The scents this season were strong and rich, filled with life as well as the smells of water, mud and rotting wood.
It was time to teach the puppies about the world around them.
At first they tumbled after her as she climbed about the rocks and ledges between rainstorms, always in daylight, when Bony Boy was near.
As the season progressed and the rain eased to short showers each afternoon she took them out into the newly firm grasslands, green and rich from flood mud, the grasses long enough to hide them from birds of prey.
Several times she saw the grass shiver nearby as a croc moved stealthily towards them. Each time she ran. The puppies ran too.
The pups knew the scent of crocodile now; they knew the tracks it left in the mud, the swish it left with its tail.
She had them watch as she waited by the edge of the swamp, motionless, on her tummy, head down, till flocks of birds landed and began to feed, poking their beaks into the mud. In one sudden leap she grabbed one.
The smallest puppy learned fastest, but soon they could all manage it, even if they weren’t successful every time.
They hunted frogs together, jumping frog-like themselves across the mud, crunching the frogs, bones and all. Fat mice scurried through the grass now too. The dogs crunched them in two gulps.
She showed the puppies how to mark their territory, squatting and letting out a few drops here, and then more there, so that any dog who passed would know who owned this land. She showed them how to sit on the highest rock and smell the world: scents of big hoppers returning to the grasslands; the small ones on the hills; and the scent of Bony Boy and his fire.
She taught them how to smell where Bony Boy had been and how to track the small hoppers too. They learned how to drive them towards Bony Boy and his spear and net, because that was the way to get most meat for dogs and human too.
Once she had hunted only before dawn and at dusk. But Bony Boy liked to hunt in early and late daylight. Somehow she had become a dog of the daylight too, waiting for him to feed her and the puppies with hunks of hopper or pulling out the innards in a big steaming heap for them to nose through.
The two smallest puppies were even more daylight dogs than she was. Bony Boy was their family: they slept curled up with him and played with him during the day, tugging on sticks he held or leaping up for bits of meat or bones. They were almost full-grown now, but they still clambered onto his lap, till he laughed and complained about their weight and the smell of wet fur. He stroked their heads or scratched their backs or rubbed off leeches in a way that meant the bites didn’t itch.
The bigger two slept further and further from the fire now they were large enough not to need Bony Boy’s protection. Sometimes they slunk off by themselves, coming back with feathers around their mouths, sleeping when she and Little Boy and Little Girl followed Bony Boy down the track to hunt.
She watched and understood.
Then one dawn she took them through the mangroves. They hunted frogs, snapping and jumping, more for fun than hunger. She sniffed the air. There was a danger scent. Where was it? She lifted her nose again.
Suddenly the bigger two pups broke away. They padded through the mud and shadows to where the water still ran in a shallow river at the edge of the swamp. She watched as they paddled into the river then began to swim away from them. She knew at once what they were doing. They were finding their own territory across the river.
The ripples changed upstream. A log became a crocodile. It had been a croc all the time they’d been here. It must have swum close last night while they slept.
‘Yip!’ she yelped, desperately hoping they would hear and understand. She ran to the edge of the river and yelped again, trying to make the croc head for her instead.
It didn’t. The croc knew her pups were easier meat. She watched it, a silent shape sliding through the water. Could she swim to it to distract it? She leaped into the water — then stopped.
The young dogs were on the other side now. They didn’t wait to shake themselves dry. They had seen the croc too, or felt its movement in the water. She yipped another warning. They ran, swift and steady through the mangroves, till they were two shadows lost among the others.
She waded back to dry land. She could smell their scent getting fainter and fainter, as they ran beyond their mother’s territory to find their own. She could smell their paw prints as she padded back through the mangroves, the other two young dogs at her side. They headed up the track to Bony Boy. He was the centre of her pack now. Her home.
That night she left the two young dogs curled up with Bony Boy. She climbed to the highest hill, as the moon cast its shadows on the world. She lifted up her head and sang.
It was a song of love, of loss, of understanding. It said, ‘I am here; and you are there.’
At last she stopped, and listened. For the first time in this new land she heard the howl back.
Her children were there. Not here, but safe.
This was a land of dogs now.
She howled once more and heard them answer again.
Then she padded back down the hill to Bony Boy and his dogs.