Red Dog (7 page)

Peeto failed the breathalyser test, and the policeman wouldn’t let him off, even though he had been one of the saviours of the famous Red Dog.

Next day during smoko they worked out how much it had all cost. There was the loss of the day’s wages, the cost of the petrol, the food and the booze, there was the vet’s bill, and the fine for driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.

‘Hey,’ said Vanno glumly, ‘what say the next time we fly a surgeon in? It’s gotta be cheaper than this.’

RED DOG
AND THE WOMAN FROM PERTH

One evening John was sitting in his hut drinking tea, when there was a scratch at the door. It was Red Dog’s scratch, so he got up to let him in. Just as he was reaching the doorhandle, however, there was also a knock. ‘Strewth,’ thought John, ‘Red’s learned a new trick.’

He opened it, and there was Red Dog with someone he had never seen before. She was a woman in early middle-age, with a tightly permed hairstyle and a worried but resolute expression.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said, ‘but I’ve come about the dog.’

‘I’m not selling him,’ said John. ‘In fact I’d sooner sell me mum. If she was still alive, that is.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to buy him,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve
just come because I’m worried about him, and I know he’s yours.’

‘Belongs to everyone, really,’ said John, ‘but I’m his best mate. What’s up then?’

‘It’s the ticks,’ said the woman.

‘Ticks?’

‘Yes. Look, my name’s Ellen Richards, and I just moved up here from Perth, and I’ve got a job at Hamersley, in the admin office, and I heard there’s a problem with ticks round here.’

‘Yes,’ said John, ‘you burn ’em on the backside with a hot needle, and they drop off, and you kill ’em in metho.’

‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s just that Red Dog visited me this evening, and I couldn’t help noticing that he’s got ticks.’

‘He gets them sometimes,’ said John. ‘I check him every couple of days.’

‘Well, I checked him too,’ said the woman, ‘and I found some on his ears and one on his back and I burned them off, but there are some strange browny pink ones on his stomach, and I can’t get them off; and when I try to burn them off, he just squeals. I’m worried about it, and as he’s your dog, I thought I ought to let you know.’

It was John’s turn to be concerned. ‘Ticks on his stomach?’

‘Yes, on both sides.’

John called Red Dog and rolled him over on his back. He lay there with his paws in the air, wondering
whether his master was going to rough him up and tickle him, which was very acceptable, or whether the woman would be coming at him with hot needles again, which definitely was not. ‘Where are these ticks?’ asked John.

The woman knelt down and pointed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s about four or five on each side.’

John was horrified. ‘You haven’t been putting hot needles on those?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but they wouldn’t drop off.’

John scratched his head in disbelief. ‘And he squealed, did he?’

‘Oh yes. It was horrible. I think that when I burn them they just bite into him harder. Maybe you should take him to the vet.’

‘Listen, lady,’ said John, ‘I can’t think of a nice way to put this, but those aren’t ticks.’ He paused, thinking how best to express himself. ‘You’ve never had a dog of your own then?’

‘Oh, yes, I’ve had several.’

‘Were they dogs or bitches, then?’

‘Both. I’ve had both.’

‘And you’ve never noticed?’

‘Never noticed what?’

‘They’ve all got … well … they’ve all got tits. Even the dogs. They don’t use ’em, but they got ’em.’

Ellen put her hand to her mouth. ‘You mean?’

John nodded, ‘Those aren’t ticks, they’re tits.’

She went pale and sat down on John’s only chair;
‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘and I’ve been putting hot needles on ’em.’ She forgot about John and went down on her knees. She put her arms around Red Dog’s neck and started to cry ‘Oh, Red, I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry, so sorry …’

Red Dog looked up at John, sharing this moment of embarrassment. Red liked to be hugged as much as the next dog, but not necessarily by somebody who was whining and wauling in his left ear, and whom he didn’t know very well at all.

The next day, much to her shame, and much to the amusement of the workers at Hamersley Iron, Ellen discovered that the news of her mistake had got to work even before she did. ‘Watch out for your tits, mates,’ called the men, covering their chests with their hands, and pretending to run away.

It took years for Ellen to live it all down, but Red Dog came and visited her anyway, because he could forgive anyone who was generous with food, and she’d soon given up all that painful business with hot needles and methylated spirit.

HAS ANYONE SEEN JOHN?

John bought a nice powerful motorbike because, although he already had a car, he liked the idea of riding around on hot days with the breeze blowing in his face. It was great for short journeys, as long as you weren’t carrying much with you, and anyway, the girls quite liked a man with a motorbike as long as he wasn’t a crazy driver. Once or twice he put Red Dog on the seat in front of him, with his paws on the petrol tank, but he didn’t seem to like it very much, greatly preferring the comfortable seats of trucks, buses and cars. When John kickstarted his bike, Red didn’t make any moves to come too, as he always did when his master started up the car. Instead he lay in front of the door, waiting for John to come back, or he consulted his encyclopaedic memory, and took a stroll to one of
the houses where somebody might have fed him years before. Sometimes in the fierce summer he went to the shopping centre where Patsy had once tried to kick him out, and lay in the air-conditioned cool of one of the shops, seeming to know by instinct when John was due to return.

One night John went to have a meal at the house of a couple of friends, and he took the bike even though it was July and the nights had been very cold indeed. Red Dog was out on patrol, looking for other dogs to fight with and cats to chase, and by the time he came back, John had already gone to dinner.

What happened after that dinner will always be a mystery.

John had some beers, but he wasn’t too drunk to drive. He was in a happy mood, because of the company of his friends and the good meal they had given him, and there didn’t seem anything wrong with the bike as he started it up and drove off down the road. His friends waved him goodbye and went back inside to clear up and go to bed.

There is a sharp bend on the road coming into Dampier, and the turning is very abrupt in the place where John had to turn off. In the undergrowth around the verges are heaps of the great red rocks that make the landscape of the Pilbara so particular.

John never made it round the bend of the road. Perhaps he misjudged his speed, perhaps there was a stone in the road that made him skid, or perhaps the
beer had affected his judgement more than he realised. Perhaps the cable on his accelerator jammed. It is just as likely that a wallaby suddenly hopped out in front of him, and he tried to swerve to avoid it.

Whatever it was, John lost control of the motorbike, hit the kerb and went flying through the air. As bad luck and destiny would have it, he landed on a rock, which caved in his chest.

No-one knows how long John lay dying on that freezing night, with no-one except Red Dog to realise that he was missing. John did try to crawl back to the roadside, and perhaps if he had reached it he might have been found in time. However, he was too weak and too greatly hurt. After a while that gentle animal-loving man, who was a friend to everyone, died all alone in a rocky patch of spinifex. Perhaps he dreamed about Red Dog as he faded away into that long last sleep, on such a cold and starry night.

The next moming John did not appear for work and Peeto and Jocko and Vanno wondered what had happened to him.

‘I got a bad feeling,’ said Vanno, shaking his head.

‘It’s not like John,’ said Peeto. ‘He phones in if he’s not coming.’

‘Let’s give him ’til smoko, and if he’s still not here by then I’ll go out and look for him,’ said Jocko.

John was not there by breaktime, and so Jocko went round to John’s hut. He found Red Dog waiting outside the door. The dog got to his feet and greeted
Jocko with some relief. ‘Where’s your mate?’ asked Jocko, and Red Dog flattened his ears and wagged his tail. It always gave him pleasure when someone mentioned his mate.

Jocko knocked again, and waited for a while. If John was there, he wouldn’t have locked his dog out. John’s Holden was parked outside, but there was no motorbike leaning against the wall round the back. With a sinking feeling in his heart, Jocko remembered that the previous night John had said that he was going out to eat with friends. Jocko went back to the depot and rang them up. ‘John left at elevenish,’ he was told. ‘Why? What’s up?’

‘Was he on his bike?’

‘Yes.’

‘He never got home,’ said Jocko.

Jocko borrowed a company ute and drove over to the friends’ house. He had a brief word, and then drove back in the direction of John’s accommodation. He thought about the time when he used to have a motorbike himself, and watched the road with the eye of experience. There were always places that were especially dangerous for motorcyclists, such as where there were potholes, or loose gravel, or places where kangaroos and wallabies crossed at night. When he came to the sharp bend, he stopped the car and got out. He wandered over to the other side and looked down into the hollow.

It was a very small community back then, and everyone
knew everyone else. John had been well liked, and for several days everybody felt a sense of shock and loss. People’s minds went numb. They didn’t want to have to talk. Everyday things seemed too trivial to discuss, and if somebody tried to make a joke, somebody else told him to shut up. John had been so young, much too young to die so suddenly and so senselessly.

Now no-one would know what John might have achieved with his life, whether or not he might have started a business, whether he might have married and had children, or whether he might have gone back to New Zealand to start a new life with his pockets full of Hamersley cash. He had died with the best part of his life still to live, leaving behind him only his grieving friends, who would have fond memories of him for ever, and a devoted pet dog who had no idea what had occurred, and never would.

Amid all the sadness and the arrangements for the funeral, everyone forgot about Red Dog, and it wasn’t until three days had passed that anyone noticed that he was still waiting outside John’s hut. John’s friends brought food, which Red Dog would eat, before lying down in the dust with a heavy sigh to wait once more, even sleeping there through the chilly nights, and waking in the dawn with his russet coat glistening with dew.

After three weeks Red Dog came into the transport depot in case John was there. The drivers treated him as an old friend, and to begin with he spent half his time
in the depot, and half his time waiting for John outside his empty hut.

When John failed to appear, Red Dog could only think of one thing. No-one knows how much language a dog has, or exactly how it thinks, but Red Dog’s mind was full of a single great question: ‘Where is John?’