Things were going so well, Kruger was already planning ahead. If they could maintain this rate of production at the main mine, once they’d sorted their wildlife problem out, he could expand Taylor’s exploratory site, perhaps doubling their total output, and at last hitting their quota.
Of course, he’d need more hired hands, but if Tanner sorted their lizard problem out, Kruger felt certain Loudon could find some locals willing to earn a few dollars.
He smiled. He wasn’t done yet. He’d never been beaten at a mine before and he was certain this one wasn’t going to be the first.
He looked to the west. The sun was starting to kiss the horizon, which mean Tanner and Franks would be returning soon, and with it, Kruger hoped, his salvation.
‘Ambushed,’ Tanner said, peering into the helicopter’s cockpit. ‘He must have been dozing with the door open to let in some air.’
It was an awful sight. Both legs remained astride the joystick, each one severed at the hip. An arm and part of his torso hung from the open door, but the rest of him, including his head, was gone.
Suzanna could feel the bile well up in her throat and she turned away, noticing the trail of blood leading away towards the longer grass flanking the hills.
‘Do ... do you think they are nearby?’
Tanner fetched up beside her and with his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, scanned the grass line. ‘Undoubtedly. Probably watching us now.’
He slipped his rifle from his shoulder again and stood, eyes scanning the area. ‘The question is—what do we do now?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘We get the hell out of here.’
‘How? Unless you can fly this thing, we either have to walk back to camp or see if we can reach somebody on the radio, but I doubt we’ll get a signal in these hills.’
Tanner leaned into the cockpit, avoiding the worst of the gore, and lifted the chopper’s radio handset. ‘Mayday, mayday, anybody reading this?’
Nothing but static came back.
‘Come in, this is Roger Tanner. Harry, you there?’
He tried for fifteen minutes, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the long grass surrounding the helicopter.
Eventually, he tossed the handset back into the chopper. ‘It’s no good.’
‘What about the walkie-talkie?’ she said, nodding to his pocket.
‘It’ll be the same,’ he said, giving it go anyway but getting nowhere. He peered at the sun. ‘I reckon we’ve about two hours of daylight left. Camp is a good day’s hike from here.’
‘Somebody might come looking for us,’ she said.
‘They might.’
‘Then shouldn’t we wait until morning?’
Tanner scanned the grass line again. ‘I don’t fancy camping out here, not with those things on the loose. Do you? I suggest we make a move, find somewhere else to bed down tonight.’
He reached into the copter and took what was left of Franks’ water as well as the pump action shotgun the pilot had stored in the centre console.
‘Do you know how to use this?’ he asked.
Suzanna looked down at the shotgun and shook her head, vehemently. ‘I’ve never fired a gun in my life.’
Tanner pointed to the barrel. ‘That’s the dangerous end. Point that at what you want to kill, pull the trigger, and then reload.’ He took the shotgun from her and pumped it, before handing it back. ‘See, easy as pie.’
Tanner estimated the distance back to the main camp to be around twenty miles, as the crow flew, but the terrain made hiking in a straight line impossible. The valley formed a sort of crescent moon shape, which either meant they’d had to deviate north, exit the valley and head back south.
It was hard going.
The scrub plains where they found the dead Megalania soon thickened to meadows of long grass and forested areas. One thing was consistent—the bugs. Gnats and mosquitoes were a continual nuisance. Even the dragonflies and butterflies and moths became a nuisance after a while, swarming in large clouds and hitting Suzanna’s face.
As dusk approached, the flying menaces increased in number, as did the sounds of the forests. Chirps, cheeps, squawks and howls accompanied the nonstop chorus of buzzes and croaks and chirps.
By the time the sun started to set, Suzanna was in a sorry state. Sweat trickled from every pore, the back of her neck was raw with sunburn and her feet were a bloody mass of blisters. Furthermore, what little water they had had run out, and her throat was dry and parched.
None of this fazed Tanner, who trampled his way through the undergrowth with barely a bead of sweat on his brow, his brown, outdoorsman skin unperturbed by the sun’s rays, his khaki shirt hardly moist.
However, even he had to concede that continuing during nightfall would be foolhardy, so when the sun finally flattened on the horizon, he leaned his rifle against a tree, dropped his knapsack to the ground and declared, ‘This’ll do. We’ll camp here.’
They were in a clearing in the forested area but the surrounding bush wasn’t too dense. It felt more like a wood than a jungle, with a smattering of trees evenly spaced and a few thick bushes. It was clear Tanner wanted to camp somewhere with a distinct vantage point. Throughout their hike, he’d been consistently glancing over his shoulder, ensuring the very animals they came out here to hunt were not pursuing them, but they’d seen no sign of anything all afternoon.
He didn’t relax though, and marched about gathering firewood and surveying as far as he could through the trees.
Suzanna was too beat to help. She sat with her back against the tree next to his rifle, welcoming the respite from the heat that came with nightfall, but not the darkness, which fell as if somebody had flicked off a light switch. The fire did little to help, the flames creating a ghostly, orange glow and casting long ominous shadows.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ she said, her first words since they made camp. ‘Won’t it broadcast where we are?’
‘Possibly,’ he said, breaking a branch over his knee and tossing it into the fire. ‘But I’ve yet to come across an animal that isn’t afraid of fire—would you rather we sat in the dark?’
She shook her head. Her fascination with the Megalania had waned, replaced by a healthy dose of sheer terror. She doubted they killed simply to feed. Most reptiles would feed only occasionally, some going weeks, months without eating. The Megalania were clearly viciously territorial, killing anything that saw as a threat, but how big their territory was, she hadn’t a clue, but prayed they were no longer in it.
Tanner was right at home in the forest, as comfortable as an Aussie farmer in a pub and regaled her with stories of Africa. She’d never been, but had always wanted to and she listened intently as he talked of the seasonal migrations where hundreds of thousands of game animals stampeded hundreds of miles, sparking a frenzy among predators, who’d line the route, pouncing on the weak, the old or the damned unlucky. Nature was cruel, but how cruel was only just occurring to her.
She thought of Campbell, of Handricks and Samuels, of Bud dying in the camp’s medical hut, of that British geologist, Stephens, and Franks’ body slumped in that chopper. So much death.
She found Tanner’s voice comforting as she lay, drowsy, too exhausted to stay awake, too frightened to sleep, but when his voice tailed off and she saw him slowly reach for his gun and stand up, she sat bolt upright, the tiredness immediately quashed by adrenalin.
‘What is it?’
Tanner had his back to her, the flickering of the fire causing orange patterns to dance on his back.
‘We’re being watched,’ he said, peering into the darkness surrounding them.
She snatched the pump-action shotgun, heart beating like a heavy metal drum solo, and was on her feet instantly, shotgun pressed tight at her shoulder the way Tanner had shown her.
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Shush!’ he hissed.
They listened. At first, Suzanna could hear nothing but the noise of the forest and her own
erratic breathing and pounding heartbeat, but then, amid the cacophony of distant chirps and cheeps and howls and croaks, came a rustle and a crack of twigs.
The sound of movement.
She gripped the shotgun tight as if it were a high-pressure hose, eyes straining in the dark, but the weak orange glow of the fire barely cast enough light to see more than a few feet away.
Tanner took some tentative steps. Suzanna’s neck prickled as she heard rustling in the bush nearby.
Neither spoke, just stared in the general direction of the movement. It closed further, the rustling getting louder, Suzanna’s heart beating faster.
Tanner dropped to one knee, gun levelled, ready, waiting.
Then a new sound accompanied the rustling and snapping of twigs, a familiar sound, an unmistakeable yet incomprehensible one—the sound of a human voice.
Suzanna didn’t know what it said, it was part-whispered, part guttural and contained clicks and hisses among the more recognisable vowels and consonants, but it was definitely human, and as the pair stared silently into the darkness, the owner of the voice gradually appeared, the flickering orange glow of the fire catching his frame.
He was naked, barring a strange object attached to his groin, which made him look like a well-endowed man standing with an erection. He also had a spear in his hand.
He stood before them for a few moments, and then out of the darkness, stepping into the firelight, came more figures, approaching like apparitions, all naked, all men, all with the same protruding phalluses on their crotches, all clutching spears.
‘Any ideas?’ Tanner whispered to her.
She was too stunned to speak, just shook her head. She knew they were tribesmen, Papua New Guinea was full of indigenous people, but whether they were hostile or not, she didn’t know. From what she had read, the natives of the island could be either overly friendly, showering visitors with gifts and garlands or violent savages, cannibalism still practised by some tribes.
They didn’t make any aggressive movements or gestures, though, just stood, spears pointing upwards, eyes fixed on the two terrified yet slightly bemused Westerners.
‘Can you speak their lingo?’ Tanner whispered.
‘I ... I doubt anybody can,’ she said, noting one of the tribesmen was staring at her, eyes wide with either lust or curiosity. ‘Tribes this deep in the interior have no contact with the outside world at all and probably have their own language.’
Tanner glanced back at her and spoke through the side of his mouth. ‘Then what do you think they want?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Well, I don’t like the look of those spears.’ He stepped forward and made threatening gestures with his rifle.
‘Bang, bang!’ he shouted, getting to his feet.
The tribesmen stepped back a little, and then the apparent leader of their group thrust his spear into the air, causing Tanner to step back and press his rifle hard against his shoulder.
‘Wawanar, wawanar!’ shouted the tribesman, gesturing widely with the spear, the end of which caught Suzanna’s eye.
She pointed at it. ‘That spear point! I think it’s a tooth. A Megalania tooth. They must hunt them.’
‘With spears?’ Tanner said, incredulously. ‘Then they are braver men than me—so, what do you think they want?’
She shrugged and tentatively stepped forward, pointing to the end of the man’s spear.
‘Wa ... wawanar?’ she asked.
The man held up spear. ‘Wawanar, wawanar.’
He then gestured frantically towards the bush behind him.
But it was too late.
A scream came from one of the tribesmen, a choked, terrified, high-pitched scream that tailed off with the choking sound of a throat filling with blood.
Suzanna’s eyes couldn’t penetrate the darkness and see the Megalania, but she knew it was there—the rasping hiss, sounding like a lion that had lost its voice, the crashing in the undergrowth, the panicked tribesmen running, shouting, throwing their spears into the night.
Tanner tried to get a shot, but the fleeing natives blocked his vision, so he stepped sideways, once twice, three times, and just as the beast appeared from the gloom, several spears now in its flank, its blunt, terrifying snout catching the firelight, jaws bristling with serrated teeth, he fired.
Click!
He glanced back at Suzanna, eyes wide in shock, hatred and disbelief criss-crossing his face as he realised she’d emptied his rifle of shells.
And then it came for him, lumbering forward like a rhinoceros taking a swipe at a jeep, only it had no horn, just powerful, open jaws that snapped shut on Tanner’s upper thigh, lifting him off the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth as he screamed, but the animal didn’t falter and continued to steamroller towards Suzanna.
She pulled her trigger, the blast from the shotgun nearly forcing her off her feet but it halted the Megalania and sent it rearing on its hind legs, part of its cranium missing.
She fired again, and again, and again until the chamber of the pump-action emptied and the Megalania lay dead on the ground, Tanner twitching in its mouth.
All was still. The smell of shotgun propellant lingered in the air and the wheezing and feeble cries of the injured tribesmen and gored Tanner drifted to Suzanna’s ears.
‘I’m sorry!’ she said, casting away the gun and racing to Tanner. Even by the dim, flickering glow of firelight, she could tell he was dying. Blood spouted from his mouth as he stared up at her and tried to speak.
‘I just didn’t want you to kill it,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t want you to get hurt.’
His mouth opened and closed again, but no words came out, just a horrible gurgling.
‘I’ll go and get help,’ she said.
He coughed, and blood sprayed on her as he uttered one single word.
‘Bitch.’
His head then slumped to the side, the gentle hiss of trapped air escaped his lungs, like the sound of a bicycle tyre deflating, and he was dead.
Chapter 20
The tribesmen stood bemused as they watched Suzanna, eyes streaming with tears, weeping as she cradled Tanner’s head.
She looked up as some of the men removed their spears from the Megalania’s flank and their leader barked an order, his spear pointing at two of his men lying on the ground, writhing and crying.
What happened next shocked Suzanna more than the attack from the Megalania, more than Tanner’s death, more than her own actions that had got him killed. It shocked her even more than the fact that she had killed one of the very animals she had vowed to save. One of the tribesmen, casually and impassively, strutted up to an injured man and plunged the spear into his thorax, killing him instantly.
‘What are you doing?’ Suzanna shrieked, bolting to her feet and running in front of the tribesman before he could dispatch the other injured man.
He stepped back, his eyes hunkering in confusion as she stood arms wide, blocking his access.
‘You can’t kill him. Stop!’
The man’s eyebrows rose and he glanced back to his chief, who looked just as bewildered. He said something, undecipherable and gestured with his spear at the man Suzanna was trying to save.
She shook her head, not understanding, so he sauntered over, crouched and wiped his hand in the dying man’s blood. Staring at her, he raised it to his nose and sniffed, like somebody checking if a carton of milk was fresh.
‘Wawanar!’ he said, sniffing the blood again. ‘Wawanar!’
Slowly it dawned on her that he was trying to explain that the smell of blood might attract another Megalania, but she still protested. ‘No, you still can’t kill him. Let’s help him.’
He ignored her and plunged his own spear into the man’s neck. The wounded tribesman thrashed and slapped at the spear shaft for a few seconds, but after a determined twist from the chief, slumped still.
The chief then fixed his eyes on Suzanna, pointing his bloody spear to the bush. ‘Wawana
r!’
She shook her head, not understanding.
‘Wawanar, wawanar!’ He pointed to the enormous dead lizard lying by the fireside. It looked like a sleeping dragon from some fantasy tale, only she knew this was no fairy story. The chieftain uttered something to his men, and without protest, Suzanna found herself being led away from the carnage through the pitch-black forest.
As the sun began to rise over the eastern mountains, Kruger stood shirtless in his hut staring at the graph on his wall. He would never have believed it. With all his best diggers and geologists dead, the mine should have been doomed and Kruger with it, yet for the first time since he set foot in that godforsaken country, the lines on his graph had met. He’d done it, he’d met his daily quota.
Admittedly, it was only one day, but if they could do it once, they could do it again. He was due to speak to Peter Henderson later that day, a call he wasn’t looking forward to, but now he felt more optimistic. Instead of being hung out to dry, he’d be getting praise.
He knew his problems were far from over. Tanner and Franks had not returned. He tried numerous times to contact them on the radio, but getting a signal in the valley was always tricky. He wasn’t overly concerned. There wasn’t a man alive who was better at tracking and hunting. When he last hired Tanner to sort out a lion problem in Limpopo, he was gone three days, yet he returned victorious.
Kruger smiled as he recalled the frightened black miners cheering and hallooing as Tanner and his porters returned carrying the dead beast.
A similar thing would add pepper to the local Papuans when they saw the dead lizard. Only this time, there would be no photographs of the big white hunter standing abreast his kill. Kruger knew that such an animal would spark a frenzy among naturalists and conservation types like Suzanna Howard and Henry Yates. The world’s media would descend on this remote mine like flies around dung, and Kruger couldn’t let that happen.
He knew what he had to do.
He sauntered over to the window. Outside, Yates was riding shotgun on one of the small dumpers, ready for his day’s work in the pit. Shame, thought Kruger, the kid was a fine worker, but when this was all over, both he and Suzanna Howard had to disappear. Permanently.
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