would be good enough to spear fish. He could stand still on the rocks at the edge of the sandy beach he’d tried to land on and let the fish come to him, then strike. His bad leg wouldn’t matter. You could eat fish raw if you had to.

  And he’d be a hunter. A man.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Dog

  The Thunder Season

  Days passed. The smells here were strange, and many of the animals and birds too, but at least day and night and Bony Boy were still the same.

  Bony Boy was a boring companion. He moved slowly and awkwardly. Most dawns she left him to hunt alone, following strange scents for the fun of it, for Bony Boy found enough food for both of them now.

  This morn
ing she lay on her tummy in the grasslands, the dry grass the same colour as her fur. Slowly the world around her woke up, the birds singing, then rising in a shifting cloud to settle on the grass nearby.

  She moved slowly, still on her tummy, closer, closer. One of the birds saw her and gave a warning cry. The cloud rose again, just as she leaped at the closest bird.

  Snap! She’d only caught its wing, but that was enough to stop it flying. She dropped it onto the grass, then picked it up properly, still squirming, broke its neck and took it up onto the ridge to eat.

  She could smell the world there; she followed Bony Boy’s scent as he woke up and drank then headed down to the rocks at the edge of the headland with his new long stick. She chewed the bird slowly, spitting out the feathers, then let herself doze.

  There was no hurry. It would take Bony Boy a while to spear a fish. He never ate the fish meat straight away, but cut it into pieces and left it on the hot rock with slices of fruit over it.

  She didn’t like the fruit-covered pieces. They were soft and tasted wrong. But he always left the head and tail for her; and the fish guts too.

  There was time to sleep in the sun now.

  CHAPTER 32

  Loa

  Loa stood on the rock and peered into the water. He wished he could fish properly, striding into the waves, but his knee still gave way under him if he tried to walk with the splints off. But if he was patient most days he could spear a fish here on the rocks. He had made fish hooks too, ‘finding’ the hooks hidden in the shells on the beach.

  The new spear didn’t fly straight, but he was used to that now. He’d cut a hole in the end and tied cord to it and his waist so he didn’t lose it in the waves. His obsidian knife point was the most precious thing in his world.

  A fish glinted in the water, almost near enough, but not quite. He waited. One fish usually meant more.