Dash and Dingo

by Catt Ford

  Now it was all about staying alive and keeping Dingo alive as well. Henry couldn’t allow himself to even contemplate the fact that they had become lovers; the dread of losing Dingo pierced his heart with a pain more intense than he had ever felt in his life. Resolutely he pushed the thought away. If they were to survive, he would have to stay focused on the task at hand, although if Hodges had by some chance decided to retreat by the river, Henry wasn’t exactly sure of what he could do to prevent it. Or if he should. At least he would know where Hodges was, though.

  The sound of water became louder as he drew closer, rising from a hush in the distance to a more discernible rushing noise. It had the effect of blotting out the other noises in the forest, and Henry paused more frequently, stepping carefully through the brush so as not to fall into a trap. Nonetheless, he continued on his way, walking as quietly as he could.

  He pushed his way through a dense group of ferns and realized he had come to the edge of a small crevice, much like the one he’d fallen down when he first came face-to-face with the thylacine.

  Henry dropped to his knees and backed into the ferns, lying on his stomach to survey the bank of the river that lay on ground some ten feet lower than his position. He had, against all expectation, found Hodges’s camp, although it was more due to luck than skill.

  The camp bore no relation to Dingo’s, with his discreet habit of tucking his tent between trees. Hodges apparently enjoyed traveling in style; his tent was easily four times the size of theirs. Brush and foliage had been cleared away, and blackened rocks were placed in a circle around a pile of ash. There was even a folding camp chair set up by the big tent. A smaller tent was set up a fair distance from the river, close by the trees. And the river was much bigger and faster than the Styx, although the water was the same amber color, like tea.

  Henry realized that although he was hidden from the camp where he was, he might be spotted by anyone coming up on the camp from behind him. He briefly considered climbing a tree, but the thought of being trapped up there with nowhere else to go, especially considering Hodges carried a gun, shot that idea down. He tried to think of what Dingo would do and gazed about him for inspiration, only then recognizing that he was actually quite well hidden. The ferns were dense and camouflaged him well. If necessary he could always make a run for it.

  He settled in to wait, for it appeared the camp was empty. He must have nodded off briefly, because he found himself jerking awake in time to watch three men return to the camp. Three! Henry almost bobbed up in his surprise but remembered to keep still. Hodges didn’t look around, but the other two men seemed much more aware of their surroundings.

  Hodges wore his habitual expression of disdain and handed his rifle to one of the men, immediately sitting down in the lone camp chair. The other two men wore sullen expressions, but they got to work at once, building a fire, fetching water, and starting to prepare a meal.

  From where he lay, Henry couldn’t hear their quiet exchange, but he suspected that the two men were probably local guides, not government agents. Unlike Hodges who was clean-shaven, their jaws were dark with several days’ growth of beard and their clothing was poor.

  Hodges accepted a plate of food and a smoking tin mug from the stouter man, not bothering to thank him.

  Henry’s stomach growled as he watched Hodges eat his fill in silence. Then Hodges stood up and retrieved his rifle. “Stay here,” he commanded loudly.

  “Here, Hodges, where you going? It’s not safe to wander about alone in the forest,” the thin guide said ingratiatingly.

  “It’s Mr. Hodges to you, and it’s none of your business. Stay here and guard the camp in case Chambers happens upon it,” Hodges barked.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Hodges, if you say so.”

  “I do say so, and as I’m paying you quite handsomely, you’ll do as I say.” He paused to ascertain the two men’s compliance before striding out of the camp.

  Henry moved restlessly, wondering if he dared follow Hodges or whether the two men would notice him if he moved.

  “I don’t like this, Ev,” the thin guide said.

  “Shh, Larry. He might hear you.”

  Larry shook his head. “There’s something bleeding wrong here. He asks us to lead him to the tigers, but after we kill that first old bugger, we walk right past three more of them ’til he spots them other two fellers. We’re spending more time slipping about on their trail than looking for the sodding tigers. I’m beginning to wonder if our man is really a government agent at all.”

  “I came up here for the bounty,” Ev grumbled. “A pound a head those tigers are worth. He didn’t say nothing about other fellers competing with us.”

  “They’re not. They ain’t doing no shooting, except with their bleeding camera. And if you were to ask me, I’d say Mr. Hodges is after them. And all that screeching today! What was that about?”

  “Didn’t seem like he shot anything, did it?” Ev asked uneasily.

  “I didn’t hear a shot. So why did he make us stand there facing the other way?” Larry poked viciously at the fire. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. Whatever Mr. Hodges is up to, he’ll have to do it without me.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  Larry got up and went into the small tent without answering, coming out in a few minutes with his pack. He slung it onto his back and asked, “Coming, Ev?”

  “He’s only paid us half yet.”

  “I got a bad feeling about this, and I got a family. Half’ll feed them better than none and me gone missing to boot.” Larry pulled on his hat. “I’m going. Mr. Hodges can maybe get those other two to guide him back.”

  “Wait for me.” Ev went into the small tent and presently threw out his pack. Crawling out, he stooped to enter Hodges’s tent, emerging with the skin of an adult thylacine, stuffing it into his pack.

  Henry gasped in dismay at the sight of the empty pelt.

  “Let’s go then.”

  “You’re not taking it—”

  Ev glared defiantly at his friend. “I come up here to hunt tigers for the bounty. I’m not leaving without this one. I found him fair and square, for all Hodges was the one to put a bullet in him.”

  “Hodges ain’t going to like that,” Larry said.

  “He ain’t here to speak his piece, is he?”

  “You have a point.”

  A small part of Henry pitied Hodges for being abandoned. But another part of him was grateful when the guides disappeared from his view, slipping into the forest. At least now he could get away from here. He had to find Dingo. He had to warn him.

  For the first time, he wished he were armed with a gun rather than a camera.

  Dingo felt relieved that he’d convinced Henry to go to the river. He’d done what he could to protect the other man without letting on, and if the worst happened, Henry could simply follow the river downstream to make it back to civilization.

  Firmly he told himself that they would get back safely together. He wasn’t going to leave Henry to try to survive on his own. Although he himself could live off the land indefinitely, he cursed himself for rushing after Henry so impulsively that he hadn’t given a thought to grabbing his pistol. That and ammunition would be a necessity, and a canteen and food would be handy. Ground sheet, blanket, and extra clothing could all be left behind, even though he grinned to think how rank they would both smell if they made it out. When they made it out.

  Pure determination kept him going, and it was slow, careful work to hike to the spot where they’d left their things. Dingo spied out the camp from every angle before deciding upon his approach, cursing himself for having been so careless as to simply leave their things in plain sight although their camp was difficult to find. Make it easy for Hodges, why don’t you, you idiot? he taunted himself.

  Nothing had been moved. And there was no way he could reach what he needed without coming out from under the cover of the brush. He would have to take the chance.

  He stooped by his pack, reachi
ng for the box of ammunition, when suddenly a crushing blow hammered his wrist. He caught the gleam of the barrel of a rifle, but despite the pain flooding his senses, Dingo dropped and rolled into the bushes, regretted it instantly when his movement sent new pain shooting through his wrist.

  A mocking laugh emanated from behind the tree. “Where’s your pretty little Pom now, Dingo?”

  Chapter 25

  Dingo started to crawl, knowing that Hodges couldn’t see him, but froze when he heard a soft rustling in the brush. If Henry blundered in upon this scene, he wouldn’t have only himself to rescue, and Dingo would bloody murder Hodges before he’d see him hurt his lover.

  Adrenaline surged throughout his body, but he remained motionless, unable to do anything to save the man he cared so deeply for. He decided he had to take a gamble and distract Hodges.

  “Fuck off, Hodges; you’ll have to make do with me. I sent him back, and he’s gone down river. You’ll never catch him.”

  After he spoke, Dingo moved quietly to a different spot so that Hodges couldn’t locate him by sound, getting to his feet behind a large tree.

  “Tsk, tsk, had a lover’s quarrel?”

  Dingo watched through the leaves as Hodges raised his gun and put a bullet into the bushes where Dingo had been.

  “I’d quite hoped to find the two of you together. Be that as it may—” Hodges took a step to his right, trying to locate Dingo through the leaves.

  “It was a cub—a baby!” Dingo moved as soon as the words were out of his mouth, crouching behind a rock for cover.

  “Oh, dear, you’re breaking my heart.” Hodges raised the rifle to his shoulder, firing at the spot where Dingo’s voice had last come from. “Wild takes to wild, doesn’t it, Dingo? You were always a sucker for those ugly, useless beasts. At any rate, I need to—” Hodges spun on his heel and put two shots on either side of the rock where Dingo was hiding. “You know you won’t get away this time, not with a broken arm.”

  Henry heard shots in the distance and started to run, his heart thundering in his chest. At first he thought that perhaps Dingo had fired the shots to bring him to his side, but then he shook his head. Dingo wouldn’t do that, not unless he was in real trouble. He heard voices near their camp and slowed down to reconnoiter. One of the voices he recognized as Dingo’s; the other had to be Hodges.

  Picking his way cautiously, Henry snuck up on the clearing, suppressing a gasp of dismay at the sight of Hodges turned away from him, holding a rifle pointed into the underbrush.

  A chill ran down Henry’s spine. He crouched lower and bit his lip savagely to keep from making a sound at the sight of a bit of striped fur hanging from Hodges’s backpack, imagining that the man had circled back and filched the dead cub from its parents, brutally stuffing the dead body unceremoniously inside. Or had Hodges managed to kill yet another tiger?

  Henry caught the echo of Dingo’s voice and then heard Hodges casually taunting Dingo about a broken arm before shooting wildly into the trees. The rage boiling within him fueled his energy as he rose up from his crouch and ran forward, flinging himself bodily at Hodges, hitting him squarely across the back, hoping desperately that his gun was not aimed at Dingo.

  His momentum carried him off Hodges’s body when they both fell and made him roll away into the brush. He managed to spot Hodges vanishing into the forest and heard Dingo yell, “Run for it, Dash! Save yourself!”

  Henry leaped up and plunged after Dingo. The close press of the bushes slowed his progress, and he struggled through them without heeding the long thorns tearing at his shirt and piercing his skin. Both Dingo and Hodges were instantly obscured from his view, but he realized that they were heading northwest toward the Tenna River. At least he knew where that was. He forced his way out of the bushes and started after them, knowing that eventually they would come out at the edge of the river. Hodges couldn’t afford to allow them to stumble upon the two guides he’d left behind, though he did not know that they’d deserted him.

  With Dingo’s last words echoing in his ears, Henry tried to move quietly through the jungle, finding it nearly impossible in the thick underbrush, especially while distracted at the thought of Dingo trying to outrun Hodges with an injured arm.

  Henry started to run once again, sharp twigs whipping his cheek. He flinched and reached out to brace himself against a tree, only to find his hand plunging through the bark to the rotten core. Off balance, he fell and started to roll down a short incline, coming to rest against a rock rather suddenly. Cautiously, Henry listened to discover whether his noisy, crashing descent had attracted any attention.

  Apparently not. Henry picked himself up, groaning from a new collection of bruises, but this wasn’t the time to complain. He had to find Dingo. What if Hodges had—Henry bit his lip, reminding himself that Dingo had a knife as well as a gun, provided he’d managed to retrieve it, and was incredibly resourceful besides. Now all he had to do was find Dingo without allowing Hodges to find him.

  He stopped to orient himself. It would do him no good to panic and get lost. His stomach growled loudly, and he put his hand over it as if he could placate it that way. He didn’t have Dingo’s expertise in finding food in the forest, and besides, the light was beginning to fail. Henry found it hard to believe that after an entire day the only thing they had succeeded at was keeping Hodges away from the tigers… but at what cost?

  At this point, Henry didn’t even know where the thylacines were. For the first time, he was grateful that he could no longer feel their nearness. His palm felt like it always did before he came to Tasmania, and he feared he might never feel that subtle buzz that alerted him to their presence again. He didn’t really deserve to. But it was a price he was willing to pay for their safety.

  He stretched his hands out before him; he could no longer see where he was going. Cautiously, he slid one foot at a time along the ground, worried that he might tumble down yet another ravine in the darkness. A step, and then another on solid ground. His foot hit the edge, and he sensed the openness of a drop beneath it. Henry went to his knees, feeling along the ground, even while cringing at the possibility of bugs and poisonous snakes. He had found the ledge that looked out over the Tenna River. Remembering what Dingo had said the night before about crashing around in the dark, he knew that he could go no further tonight.

  He backed himself up against a tree and tucked his hands into his armpits. It was cold, especially without the warmth of Dingo’s body against his. He’d become so accustomed to the comfort of sleeping next to Dingo; he wondered how he’d manage when he got back to civilization. If he got back to civilization. He tried not to think about Dingo wandering around out there with a broken arm and Hodges on his trail and settled in to wait for dawn, hoping that Dingo had managed to get away.

  Daylight brought some small comfort to Henry. He was stiff and cold from huddling all night in one position, but once it was light he spied some pink berries that looked familiar to him. He got up and stretched before trying one. It was sour but edible. He stripped the few that were too high for animals to reach and ate them, thinking about his plan of attack.

  He’d heard nothing during the night to indicate that Hodges had found Dingo. And he had enormous faith in his partner; somehow Dingo would manage to keep a step ahead of the agent. Henry knew he could simply head for the river and follow it downstream, but he wasn’t going to abandon Dingo. Especially if Dingo needed help.

  He knew where Hodges’s camp lay, but Dingo didn’t. Dingo’s stated plan was to keep Hodges away from the tigers. The one place he might expect to find Henry would be where they last camped, therefore that was where Henry had to go.

  Of course, he would be careful. He couldn’t walk blindly into a trap. Hodges knew where their camp was as well and might be waiting for them. Henry knew how to get from their camp to Hodges’s, and he could hear the river, so he decided to go to Hodges’s camp and backtrack from there.

  Going slowly, he managed to follow the edge of the ravin
e, although Dingo would have laughed at his pace. He recognized a rock and a tree that he’d passed yesterday and knew he was getting closer.

  The sound of the river blotted out the other noises in the forest, and Henry paused often, stepping carefully through the brush so as not to walk into a trap. Nonetheless, he made progress, even going slowly.

  When he first saw it, he recoiled in shock, falling to his knees. For one horrible, gut-wrenching moment, he thought the body was Dingo’s. He had almost run into it, coming out from behind a tree to be suddenly confronted with the corpse, lashed to a tree. It was the guide Ev, his face purple with pooled blood and set in a contorted grimace of pain. He had nearly bitten through the gag that bound his mouth. A stream of ants marched steadily up the trunk of the tree and swarmed his shirt.

  Henry could see why; lashed to the tree, Ev’s body had been torn by the teeth of wild animals; his feet were gone and the flesh of his legs was shredded. A knife was still embedded in his neck, and Henry suspected that someone had chosen this horrible method of murder, using the man’s own blood as a lure for the predators that lived on dead flesh. And there was only one person who could be that someone.

  Ev’s pack lay open on the ground, his meager belongings strewn about, but the pelt of the thylacine he had stolen was gone. If Hodges had decided to murder him simply for taking one pelt worth a pound at most, he couldn’t possibly allow Henry and Dingo to leave the forest alive. He would have to ensure that all witnesses to his crime could tell no tales, and he wasn’t worrying about the killing of the tigers; after all, he did that with the good will of the government.