Luke and Bear lay on the grass outside the hut as the afternoon shadows lengthened. Angus had been gone for a week now. Surely he’d be back soon. What if Bear was on walkabout when he returned? Tonight he’d better tie the dog up.
Luke attached a stout rope to Bear’s collar and fastened it to the doorpost. He laid his own blanket down and tempted Bear to settle there with a bribe of wallaby stew, but the dog was restless and wouldn’t eat, unhappy with the new arrangement. Afternoon wore into evening. A breeze blew up, whistling down the chimney, as the first stars pricked through the roof of the night sky.
Bear could feel the tug of the darkening forest. When he rose to leave, Luke stroked and talked to him. He loved the smell of this man and the comforting sound of his voice, but as each hour passed his agitation grew. Ignoring a command to stay he padded to the door, only to be stopped short by the rope. He whined and lay down again, ears cocked towards the night.
It was then he heard the call – a series of sharp barks, not quite dog-like, coming from somewhere close to the hut. Bear was transformed. He fought against the rope like a wild thing, smashing the bench as he thrashed about, causing the frightened baby devils to dive for cover into Luke’s empty boots.
For a time the rope held. Bear stopped his struggle for a moment, panting and trembling. Luke tried to soothe him, talking low and soft. The call came again. Bear sprang back like a thing possessed. The knot at his collar unravelled just as the weathered doorpost snapped. With one powerful bound Bear burst from the hut and vanished into the night.
If ever Luke had doubted Bear’s association with the tigers, those doubts were gone. He hated them for the irresistible hold they had on his dog. He swore and kicked the splintered doorframe. Then a loud cooee sounded from nearby. Luke grabbed his rifle as Scruffy ran through the door.
The terrier caught the devils’ scent and pounced on Luke’s boots. Muffled squeals and snarls competed with his eager barking and Luke’s frantic yells and curses. Angus pushed open the door just as Luke extracted a wriggling Scruffy from under the broken bench. He tied the terrier to the wall, well away from the devils who boldly emerged from cover to take a closer look at the yapping dog.
Angus eyed the babies dubiously. ‘They’re vermin. You do know that, don’t you lad? Like overgrown rats, just more vicious. There’s a bounty on their heads.’
‘If a bounty makes them vermin, then I suppose I’m vermin too,’ said Luke. ‘And Bear as well. Out here I can’t afford to be choosy and, anyway, they’re good company.’
Angus grunted, unconvinced. He removed his hat and warmed his hands by the fire. Luke watched him, too scared to ask the question. A long moment passed. At last Angus turned around.
‘The job’s yours, Luke. We leave for Binburra in the morning.’
A broad grin split Luke’s face. He quizzed Angus on every detail of his meeting with Daniel. Angus faithfully reported the day’s events, patiently repeating parts when requested. He frowned as he told of Jim Patterson’s arrival. ‘It wasn’t smart to pinch that bloke’s possums. He’s on the lookout now.’
Luke was too excited to heed the criticism. ‘Did you see a girl? Daniel has a daughter. Was she there?’
‘Aye, the lass was there,’ said Angus. ‘A pretty little thing. On my oath, I swear she’s got a dog the spitting image of yours. When I first seen it, I thought it was yours. A little smaller maybe, but not by much. Apparently hers came all the way from England. I forget what sort of dog they said it was. Where’s your mongrel anyway? Gone walkabout?’
Angus noticed the rope tied to the broken doorframe. ‘That’s the right idea. Patterson vowed to kill that dog, and them wolves too. He’s not the only trapper about, neither. Next time, tie him up like you mean it.’
After dinner the two stayed up late into the night again, talking and chuckling at the devils’ antics. How good it was to have a friend like Angus. Somebody to take his mind off tomorrow. Between his excitement over the coming reunion and worrying about Bear, Luke doubted that he’d ever sleep again.
Out in the shadowy forest, Bear wasted no thought on tomorrow. He was one animal with Luke and quite another with Coorinna. Swiftly he overtook the tigers. The animals greeted each other and continued on the hunt, slipping wraith-like through the trees. The dog’s senses sharpened when he travelled like this. Each indrawn breath painted a picture and his panting tongue tasted the breeze. The fresh passage of an old buck kangaroo, the alarmed flight of a low-roosting mopoke owl, the abandoned hole of a wombat and the nervous scuttle of a marsupial mouse in the leaf litter at his feet – such things he identified with the ease of the tigers. Sounds imperceptible to man rang loud and clear for Bear. The clicking of a beetle on a fern frond, the snap of a land crab’s claw, the quiet, high whisper of a bat’s soft wings, the breeze in the grass. He heard and saw and tasted and smelled and felt the night, tingling with vitality and the deep satisfaction of knowing his place in this world.
The baying of distant dogs caused Coorinna to hesitate, a snarl on her lips. But this wasn’t the barking of tame dogs, to be sooled by a human master on the prey of his choice. It was the howling of the wild pack. They posed little danger to Coorinna and her cubs while there was an abundance of sheep. Nonetheless, she gave them a wide berth.
Life was becoming even more difficult in the forest. Farmers felled timber to open up pastures. Sheep carcasses laced with poison appeared along the retreating forest edge. Strong wires attached to cruel baited hooks hung from trees. Coorinna taught Bear to avoid these treacherous offerings. Thylacines were fastidious, intelligent predators who preferred to kill afresh each day. Devils, though, were natural scavengers, and scores died slow, painful deaths from feeding on contaminated corpses.
Coorinna alerted Bear to other hidden dangers. Several nights past they came across an unfortunate wild dog, caught by her front paw in a steel-jaw trap. The device was concealed along a bush trail, set to indiscriminately mutilate whatever came along. Bear and the tigers skirted the injured dog. She whimpered with pain and blood loss, every movement an agony. Bear whined in sympathy, but was quickly summoned away by an anxious Coorinna. From a faint scent at the scene the animals understood that this was the work of man.
The pack flushed out a wallaby and gave chase: through gullies, across creeks, along ridges. As the tired wallaby hopped an arc around a rocky outcrop, Bear copied Coorinna’s hunting technique, cutting across its path. Seizing his prey by the tail, he threw it to the ground and swiftly sank his teeth into its soft throat. The kill was over in seconds.
With full bellies and the night still young, the cubs wanted to visit the tarn in the next valley, one of thousands of little lakes gouged into the landscape by the force of long-vanished glaciers. Pouncing on roosting ducks and swans was their favourite game. But Coorinna led her disappointed young back to their lair, suspicious now even of their home forest.
The bored cubs roamed around, searching for bettongs or bandicoots to bother. Their irritable mother lay down, snarling at some imagined menace or else staring motionless into the night.
Bear stayed close by. To amuse the restless cubs, he bowled them over and over again with one huge paw. And while night turned into morning, they played together at the den’s mouth. Dawn came, fading the moon, sending rosy streaks of light to colour the clouds of the eastern sky. The drowsy young tigers retired to sleep and Bear made his customary departure to spend the day at the hut.
Luke had been waiting and watching for Bear since first light. He yelled with delight as Bear emerged from the trees and trotted to meet him. Dried blood stained his chest. Angus declined to mention it.
Luke took the dog down to the creek for a scrub. ‘Please be on your best behaviour today.’
Bear responded by shaking himself, showering Luke in a rainbow of spray. Luke finished the job, washing himself as best he could and then putting on his most presentable clothes. With one final check of the hut, he closed the ill-fitting door and they headed off.
Their journey seemed to take forever. If they’d made a beeline across country it would have halved their travel time. But Angus wouldn’t follow the direct route, demanding an easy and accessible path for Toro. The mountain slopes were full of beech trees, Angus said. Bushmen called them ‘tanglefoot’. In places, their twisted, intertwined, ground-hugging branches formed impenetrable barriers to foot travel.
As it was, they compromised and followed the forest boundary south-east towards town for two hours until it intersected with the road to Binburra.
To begin with, Bear seemed to enjoy himself, padding along at Luke’s side, occasionally dashing after Scruffy to investigate a wombat hole or hollow log. But when they turned onto the Binburra track, he hesitated. Luke took a length of rope from his pocket and tied it to the dog’s collar. It was clear from Bear’s raised head and cautious movements that he was on high alert.
An hour later they were in sight of the homestead. Luke was quiet, meeting Angus’s attempts at conversation with monosyllabic replies. And then he found himself running ahead, frustrated by Toro’s plodding gait and impatient to come face-to-face with his past.