by Tony Black
“But …”
“No, Petras. We need peace now.”
Father looked on my mother where she stood before him, admonishing. She seemed to hold all the strength he had lost.
Father fixed her with his eyes. “I give you my oath. I give you my oath,” he said. He cocked his head beyond where my mother stood between us and reached out a hand to me. “Myko,” he said, “… my oath.”
As I watched him a streak of rage pounded in me; I felt it a hurt to my heart to even look at him.
“You killed him,” I said, “you killed him …”
As I spoke my mother turned around and softly called my name, but I was already gone from them both.
I ran for my tiger.
Chapter Thirty-Five
My tiger moved most slowly. I spied the blood he left on the man ferns and it did not take me long to latch on his trail.
I looked as far into the darkness of the forest as I could. Little light fell, save a thin white veil which lowered itself as softly as vapour from the pallid moon. My eyes settled over the trees; I saw the covering of hanging branches which reached out to the night’s fringes like purple fingers.
As I moved through the high grasses and the deep rutted grooves of the dark scrub I felt the anger I held towards my father draining from me. The fire that roared within me was gone now, it had reached full flight and burned itself out.
The ground beneath my feet felt wet and the air smelled thick with my tiger’s scent as I followed his steps. Disturbances filled the bush; I heard loud rustling noises that I knew to be beyond the usual reach of the night animals.
The ferocious wails of the dogs and the gunshots upset even the shore birds on the coast who took to the sky in panic, flying far beyond the breakers which lashed down upon the hard-packed sands and rocky shore slopes.
I stretched out my steps and took more of the island in every stride.
“I will find you, my tiger,” I muttered, “I will find you.”
Deep fatigue fell over me but I stood my pace through persistence. Since my tiger’s wild flight the ebb of my emotions flowed to him and I sensed he wasn’t far.
My tiger was wounded badly and each of his slow movements only prolonged the death that surely awaited him. I felt a flame rise again in my blood to think of my tiger’s fate; I knew we had both now reached the fringes of our terror.
The land slipped low and rose again as I dropped the reach of my steps to make sure of my every footing. I saw possum scampering beneath me, over clods and through the dense covering of the bush, but I saw nothing of my tiger.
As I trudged wearily in my search I felt tears begin to roll down my face; they travelled slowly as my hurt reached its pitch.
“Where are you? Where are you?”
I knew I had lost much, my heart beat in chaos, my mind was a bale-fire I could not control.
“He has killed him!” I yelled out.
I thought to turn back, to confront my father once more, but I knew I would find no answers there. I felt a hard shell growing around the feelings I stored for my father. I now wished only to track my tiger as he made his final steps on his home range.
The ground of the woodland become wetter and the soil, a mire. As I stumbled awkwardly I felt a cold blade of loss press on my throat and then, suddenly, I was taken by surprise; I fell upon my tiger.
A short wheeze emitted from far below his chest, his every painful step put needles in my eyes. I could not watch his suffering. I wanted to raise my tiger and rest with him where we stood but I knew his pacings were something he would not give up.
His trail through the bush was a well-travelled one, though I believe we both knew he would not come this way again.
As I watched my tiger’s painful steps I felt my conscience swell inside of me as smoothly as a tide’s change; I knew I was part of the cause. I had lived under the roof of my father, who claimed near fifty tiger bounties and hunted and harmed I did not know how many more. I took shelter from the Van Diemen’s Company which paid out on tiger scalps and worst of all, throughout, I had done nothing. Even when my tiger, perhaps the last grown male of his kind, came looking for my protection, I failed him truly.
“I am sorry,” I told my tiger. “I am sorry, I am sorry.” My tears streamed on my face as I looked down at him, his slow gait turning to a pathetic stumble. I knew the steel within him had begun to fail. He had only one purpose now: his own grim survival through the prevailing moments.
“I swore to protect you, and I have not,” I said softly, “you were so brave … you took the greatest risk to call on me. You showed your strength – you were so brave.”
Even now as I gazed upon my tiger’s blood-wet back, his slow ungainly limp through the blackwood wattle seemed one of greatness. I knew we neared his lair and I saw my tiger as a warrior who had fought and lost, and returned home, to die.
The urgent dawn awoke and blue air floated all around us. The myrtles stood tall in the wet gullies and the pebble-smooth hills rose above the highest of the treetops and caught the early sun’s shine. The path ahead divided into sunlight and shadow beneath a vault of heavy branches as the stirring heat shimmered low to the ground.
A soapy white froth gathered around my tiger’s jaws as he swung his legs heavily towards his final resting place. He gave a low snort from his blunt nose and a bloodied drool emitted before him.
He fell slowly in his movements now; his dulled eyes seemed to view me from a great distance as we came upon his hide. The lair was silent; no movement save the cold breeze before us touched its rings of crowded branches.
My tiger did not have the strength to lift himself over its edge. I looked away. I could not watch this once mighty creature lowered to such a state of pity.
His hinds failed him as he tried to leap within, and soon he was forced to drag his wounded body forward, as he writhed like a lizard, over the lair’s edge. All the while my tiger’s eyes looked front. He held a purpose in his mind which stoked his courage and gave him strength, but I knew it would soon be spent.
As I watched my tiger fall below the lair’s edge, he lay on its floor for several long minutes. I believed he was dead. He merely wished once again to seek the familiar aspect of his lair, to die in his own place.
“I have lost you,” I said.
I could not make my limbs carry me to where my tiger lay. I knew he lay as dead as the ages. I did not need to see his eyes, now dimmed and lifeless.
My body trembled as if suddenly I had leapt from a fireside into the outdoors of a winter’s cold. I struggled in dark eddies of grief, my only thought of how my tiger had suffered.
I raised up my hands, tried to jolt my senses by slapping my face with my open palms, but it was useless. I could not shake myself from this moment. It was no imagining, it was as real as the salt tears which ran down my face.
“No,” I cried out. “No, it can’t be true. Why? Why?”
In the moment of my tiger’s death I longed to join him. Wherever he may be, in heaven or only as clay, I wished to be as dead.
My face became contorted. I felt the curl of my mouth and my brow. I do not know what shape my face took but I had seen terror and grief before and I guessed I held the worst of both.
My tremblings became uncontrollable and I dropped fast to my knees and faced hellwards. I convulsed where I lay on the ground in heavy tears. My tiger was gone.
“No. No. No,” I cried to myself.
I hit at the ground, the wet and dark of the soil came into my eyes and my mouth. I wished for it to cover me, bury me where I lay. I did not deserve this life, I would die, please God I would die.
At some point in my despair, in the pit of my wild hurt I sensed a movement in the bush.
I did not raise my head. Were I to be mauled by devils, they could have my flesh without resistance. Let them feast on me as they would surely now feast on my tiger.
My neck was touched. It felt like a smooth hand, the soft hand of my mother perhaps
, gently cajoling me to resume this existence, but I could not rise. My neck was touched a second time. This time the feel was harsher, like a claw. As I lifted myself I saw little. My eyes seethed with mud, but as I rubbed at their edges I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
“You are alive,” I whispered.
If I lived to be a hundred I do not believe I could ever feel such joy again. As my eyes adjusted to the sight before me I was lifted on the wings of angels.
My tiger had raised himself from within his lair. In his mouth he held his cub, which he presented to me, as if it were my rightful son. I took the cub in my arms. I held it beneath my tears and stroked the warm softness of its downy coat. And then I watched my tiger rest, as he would forever more.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The same cruel breeze which carried my tiger from me blew all around. I felt its sharp edges like thorn branches and I knew at once I must leave this place.
The heat and glare rose, and flies began to settle on my tiger’s bemused stare. I swallowed my hurts, but I was stiff and desolate as I raised up my tiger’s body and placed it in the lair. As I laid my tiger down I saw the small body of another cub inside. It was a female, smaller than the male beneath my coat; it still felt warm, its weak body had not long succumbed.
I placed the small tiger within my shirtfolds to comfort the live cub, which nuzzled to be nearer the familiar scent. I did not disturb the lair any more. My tiger had chosen it well; I did not believe it would be found by any man. His hide would not be torn unless devils devoured it, which they most surely would.
I stood before my tiger’s lair and watched the light, with smooth precision, cut jagged curves into the hidden resting place. All around the sun polished the silver gum trunks and the peculiar air fell gritty with dust. I heard the river running low and deep in its time-eaten banks, and as the lofty breeze sang overhead I felt a deep heart-hurt ball up inside me.
The heat-swayed trees shimmered under the monotone blue sky as I took a last glance upon my tiger’s remains. The sun’s rays fell in intricate honeycombs at my tiger’s lair, but it was not him anymore.
“Goodbye, my tiger,” I whispered.
As I ran on fresh limbs my mind functioned with a clarity I had not known for some time. The coldness of my heart felt like a mechanical functioning; what was left inside me contained no feeling. I grew consumed by purpose – my tiger would have his final glimpse of freedom, through the eyes of his young cub.
The blue of the sky leeched the colour from the clouds and the sunlight travelled slowly in the forest as I crashed through the branches. I wandered into the teeth of a headwind which carried a misty spray in the wide glades and widening track-runs and I soon found myself on the turnpike road to home.
I stripped possum from my father’s snares and tried to feed the cub.
“Eat up,” I said quietly, “try it, try it.”
The cub, more accustomed to feeding from his mother, took only nips of flesh at first, but soon he surprised me and ate feverishly. I felt proud to have provided for him in this way, but I knew his trials were just beginning.
As I swung my legs over the sagging fence wires of my family’s holding the crude split-paling hut hove into view. I hoped my mother and father had not returned home yet, but if they were there I was ready to confront them once more. Nothing would stand in my path; I knew I must bank my pride and draw some supplies.
As I trod the red-earth path to home my mouth grew dry. The air became stilted as I approached. The sun pressed a bar of sharp light on the hut’s door and I felt my breathing heavy as I walked towards the dwelling. A deepening blackness drew around me with every inch I took, but as I stepped inside, the hut was empty.
I tried to fill a burlap sack with the few goods my mind seized upon: a lantern, a jute rope, flour, a water canister. All the while the cub slept soundly beneath my shirtfolds. I felt the warmth of his contented breath; the cub understood nothing of my fears.
“Rest up now,” I whispered as I patted at his back, “rest up there.”
I hoped the cub’s full belly would allow him to sleep for a long time as I clutched on the sack and hurried from my home.
Outside in the holding yard the station’s grey mare stood calmly picking at stray tufts of grass on the ground. She seemed peaceful as I saddled up and climbed on her back. I dug my heels in hard and soon the dark-red of the earth turned to dust as I made my tracks from this place.
I knew I would not return for a long time, if ever. My thoughts grew focused, my mind waged on a new cause, but as I rode out to put my plans in place I knew there to be little else I could control.
I felt far removed from the goings of the world. I remembered how I once read of the Indian rope trick, and saw pictures of men suspended on the air. I imagined that this was how I functioned: as though I floated high above the ground, high above my normal thoughts in a state few ever reach.
My coat-tails flew in the air as the grey thundered on beneath the opal sky.
“Get up! Yah!” I yelled, as we trampled heavily through the fields of bracken and the dirt tracks to the townships. The heat picked up fiercely and long red flames grew from the outcrop of the sun’s gloryburst.
Open collared, I felt my skin tingle from too long spent in the sun, but I would not slow or stop – I knew phantoms pursued me across the unbroken emptiness of the landscape.
The farther from home I travelled, the more I understood. Soon, I felt a new idea running in my mind like verse. When I thought of it, it had always been there. It felt as if I had always been figuring it out, trying its merits and also its faults, but it did not seem like any normal idea of mine. This was the type of thing my brother had once planned in our games. As boys we ran into the forest and became soldiers, using sticks for our guns; I often played at such games with my brother.
“When I grow up,” I remembered Jurgis had said, “I will take part in battles.”
“And so will I. We will both fight in great armies and get medals for our chests.”
We would be soldiers of such honour, not like our conquerors. We planned our manoeuvres like great commanders, with raids, daring raids on unseen enemies, but always we were the victors, always our plans were superior.
Jurgis, how I wish you were with me now, I thought. As close as either of us would now come to our dreams, as near to such honour as we would approach, was now in my hands.
I pressed the grey harder than I should have; by our journey’s end her flanks were streaked with sweat and red with dust. But the grey had a strong back and a good heart and carried her exertions with little care.
I’d never travelled so far from home on my own and here was a strange new place to me; I knew little of the streets of the city of Hobart.
In the blue sky above, a white sickle of moon sat beside the dimming amber of the sun’s glow. Motor vehicles filled up the roads. I had never encountered cars or trucks traveling the northern sheep runs and I became overcautious, making many jerkings on the grey.
I saw people watch me closely. I felt their eyes, and I saw their reading of the Van Diemen’s Company ensign on the grey’s hind. I had no right to this mount and their looks felt threatening, but I found courage to test their doubts.
I approached an officer of the law; his features looked shrunken, his boots and uniform covered in road dust. “I need directions to the Beaumaris Zoo,” I said.
If the officer had suspicions of me, he showed none.
“On horseback?” he said; his voice crackled with rheum.
I replied quickly, “Yes, sir.”
The officer plainly tipped his helmet. “Then it’ll be a chore, there are a heap of streets to cross, but I can set you about the right course.”
He made many gestures, pointing all the while to landmarks I must pass. “Just follow your nose from there,” he said when done.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. I felt grateful for his kindly help, and for the chance to test my calm before author
ity. I knew I must hold my emotions in check now.
My father said he had sold the female tiger and her cubs that he trapped to the zoo. I had no reason to doubt that he had kept his word to me to spare the tigers’ lives, but I trusted nothing to be as it should be now.
I do not know why I harboured such doubts about my father. I knew him as a man of his word, but my mind filled with grim imaginings and I felt forced to examine every avenue of fate.
I had taken a track which had already brought much suffering, to more than just myself. I had stolen the grey and raised a hand to my own father. However, these crimes seemed petty considerations to me. I would face their consequences later; as I pressed on, my mind fixed on a higher law, one which occupied me in the strangest of ways.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The sinking sun shone cheerlessly as it towed the remaining brightness from the day. The wind breezed up again and the flat yellow-stone buildings turned flinty grey when they met the reddened light. All around the magpies cawed and took the day’s last chance to dig for grubs and grasshoppers. Dust powdered the streets and the smell of horses moving all around came upon the air at every turn.
My mouth felt dry and my lips clung to my teeth as I tethered the grey. I left my tiger’s cub sleeping curled as quiet as a lamb within a robust hollow trunk.
“Rest up, now,” I said. I gave the cub my coat to keep him warm and he had his sister’s scent and soul to guard him in my absence.
I did not want to leave him, but I knew that I had to. I knew I must keep a cold gaze in each eye I placed on the cub. He was no dog pup, but a beast of the wild and my aim was to maintain him that way. Clinging like a mother hen towards her broody roost would not help raise this cub, which faced struggles in the wild when left alone, with perhaps none of his own to turn to.
Brisk clouds lunged overhead as I walked light-footed through the thinning angles of sunlight. Some warmth held in the day’s remaining hours and the air turned syrupy. Hobart’s wide streets looked pleasant and the people I crossed seemed keen to salute me, but I kept my expression motionless. I felt trapped in an anxious dream and kept a slim plank’s breadth of track all the way to the Beaumaris Zoo.