Dash and Dingo (10 page)

“Don’t be so ungrateful,” his mother chided. “Your brothers will want to see you properly after you being off gallivanting in old Blighty.”

“I wasn’t gallivanting,” Dingo protested, and Henry smiled at seeing him put in his place.

“Henry, dear,” Helen said.

“Yes?” both Henry and Hank replied.

“Oh, sorry, I was talking to my husband,” Helen said, and Henry colored. Now it was Dingo’s turn to laugh. It turned out that Hank was called Henry only, and they
meant
only, by his wife. “Henry, do you want to show the boys through to your study, and I’ll prepare the meat for dinner?”

“Sure, love,” Hank said warmly. “Lead the way, son.”

Dingo nodded, and he gestured to Henry to follow him. They made their way down a dark hall that led outside to a bright, overgrown backyard.

Henry followed Dingo, maneuvering around a large pit with a tin cover over it, wondering briefly what it could be.

Hank’s study was actually a weatherboard shed that leaned slightly to the left. Henry was amused, standing back and admiring the architecture as Hank fiddled with the lock that hung from the latch on the door.

Hank pushed the door open. “Come into the office, Dash.”

Henry sighed mentally; it seemed that Dingo’s nickname for him was contagious. Maybe he would just have to accept it, as it would certainly make life easier if he spent any amount of time with the Chambers family. He stepped into the shed, which was dim despite the large window. The window was encrusted with dirt and looked as if it hadn’t seen a clean in decades.

Hank noticed where he was looking and said gruffly, “To keep people from spying.”

Henry was about to ask what on earth could possibly be so secretive that people had to be discouraged from peeping through the window when Hank swatted at the bare hanging bulb above his shoulder, and Henry found himself face-to-face with a thylacine!

He jumped back before his brain told his body it was obviously an excellent example of taxidermy, but his heart still pounded. Breathing deeply to try and calm his pulse, he circled around the tiger as Hank and Dingo watched him with interest. Henry reached out and rubbed the pelt, which felt exactly the same way as his specimen back at the college did; but this one was

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draped artfully over a wire frame and mimicked the true shape of the animal.

He marveled at the way the back sloped down to the stiff tail, which looked exactly as they did in the photographs he pored over, unlike the flattened piece of fur that he unrolled from its nest of protective paper in the archives section.

Finally looking up, still trying to imagine the thylacine alive and how it would move, the sounds it would make, how the eyes would glisten with life rather than dully stare past him because they were made of glass, Henry could see that the walls were covered with photographs and newspaper clippings.

Many of the photos were ones he hadn’t seen before, and he immediately coveted them for his own collection, hoping that he would be able to obtain copies before he left Australia for good.

Quite a few photos showed the same handsome man over and over

again, and in some of them a young boy also appeared. The man was obviously a hunter, and his prey lay supine at his feet. A lifeless thylacine, spread out and looking like the pelt Henry knew so well back in England.

While the man looked proud and confident, the young boy scowled and looked as if he would rather be anywhere but there.

“That’s you,” Henry said to Hank, pointing out the boy in the

photograph.

Hank nodded. “You got me.”

Henry turned to Dingo. “So that must be your grandfather.”

Dingo nodded. “That’s the old bastard, all right.”

Henry knew from his tone of voice that there was no affection

contained within “old bastard” like there was with “old lady” or “old man.”

“Jack!” Hank said sharply, and Dingo jumped at the sound of his father using his real name. Hank softened when he saw the look on his son’s face and said softly, “He may have been an old bastard, but he’s still your granddad.”

“How often did you go on the… hunt?” Henry asked hesitantly.

Hank closed his eyes momentarily and then opened them again. “Too many times.”

“What were the tigers like?”

Hank smiled. “They’re miracles, Dash. This land is full of the strangest creatures, and every one of them is extraordinary. There are no other animals like them on the face of the earth, as far as we know. That’s why it’s a crime that the Tassie government tried to wipe them out.”

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“Tell him about what it was like when you were a kid,” Dingo prodded him. His eyes shone with excitement and eagerness to hear the tale again himself, even though Henry knew he had probably heard it countless times before.

“Yes,” Henry breathed. “Please do.”

His hand trailing gently along the flank of the stuffed thylacine, Hank’s mouth grew bitter. “They were always shy, but they got used to us enough that pretty soon at night they would come around. I used to leave them food sometimes, when there was food enough to be left. You could see their eyes glint in the night, and the snuffling noise they made as they ate. If I took a lamp, sometimes I could see their caramel fur move against the brush, their stripes standing out as clear as day. They would cry out to each other—”

Forgetting his usual sense of decorum, Henry interrupted excitedly.

“What did they sound like?”

Hank threw back his head and barked a short series of noises—
yip yip
yip
—that made Dingo smile affectionately and fascinated Henry.

“I thought they would have sounded more fierce,” Henry said in wonder.

“That’s the tragedy of the tiger,” Dingo told him. “They weren’t fierce at all. They were scapegoats for the common dog, brought over by the shipful by the British, and many of them becoming wild.”

“They had trouble competing against the feral dogs for food. The dogs are far more aggressive,” Hank said.

“Tell Dash about that farm near you where the family had a thylacine as a pet,” Dingo urged.

“The Digbys, when my father was a boy. He said they kept a thylacine as a watchdog. It would play with the kids and slept in the house. If you caught one young, as a cub, you could tame them,” Hank said sadly.

“How fascinating!” Henry exclaimed. “I never heard that. And despite witnessing that, your father still had no qualms about trapping them?”

“The bounty offered for a thylacine, alive or dead, was too much for him to resist. Especially seeing that our farm failed miserably year after year,”

Hank said, emotion straining his voice. “I helped my father massacre the tigers in our area. I may not have lifted a gun to do so, but it was my years of making them feel safe on our land that made them so easy for my father to find.”

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“You were just a kid, Dad,” Dingo said comfortingly. “There was nothing you could have done.”

Hank shrugged. “Over the years the numbers of them dwindled,” he continued, for Henry’s benefit. “I moved off the farm as soon as I was old enough. Helen and I married, had our kids.”

“When did you move to Melbourne?” Henry asked.

“When I was six,” Dingo said.

“Did your grandfather ever take you on a hunt?” Henry asked, dreading the answer. He knew if it was in the affirmative, he shouldn’t hold it against Dingo, who would have only been a child. But he didn’t want it to mar the respect he was developing for him.

Dingo shook his head. “There was little to hunt by then. The thylacines grew too wary of humans and made sure to stay far away. By then, to kill them, you had to truly hunt them.”

“I wouldn’t have let any of the boys go anyway,” Hank said firmly.

“Our farm failed as well,” Dingo said. “That’s why we moved.”

Henry looked at Hank with awe. “But your obsession survived.”

“The same obsession you obviously have.” Hank nodded. “It was

Gordon who told me about you in the first place.”

“You know Gordon Austin?” Henry asked.

“Dad taught him everything he knows about the tiger,” Dingo said proudly, and Hank hushed him with an amused glint in his eye.

“Then you know a lot,” Henry said with admiration. “Gordon taught me much about the thylacine.”

“Even though he’s now living in Sydney, he takes an active interest in the survival of the tiger.” Hank nodded. “Anyway, he told us about your plans, and that’s what got Dingo involved.”

Henry looked at Dingo, who was scratching his cheek absentmindedly as if he wanted to downplay everything. “Oh?”

Hank nodded. “Dingo wrote to me from England before you two

arrived, telling me all about you and the work you had been doing in England.

That’s why I knew you could be trusted, Dash. I’ve had problems before….”

He faltered.

“With other people?” Henry asked.

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Hank stared at the floor, his mouth tight. “People who wanted to exploit my knowledge so they could find the tiger more easily.”

Suddenly the earlier confrontation at the airport made more sense to Henry. “That Hodges fellow.”

“He’s no
fellow
,” Hank said darkly. “Don’t underestimate him.”

“We saw him at the airport!” Henry exclaimed.

Hank turned on his son. “You couldn’t bloody well tell me before this?”

Dingo scratched at his chin, looking slightly ashamed. “Yeah, it slipped my mind. I would’ve remembered soon enough, though.”

“If Hodges is sniffing around, it’s a bad sign,” Hank said. “You boys are going to have to be careful out there.”

“I’m
always
careful,” Dingo assured him.

“You’re going to have to be
extra
careful,” Hank admonished him. “I mean it, Jack.”

There it was again. Henry could tell that Dingo’s real name was always used when a point was meant to be driven home. And Dingo knew that as well, because he laid a hand upon his father’s shoulder and said with full meaning, “We will.”

“And you’ll have to look after Dash here,” Hank reminded him. “That boy doesn’t know what he’s getting into, so you have to make sure he’ll be okay.”

“I’ll guard him with my life,” Dingo promised. “Do you trust me, Dash?”

Henry didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes,” he replied immediately.

Dingo smiled at him, and Henry once more felt that warm feeling begin in his stomach. He tried to will it away, knowing it would only complicate things. But he couldn’t look away. And Dingo held his gaze.

Henry didn’t know how long they would have stood like that, staring at each other, but Helen appeared at the door, and their contact was broken.

“Meat’s ready,” she announced. “Time for you to do some work,

Henry.”

“What would you like me to do?” Henry asked politely.

Helen pointed at her husband. “
That
Henry. You’re a guest, Dash. Your job is to relax.”

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Henry colored, and Dingo clapped him on the shoulder to lead him out of the shed, his touch burning through the material of Henry’s shirt and searing the skin beneath.

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The giant pit in the backyard was what Dingo called a “barbecue.” Hank lifted the lid that covered it, and there was a small hand-made grill that sat within it. Dingo collected a small pile of wood and started stuffing it beneath the grill, interspersed with sheets of newspaper. He pulled a box of matches from his back pocket, and Henry tried not to observe how the material pulled over his buttocks and molded to them like a second skin for a few seconds.

Soon Dingo had a perfectly contained fire roaring, and Henry was glad of it, for now that the sun was going down a cold wind had started up.

Dingo noticed him shivering. “That’s Melbourne for you.” He laughed.

“Four bloody seasons in a day. That wind comes right up from the Antarctic, and it goes right through you.”

Henry didn’t want to look too prissy by getting into his jacket, but he moved closer to the fire.

Dingo handed him a beer. “That’ll warm you up.”

It certainly helped. The alcohol warmed his veins, heating him from within. Henry watched Hank as he laid steaks and sausages across the grill.

There was also a cast-iron tray that Helen had filled with potatoes, onions, and mushrooms. Henry’s mouth was watering already.

Dingo leaned over the food and poured a liberal amount of beer over the meat, which spat merrily at its strange marinade. Dingo laughed at Henry’s perplexed expression. “Tenderizes the meat,” he explained, and Henry just decided to accept it.

And when they ate, the meat
was
the tenderest Henry had ever tasted.

Who would have thought beer had such magical properties? Once food began to fill his belly, for Helen had also provided a tangy potato salad and fresh homemade bread cut into thick slabs and spread indulgently with butter, Henry felt unaccountably tired watching Hank, Helen, and Dingo laugh and reminisce beside the barbecue pit. But that wasn’t the end, for after they made