Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent Read online

  Then there they were, twisting and cutting their way through the wave. He aimed and cast quickly, laughing with joy as the water turned bloody.

  He’d got one!

  I am the best hunter in the world, he thought. His smile vanished. He was the only hunter in this world.

  He hauled in the spear and fish. The fish was as long as his arm and still flapping, so he bashed its head against the rock, then examined his spear. The point was still secure, he saw thankfully. It had taken days to get it right — he didn’t want to have to do it again soon.

  He carried the fish along the beach then up the track to the cliff top by the pool. He’d seen crocodile tracks on the beach, though he hadn’t seen a croc since the one in the cove. But crocs were cunning, lying so still, so mud-covered, that you thought they were a log until it was too late.

  The fruit were where he’d left them: small, sour mangrove berries. Later in the year they’d be fatter and sweeter, but when he sliced them and laid them on top of slices of fish on the hot rock in the sun like the women did at home the berry juice and the heat turned the fish flesh white and cooked.

  Women’s work, he thought bitterly. Collecting fruit, slicing fish. No wonder Leki had chosen Bu. Loa was a cripple, a fool who had lost his way, who lived like a woman with a rubbish dog in a bare barren land.

  He gazed out at his new world. Dry grass, limp trees, smoke …

  He stilled. Smoke! It was almost at the horizon, but there was no mistaking it for cloud. A high plume of smoke, the sort of fire you’d build for a feast, a gathering of clans.

  A campfire! He felt the grin spread across his face. Other people. Aunties who might know how to heal his leg, girls …

  He stopped smiling.

  Hunters who’d look at him with scorn — a lost boy with a bad leg. But maybe his leg would keep getting better. And even living as a cripple with a clan would be better than trying to survive alone on raw fish and mangrove worms.

  He looked around for the dog. She usually came down to him about now. ‘Dog!’ he yelled.

  No sign of her. For a moment he hesitated. He didn’t want to leave her behind. The dog was all he had.

  But he was a hunter! What hunter would wait for a dog instead of striding out to find others of his kind? And if he waited the fire might go out and the smoke vanish.

  He couldn’t stride, but he could limp. And anyway, the dog would find his tracks and follow, he told himself. She’d sniff out the way he’d gone just like he’d watched her sniff out tiny rock lizards, crunching them in her sharp teeth.

  He forced himself to eat the still-raw fish, then drank as much as he could, wishing he had water bladders. The smoke was inland and he had no way to carry water.

  But there must be streams here, even in the Dry. And the smoke was less than a day’s walk away. He could manage — just — to get there and back to here without water.

  He hoped he didn’t have to.

  CHAPTER 33

  Loa

  The sun had risen high behind him when the dog bounded up a few handspans later. He’d been walking for long enough to have worried she wouldn’t come. She ran to him. She sniffed his feet, then lay on her back so he could bend down and scratch her tummy, something he’d discovered she liked in the long afternoons when hunger and thirst were sated and there was nothing else to do. He grinned at her, relieved she’d finally found him.

  He stood up, leaning on his spear, and peered across the dry tussocks at the smoke again. The smoke cloud was bigger than it had been. The smoke was black as well as white too.

  The fire was coming closer.

  Suddenly he realised what it meant. That wasn’t a tame campfire. This was wildfire! Fire lit by lightning crashing into the ground, perhaps, though he hadn’t seen a lightning storm in all the days since he’d been here.

  Maybe there’d been a storm in the distance, when he had been sleeping. He’d lost track of time and this land had few of the season’s cues he was used to, though he was sure the seasons were the same as at home. Storms could come at any time now that the year had turned.

  The fire might also have been lit by people to flush out animals to spear. In any case, its cause didn’t matter. The fire was heading for him and the dog.

  He had no way to know how fierce it was. Wildfire could be a frog fire, jumping and snickering through the grass, so you were safe in a tree — if you could hold your breath till the worst of the smoke passed. Or it could be a monster fire that ate trees too. Suddenly the fire was an enemy, not a friend. Only one thing stopped fire.

  Water.

  The sea was too far behind him. But over to the south-west was a grey-green smudge that must be an inland mangrove swamp, perhaps by a river or lake. The ground would be too wet to burn there. It would stop a frog fire, but not a monster. A monster fire would eat the swamp trees too, leaving the land dried and scarred.

  But the swamp was the only refuge he had.

  He turned abruptly, and began to limp as fast as he could, not worrying now about hurting his leg more. Legs could heal … perhaps. Burned bodies didn’t. The dog bounced at his heels or ‘followed him in front’: she had a way of knowing where he was going and heading there first.

  He looked behind. The smoke was a wide tear across the world now, the wind at its back. But the swamp was close. He lurched into its dampness just as he heard the first snicker of flames behind him. He waited till he was several spear lengths in among the trees, balancing on a root clump with the water pooled about his feet, staining the dog’s paws, then turned back again to look at the fire.

  The flames licked up at the sky. The blaze was bigger than a frog fire, but not much. The red flames bit and frizzled at the mangrove edges. A few leaves turned into flame. But although he could feel the fire’s heat he knew they were safe. Already the flames were shrinking.

  More than safe. He suddenly realised that this was his chance to catch some fire for himself.

  He untied his spear and thrust it safely up into a tree, then began to gather whatever dry wood and dead branches hadn’t fallen into the mud. He limped with an armful over to the edge of the fire.

  Most of it was already out, but the rotten wood on one of the outer mangroves still flickered red. He kneeled down as well as his bad leg would let him, and pushed the wood he had collected next to the coals, then blew on them. Flames flared up, yellow and eager. He added twigs then larger branches. When those were burning, he ventured further into the swamp and hauled out a dead log.

  It was far bigger than any mangrove tree. The great tides must come all the way inland to this swamp in the Rain Season, he decided, or maybe a river flowed here too. Some past flood had washed this giant log here. The wood was damp, but that was good. It would burn more slowly and give him time to move his fire somewhere else.

  He couldn’t camp here. Even a big fire wouldn’t keep crocodiles away. And he’d come too far to return to the seaside cliffs tonight. He climbed a tree awkwardly, using his arms to haul himself up instead of his legs, and peered around, trying to see what lay beyond the swamp.

  Yes! There was a range of hills, much like the cliffs by the sea, on the other side of the mangroves. Would there be another freshwater pool there?

  There was only one way to find out.

  ‘Dog! Come on!’ The dog had been watching the fire warily. She was growing fatter, Loa noticed. She must be eating well, with her own hunting and his leftovers. She ate better than any rubbish dog back home. He grinned. She could share his cooked fruit bat now.

  It still hurt to think of home. The pain in his knee was nothing compared to that. Sometimes he was even glad of the injury, because it distracted him from longing for his family.

  The dog leaped to her feet and followed him.

  CHAPTER 34

  Loa

  Boy and dog sat by the fire under a wide rock ledge, chewing the last of the fruit bat. The meat was sweet and tender, the fur singed off before he’d roasted it in the coals, with ar
rowroot tubers too, and some of the white mangrove worms as well now that he could cook them. He and the dog ate till they were full, then kept on eating.

  The stars lazed in a wide wheel above him, the tiny campfires of the sky. Thunder boomed far off past the grasslands. But it didn’t matter now if a storm flashed across the land, not with the ledge to shelter him. Not with the fire to keep him warm.

  The fire was more than warmth, more than good meals to come. Fire was a way of saying to the darkness, ‘I am here, I command this tiny place where my light will keep you at bay.’

  It was a way to say to wild dogs, even to crocodiles, ‘You may be able to eat me, but I command fire. Watch out.’

  The ledge was halfway up the first hill, worn away by wind and rain, strong and big enough to shelter him from the rains that would come soon, deep enough to even protect him from the worst of the wind. The floor was uneven, but he could fix that tomorrow, scraping dirt down to make it more comfortable.

  He’d found no rockpool, but there was a tiny spring at the base of the hill, enough to gather handfuls of water and for the dog to lap. If it had been the beginning of the Dry he’d have worried that it would vanish. But the Rain would be here soon enough to replenish it.

  Even better, there was food all around. This swamp was even richer than the one by the sea. He could bake swamp oysters and crabs. There were pandanus trees too, still with nuts he could now cook. He could use the leaves to make fibre for nets and cord too.

  But best was the fire. He’d made a rough basket of pandanus leaves to carry the hot coals from his first fire. It had taken four attempts to get them to his new camp. The first coals had eaten through the basket and his next two efforts had gone out. But now he had a fire where he needed it. He dragged up a damp log that would burn slowly so the coals would keep glowing overnight.

  Tomorrow he’d find more logs, spear more fruit bats. He could sit quite still, like the dog, and catch the lizards that ran about the rocks. She crunched them raw, but he could cook his now.

  Despite his loneliness he laughed. Food, shelter, warmth, the dog — life was …

  … no, not good. But better.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Dog

  It was good to have a camp with fire and meat and bones. Camp life was familiar for a rubbish dog. Bony Boy caught more food too.

  She needed food, especially now. Something different was happening to her. She didn’t know quite what it was, but she knew what she needed.

  She ate and ate.

  Each night when Bony Boy slept she left his fire and hunted in the darkness, finding her way by smell, not sight. At last she found it — a crevice, deep in the rock. A place where a dog might hide in safety, where even Bony Boy would never look. It was too small for the big lizards to get into, too deep for hawks or eagles, too high for crocodiles.

  She waited. She ate; she hunted with Bony Boy.

  Then one morning she knew the time had come.

  She walked slowly up to the crevice, crept on her tummy into the darkness and lay down to wait.

  CHAPTER 36

  Loa

  Clouds gathered like clustered islands on the horizon every day now. Rain scattered across the grasslands — not the proper rain of the Wet, but enough to bring pale green shoots of grass through the cracked dry plains. Thunder growled behind winds that shifted back and forth, bringing long birds that strode through the new grasslands.

  The land changed. Great tides turned the swamp into a small sea twice a day, retreating to leave driftwood, new banks of mud and sand, and giant shellfish or tiny cone shells to be roasted on the coals, the flesh within sea-sweet and tangy.

  His knee was healing. Too slowly — he wanted to be able to run and leap and climb properly again. But he could put weight on it now, though he still needed to keep it bound, as any twisting made it swell.

  He was hauling more driftwood up to the fire when he saw a creature move out of the corner of his eye.

  He dropped the bundle of wood in shock. It was — impossible!

  The creature was the size of a person and on two legs so at first he wondered if it was human: if this peculiar new land had people with tails. The animal’s feet were huge, its head small, its ears cocked up like the dog’s. The creature saw him, blinked, then bounded off …

  It was leaping, not running. He stared at it as it vanished behind a cliff. Had he imagined it?

  He tried to picture the creature again. Was it dangerous? No. Its eyes were close together, like a grass eater’s, not on either side of its head like a meat eater’s, like a man’s or a pig’s or an eagle’s. This animal was to be hunted, not a hunter.

  But what kind of animal hopped?

  Where was the dog? If the dog could see the creature, chased it, he’d know it was real. But where was she? He realised he hadn’t seen her since the night before.

  He was used to waking up to find her gone, but she always came back sometime during the day, nosing curiously at whatever he’d caught to eat.

  ‘Dog! Here, girl!’

  No dog appeared. Loa began to pick up the fallen wood.

  She’d be back.

  The dog wasn’t back by dusk.

  He sat by the fire, piled high with wood to make a good blaze, for comfort rather than warmth. He’d raked some of the coals away to cook a giant water snake he’d found caught in the newly lush swamp, grabbing its neck before it could strike him and lashing it down hard to break its back.

  He didn’t think the big snake was poisonous, not like the thin deadly sea snakes, but he was going to cook it well anyway. The aunties said that long cooking made a snake safe.

  What would the aunties be doing now? It was almost as though they were no longer real. But somewhere the camp went on, with its high sleeping platforms, its laughter and friendships.

  The loss of his clan hurt like a wound. He missed friends the most — other hunters to share his world with. He only had a dog.

  But where was she?

  He looked out into the darkness, hoping to hear her claws on the rock, or at least her howl in the distance. There was plenty of snake meat for both of them — lots of bones for a rubbish dog to chew for days.

  But no dog appeared out of the darkness now. He was really alone.

  CHAPTER 37

  Loa

  The dog didn’t appear the next day, or the one after that either. More of the strange hopping animals arrived, big ones like the one he had seen first and small ones. He studied them with a hunter’s eyes. They stood still and vulnerable as they ate the newly shooting grass. They looked like good meat — hunter’s meat. But they moved quickly whenever he was near. He’d need two good legs if he was to get close. He suspected it might need more than one hunter to get close enough to spear one too.

  Once again he searched for the dog, calling, though in his heart he knew there was no use.

  So much could happen to a rubbish dog. A crocodile could take one — he’d seen croc tracks by their new camp too: at least one big one and a few smaller. She might have been bitten by a snake. If either had happened there was little chance of finding the dog alive.

  He missed her. It wasn’t just that she was familiar — nor just that she’d saved his life. Somehow, in the past few weeks, the dog had become a sort of person. Independent, intelligent, quietly companionable — the sort you’d want for a friend, whether they had two legs or four.

  Now she was gone.

  He sat by the campfire, the bones and scraps he hadn’t wanted to eat making a smelly pile that attracted the flies. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel this alone.

  At last he banked down the fire with a couple of damp swamp logs that would smoulder till dawn. He lay down on the smoothed dirt, the stones now raked away, the rock behind him warmed by the fire. Once again thunder muttered in the distance.

  It would rain before morning. He shut his eyes and slept.

  He woke to the sight of a gold shadow at the corner of his camp, nosing at
the pile of scraps. He yelled and sat up. ‘Dog!’

  He grabbed his spear to help himself to his feet. The dog grabbed a hunk of cooked snake and sprang from the ledge. He watched her scramble down the hill and vanish into the rocks and trees beyond.

  What was wrong with her? Had he offended her? No — you couldn’t offend a rubbish dog! It was like saying you could insult a pig or a cuscus.

  Was she suddenly scared of him? Why would she be? He hadn’t done anything new or different. She had watched him use his new spear for days without fear; she’d known that spearing animals meant food for her.

  And yet she’d gone.

  He sat to think about it. He knew more about pigs than rubbish dogs. Why bother studying rubbish dogs? Rubbish dogs were just … there. They cleaned up the scraps; they were good for food if there was nothing else; and they helped little boys play at being hunters.

  Had she found a pack of dogs to join? He hadn’t heard any dog howls, except for hers. If any dog had heard her it would have howled back, unless the dogs here were silent.

  No. He’d have seen a pack’s tracks. There had been many strange tracks, but only one set of dog paw prints — hers.

  Where had she gone?

  He’d wait, he decided. She obviously still wanted his leftovers. He’d bring back a couple of fruit bats as soon as it was light — she loved the crunch of their brittle bones.

  He was a hunter, wasn’t he? Even with a bad knee he could track a dog.

  He’d be waiting when she came again.

  CHAPTER 38

  Loa

  She came at dusk, a shadow among shadows. The air greyed around her. Somehow she had become a grey dog; the sunlight-gold of her coat had seeped away with the daylight.

  She didn’t look at him, though she must have known he was there. It was almost as though she thought that if she didn’t look at him directly, he couldn’t see her.