The Last Tiger: A Novel

by Tony Black

  “The lambs, Myko,” said Father, “go and fetch them.”

  Father rounded up the trembling newborns, carrying them by their hinds two or three in each of his great hands. I helped by chasing after the most spirited ones, returning with them in my arms.

  The creatures were a robust breed and struggled with me as I walked, but I soon had them packed tightly together in the cart, behind its close fitting wooden palings.

  “Stay with Nathaniel,” Father told me, “I will go to fetch the lambs from the low grounds.”

  I nodded to my father, as Nathaniel moved before me to speak.

  “Don’t you worry, we’ll keep this mob secure,” he said, “don’t you worry.”

  Nathaniel’s presence vexed me. His talk ranged from killing tigers to how my father would be handsomely rewarded when the Van Diemen’s Company bursar came to assign the bounty of one pound. With each new word he spoke I turned further inward, with nothing there to see but a dark pot of bile cooking away.

  “You have done a good job,” said Nathaniel. “You have done a good job, but you have much to learn.”

  His words scratched at me. I did not wish to hear any more from him this day.

  Nathaniel raised his brows and there was a flash of tawny teeth beneath his hawk-like nose. “Boy, do you hear?”

  I fixed him with a glower, I caught his eyes and held them squarely, but my gaze soon lowered and fell to rest on the pocket of his sun-faded shirt. He was older and stronger, and knew he held advantage on me.

  Nathaniel approached me, scowling and as prickly as a thistle. “I did not have an answer from you, boy.”

  As my elder he sensed it was his duty to keep me beneath him in shame and disgrace, but I would not submit to him.

  I stared up at Nathaniel again; where he stooped over me he placed his hand on my shoulder and dug his fingers into my flesh. “Them lambs is ready for mulesing,” he said.

  I did not know what he meant; I still had many words to learn.

  “Well, what you waiting for, boy?” he roared at me.

  I saw the thin bristles around his mouth turn up like thorns. His fingers clutched my shoulder tighter and then he flung me towards the stock. “Go and get them, and be hasty about it!”

  I stumbled towards the cart, my legs carried me quickly but soon gave way beneath me. As I dropped to the road I put out my hands to break my fall, but I was too slow – I landed square on my face. Wet black dirt jumped into my eyes and the salty taste of blood came to my lips.

  Nathaniel watched me with a fleer on his face. “Them lambs won’t jump down themselves,” he said, “go and get ‘em!”

  Nathaniel walked towards me, pulling a set of hand shears from out his swag. They were old, not yet rusty but long since past their shining best. I lay beneath him and watched as he sharpened the shears on a large flat boulder, making scores along its surface with both sides of the blades.

  Nathaniel glided his thumb along the shears’ edge. He appeared to be unsatisfied with the result and proceeded to work them in his hand.

  He ran the open shears through his thick head of hair several times, trying to gain some oil on the hinge. “Will do another year,” he said, squinting at the shears. “Now, you bring me down a lamb there, boy, we’ll fix them one at a time.”

  I raised myself up from the ground; I felt dazed and my mouth throbbed in pain as I did what he told me, and lifted up a lamb.

  It struggled in my arms, opening up its mouth and bleating so hard its grey-pink tongue turned to red. I looked at the lamb and back to Nathaniel; I did not want to let it free but my thoughts were swimming as I heard more of Nathaniel’s shouts.

  “Well, don’t just stand there watching the beast whimper,” he said, “get it down before me! Get it down!”

  As I took down the lamb, my mouth filled with blood. Nathaniel watched me walk with the lamb in my arms; I saw he was impatient as he tapped the open shears against his folded arm.

  A magpie cawed out in the air above my head as I reached the end of my trail and, quickly, Nathaniel grabbed the lamb from my arms and spun it headwise between his thighs. “Now watch up, boy, mulesing’s a job I had pat when I were your age.” With one swipe of the shears Nathaniel lopped off the lamb’s tail. I watched it fall at my feet; there was a spout of dark red blood followed where it fell.

  The lamb let out a wail and I felt the pain of it sear through my heart. I stood still in the soil. I could not move. I could not even blink my eyes.

  Nathaniel continued to hold tightly to the lamb; blood covered his hands as he fumbled under the tail’s stump and raised a fold of skin. I watched him slice into the flesh twice more to make a bloody V-shape below the lamb’s tail.

  As he worked Nathaniel kept up a chatter about his task, but I listened more to the lamb’s cries. I felt the animal’s pain inside me, but it did not reach me like a board’s nail through my foot, it was a heartscald, a deep anguish.

  I watched the lamb’s blood flowing and knew it to be the same as the blood I tasted in my mouth. I felt as much a part of that lamb’s injury as the bloodied rump and seared flesh before me; I decided then to make the Scotsman pay.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nathaniel dropped the lamb before him and its hind legs fell from under it. The lamb’s wails were endless, they jarred my senses as I watched, biting down hard and tightening my jaw. Where the lamb slumped on the ground it lay motionless, until Nathaniel kicked at it and screamed, “Scat! Stop your whimpering.”

  The small, weak animal tried to raise itself on its hinds, but could only drag them along behind it on the ground. It took refuge by the roadside, moving only as far as its exhausted frame could carry it from its tormentor.

  “I said scat,” called Nathaniel, kicking out at the lamb again.

  The streaks of blood and shrill bleats stabbed at my heart where I stood under the brassy sun’s glare. I felt the wind rippling over the yellow gorse and heard the stream gushing within its low banks, but my mind now wandered far from this place.

  As I turned away from the bloody sight which haunted me as surely as a ghost, I thought of one thing: I would make Nathaniel suffer as surely as he had made this creature suffer.

  “Did you hear me, boy?” He scolded me with his harsh breath-heavy growl. I turned to face him and caught sight of his twisted mouth hanging like a piece of grizzle. “Them lambs surely aren’t going to walk down here by themselves, now, are they?” He laughed loudly to himself. His thin neck quivered like a reed on top of his rocking shoulders and then he added, drolly, “Walk down by themselves, that’s not very likely.”

  As I moved away from him I felt myself growing bolder. I took up the bolt action Winchester and drew steady on its stock. I had never pulled the trigger on any firearm before, but as surely as I drew my breath I was ready to pitch a bullet in Nathaniel’s black heart.

  My gait was slow and trembling, the gun was heavy in my hands. It was wrong to kill a man, I knew it, but surely God must be on my side.

  I watched as Nathaniel stood before me, a second lamb held within his hateful grasp. I still heard the first lamb’s bleatings from the roadside where it cried out in agony by the cover of an uprooted tree.

  Nathaniel smiled, he was readying himself for his task.

  I felt the sun hot on the back of my neck and it chimed with the flames burning inside of me. Where was his pleasure? In the act? In the suffering? My rage spilled over and I let off the gun.

  I felt a lightning bolt strike at my shoulder and I was splayed upon the ground, scattered about like a bucket of fire ash. My ears rang from the gunshot, I smelled the powder, I tasted it in my throat.

  Nathaniel stood stock-still, his face rigid with fear. His breathing ceased and then he spun sharply and lifted up his hands; I had not hit him with my shot.

  I raised myself quickly and, taking up the gun, steadied my aim for a second time. The lamb Nathaniel held between his thighs dropped on its head and quickly righted itself, running fo
r cover in the scrublands.

  “Now, boy, don’t you be playing games with me,” Nathaniel whimpered. The colour left his face as quickly as a mist rising on the back of a gale. In the clear pale sunshine he stood as white as a summer’s cloud.

  I said nothing, only walked closer and bettered my aim on his heart.

  “Now look here, I have no quarrel with you boy. What is it? Is it the lamb?” Nathaniel’s desperate eyes, black as soot, bored into me with their pleas.

  I held my mouth firmly closed. I did not listen to the fast stream of his words. My mind was shut to the outside world as tight as the grip of any clamp-vice.

  “Boy, I tell you the lambs need doing, they do, they do …” his voice was quaking, great gaps spread between his faltering words, “the lambs … they get dags … they do … and and … the dags, they attract the blowflies … to their hinds.”

  I did not listen. I knew from his actions that I had brought him nearer to his death rattle than ever he was, but I was unmoved. Phantoms controlled my actions and drove me on.

  “And and … the maggots, they get in … and there grows festering. We do it so they can survive in the heat of summer. Oh, Lord, child have mercy, please don’t kill me … Don’t kill me!”

  Nathaniel began to cry. I watched the tears spill from his eyes and his lower lip curl down towards his chin. He was like they call the little tackers, as lost and as frail inside as any infant.

  As I watched this pitiful sight unfold I knew he had been broken and paid, yet I was still ready to be his final judge. I clasped the trigger a second time. I held no doubt within me that I would kill him, as I squeezed my finger, and saw the bolt fly up towards the Winchester’s prow.

  The gunshot cracked and this time I readied myself to be thrown upon the ground, but though my feet leapt, I did not fall. I felt gripped as tight as barrel hoops around my chest and arms, the firearm grasped far out of my reach.

  My father let me struggle until I tired and then he lowered me from his grip. I watched him walk away from me where I fell, exhausted.

  Father stared at the blood-red lamb as it dragged its painful hinds, in retreat from its misery, towards the cover of the uprooted tree, then he looked down on Nathaniel, where he sat shaking like a gum branch in a storm.

  No words left my father’s mouth.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Droving sheep in the island’s winter came as no pleasant chore, I found, as we took the road back to Woolnorth with the southern flocks.

  The sun receded quickly and storm clouds crashed against the steep fall of the cliffs, pouring out their loads. The rain washed nut-brown rivulets through the long grasses, to the stony rise of the road. As the road swung through the rocky outcrops, skirted by the naked pasture, the waters swept fast and turned the road to a shallow, muddy stream, and our progress became near impossible.

  The rain followed us all along the way. I was doused as well as any clam. My clothes clung to me as clear as wet leaves on a whitewashed paling. But I thought nothing of these miserable conditions; I knew I had wronged far beyond any ordinary punishments and I would soon be made to pay.

  My father kept in silence; my actions were a mystery to him. He did not look at me. Even Nathaniel kept his gaze from falling on me, swinging his legs over the cart’s side and staring off into the far distance. I knew there would be no more bullying chides from him after the incident with the gun, but I had paid a dear price for such a small freedom.

  “Myko,” called out my father, “the gate is ahead of us.” His voice sounded blunt and carried no hint of emotion.

  I jumped down from the cart and ran into the rain to unclasp the knotted rope on top of the gate and the fencepost. I dragged the heavy gate, digging my heels into the wet ground and gritting my teeth tightly.

  The ground was heavily rutted but I secured the gate behind a large boulder and began to lead the flocks through, checking all the while for stray lambs.

  “Go, go … quick, quick,” I called out. As I watched the flocks I stole glances at my father, to be sure I had done as he asked.

  My actions with the Winchester rifle had sent poisonous fishes swimming under my skin and now, each time I looked upon my father, they came up to feed. I watched him where he sat, heavy-shouldered, leading the cart through the gate. “Tie the rope tightly,” he yelled out.

  “Yes, Father.”

  I did as he said.

  “You are sure the rope is tight?” Father called back to me.

  I tugged at the rope’s knot to show it was held firm and I received a wave to return to the cart once again.

  The sky fell to the palest of blues as the road dropped into a deep gulch, backed by grey-black hills. A long stony slope led to a grassy basin and the steep gradient of the road made hard work for the horses.

  As we travelled on my father called to me again, “The cartwheels, Myko, below us you must free the cartwheels.”

  I dropped from the cart and struggled to loose the cartwheels where they had stuck fast, near a foot-deep in the boggy land.

  I looked up and saw Nathaniel resting his back on the flat of the cart’s floor; where he lay, belly-up, catching the steady rainfall in his mouth, I could see the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he quenched his thirst.

  Father lashed at the horses’ backs. “Use both of your arms, Myko,” he called out, “both arms.”

  I saw concern in my father’s face, he feared the cart would become trapped, but I did not have the strength to raise the cartwheel. I felt my head fall.

  A hearty laugh rang out and as I looked up I saw Nathaniel sitting bolt-upright, watching me struggle in the muddy wheel tracks. I wished to slap him down to size once more, but I would not give in.

  I pressed my full weight and strength towards the cartwheel. My grip held firm, but the sodden loam beneath my feet gave no purchase and the wheel slipped back in its track.

  “Myko,” called out my father.

  I continued to struggle and the darkness of the fast approaching night came down around me as fast as a candle coughs out its last spit of wick. “Myko,” called my father again, “raise the lanterns.”

  As I loosened my grip, my father and Nathaniel lowered themselves on the trail to free the cartwheels from the sodden track.

  I watched them from beyond the lanterns’ glow, until the wheels were slipping easily beneath the cart.

  “Myko, bring the water,” said Father.

  I ran from the cart with the drinking canister and filled a tin cup for Father and myself.

  “And a cup for Nathaniel.”

  As I handed Nathaniel my drinking cup he grinned widely. I returned to the cart to be alone.

  We soon took up our journey again. The dark night became filled with Nathaniel’s talk, my father’s broken replies, and bursts of laughter. I kept my place in the rear of the cart and edged from their company as we trundled over the stony rises and soggy flats of the road.

  Soon we drew near to the billet at Woolnorth and I felt sure my mother would run to greet me, but my first sight of her proved me wrong.

  By the boundary fence, Mother twitched and trembled under her heavy shawl. I saw two thin lines pinched between her brows. Her eyes, which gave no recognition, held red veins in their rims. She seemed at once to be as frail as a shadow.

  My father jumped down from the cart and ran to her with long strides. “Daina, what is it?” he said, placing his arms around her to calm her movements.

  Mother did not answer, her conduct appeared cold. She seemed as distant as the far rippling sea.

  “Myko,” my father called to me, “you must take your mother inside to the fire.”

  I felt my mouth drooping open. I knew that work awaited us with the new flock. “But, I must help with the keel.” The flock needed to bear the station’s red ochre stain, every man was pressed to assist; I felt deep shame to be denied this chore.

  “Myko,” said Father, his voice heavy and certain, “you will go with your mother
and sit by the fire.” As he placed his dark eyes upon me, I knew I could not refuse his words.

  Inside the barn I sat with my mother by the fire. The hearth hissed and spat as I placed a new split log on the embers and a curl of clean smoke rose up.

  A sticky heat crept all around us, but my mother did not seem to notice as she gripped the border of her shawl. It once was the whitest of cotton but was now as grey and frayed as the jute rope of the station bell.

  To see my mother this way came as a fresh hurt to me. I had not seen her look so forlorn since the Czar’s soldiers took my father from us.

  “The bursar is coming,” said Mother, “to pay your father for his tiger kill.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I have heard Nathaniel talking of him.”

  Mother’s voice dropped low. “You don’t approve, Myko?”

  I said nothing.

  “I can tell you don’t,” she said. “It does not matter, they say the tigers are a pest, but …”

  The fire crackled loudly in the billet, it sent chinks of light dancing in my mother’s eyes. For a moment this appeared to be the only movement she made.

  “I remember the dead cuckoo you found, Myko,” she said, “and I told you the story of Gegute. You did not like it, but you were very young. Do you remember?”

  I did not like to think such a tale once upset me so much. “We can never hunt or shoot a cuckoo, they are special birds,” I said.

  “That is right, once the cuckoo was a young maiden, a sister of nine brothers whose family name was Kukaichiai. Her first name was Gegute, which means cuckoo, and her nine brothers all went to war, where they were killed in battle.”

  I remembered the story, the brothers were brave soldiers.

  “When her brothers were killed Gegute turned into a speckled bird,” said Mother, “and she went to look for her brothers in the deepest woods. She called their names, and she kept on calling them, all through the day, and all through the night. To this day she still calls them.”

  I continued the tale, “And because she is so busy searching for her brothers, she has no time left to care for her own children. She leaves them to the care of other birds.”