Into That Forest (17 page)

The blackfella knew a few songs from his ancestors and sung them for the phonograph. Carsons asked the hunter if he had heard stories ’bout two girls with two tigers. He said he had. He didn’t believe they were two ghosts, as some rumours had it. Carsons asked him why.
Cos I seen
them with me own eyes
, he said. He had seen an eastern grey, a
boomah
, hopping through the bush and were going to shoot it when he seen two tigers chasing it down with the help of two humans. Mr Carsons showed him a map and asked him where he had seen them. He pointed to a place near a large lake and also marked an area where he had spotted several lairs and just missed killing the largest tiger he had ever seen.

When the two men left the hunter’s shack, Mr Carsons said goodbye to Ernie and prepared to ride off towards the lake. Now it was Ernie’s turn to say he were going to join Mr Carsons and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He were so keen to see if the girls were real and told Mr Carsons he might need someone to help him. So they set off together, sometimes riding, most times walking their horses through the dense bush. It took them four days to cross the tablelands to where the lake were. For the first two days Mr Carsons did not talk to Ernie, who suspected that the driven father were annoyed that Ernie were so fat he were slowing him down. On the third morning Ernie began to talk aloud to ease the silence. He knew all of Shakespeare and began quoting him. To his astonishment Becky’s father, riding ahead of him, began quoting from Shakespeare too.
He knew Shakespeare,
as Ernie said to me,
backwards,
frontwards, sidewards and upside down
. For hours all they did was recite Shakespeare so that, Ernie said,
our quest
seemed to take on an epic quality as we went through the
History plays.
By the time they got to the comedies on the fourth day they were laughing and joking. It was the first time Ernie had seen Mr Carsons laugh.

They reached the lake just before dusk on the fourth day. It were high where the air was cold and crisp and behind them were the hills covered in snow. It were heavily wooded, so the men had to leave their horses by the lake in order to make their way to the area where the bounty hunter had seen a tiger den. As they made their slow way up Ernie suddenly cried out to Mr Carsons that he had seen something on the ridge in front of them. Mr Carsons took out his binoculars and seen four silhouettes against a setting sun. They were two tigers and two small humans. Ernie heard Carsons say
Oh, my God
, and he handed Ernie his binoculars. I remember Ernie still with astonishment in his voice, when he told me his stunned reaction on seeing Becky and me through the binoculars - we were naked, scrawny, covered in dirt and moss and with long, matted hair, and walked with a strange gait more animal-like than human and occasionally we’d move on all fours to catch up with the tigers.
You didn’t look like two girls but a
nightmarish version of them.
The four of us were making our way down the snowy hill to the lake. Mr Carsons and Ernie decided to cut us off as we headed to the south of them.

The two men reckoned we must have seen them cos by the time they came out into the clearing we were gone. It were Mr Carsons who spotted our foot- and hand-prints in the snow and he realised we were racing back to the other side of the ridge.
Those aren’t ghosts
, he said pointing to our footprints in the snow. It weren’t long after that they catched us. The next morning they tied us to the horses and we began our journey back to Mr Carsons’s farm and civilisation.

That were what happened way back then, and now I were returning to the country where we had been found years before.

As we followed the river Mr Carsons asked me if I recognised the place where Becky and me had nearly drowned. I shook me head cos it were all vague to me til one day, just before we stopped for lunch, I felt the slam of memory hit me. There it were - the bend in the river, the bank where we were saved by the tiger and, lo and behold, in a tree were the remains of me father’s boat.
Is this your father’s
boat?
Mr Carsons asked me and at that moment I seen in me mind me father struggling under water and me mother gone. The sight of the boat told me like no words could that me mother and me father were now ghosts. I began to weep. Ernie hugged me til I was cried out but I noticed that Mr Carsons looked at me without a skerrick of pity or grief. He had the dead eyes of a harpooner aiming for the heart of a whale.

After we had eaten, Mr Carsons asked me which way Becky and I had gone with the tiger. I pointed the way into that forest and its trees so high that you’d strain your neck to see their tops which were a tangled darkness blotting out the sun, cloaked in moss and vines and giant tree ferns - it were a land for giants. It were obvious that Mr Carsons thought Becky in running away from the school had taken the path along the river and were following the trail we had taken those years before. Ernie suggested we take a short cut and make for the lair, which meant continuing straight upstream til we got to the clear country, but Mr Carsons were of the mind that his daughter might be starving and ill and unable to make her way to the lair and he didn’t want to go the easy way just in case we accidentally bypassed her.

But we found no sign of her by the time we rode onto the tablelands. As he had done the previous three days, Mr Carsons woke up early and spent the hours before breakfast calling out Becky’s name. He never got an answer except when it were an echo that seemed more desperate than the actual cry of her name. I knew he were hoping that his daughter were making for the lair, but had she made it that far? In the late afternoons when the air were still and crisp Ernie would unpack his phonograph and set it up in a clear space and he’d play the cylinder with me singing the sea shanty. He did not play it too often cos he said my voice and her voice would wear away til the songs were lost forever.

But something were happening to me that I only gradually noticed - I stayed awake most of the night, me hearing becoming real keen, me eyes sharper too. I heard the slightest rustle of animals looking for prey. I heard the squeal of animals being killed. The sounds of their struggle for life made me tingle with fear and excitement. I felt meself one with the night. I were reliving the thrill of setting out with Becky and the tigers on a hunt, the sense of the four of us being at one with our purpose and the sheer, juicy thrill of the chase, our thumping hearts, the way we each knew without words what to do, the tigers running ahead in a circle to turn back as Becky and I run after the quarry yelling and shouting and scaring the bejesus out of the prey who did not see the tigers waiting for them til the last moment when it were too late and the last thing the victim seen were the gleaming eyes and jaws that opened so wide that to the prey it must have seemed they would be swallowed whole. Oh, it felt good to see a fresh dead animal. We’d all be panting with effort and Becky and I would be smiling with pride cos we had helped in the kill. And then, I make no apology for this, there were the taste of the blood or bloody meat and it were like the first time I tasted seal gristle and my nerves tingled cos the blood and meat were so fresh that it were like we were tasting life even though the prey were just dead. And I knew that the owl felt the same thing after killing a mouse or quoll. I knew that the Tasmanian devils - which were easy to hear of a night cos of their spitting, hissing and snarling - didn’t feel the joyful surge like us girls and the tigers, cos they ate putrid dead animals. That’s why I didn’t like the devils - they always feasted on death and didn’t have the nous to hunt down prey like we did. I could smell when they were afeared cos they stink, but when they’re not afeared they smell like lanolin. An animal afeared is a dreadful thing cos their whole body is scared, even their blood is afeared. Even now, I can’t help it, but the squeals of an animal being killed is something that makes me blood run hot on hearing the sounds and me flesh shiver with anticipation. Me flesh wins over me heart.

There were something else going on in the night as we headed towards the lake and that were a different sound, like a heavy animal circling our camp, snapping twigs and heavy of footsteps. The first night I heard this creature I knew not what it were, but the second night, I thought it were Becky. Maybe it were, maybe it were not, but Mr Carsons woke and grabbed his rifle. He asked me if it were Becky that were making the noises. I said I didn’t know. He asked if it were tigers. I said I didn’t know cos the wind were blowing the wrong way and I couldn’t smell them. Ernie were awake and he said something that stayed with me. He said to Mr Carsons,
Just what do you intend to
do with Rebecca when you find her?
Mr Carsons did not answer. I noticed he had his finger on the trigger ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.

By the time we were ready to ride out, a mist were moving through the ferns and trees like it were a creature smothering everything, so that we could barely see a couple of yards in front of us, but that didn’t stop Mr Carsons, cos he were on his mission. It were the sort of mist that soaked into your flesh, into your being, so it were like you were one with it and it made me keenly aware of the smells of the earth, the ferns, flowers, shit, and all sounds were clear and sharp so I could not only hear the breathing of the horses but even feel the heartbeat of the horse I were on. In such a heavy mist you can hear a currawong stretch its wings and a rat scurry across damp leaves. I also smelt something the mist carried - a tiger’s scent.

We rode closely together so we wouldn’t lose each other and Mr Carsons must have noticed me sniffing the mist cos he asked what I were smelling. And I told him. I said I smelt a tiger, a female one.
We must be getting
close
, he said and then fell into his dark silence again til in late afternoon when the mist drained away and birds began to cry and screech again and he got Ernie to set up the phonograph.

It were strange to hear me voice echoing through the valley and to hear me singing,
Hurrah, my boys, we’re
homeward bound.
‘
We’re homeward bound,’ you’ve heard
us say, ‘Goodbye, fareyewell, Goodbye, fareyewell.’
Hook on the cat then, and rut her away.
I thought to meself - just what will Becky think when she hears it? Will she recognise me voice? Will she know it’s me?

Mr Carsons were in a funny mood, funny peculiar, and he demanded Ernie play it again and again til Mr Carsons came to his senses when even he realised that the grooves in the wax cylinder were becoming smooth and me voice was draining away to nothing.

We were now heading straight for the den where the men had found Becky and me last time. We camped overnight and shivered in our tent as we tried to shelter from the freezing rain. In the morning it were really sunny and I had to squint cos the sun were reflecting off the wet, stony tablelands and almost blinding me. We didn’t stop for lunch but rode on til we came to a clump of trees near the den. I were twitchy with expectations of seeing Becky. And there were something else - I could smell a tiger nearby and it stank of Corinna.

Mr Carsons told Ernie and me to make sure we didn’t make any noise. The phonograph was set up and the horn pointed to the entrance of the den. Before playing the song Mr Carsons did something that flooded me whole body with dread. He took off his neckerchief and tied it round me mouth. He looked at me with his burning eyes and told me not to say a thing. But the panic were pouring through me and me heart felt like it were going to burst through me ribs. I were afeared he were going to do something awful to Becky. I struggled and tried to bite through the handkerchief. Mr Carsons ordered Ernie to whack me if I tried to yell or give away our position.

Ernie played me song and it echoed through the trees and across the creek bed to where the den were, while Mr Carsons, rifle ready, stood stock-still rooted to the ground like an ancient tree. If I didn’t know before, it was deadly certain now why the two men had taken me there - Mr Carsons were afeared that Becky might keep running away if it were only him and Ernie. I were there, well, me voice were anyway, to entice Becky to come back with us. Me voice were to be used to call her, to sing her home.

Sure enough me heart went thump and me breath stopped as if I were in a spell when I seen Becky slowly emerge from the den and stand up and look round, amazed at hearing the song. She were wearing a dirty red dress and a red torn and stained hood hanged down her back. She must have found the cameo in the den cos she were wearingit on her chest. She looked lost and confused. I went to cry out to her but Ernie put a hand over me mouth even though it were gagged with the neckerchief. I kicked him and tried to escape but he were fat and strong. Then I seen Becky look in our direction. Her father suddenly came to life and he pointed the rifle at his daughter, telling her not to run. I were in a right state. I had no notion of what I were doing, except that I found meself running towards her, yelling out to her but of course, I were not making sense cos of me mouth gag. Becky were paralysed with astonishment. There were me running towards her, so were her father, screaming at her not to move or he would shoot her. Ernie were crying out,
No!
, afeared Mr Carsons were about to kill Becky. When he were close, Mr Carsons stopped in his tracks and aimed the rifle at his daughter, but she weren’t looking at him only at me with murderous eyes. She started screaming that I had lied to her, that I had tricked her. I tore off me gag and told her I didn’t trick her but she were spitting at me and snarling, calling me
liar, liar, liar -
oh, dearie, I have to make meself calm when I tell about this . . . oh dearie, it all comes back
-
Becky run at me, spitting and howling like some possessed, crazed animal, and threw herself on me. I seen her mouth open wide and I knew what she were going to do - she were so hysterical she were going to rip open me throat. I tried to push her away. Thank goodness Ernie were there, cos he grabbed her and threw her to the ground. Then, realising no one were holding her, she took off back to the den.