Dash and Dingo (28 page)

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 175

breath. But as his palm touched the band of Dingo’s trousers and the exposed skin from where Dingo’s shirt had pulled away, it began to itch and then burn.

The same palm Jarrah had drawn the picture of the thylacine upon.

Dingo was fumbling at their trousers, his cock now poking between the fly. He was working upon Henry’s, unaware that the other man had stopped moving beneath him.

Henry stared at his palm, as if the drawing had come back. The skin appeared smooth and unblemished.

But then a strange noise penetrated the night.

Yip. Yip yip. Yip.

And now Dingo froze. “Just like I’m ten again, and my dick out once more.”

“Shhh,” Henry admonished him. “And get off me.”

Dingo chuckled and did as he was told, pushing himself back within his trousers.

Henry pulled open the flap and scrambled out a short distance on his stomach. “Is that it, Dingo? Is it really the tiger?”

Dingo scuttled beside him. “We found them quicker than I thought.

Jarrah was right, Dash. They want to see you.”

Henry stared at the scrub before them. Would it be like the first time Dingo saw one? Would it just step out and parade before them? He could barely remember to breathe; he was anticipating the appearance of a tiger any second.

Yip yip.

“That was to our left,” Henry whispered.

Yip yip yip
.

“An answering call,” Dingo said. “To our right. It isn’t alone.”

“
Two
of them?” Henry said, enraptured. It was too good to be true.

They could hear the rustling in the scrub, and they froze, their mouths open, their bodies taut.

Please
, Henry thought.
Please, please, please, show yourself. Let me
see you
.

176 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

But the rustling seemed to fade, and they heard the call again—
yip
yip
—except now it was further away.

“They’re going!” Henry cried, forgetting he was meant to be quiet. He started to shuffle clumsily to his feet, as if to give chase, but Dingo yanked him back down. “Dingo!”

“They know we’re here,” he spoke into Henry’s ear. “And they chose to come this close. If we go floundering after them now, they’ll be scared off.

Patience, Dash. It’s the way we have to do it.”

“I want to see them,” Henry said, aware that he sounded childish. His needy tone, its desperate whining, annoyed him, but he couldn’t take it back.

Dingo’s lips grazed along his cheek. “I know. And you will.”

Henry allowed himself to be pulled back the short distance into the tent.

This time he used Dingo as a pillow, his hand resting against Dingo’s chest as they both lay awake, unable to go back to sleep just yet.

His palm no longer burned. Henry wished it would start again.

Henry’s nose wrinkled as some delicious scent wafted in through the tent on a slight breeze. He stretched out and lazily opened his eyes.

“You didn’t wake me,” he called out.

“Thought you needed some sleep,” Dingo replied.

He was sitting by a small fire he had built, watching the flames and what lay within them. Henry crawled out of the tent to join him and observed that it was the tin that had a million uses, one of the few items Dingo had permitted them to carry. Something was baking in it, and Henry’s stomach rumbled. It smelled like fresh bread.

“What is that?” he asked, practically salivating.

“I thought we deserved a bit of damper.” Dingo shrugged.

“Damper?”

“Bush bread, mate. You’ll love it.”

Henry didn’t doubt it; it would be the first warm thing they had eaten in what seemed like forever. “How long has it been baking for?”

“About an hour.”

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 177

“You’ve been up that long?”

“I’ve been up longer than
that
.”

“You should have woken me.”

“You looked too bloody cute to wake. I was lying there for ages watching you, but I figured somebody better get the grub on.”

Henry stretched his hands out toward the fire, enjoying the warmth.

Dingo had now turned his attention to two flat stones and was reaching within his jacket pocket. Henry’s mouth watered again when berries were produced.

“Have you been out picking as well?”

Dingo nodded. “You can almost pretend you’re back home at Ealing, having tea with scones and jam. And I’ll be Hill. Pip pip and ole tosh, good Master Henry.”

Henry snorted. “Hill would
never
be that obsequious. He felt unlucky to be stuck with me and the other drones in the basement. He would have preferred to have a Dean to wait upon.”

Dingo laughed to himself as he placed a number of the berries on one stone and began mashing them with the other. “I bet you he’s missing you right now, the way you used to babble at him.”

“I did not
babble
,” Henry said defensively, and then he paused. “Okay, maybe a little. But Hill would be used to it. Academics are meant to be eccentric.”

Dingo smirked and pulled his knife out of his boot. Using a stick, he fished the tin out of the flames. He ran the knife around the rim of the tin and lifted the damper out. “Eat it while it’s hot,” he instructed Henry as he sliced it into thick pieces.

Henry longed for some butter but took the “jam” instead—and found that he didn’t miss the butter at all. After a lackluster diet during the past few days, the wholesome and filling taste of the bread along with the natural sweetness of the berries made him a happy man indeed. Dingo washed out the tin and prepared tea for Dash and coffee for himself while he ate, and soon the breakfast was complete.

“We’ve got a bit of a hike ahead of us today,” Dingo said, brushing crumbs off his upper lip. “So I thought we should have something a bit more substantial for brekkie.”

“We’re moving again?” Henry asked. “But the tigers are right in this area—”

178 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

Dingo shook his head. “They were moving off. You heard their calls to each other fading away, right?”

“It doesn’t mean they went
that
far away.”

“I told you; I’ve been up for hours. I studied their tracks. They’re on their way up the mountain.”

Henry bolted down the rest of his tea and stood. “Then up the mountain we go!”

His enthusiasm quickly flagged.

“Temperate, my arse,” Henry muttered, swiping at his sticky face with the back of his hand. Then he scratched at his palm absently.

“Told you the weather was changeable, Dash,” Dingo called back cheerily. “And this
is
a rain forest.”

Henry had hoped that Dingo hadn’t overheard, but he seemed to have ears like a bat. Not that they were perky and sat atop his head, just that he always caught whatever testy comment Henry would have preferred overlooked. In fact, Dingo had very nice ears; they sat flat against his head, and the lobes were tempting to nibble on….

A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision recalled him to the present, and Henry turned to look. Nothing was moving, save some grasses swaying slightly in a breeze that was insufficient to cool him off. In fact, he didn’t even feel it. He was hot, sweaty, and miserable, whilst Dingo gave the impression that if not for Henry, he would be loping up the side of this bleeding mountain.

“Bit of a break-off here,” Dingo called back over his shoulder. “Be careful.”

Henry opened his mouth to fire back that he could see it, thank you very much, when he stumbled over a rock in his path. He looked up sheepishly, hoping Dingo hadn’t seen him. Thankfully, he was plowing on without any apparent knowledge of Henry’s clumsiness.

“Lucky you have some redeeming features,” Henry grumbled, fixing his eyes upon the round firmness of Dingo’s arse as a lure to motivate him to keep moving.

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 179

Dingo was too far ahead of him and turned away, so Henry couldn’t hear what his answer was. The flicker of movement caught his attention again, and he stopped, standing very still and not turning his head, just waiting to see if he could catch a glimpse of whatever it was in his peripheral vision. His palm started to throb when he saw what looked like stripes melting into the shadows.

He laughed tentatively; it couldn’t have been. He turned to study the underbrush, noting how the tall grasses cast dark stripes over the leaves behind them. The tiger was nocturnal; everyone knew that. He was just seeing things because he wanted to so badly.

Dingo was out of sight when Henry turned to locate him. He started to trot to catch up, still uneasily aware of how disoriented he was to their location. The trails were so obscure that he might have to navigate by the position of the sun if he had to make it out of here alone. He looked back to see if he could pick out some recognizable landmark by which to steer.

Henry’s thoughts on their time in the forest were mixed. He and Dingo were living a blessed existence together, and as much as Henry felt he should be enjoying every moment of it—because he had never believed that he would find this sort of passion and easygoing happiness with another man—

the fact was they had come here for a reason. The tigers. And with each new day, it seemed that this other dream was slipping through his fingers.

Was it so selfish to want more than one dream? He wanted Dingo more than anything. And he seemed to have him, just as Dingo had him body and soul in return. But he was aching to see the tiger as well. He took those moments with Dingo with pleasure and tried to alleviate the guilt he felt about wanting it all.

Dingo had commented that Tassie was leading them on a merry chase.

“Like a woman,” he said. “Wants to make you work for it before they give you a bit of the attention you want.”

Henry had stiffened when he said that. What
was
Dingo’s experience with women? He seemed to flirt with both sexes freely, although Henry had never heard him talk about past girlfriends, but he had seen the different men Dingo seemed to leave behind in every port.

But that wasn’t fair either. He had no evidence to one way or the other.

So maybe he
wasn’t
in the best of moods at the moment.

Distraction cost him again.

180 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

He felt, rather than saw, the slippery gravel under his feet. He had wandered too close to the edge Dingo had warned him about earlier. The sun blinded him when he turned around to face a gap in the bushes around the bend.

Henry lost his footing in the loose rubble and began to slide down the hill. He scrambled to catch himself, but the more his feet slid, the more the pebbles dislodged underfoot, showering into the creek bed below. With the weight of the rucksack on his shoulders and nothing to grab onto, Henry flung himself desperately at the edge of the cliff. The dirt crumbled under his hands, and he realized that a swift, ignominious descent was inevitable.

How come Dingo never has this happen to him?
was his first thought as he slid the first ten feet on his tummy. He could feel pebbles working their way under his clothing and scraping the skin beneath.

As his center of gravity shifted and he found himself skidding downhill head first for a change, Henry thought,
He’d better not laugh if he knows
what’s good for him
.

He landed half-submerged in the shallow creek, gasping with the shock of the cold bath. Pulling his head out of the water and gasping for breath, Henry was only grateful that it was all over and Dingo was far enough ahead that he hadn’t seen the entire thing. And for the fact that his glasses had remained intact and perched on his nose.

Groaning softly, he lifted his head and froze.

It can’t be.

Blinking owlishly through the water on his glasses that rendered everything into indistinct masses, Henry felt that he wasn’t alone.

And then his palm began to burn!

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 181

Henry shivered, and it wasn’t just because of the temperature of the water. An orange blob moved ahead of him.

Carefully, oh so carefully, Henry removed his glasses and wiped them on the leg of his trousers, which luckily hadn’t joined him in the dip in the creek. Now the world was a complete blur, but it shifted into focus again when he pushed his glasses back on his nose, his palm itching all the while.

On a rock overhanging the creek, directly in front of him,

approximately fifteen yards away, stood a Tasmanian Tiger.

The sun filtered through the leaves, lighting the caramel-colored fur but providing enough shade to perfectly camouflage the striped animal.

It shouldn’t be there, not at this time, but there it was. And it wasn’t spooked by him. It was almost as if it had been waiting there for Henry to make his inelegant descent down the slope into this small valley so that they could greet each other properly. The animal Henry had been dreaming about for so long, one he secretly had feared he would never get a glimpse of, alive and free, standing within its own territory and….