Dash and Dingo (23 page)

The thylacine was just one of a very long list. And the list grew exponentially as you took into account all of England’s history and its role on other soil around the world.

“I guess that is one of the drawbacks of discovery,” he said finally.

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Jarrah said.

Henry wisely kept his mouth shut. There was an untouched record here he wasn’t fully aware of, and he didn’t think he could give voice enough to defend or to apologize. He felt ashamed of his silence but didn’t know how to proceed.

They drove in silence the rest of the way.

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Henry was glad of the fire; once the sun had gone down, the humidity lost the heat of the day, and the damp was merely cold. He lay propped on one elbow, staring into the flames that Jarrah kept to a modest size, rarely feeding in a stick when it relapsed into embers. He glanced around to find Jarrah and Dingo sitting away from the fire and staring into the darkened jungle.

Dingo caught his movement and said, “Best not to stare into the fire, Dash.”

Henry nodded. His eyes had taken a moment to adjust to the darkness when he looked away from the bright light, and he realized what a handicap it was. He shifted so that he was sitting closer to Dingo, also looking outward.

“This is the last night you can build a fire,” Jarrah commented. The embers collapsed with a shower of sparks, and he did not add another stick.

“Once you’re out there, it’s too easy to spot, if anyone should be following.”

“What’ll we do for tea?” Henry asked, although he was thinking more of the tiny circle of warmth at the center of the vast chill that surrounded them. Already, just a few feet further away from the campfire, he had begun to shiver.

“Guess we’ll just have to huddle for warmth instead,” Dingo teased, chuckling at the quick look Henry threw at Jarrah.

Henry didn’t deign to answer, but an inner heat seemed to spread through him at Dingo’s words. Besides, Jarrah didn’t seem to be paying attention to them anyway. “Shouldn’t we get some sleep?”

“I’ll take first watch,” Jarrah said.

Henry shifted his ground cloth a bit closer to Dingo’s, but he didn’t have the nerve to actually touch him. He lay down and peered up at the canopy but could see nothing, not leaf, nor cloud, nor star. It was like being inside a building and yet completely different.

A low crooning lulled him to sleep as he wondered groggily what Jarrah was singing about.

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When he awoke to the eerie green light that penetrated the jungle by dawn, Jarrah was still sitting by the blackened rocks where they had made the fire, his eyes dreamy and distant as if he were in a trance.

Dingo stepped quietly from behind a screen of foliage, holding three dripping canteens in his hands, apparently having gone to refill them. He smiled at Henry but put a finger before his lips when Henry would have spoken.

Henry sat up and rubbed his chin, wishing he could have some hot water to shave and to make some tea. He felt helpless in the face of Jarrah’s abstraction and Dingo’s unwonted silence. He had no idea how to make himself useful or even what they were waiting for. He reached for his pack, meaning to retrieve a few biscuits for breakfast, but when Dingo shook his head, Henry’s hand dropped to his lap, and he just sat listening.

The song of unseen birds filtered through the stillness, and Henry suddenly became aware of a feeling of peace and oneness, as if he were a part of this land and the jungle around him.

Jarrah opened his eyes and looked directly at him. “You dream the knowledge.”

Henry opened his mouth but didn’t speak. He nodded slowly. He could never have put words to what he was feeling, but he knew just what Jarrah was talking about.

Jarrah smiled, his eyes still unearthly and his movements slow and deliberate as he picked up a piece of soft charcoal from the cold fire. With a few quick strokes on a flat grey rock, he brought the outline of the thylacine to life, lean, wolf-like, with its head raised and tail pointed. He drew fifteen stripes along the body. “This is not for everyone to see.”

Henry was aware that Dingo remained motionless, as he had been since Jarrah first moved.

Jarrah started to chant, and Henry caught the repetition of the word

“
kannunah”
several times, but the rest was in some unfamiliar language. A glance at Dingo’s respectful face told him that he didn’t understand much more, although he seemed to know what Jarrah was doing.

Jarrah leaned forward and took Henry’s hand, placing it palm down on the drawing he had made of the tiger, pressing his hand to the smooth flatness of the rock. When he let go, Henry looked at his palm, where the faint lines of the stripes were transferred onto his skin.

Jarrah fell silent and gave a great sigh. He held out his hand to Dingo.

“Hand me some of that water, mate.”

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Henry expected him to drink, but Jarrah carefully poured the water over his exquisite drawing, obliterating it.

“Don’t—” Henry exclaimed, stretching out his marked hand.

Jarrah ignored him, washing the rock thoroughly ’til nothing remained.

Then he looked up. “This is not for everyone to see. The ancestors permitted me to create a dream painting for you only, Dash Henry Percival-Smythe.”

“But why? And why couldn’t you save it? It was beautiful.”

“They allowed me to call to the animal’s spirit, and he chose to come to you. My people have walked this land side by side with the tiger for many years, many lifetimes. We did not hunt them; they did not hunt us; and yet we are both hunters. This dream painting is
andjamun
, sacred and dangerous. The
kannunah
would not come to you lightly. He has touched your spirit, and you have touched his. Let this knowledge live in your body. The creation ancestors who gave shape to this land and all who dwell here may give you dreams.”

Jarrah gave a little shiver and picked up the stone, hiding it under some dead leaves and other debris at the foot of one of the tree ferns. Then he proceeded to conceal all traces of the fire they had made, scattering the ash and blackened stones so cleverly that Henry couldn’t find them after he turned his head away and then looked back.

Jarrah stood up and stretched. “Right, mates. Well, I wish you good hunting. Here’s where we part company. I’ll be back here in twenty-eight days to pick you up. Don’t fucking get killed.” He stepped closer to Dingo and gave him a hug, showing no reluctance to embrace him tightly. Then he did the same for Henry, causing another powerful rush of emotion to rise up within him. “Take care.”

He bent to pick up his canteen and vanished into the brush. After a few minutes, Henry heard the roar of his truck coming to life and then it faded in the distance.

Dingo glanced at him curiously but didn’t speak, merely shouldering his rucksack and the one Jarrah had carried.

“What did that mean?” Henry asked.

“What did it feel like it meant?”

Henry struggled to settle his pack on his back and keep up with Dingo’s energetic stride. “It felt like… something spiritual.”

Dingo gave him a sidelong look and then smiled. “Nailed it in one, Dash, very good. It means you’ll see Tassie this trip.”

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An explosion of excitement threatened to burst out of Henry’s chest.

“What, you mean that mumbo jumbo of his actually meant something?”

Dingo stopped so short that Henry plowed into him. “Don’t do that. It was real, and you know it.”

Ashamed, Henry nodded, lowering his eyes. “It’s just—”

“I know, stiff upper lip and all that, and it’s frightfully ill-bred to believe that a dark-skinned native might actually know something we don’t, and faith is for the civilized on Sunday in church, after a good breakfast, but we don’t trot it out any other day of the week.”

His savage tone made Henry feel even more ashamed. “Look I didn’t mean to… to disrespect him, it’s just….”

Dingo started walking again, following some dim trail invisible to Henry. “Don’t brush up against that grass; it’ll cut you. For centuries before Europeans came here, the Aborigines managed not to kill off any species of animal, bird, or bug. They lived in harmony with the land. We can’t do that; we seem to need to impose our will on it, wrest every last bit of value from the earth in triumph. In one short century, we’ve managed to almost finish the tiger, and that’s not the only animal we’re trying to wipe out.”

“But I’m trying to save them!”

Dingo looked a bit milder as he glanced behind him. “I know. Jarrah knows that too, or he wouldn’t have asked his ancestors to let you see that.”

“I’ll try to be worthy of it,” Henry said humbly. “But what
was
that?”

“Ancient people tried to become one with the spirit of the land and the animals who roamed there. In Tasmania, Aborigines didn’t hunt the tiger, so it’s very rare that they left any images that they painted lying around. They believed you could call an animal to you by painting its image. That’s why there are so many rock paintings of kangaroos because they hunted them for food. With the
kannunah
, it’s different. They respected the tiger and wished it well. To paint its image as part of the ceremony was one thing; at the end they always erased it, so as not to harm the creature. Understand?”

“Not exactly,” Henry muttered.

“Jarrah learned from the old people. He is one of the holders of magic knowledge. He must have liked you because he created that painting to ensure that you’ll see Tassie this trip.”

“So we’ll be successful in our mission?” Henry was overjoyed, already imagining the triumph of his return with the specimens he sought, cute little

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tiger cubs tumbling about in his imagination as the desired mating at the zoo succeeded.

“You’ll see the tigers,” Dingo repeated.

“There’s a catch.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Well, what is it?” Henry felt a little belligerent; wanting guarantees that what he had dreamed of so often would come to pass.

“If you could see the tiger, but it meant that Hodges was right there next to you seeing it also, what would you want?”

Henry nodded slowly. “I would forego the chance to get a sight of them.” He sighed deeply, hoping that he would not be forced to make that choice.

Dingo laughed. “Don’t worry, Gloomy Gus, you’ve won Jarrah’s stamp of approval. I’m sure you’ve only to sit down, and you’ll have Tassie tumbling into your lap, wanting to lick your face.”

Henry smiled at the thought, even though it meant all those teeth would be near his face. “I thought you said the full-blooded Aborigines had died out in 1878? So how is Jarrah a holder of magic knowledge?”

Dingo gave Henry another cryptic smirk. “I didn’t say that; you did. If you wanted to take the land of the people who lived there, wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot easier to pretend they didn’t exist anymore?”

“You mean Jarrah—”

“Is a full-blooded Aborigine. Mary, however, isn’t, so neither are their kids. When she was a girl, Mary got shipped off to one of those schools where they tried to make natives white and failed dismally. Aborigines still walk amongst us; we just don’t acknowledge them as such.”

“Somewhat like the tiger.” Henry looked down at his hand and smiled.

He could still see the faint stripes of Jarrah’s painting on his skin.

Dingo caught him looking and seemed pleased. “You got it.”

Henry wasn’t sure what to make of Dingo’s enigmatic smile, and as they started hiking farther into the forest it quickly vanished from his mind.

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He wasn’t athletic enough to withstand this kind of torture. Henry tried to wheeze as quietly as he could as he followed Dingo through the heavy shrub with his head down. The branches drew glistening stripes across him as he passed through, darkening his already damp shirt. The rain had stopped falling, for now, at least, but there wasn’t enough sunlight to dry out the forest. He was cold, and wet, and tired. And most unhappy.