‘Here comes another one,’ said Jake, as he helped Matt load Woorawa onto the jeep beside Aquila. The vibration finished almost as soon as it began, a brief wobbly sensation in Matt’s legs. It would have been different inside, where shivering shelves and creaking walls revealed the most minor of tremors. It was always the rigid, the manmade, that bore the brunt of damage when the earth moved. Pity those poor blokes down the mine.
Matt took a deep breath of pure morning. The powder-blue sky was streaked with sunrise streamers of coral cloud. They unfurled southwards, betraying a high wind. Perfect. The hooded eagles, quiet in their carriers, would sail the summer breezes by noon.
‘Good luck,’ said Jake, and waved goodbye.
Matt pulled out onto Binburra Road just as Penny pulled in. The vehicles paused, as if their drivers considered stopping, winding down windows, having a chat. But on some invisible signal, both continued on their way. Penny was staying at Ray’s until Matt made a decision about Theo. They’d decided Matt would have the final say. Well, Penny had decided, like it was some kind of test. ‘You need thinking space,’ she’d said. Neither of them knew he’d need so much.
Matt searched one-handed in the glove box. Darn it, no gum. Chewing gum stopped him from grinding his teeth. The adolescent habit had returned recently. He mouth-breathed in shallow pants, jaws ajar until he forgot about fighting it. His molars clenched together and began their inexorable grind.
Matt tried to focus on the day ahead, but his thoughts inevitably returned to Theo. There were more thylacines. Where? Did he even have the right to wonder? After releasing Aquila and Woorawa, he would revisit the place where Theo died. Re-examine it in the light of the little bit of emotional distance he’d achieved. Maybe his course would become clearer.
‘You’ll make the right decision,’ Penny had said on the phone yesterday. How would it feel to be Penny? Everything so cut and dried, so black and white. Never in doubt, whether wrong or right. Weren’t women supposed to be the ones who crippled themselves with guilt? Not in this marriage. Penny had somehow absolved herself of blame, overlooked her own culpability with Fraser. Overlooked her deceit. Instead, she’d loaded both barrels with righteous resentment and blasted him at point-blank range. The hypocrisy of it.
From the back, Aquila chirruped and ruffled her wings. She liked him to take it slow. Matt lightened his foot on the throttle.
‘Not long now,’ he told her. Aquila settled at the sound of his voice. Not so Woorawa. He uttered a rasping kark, the call he made when threatened. Woorawa had maintained a healthy hatred of humans throughout his rehabilitation. This wild instinct would serve as the best possible protection for him and his over-friendly mate. But still, such a hard-earned release was nerve-racking as well as elating. Binburra’s budget didn’t stretch to radio trackers for eagles, only devils. He imagined Aquila with a mobile phone tucked under her wing, wished he could ring and say, ‘How’re you going, darling? Have you had a good feed?’ But all he’d be able to do was wonder and hope.
Woorawa had demonstrated in the last few weeks that he was ready to return to the sky. Freshly moulted, new feathers gleaming, black as sable. Five or six times a day he completed a dozen laps of the aviaries’ hundred-metre flight path, his playful mate chasing after him. The birds, with their two-metre wingspans, negotiated the twists and turns with extraordinary precision. Matt never tired of the display. Some captive raptors were lazy, but not Woorawa. He revelled in his increasing strength and pinion power, maintaining a self-imposed training regime worthy of the finest athlete.
Matt had planned to release Aquila at Tiger Pass ever since she arrived as a yearling three years ago. It was ideal eagle territory. Remote, unoccupied by other pairs. He glanced at the time. Nine o’clock. Halfway. By eleven they’d be there.
As they climbed higher and higher, Matt forgot his worries. There was only him and the eagles and the wilderness. Last year Penny had accused him of taming Aquila, and to be honest, it had been a challenge not to. The bird had a crush on him. Not his fault. Aquila had been raised by humans. It could take years to dehumanise an animal, particularly a carnivore. To make it aware of its own species, and ensure it could hunt without human support. To make it frightened of strangers. The job demanded a style of animal husbandry designed to preserve the sanctity of wild behaviour, a style specific to wildlife rehabilitation. It was wrong to care too much, or at least to show it. Successful release required animals to span the gap between two radically different worlds. Sometimes they failed. Matt had done his best.
The sun sailed high in a neon blue sky when Matt parked the jeep. Pet carriers in hand, he followed a rough track to the head of the rocky pass. Sheer walls of stone enclosed the way, tops fringed with jagged sandstone battlements. How good to feel the weight of the birds in his hands this one last time.
What would it be like to be an eagle? To be Woorawa? Fierce and faithful. Ever-vigilant. To possess vision of unimaginable clarity. Humans may have invented Google Earth, but their vision was fuzzy rabbit-eared antennae reception compared to the eagles’ glorious high-definition colour. What would it be like, to bear unblinking the full force of noonday summer sunshine and still be able to read a newspaper headline a kilometre away? To see without doubt?
He’d like to fly. Just glide away and leave the old world behind, as the eagles were about to do. The odd stillness of the pass moved him as it always did. No breeze stirred the sassafras that clung to the sides of the cracked stone cliffs. Yet high winds swirled the myrtle beech forest canopy above the escarpment. Matt followed a barely rippling stream, a dark chain of rocky pools. Half-an-hour’s walk brought them to the falls, and he swung the cages onto the broad stone ledge jutting over the water. Liberation point.
Release was always bittersweet. Aquila would go first. Matt had free-flown her at this place many times before, watched her spiral and dive and soar close to the sun. Always she’d returned to him. Not this time. He was just a man now, no longer her keeper.
‘Okay, darling, let’s get this hood off you.’ Matt kissed her head. Aquila whistled with excitement, ready for what would come. Gathering her in his arms, wings tucked in tight, Matt tossed her to the sky. Up and up she flew, higher and higher, until Matt could barely see her. Then she banked and wheeled in a tight circle, the wedge of her tail in sharp silhouette against the bright sky. Matt breathed a big sigh and turned his attention to her mate. He was something else altogether. Matt peered into the carrier. Woorawa was quiet within an eagle sleeve – a homemade canvas and velcro restraint. Penny herself designed and sewed the unique sleeves, which were attracting interest from mainland zoos.
Penny. He missed her, wished she was there to share this special moment. Matt’s phone rang, making him smile. How had she known he was thinking about her? But it wasn’t Penny. It was Sarah.
He answered the call. ‘I’m kind of busy.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Releasing the eagles.’
‘What, right this minute?’
‘Aquila’s already circling and Woorawa’s just about ready to fly. I’ve got to go.’
‘Let me stay on the line,’ said Sarah. ‘It will be like I’m there.’
‘Righto. I’ll switch my phone to speaker.’
Matt extracted Woorawa from the carrier. The bird felt heavy, muscular, tense with anticipation as a wild bird should. Matt removed the hood. The eagle gazed at him with cold agate eyes. Slowly, carefully, Matt opened the sleeve, grasping Woorawa’s legs and body tight. The bird held him for a minute in a magnetic stare, beak agape. I fear nothing in the earth or sky, he seemed to say. Then he turned to face the blue.
‘What’s happening,’ asked Sarah.
‘I’m about to let him go.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’m holding his legs and letting him flap for a minute to stretch his wings. Now I’m lifting him over my head. Here’s your second chance, mate. Good luck, and don’t blow it. One, two, three – and there he goes.’
This was where Matt’s well-laid plans could come unstuck. Aquila had to follow her wild mate. If she returned to Matt, it wouldn’t be the end of the world; secretly, he might even be pleased. But if she headed off alone, her chances of survival were bleak.
‘What’s happening now?’ asked Sarah.
‘I wish you could see it. Woorawa’s a few metres above Aquila, and he’s circling too. They’re in unison. This is brilliant. You’d think they’d done this all their lives. It almost looks like they’re hunting.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Sarah. ‘You must be proud. You worked so hard for this.’
He was proud, and exhilarated, and terrified watching the soaring eagles. Perfect mates. They didn’t compare notes, didn’t plan ahead. Their bond was intuitive, their strategy instinctive. There were no lies or misunderstandings.
Woorawa suddenly dived. A split second later, Aquila plunged after him. Matt almost fell from his perch high above the falls.
‘They are hunting,’ said Matt. ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘What can you see?’
‘Not a thing. They’ve dropped out of sight.’
Matt ended the call. He craned his neck towards the faraway valley floor, but saw nothing. Clouds of spray from the waterfall obscured his view. What was happening down there? Matt kicked at a rock. It made a graceful arc over the cascade, then plummeted, just like the eagles. He swore. Even a lifeless stone could reach the valley, but not him. For a long time he watched the sky, but the birds didn’t reappear.
After an hour Matt collected his gear and walked back along the track, his mind working overtime. Then he rang Penny, crossing his fingers for reception. If anybody could understand what he was going through, it was his wife. Yes. Penny’s soothing voice was echoing in his ear. ‘I’d love to get down there and see what’s happening,’ he said. ‘You don’t have a helicopter on standby by any chance?’
Penny hung silent on the phone.
‘Pen? Are you still there?’
‘I’m here,’ she said after a while, ‘and I have an idea. Promise you won’t get mad, though.’
‘Why would I get mad?’
‘It has to do with your father. Everything to do with your father makes you mad.’
He’d left himself wide open for that one. ‘Forget it.’
‘Don’t go, just listen.’
Matt stayed, too wound up to speak, too curious to bail.
‘Fraser says there was once a way down to the valley.’
‘We already knew that.’
‘Yes, but he knows where it was – through the back of Last Stand Cave. Fraser could never find a way through, but you’re an expert caver. It might be worth a try.’
‘He told you this?’
‘Yes,’ said Penny.
‘When?’
A long pause. ‘Two months ago, maybe?’
‘He never told me.’ The satellite phone crackled.
‘I know. He should have.’
And so should have you, he thought. Matt felt like screaming. How many times had the two of them searched for a way down to the valley?
Matt switched off the phone, looked across to the ancient Huon pine tree, guardian of Last Stand Cave. He dropped the cages, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and hurried over, too impatient to head back to the jeep for ropes. He’d been in that cave dozens of times. There was nothing at the back except a ceiling-high pile of rocks and thousands of tickling cave crickets. The walls seethed with them.
He ventured in, further and further again, his small torch struggling to light the recesses. Hadn’t he normally hit rocks by now? The floor abruptly gave way, plunging him down a muddy hole. Only a braced forearm saved his head from striking stone. The narrow beam of the torch illuminated a steep rockslide in front of him that had not been there before. It looked like the entire rear wall of the cave had collapsed into the earth.
Matt took a leap of faith and started down the incline, skidding and sliding with the torch between his teeth. One minute. Two minutes. Ten minutes. It grew brighter and Matt propped on a ledge just in time. Fifty metres below him, the shaly slope yawned into space – a heart-stalling ski jump to nowhere. The arm he’d used to save himself had received a painful twist. Why hadn’t he gone back for the ropes? With deliberate, measured lungfuls of breath, he calmed his nerves. To his left gaped a vertical fissure in the cliff, as wide and tall as a man.
Matt scrambled across to the narrow passage and squeezed inside. Flutters in the dark – a cloud of bats swarming around his head. He knew about bats, how harmless they were, but still a primal fear gripped him. The fear of the dark, of the unknown. The fear of creatures crawling in his mouth, of wings beating about his face. As quickly as he’d felt them, the horde vanished into the void and Matt reclaimed his breath. Water was dripping on his head. He stepped forward, slipped and hit his face on the rock, tasting blood.
Torchlight revealed a shallow stream at his feet. It led down through the cliff tunnel. Carpets of green and gold lichen adorned the clammy walls and, beyond the bright beam, rocks glimmered with glow-worms. The path steepened and, astonishingly, his feet found crude steps carved in the stone. This was it: the fabled passage down. A passage to the underworld. An irrational fear prickled the nape of his neck. The legends he’d loved as a child said it was forbidden to go to the land of the dead. The underworld protected its secrets.
However no mythical guardian waylaid him, and before long Matt stood on the valley floor. His legs went to jelly and he felt the unfamiliar sting of tears behind his eyes. He’d dreamed of this moment for years – of finding his way down to this lost valley – and the wonder of it overwhelmed him.
The desolate voice of a crow sounded from high on the rim. He looked up at the ring of granite cliffs soaring hundreds of metres into the sky, making the valley a fortress against the modern world; a place where Woorawa and Aquila could live untroubled by man.
Matt peered through a screen of sassafras, a perfect natural hide, to the clearing beyond. And there on the ground, in the middle of a button-grass meadow, his eagles were ripping and tearing at a dead pademelon. Woorawa was perched atop the carcass, with Aquila taking tentative tastes from the side.
Woorawa had done well to bring down a wallaby. Aquila wouldn’t have been much help. She was unaccustomed to hunting anything larger than rabbits. Curiosity overcame his caution and Matt separated himself from the shadows. Aquila stayed put, but Woorawa launched himself skywards. It was reckless, what he was doing. It could drive Woorawa away, separate the pair he’d worked so hard to match, but he had to know.
He approached, one careful step at a time. Woorawa circled low, then alighted on the bough of a swamp gum bordering the clearing. His gaze never left Aquila, who hissed and then returned to her meal. Their bond was strong. Reassured by Woorawa’s proximity, Matt drew close enough to see what he was looking for.
Eagles hadn’t killed this wallaby. Its teeth-torn throat and missing flank said as much. Matt scanned the ground with rising excitement, and paw prints confirmed his hunch. This was a tiger kill. He almost took photos, but thought better of it. He’d already deleted the shots of Theo from his camera. Why leave evidence when he hadn’t yet made his decision? Instead, he backed off, unwilling to interfere anymore. Some tiger tracks led north into the forest. Some led south, straight to the sassafras thicket from which he’d emerged. They told the story, plain as day. Tigers were using the path opened up by the earthquake to exit the valley.
Did they return at dawn to shelter here? Perhaps, at this very moment, tigers slept close by in one of the cavities peppering the cliff face. In that one, or that one? Or this one? Matt explored the nearest cave, disturbing a sleepy tiger quoll, nothing more. He crept back out and peeked through the sassafras curtain. Woorawa was again perched atop the carcass. Aquila reached up, caressed his nape with her beak. Thank goodness for that. He should never have jeopardised their release. Penny would be unhappy if she knew.
But then after what Penny had done, keeping her friendship with Fraser a secret, who was she to judge him? A sour resentment rose in his throat. How hard were Penny’s releases anyway? Find a run-down farm infested with cats and rabbits. An easy-to-monitor moorland plain. Some boggy regrowth forest. Simply let the devil go, often with the luxury of a radio collar. It was worlds away from freeing eagles in the wilderness on a wing and a prayer.
Matt glanced up. The jagged clifftop broke the sky like knuckles on a row of clenched fists. His arm throbbed. It would be a hard return journey.
The climb back up to Tiger Pass took three times longer than the descent. The lower section of the tunnel appeared to be in original condition, parts of it worn smooth by the passage of ancient feet. Who carved the steps and when? So many questions. Now he was looking for them, tiger tracks weren’t hard to find. They hugged the inner wall at the edge of the treacherous rockfall, guiding his own steps, making his scramble up the stony slope easier.
Matt finally emerged from Last Stand Cave, squinting and blinking at the sun, drawing ragged breaths. He retrieved the carriers and headed back to the jeep, mind abuzz. Why had Penny kept this news about the valley to herself for so long? Only one explanation made sense. Fraser had told her, and she wanted to conceal the fact that she’d been speaking to him. It was disconcerting to discover a secret side to her, and he was not ready to forgive, despite his earlier softening. Maybe you could never really know another person. The possibility made his chest hurt. He wanted his Penny back. The honest one, the one he could trust.
He reached the jeep, packed away his gear and slumped in the driver’s seat. His arm was aching more and more. Matt tried to focus on the day’s astounding discoveries, but loneliness was swamping his elation. He missed the eagles, missed his wife, missed having someone to talk to. He checked the clock. If he headed back now, he might still have time to help Jake feed up. Matt turned the ignition key, wondering how he would bear being alone tonight. Then his phone rang.
‘Matt? It’s Sarah. I have to see you.’