Dash and Dingo (34 page)

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After plunging blindly between the trees, Henry’s steps slowed, and he stopped, his head hanging down. His mind was spinning. Dingo had been fooling him all along! And most likely the entire seduction was designed only to distract him from his quest. So he’d never meant anything to Dingo after all. Well, he’d known deep down that it was too good to be true, but he’d thought they were in this together.

At least he knew that Dingo’s passion for the thylacine was genuine; there was no faking the fanatical light in his eyes when he was watching them, but he had
agreed….

Henry paused. Had Dingo ever truly agreed that it was a good idea to bring the tiger out of its natural habitat to breed in a zoo? He couldn’t actually remember Dingo
actually
saying anything of the sort. Henry began to feel rather ashamed of himself, and he suspected that emotion might be the source of his outburst against Dingo. He had a sneaking feeling that Dingo might be right after all.
Could
the tiger really be happy caged and confined? After all, many zoos had paid dearly for specimens of the thylacine, some even had made attempts at breeding them with a resounding lack of success, but perhaps if the animal were too depressed to breed away from the land and surroundings they knew, they might just refuse to cooperate, no matter how beneficent their gaolers.

Shrugging the tension from his neck and shoulders, Henry started walking again. He fully intended to return to their camp, pack up his rucksack, and go back to the lair where the tigers had left their cubs. He had come here to obtain a breeding pair, and dammit, he wasn’t leaving without them! No matter what Dingo said!

His steps flagged once again as inconvenient questions started to rise up tauntingly. Of the two, he was less prepared to live off the land while feeding and caring for two immature predators. So was he to take what little food they had left and leave Dingo to survive on his own? And to feed the cubs, he would need to kill some other animal and probably butcher it as well. They didn’t look old enough to cope with a carcass on their own. Another doubt

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assailed him: were the cubs even of age to survive without their mother’s milk?

The thought of the female thylacine’s reaction when she returned to find her cubs spirited away caused him yet another qualm, and Henry’s steps slowed to the point where he was barely moving. He sat down on a convenient rock to think things out.

From the mother tiger’s possible reaction, it was a short leap to what Dingo would think when he found out that Henry had taken the cubs against his desires, along with the food. To how Dingo would feel to know that Henry had started back on his own, after all Dingo had done for him. After all they had shared.

He had never shared his body fully with another man before Dingo. He had never shared
himself
with anyone before. Henry shook his head, finding it hard to believe that he was the same man who only two nights ago had been rendered speechless over the wonder of his two dreams colliding and becoming one. And now everything seemed to be turning into a nightmare.

Whether they ended up taking the cubs—Henry knew they could fight that out, but they would do it fairly and aboveboard. He didn’t know if Dingo felt the same way about him now that everything was out in the open, but he couldn’t allow this disagreement to drive a wedge between them. He hadn’t yet had enough of living his dream. And besides, it wasn’t honorable in his book to force the issue this way.

Henry stood up. He had to find Dingo.

He turned to backtrack his steps. If he knew Dingo, the man would be following him to ensure he didn’t get lost. Perhaps they could discuss it away from the tigers’ lair or shelve the discussion until later so they could follow the tigers and see….

Dingo froze as a haunting shriek of despair slashed through the usual background of jungle noises, silencing all of them. The strangled howl echoed again. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought it might have been Henry, screaming in pain, having stumbled somehow into Hodges’s clutches. Then he realized just what it was.

“Tassie!” Dingo exclaimed, barely remembering the need to keep his voice down. He turned and started racing through the jungle toward the lair of

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the thylacines, leaping over fallen logs and sliding between the trees with the sureness of a man with long experience in the wild.

He caught a flash of white in the distance and hoped that it was Henry running as well, although the other man wouldn’t be as quick, not having developed the same level of sure-footedness in the forest.

Without caution Dingo charged into the small clearing where the thylacines had nurtured their cubs in a shallow cave. The two adult thylacines had to be about somewhere but were well hidden as another mournful cry split the air only to break off into ominous silence.

Dingo lifted his head and emitted a howl of rage and despair at the sight that greeted him, the tiny body of one of the cubs swinging at the end of a rope wrapped around its neck, its body quivering with the last desperate attempt to breathe.

He sprang forward, catching the body of the cub and supporting it so he could free it. Frantically he worked the rope loose, but it was too late. The body was still warm in his hands, the eyes half-closed and dull, its teeth bared in a final grimace. It didn’t move. Dingo massaged the tiny chest, trying to get it to breathe, but there was no response.

In despair, Dingo sat heavily on the ground, cradling the furry body in his hands.

A primitive shriek shook Henry from his thoughts. Without thinking, he found himself running through the trees back to the clearing. His foot caught in a branch, and he crashed to the ground, lying there stunned for a moment.

The thought that Dingo could be hurt—after he had felt that they were being watched—Henry picked himself up and started to run in the direction of the screams. The third one choked off suddenly, but there was a quality to the cry that reassured him that it wasn’t Dingo making those horrific sounds. That small comfort was dashed as Henry realized if it weren’t Dingo, it had to be the thylacines. Dread gave swiftness to his efforts, and he sprinted for the clearing, stumbling to a halt when he saw Dingo slumped on the ground.

Another step brought him close enough to see that Dingo wasn’t hurt himself but was cradling a small, striped body in his two hands.

“Dingo—” Henry managed to croak, his chest heaving with exertion and emotion. “Is it—is it—dead?”

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Dingo looked up, and Henry took in a shuddering gasp of air. Dingo’s face was wet with tears and his eyes were blind. Henry had never imagined that Dingo, his cheerful, optimistic, courageous Dingo, could seem so desolate, so beaten.

“He killed it.” Dingo’s voice cracked with emotion.

Henry went to his knees and crawled closer, stretching out one trembling hand to stroke the caramel fur. “Who—how did it die?”

“Hodges. You were right. Somehow he got close enough—he must

have seen us,” Dingo said. “I was too distracted—I should have—but I didn’t—”

Henry put his arms around Dingo’s shoulders, holding him tightly.

Looking down at the lifeless body lying so still, he felt the hot spill of tears trickle down his cheeks. A cub that he had watched tumbling awkwardly with its siblings little more than an hour ago…. This was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he’d had a personal relationship with the animal, like a pet dog. Blinking fast, he realized the cub was the one they’d been calling Corry, short for Wrong-Way Corrigan, because of its tendency to wander away from its parents. And now it was dead.

“It’s not your fault,” Henry murmured.

Dingo shook his head hopelessly. “If it’s not mine, then whose would it be? No, I’ve failed, and another of these miraculous creatures is dead because of me.”

Henry swallowed hard. “Then I’m as much to blame.”

Dingo looked up at Henry as if seeing him for the first time. “Yes.”

Oddly, it relieved Henry to be permitted to share some of this burden of guilt. His impulse to apologize and explain would have to be shelved for another time, however. “Dingo, if Hodges is nearby, we can’t stay here. We have to lead him away from the thylacines. They must have carried at least one of the other cubs to safety—”

“Two, there were two others,” Dingo insisted.

“Two, then. But if we stay here, Hodges might find the parents and the other cubs. Let’s not make it easy for him, right, mate?”

Dingo nodded dully, still holding the cub’s body as if he could not bear to let it go.

“Dingo, its mother will come for it, don’t you think? Put it down,”

Henry instructed, beginning to feel alarmed by Dingo’s continued lassitude.

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“She won’t let the devils eat it,” Dingo confirmed. “She’ll nose at it, trying to wake it. They’ll—they won’t know—why it won’t respond—”

“Come along then. We’ll put it there, under those bushes, where she can get at it without having to show herself. We have to deal with Hodges,” Henry urged, careful not to snatch the body from Dingo even though the need to do something about Hodges was becoming more urgent.

Dingo wiped his cheeks on his sleeve and rose effortlessly from his cross-legged position. He stooped to place the small body where Henry had indicated and stood up, squaring his shoulders. “When I heard the first cry—I thought Hodges had you—”

Henry’s heart soared with joy; even if they were both culpable in the murder of the cub, at least Dingo still cared despite their argument. “
I
thought he had
you
. I’ve never run so fast in my life.”

Dingo nodded. His smile was but a tragic echo of his usual cocky grin.

“So you came rushing to the rescue again, Dash, eh?”

“Yes.” Henry smiled, wondering if he looked as shaken as Dingo. “I was already coming back, though you needn’t believe that. I wanted to tell you I was wrong.”

“I may have been wrong too.” Dingo sighed regretfully. “We had better move, and quick. It’s possible that Hodges may have located our camp, in which case, we’ll have to rough it. And I want a squint at that guide of his. I can’t understand how they managed to track us.”

“Can we—can we say a few words first?” Henry asked, hoping that Dingo wouldn’t laugh at him.

“I’d like that,” Dingo said quietly.

Henry groped in memory for some Psalm that was fitting. “‘Be glad, earth and sky! Roar, sea, and every creature in you; be glad, fields, and everything in you! The trees in the woods will shout for joy….’”

The lump in his throat made it impossible for him to go on. He took a deep breath and looked up at the canopy of trees above them, tears shining in his eyes.

“Sleep well, little tiger,” Dingo murmured. “Come on, Dash, we’d better go.”

Henry swallowed. “Right. Lead the way, Dingo.”

As they walked away, Henry heard a soft rustling in the bushes, but he did not look back.

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“Dingo.”

“Yeah?” Dingo didn’t stop walking, slipping silently through the trees.

“We can’t just stroll back into our camp as if nothing had happened.”

As he spoke, Henry realized that they were heading in the opposite direction from their camp. He almost wanted to congratulate himself for recognizing it but felt that he should have caught on quicker.

“We’re not.”

Henry opened his mouth and shut it again resentfully. Once again, Dingo hadn’t shared his plan, so here he was trailing along uselessly behind him, feeling like a clumsy lout because he couldn’t manage to move soundlessly like Dingo and because apparently his opinion of what they ought to be doing next made no difference whatsoever as it had not been solicited.

Too busy brooding to pay attention, Henry walked into Dingo when the other man stopped. Dingo reached back to steady him, giving his arm a squeeze, which made Henry feel a bit better.

“Hear anything?” Dingo whispered.

Henry listened. “All I hear are the usual noises.”

Speaking quietly, Dingo said, “Might as well take a load off. It’s getting dark.”

“I realize I don’t move as quietly in the dark as you do—” Henry started huffily.

“Dash, we’re going to stay here for the night. Even
I
can’t prowl around in the dark if I can’t see where I’m going. If Hodges weren’t about, I’d take the chance perhaps, but as it stands, we rest up for morning.”

Dingo started for a huge gum tree and circled it with Henry following him.

“I know I said I thought someone was watching us—”

“I saw him following you
away
from the tigers when you took off,”

Dingo said. “I tried to draw him off and double back after you. Hodges is out there, but he’s behaving oddly. He could easily have shot all the tigers and been done with it. I think he was sending me a message.” He found a split in the bark and stooped to peer inside. “I hope you don’t mind a few bugs.”

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“Bugs? What kind?” Henry shuddered. He wasn’t particularly fond of bugs at the best of times.

Dingo crawled inside the cavity and turned to stick his head out. “They won’t bite. Us, anyway.”

“Right.” Henry squared his shoulders and crawled in after Dingo, surprised to find such a hollow inside the tree. It felt warm, almost humid compared to the chilly night air outside. “Who made this?”

“Nobody, it happens naturally as the tree ages,” Dingo explained. “At least we’ll be out of sight, and we can both get some rest.”

Henry’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he could just make out that Dingo was holding his arms out invitingly.

“Get over here, you nong.”

Gratefully Henry nestled into Dingo’s embrace and slid his arms around Dingo’s waist. He was quite certain that he needed the comfort of the other man’s arms tonight, and the way Dingo was holding him, he suspected that Dingo might as well.

“What do you suppose Hodges is trying to tell you?” Henry asked after racking his brain in vain.