He woke to find the rubbish dog licking the wound on his leg.
For a moment he thought the animal was starting to eat him. Then he realised that she was licking him the way a mother dog licked a puppy.
He peered around, looking first for a new shape in the mud that might be a crocodile then at his wound. It looked neat and clean, not red and puffed, not nearly as long and jagged as it had seemed before. Either it had stopped bleeding by itself, or the licking had soothed it.
His knee looked worse. Purple, green. He touched it, felt pain so bad it just made him feel sick, as though his body wouldn’t register so much agony. He couldn’t look at it.
He looked at the rubbish dog instead.
She sat on the far side of the ledge, watching him warily. So the crocodile hasn’t eaten her, he thought tiredly. Did she think he still had water bladders?
‘Sorry, girl,’ he said. His voice was hoarse. His lips hurt. They tasted of blood; they were dry and cracked from sun and salt. It sounded funny to talk so far from people. ‘There’s no water for either of us. We’re meat for the crows or croc.’ His voice cracked on the words, but he felt no shame: there was no one to call him a coward here.
The dog stood up. She scampered down the cliff, onto the muddy flats, then turned around, as if she was waiting for him.
Did she think he could take her back to the canoe and the water bladders?
Stupid rubbish dog. He shut his eyes again. Something rough and damp touched his arm. The dog’s tongue. He opened his eyes. The rubbish dog ran down the cliff and stared at him once more.
Suddenly he understood. She wanted him to follow her.
Later he’d wonder how he knew. It had never occurred to him to follow a dog before. Had it ever occurred to anyone? But now he had nothing, no one. Just the rubbish dog.
Maybe she was taking him to be the crocodile’s dinner. It didn’t seem to matter now. Following a rubbish dog was the only option that he had.