Into That Forest Page 6

  We went hunting for Corinna cos we knew she needed food. Going on all fours had become natural to both me and Becky - not all the time, mind you. When we were in the den or outside we were on all fours and sometimes in a hunt we found ourselves running on all fours. As our hands and wrists became stronger we didn’t even notice we were doing it. Corinna and Dave were our parents now and we copied them. But if it were a long chase - and sometimes that’s the way we hunted, we’d chase after a wombat or young wallaby in a steady trot til it were worn out - it were easier to be on our two legs. The eyes of an animal we hunted to the point of exhaustion were always the same - I’d see surrender in their look. They’d given up all hope and were dying even before we killed them. It were as if they wanted to get it over and done with and be put out of their misery.

  During the day Dave slept in the corner of the den by himself and Corinna slept nearby, but not cuddled up to us - now she was pregnant she seemed wary of Becky and me. Then one day she began to whimper real loud as if in pain and then her backside began to quiver and the male left the den. Corinna looked at us and growled and hissed so we skedaddled out into the watery day and sat shivering between the tree roots. We could hear her whimpering from inside and then she went quiet. I were afeared she were dead, so I peeked into the den and seen two tiny things no bigger than me finger crawling up into her pouch. She were licking them when she seen me. Her eyes told me to get back out, which I did quick smart.

  When I joined Becky again Dave were gone, which were unusual cos it were day. He returned a few hours later, walking right past us - like we didn’t exist. We peered into the den. He were vomiting up pieces of fur and meat for her and she were gobbling it all. Without even talking about it or thinking about it, we knew what we had to do. When Dave caught an animal or bird, we’d eat our fill, and then fill our gobs and crawl into the lair with our heads bowed, like kids with really strict parents, and vomit up our food for her. This won her trust and she allowed us to play with the pups when they could leave her pouch. She fed the two of them as she had fed me - from her teats. The pups just accepted us as part of their lives and sometimes when the parents went out hunting she’d leave them with us to look after. They were like dogs and we loved them. One were male, one were female. When they could walk we took them on short hunting trips where they could watch what we did. Most times they were lazy, just crowding up Corrina’s pouch til they were so big they could no longer fit in.

  It were in early summer that we went on a long hunting trip to a lake where the wallabies drank at sunset. It were a far way away, so the pups had to be strong enough. I think it were also a test to see how tough they were.

  We walked through the night and arrived at the lake in the morning. It were a huge lake that went as far as the eye could see. It were so calm it were like a mirror and that meant I couldn’t see below cos of the reflected clouds and bright morning sun. We picked some fronds and made a possie under an overhanging rock. Late afternoon we left the pups at the lair and we crept down through the grass and gum trees and waited. It were easy to hunt at the lake cos hundreds of wallabies came to drink. We saw a young one, a cocky one, that were by itself, sniffing the ground. There were two ways we killed. Either we trotted after our prey and followed it til it were so exhausted that it gave up, or we ambushed it. We were on the wallaby before it knew what were happening. It were like this explosion of panic cos once Dave were ripping open the throat of that young wallaby the whole tribe of them were scattering right, left and centre. The earth near the lake were pounding and bouncing up and down with the sounds of them running away. Oh, that thump, thump, thump of the earth, that got me heart thumping and me blood hot and bothered. Becky and me carried the dead wallaby back up the hill to the pups and we all ate together, like a true family again. I could feel me belly growing tighter and tighter as I filled me stomach. We were resting under the old man ferns, lazing about stuffed with food and contentment when Corinna decided to take the pups down to the lake cos their tongues were lolling out with the heat.

  Becky were dozing and Dave were resting. I were watching the tigers by the lake as the sun were going down. I guessed Corinna were going to show her pups how to swim. Becky and I could do a dogpaddle but it were the tail that helped the tigers swim in the right direction and real quick. Compared to the tigers Becky and I swimmed real slow. I seen their three silhouettes as they drank from the water shiny with the setting sun. Then, like a nightmare, I seen a human, a man, moving slowly through the long grass and trees towards the tigers. I recognised him at once. It were that damned tiger man. He were like an evil spirit turning up. I seen he were carrying a rifle. I knew then what he were after. I barked a warning, real loud. Then again. I seen Corinna, who were standing in the water, looking up to where we were hidden in the old man ferns, and then she must have seen or heard something cos she looked up to where the man was taking aim. She ran towards her pups who were playing near the water’s edge. A shot rang out and I seen a cub jump into the air and land dead still. Another shot rang out. Becky and Dave were now next to me, barking and coughing out warnings to Corinna. There were another shot just as she were ’bout to pick up the second cub by the scruff of the neck. The cub keeled over and it were dead too. Me heart were filled with screams but I couldn’t open me mouth. Another shot rang out and I seen a puff of sand near Corinna. She paused and stared at her two pups and then seen the bounty hunter marching down towards her, reloading his rifle. She couldn’t run towards us cos she knew she would have to pass right in front of the tiger man who were trying to kill her so she turned and raced into the water and swimmed away. He fired bullet after bullet at her but I could tell by the small sprays of water that the bullets were missing her. She swimmed right out and vanished into the twilight.

  The tiger man looked down at the dead pups and then up towards us. I realised he must have seen me cos I were so upset that when I were warning Corinna I had stood up, clear above the scrub. He yelled out something and started to hurry up the hill towards us. We were terrified, so we ran back into the cover of the old man ferns and ran and ran on our two legs then on all fours til we were far away. He must have given up the chase, cos when we sneaked back he were gone. I could see Corinna creeping along the banks of the lake towards where her pups were. We ran down and joined her. There were nothing but some blood on the dirt and grass where the pups were shot. Corinna sniffed and sniffed, trying to pick up their scent. She sat down next to the bloodstains and remained there for hours. Near dawn she looked at us three with sad eyes and we knew it were time to go back home. And I also knew, through a kind of instinct and not me mind, that this had happened to her before. That’s why she looked after us when she found Becky and me, cos her pups had been killed - probably killed by this same bounty hunter. Now she had no pups again. Only Becky and me were left.

  On the way back I felt heavy with some darkness that were filling me mind just as the wallaby had filled me belly. Back in the lair Becky and I cried. Tigers don’t cry, but they know sadness, they know emptiness, and both Dave and Corinna were empty except for sadness. Their eyes were glazed with sorrow; there is no other word for it. I’d say they were grief-stricken and so were me and Becky.

  Corinna spent days, maybe weeks in the den. She grew thinner, even though her mate brought her food. Then one day she come hunting with us, and even though she didn’t have much strength and gave up the chase after a quoll - which are devils to hunt cos they’re so shy and quick - it were a sign she were getting better. We were closer than ever before, not only because of what happened to the pups, but because Becky and me were now like tigers too. Becky’s language were fading, while all mine were gone. There were no reason to remember English any more. Words were no use to us when we were talking to the tigers, it were much easier to use our own language of grunts, growls, yawns, snuffles, coughing, looking, staring, so much so that if I’d mention the tigers to Becky, I’d call them ‘Da’ and ‘Cor’ - it were enough to understand who
I were talking about. Me parents, well, they just slowly slipped out of me mind. They were like dreams, not real people.

  One afternoon after we left the lair and were thinking about what direction to take to hunt, Dave rose up on his back legs to peer over some tall grass and daisy bushes and seen something that made his tail wag back and forth so quick like I had not seen before. I followed his gaze and seen another tiger moving towards Corinna who were standing there in the open just watching this tiger coming closer and closer. Dave began hissing like a snake and he ran through the bushes to the clearing. Becky and me ran to join him, knowing he were angry and spoiling for a fight. The other tiger were a male and he were moving in on Corinna. The two males faced each other. They were real cross, hissing and coughing, their stiff tails wagging back and forth not as a sign of happiness like in a dog but in anger. Then in a flash they were fighting and biting and snarling and growling. They chomped into each other, and tried to yawn as wide as possible so they could fit their jaws round the other’s throat. I picked up some stones to throw at the other male, but Becky stopped me. She were like Corinna, strangely calm, while watching this - cos I s’pose they were confident that Dave would win the fight or they were resigned to whatever happened. The two tigers fought so wildly that soon they were raising a dust cloud. The wind got hold of the dust and it swirled round them like they were in a willy-willy of fury. There were blood on both of them and when their bodies hit the earth it shook with a loud thump. Sometimes they jumped away from each other, sucking in deep breaths, panting madly, with their tongues hanging right out, flies feasting on their bloody fur. Then they jumped back into the swirl. I knew that the two males were fighting over Corinna. I found meself yelling out Da! Da!, egging him on. After what seemed like hours, but it were probably only a few minutes, the other male backed away, looked at me and Becky and then at Corinna. He were covered in clouds of insects licking his blood. Maybe he decided it just wasn’t worth it, cos all of a sudden he turned tail and limped away. Dave were weary and hurt too. Corinna licked his wounds and so did Becky and me. We helped him down to the creek where he drunked so much water I thought he might burst. Becky and me then washed the blood from him. He limped up to the lair and for several days lay there, eyes half closed, his weariness so deep that he dozed all day and night, trying to keep his eyes open just in case his enemy came back. But he never did. Dave were brave and Corinna knew it. She went out hunting by herself and brought back a rabbit for him. He were grateful - that were easy to see.

  When I think back I see time were passing without me noticing. I lost me talking and lost me counting. It were the seasons I noticed: summer and autumn in the rainforests and hills and then winter down by the coast. We had four summers … That made me ’bout ten years old and Becky a bit more than eleven. Four years to a child is like an eternity. Every year I live now passes quicker and quicker but back then a year were an eternity so it were like a time without end.

  Our world were a dark world. Most of our prey were creatures of the night like us. Sometimes at night it were like the whole of the bush were humming. There’d be the scratching, hunting, searching, fighting, snorting, barking, clicking noises of the dying bandicoots, the quolls, the mice, rabbits, dunnarts, possums, pademelons, grumpy wombats, swamp antechinus, potoroos, bettongs … it may be the secret dark world to humans but to me and Becky it were easy to see in. I knew what every silhouette, every shadow meant, no matter how quick the animal or bird were. Day were when animals hid in their burrows or in hollow trees, night were when we all came alive.

  I learned what berries to eat if we were starving cos I watched what Dave and Corinna ate and most times the berries had no bad effect on me, but they could eat the native cherry til full while me and Becky threw up. One sort of berry was so peppery that I dranked water for two days trying to cool my throat. Snowberries and purple berries were good to eat. We caught enormous crayfish in the creeks with our bare hands. If we couldn’t find our usual prey then we hunted rats. They were tasty. We ate mushrooms that were like white tennis balls and a jelly shaped like an ear that growed on trees. We even ate goannas and skinks. If we wanted a pick-me-up we’d lick sassafras leaves.

  I learned the countryside: the fens, the highlands of rock and stones, the rainforests, and what rivers we could cross. I saw orange-bellied parrots, wrens, wattlebirds, honey-eaters, currawongs, huge ravens and heard voices of a bird whose name I forget - it had a song like someone whistling a jig. Then there were the smells: dung, rot, fresh kill, old kill, the devils smelling like lanolin, the gum trees reeking of peppermint, forest floors smotheredin hairy toadstools that smelt of onion, then other toadstools that stanked of radish, fish, bitter almonds or even raw potato. There were special mushrooms that glowed in the night like hundreds of tiny lanterns. In summer the moors and fens were scarlet with flowers and the floors of the forests were white with petals of flowering gums and bushes. There were so much wattle that the countryside were yellow like someone had painted it during the night. Eyebrights and yellow bottlebrush and blue flowers stretched as far as I could see. It took a long time to learn the treachery of the earth - even Dave and Corinna were never a hundred per cent certain that the mossy ground we were walking on weren’t a fake floor. You think you’re walking on a real surface but it can gulp you up like it had tried to swallow Becky.

  Difficult times were when it were bitter cold and prey weren’t to be found, when the rain fell day after day til the whole forest were so sodden every step were a squelch. During these rainy times even our den were damp and all you could hear were the constant drip, drip, drip of water hours after it had stopped raining. It were aching hard on the legs to walk through those sodden forests, and it were wet country ripe for those damn leeches. Then there were the time I were bitten by a jack jumper. It were only a tiny ant but I fell into a coma and Becky had to drag me to the den where the three of them cared for me. Becky were afeared I’d die, til two days later I woke up. I can say at me ripe old age, with me knowledge and the experience I now have, that you haven’t had a proper sting til you been stanged by a jack jumper.

  I learned to read the eyes and body movements of the tigers and they learned mine and Becky’s. It’s why even now I can read a dog as easy as ABC. But there became a problem that Becky and I began to notice. The tigers tried to breed. The year after the bounty hunter killed her pups, Corinna had just the one cub but it died soon after birth. They tried more times but she never got pregnant again. Maybe it were the womb. Maybe after too many pups were killed the womb gave up.

  A winter came that were more cruel than the ones before. The wind and hail were like sharp icicles cutting through me flesh. Even covering our bodies in mud didn’t help and there were times when we didn’t leave the lair because outside our skin turned prickly with goosebumps and our teeth chattered so much we couldn’t growl or cough.

  One day we were really desperate for food. Our prey were deep in their burrows and holes trying to keep the winter out, so we decided to try the bounty hunter’s place again.

  When we arrived, he had just got back himself with two fresh tiger carcasses. He carried them to the lean-to and then chopped some wood. His horse must have smelt us because it began to get antsy, tapping the earth with afeared hooves and pulling at its rope, trying to get away. The bounty hunter thought something was up and he hurried into the shack and came back outside with a rifle. Once we seen that, we were out of there, skedaddling as fast as possible down through the shrubs and running through the kerosene bush til we could run no more.

  There were no other food available so we returned to the bounty hunter’s to try and steal a sheep. His property were white with snow and smoke poured out of his chimney. He were home and therefore dangerous. But we were starving and we had no choice. It were hard to sneak up on the sheep cos Becky’s and me feet squeaked on the hard snow, so we had to approach them real slowly and quietly, all the time keeping an eye open for the tiger man inside the shack who were si
nging a song at the top of his voice. The sheep were under the tree to shelter from the falling snow. Before they knew what was happening we snatched one and the rest of the sheep scattered. The tiger man must have heard their bleating cos he stopped singing. We had little time to lose and we dragged the sheep across the snow leaving a trail of blood. I thought I heard a door open and we stopped, our eyes agog. There were no sound of footsteps and me ears ached with trying to hear. Then he started singing again.

  We ate much of the sheep when we were enough distance away and then lugged home the rest. A couple of days later we were outside the lair preparing to go hunting. It were a still, cloudless day and the winter sun were trying to warm us. We were feeling good, I remember that, and so we didn’t feel the cold as much. We were moving through the snow across a ridge when I stopped. I smelt strange animals. I stood up, sniffed the cold air and looked over me shoulder. I couldn’t speak cos I were stunned to see two men on horses and they were close. They were tiger men - I were sure of that.

  I heard meself bark in fright and warning. The two men rode their horses through the snow across the ridge towards us. They were so fast that I just stood there in shock. Becky yelled out for us to run and she hightailed it to the lair. But cos I were afeared I kept slipping on the wet rocks and when I picked meself up after a fall I heard one of the men shouting. I turned and seen a man with a wild black beard, wearing an overcoat and carrying a rifle, leap off his horse and run at me. The other man, a fat one, slid off his horse and he too came at me. The tigers were coughing and barking and running in circles, alarmed by me and Becky’s terror. The fat man slipped on a rock and fell into the snow, the other one were faster and thinner and he grabbed me. We both tumbled into the snow, but I jumped up first and as he tried to grab me again, I gave a threat yawn. But it didn’t make him back off, so I threw meself at him, trying to bite his throat. He were screaming and the other man grabbed me from behind. I were also screaming and hissing like a devil. They were grunting with effort trying to hold me down. They were saying stuff I didn’t understand and then the first man held me while the second ran across the snow to the lair. I barked out a warning to Becky. The fella holding me was struggling with me as I tried to escape. I barked to the tigers to help me and they started to circle us.