by Tony Black
“No, it is not a toy,” I called out to them, as they shook the possum, and passed it between them like a rag doll.
I tired of their antics and wondered if I had made a dreadful mistake. Grim thoughts splintered in my mind: what if I cannot teach these animals to hunt like their true parents? Then how will they fend in the wild without me?
I did not want to be the tigers’ defender all my life. I longed to see them run free, to take up the challenge of their own lives without me. Though it filled me with joy to watch the tigers growing strong, I held many fears and I wondered how much longer I could continue to keep them in this way.
I grew panic-ridden; in time they would surely starve – what might I be in the eyes of my tiger then? I could not face the thought that I would carry my tiger’s hopes into hell.
Suddenly at my lowest ebb, as I felt soon to be engulfed by my fears, a remarkable thing happened. Like the peaceful gush of a stream I felt my heart suddenly lightened as I woke startled in the noisy night. I turned a lantern on the walls and floor of the cave to find it alive with writhings and squeals.
Dark shadows moved like a black sheet of water in ripples. I saw tiny shining points of steel breaking everywhere the light fell. For a moment I felt confused, my mind became a stony lump of flesh that would not function, and then, I regained my senses.
My first instincts gave me over to fears, but I quickly remembered I was the cubs’ protector and drew a latch on my emotions. As I did this it became dimly visible that a large pack of rats set about nesting in our cave.
Great numbers of the beasts swarmed everywhere my gaze fell. I toyed with the idea of an attack. I stood up and stamped my square-toed boots down on the nearest of the intruders but my efforts made little effect. I knew too many filled the cave for me to kill. I feared I must find a new place to rest and begin afresh with my efforts to raise the cubs.
“It’s no good. It’s no good,” I yelled.
As a ghost-like ray came down from the moon and glided into the cave, the disquiet suddenly disappeared and I felt my heart glow warm.
As if a hunting instinct was suddenly born in the cubs, they flew upon the rats, catching them in their jaws, killing them soundly and with great speed. I saw their brown-timbered limbs had grown strong, their backs sinewy and deep-muscled beneath their thickening coats.
“Yes, that’s it,” I yelled out, “that’s the way. Round them out. Round them out!”
The cubs’ claws moved swiftly and their lunges chased the direction of their prey faster than the darting of an eye. As I watched I knew my mouth gaped like a hooked fish, and then a vague joy thrust into my mind and I felt a smile travel slowly over my face.
“That is the way. That is the way,” I said softly.
I shook, wracked with tears of pride, as I watched the cubs clear the cave of the last of the rats.
When done, the cubs felt sufficiently exerted to feast upon their catch. As they collected their prizes I knew now they could survive without me – now that they had learned the taste of blood. Together, my tiger cubs would learn to hunt and kill for themselves.
“I will have to keep you hungry now,” I told them, “if you are to continue to feed yourselves.”
In the days that followed the cubs grew tired through the day, sleeping like lap dogs in the cave. I knew they had changed fast.
At night they wakened me as they climbed over where I lay, and made their way into the darkness to hunt.
Months passed and the cubs quickly grew stronger. Their coats lost their downy fur and became heavy, the male turned bronze-coloured and stood a foot taller than the lime-pale female.
As I rested alone in the desolate sweep of the forest, I knew the tigers were now strong enough to fend for themselves. They did not need me. It came as a deep hurt to know I must soon leave them. I tried to push away the thought of losing my tigers as the failing sun dropped weak rays that failed to put warmth into the musty air. I raised my eyes to the gnarled shapes of the isolated cliffs and watched the soft blue edges of the sky seep into nothingness. The stream washed over the supple gum branches that dipped above the banks and I wondered if I had let myself stay longer with the tigers than I should have. I needed to be sure the tigers had no need for me, but in my heart, I knew they were capable of fending for themselves.
“They do not need you now, Myko,” I said aloud.
The shade detached itself from the wall of trees that I stood beside and enveloped me in new chills. The stream tinkled on and I strained my eyes on its glazed surface. I did not want to leave the tigers. They still approached me and nuzzled their snouts in my face but their absences had grown lengthened, and they no longer dwelled within the cave.
It is time to let them go, I thought.
The weak sun fell below the highest rock pile on the horizon and the rigid cliffs darkened in shadow. As I looked on I felt a growing desolation in my heart. I knew that the tigers had become a part of me and I still longed for contact with them. They were my family now, and I grew sick with loneliness.
I knew that I’d turned away from my own people. I confronted my father, and then fled from my family. Could I ever return to my home again? The notion ran in my mind over and over again.
Deeply felt guilt for my actions stabbed at my memory daily. I had turned on my own father and brought him down with blows. Had he only been trying to lead his family to safety, just like my tiger?
Whenever I closed my eyes I saw one thing only: my father sobbing before me, his drooping moustaches catching the wet tears of a broken man.
As the dying red sun bled over the landscape I lay my head down in a patch of moss. I heard the high-pitched screams of the currawongs as they returned to their bowl-shaped nests, high in the tree branches. Each cry from above jabbed a sharp point into me and I knew fears that I could not halt rattled in my bones.
Soon the darkening sky drank up all the light for miles around and black clouds burst above; their rain came clouting on my head as heavy as falling stones. My unkempt hair hung lank and wet before my eyes as I made my way back to the shelter of the cave. I loped like an ape through the forest as mud currents ran in shoals and channels at my feet.
The cave was dark as I entered and I quickly lit the lantern. The dim glow of the light shone on the walls, drawing a fluttering of gnats, and at once I felt a new presence. The male tiger stood before me, he had brought a possum kill into the cave and he laid it at my feet.
I must leave. I knew this in an instant. The tiger had come to see me as his responsibility. This adult provider thought me a part of his fold. I did not want to break the bond between us, but I knew I must now sever it forever.
“Out! … Go! Out of here!” I roared and yelled before the tiger like a mad man.
I raised a great mayhem before the male tiger. I bared my teeth and increased my roars.
“Out of here! Go! Scat! Scat!”
The tiger ran flinching from the cave to his mate. They both held me with great, sad eyes, uncomprehending of my wild appearance. I knew the time had come to convince them of the terror within man and I turned upon them fiercely.
“Scat! Scat!” I bellowed, my teeth bared, my whole being wild with fright.
The tigers fled quickly, their ears pressed low to their heads. They could not believe me to be the same creature that had fed and sheltered them as young.
I chased them through the mountain gums, clipping fast on their tails. I growled as well as any animal could, and caught the female by her hinds.
She rolled on to her flank, her pouch creased, and I saw her belly bulge with a new life. At once I sunk my teeth in her coat and drew a bite of hair. She yelped. I did not pierce the flesh, but I wished her to believe I would.
The male sensed her distress and took his own bite from the air before my face: a warning, but the pain was great to see him attack me in this way. I persisted: “Go away. Run. Scat!” I roared.
I watched the pair break for the forest, and at speed t
hey ran from me. I roared again at their descent below the cover of man ferns. Neither made a backward glance; I believed I had turned them as well as I could from me. I wanted them to feel only fear of me; and to fear all I stood for.
“You must go. Go from me,” I said, as my words turned quickly to sobs.
The sky above fell rain-washed and heavily clouded. The stuttered sound of the stream gathered itself into a roar as it crashed on the smooth polished rocks and rose high above its banks.
“You must get away from me,” I sobbed, “you must get away.”
I took myself back towards the cave as the heavens opened and I watched the billabongs turn from flat slabs of polished stone to fierce boiling stove pots. When I reached the cave, wet depressions gathered on the muddy floor and rippled their way further afield with every slap of the cruel wind.
In the days to come the sun made few appearances, it merely coasted dimly along with the flounces of cloud. Green shoots sprang up among the mess of wattles and beneath the tree stems, where blowflies lodged themselves in the black, wet bark gaps.
As I stared out on the plateau, I saw nothing of the tigers. I knew their joyful presence had left the cave forever. I turned them out and turned them far from me.
“Stay away from the likes of me, tigers,” I said into the wind, “stay far away.”
I knew I must leave now. I had no more to do. If there was work left, it was the tigers’. My hopes for them rose high, but my heart felt riven and cut to know I could never see them again.
The air turned sharp and cold, nipping in my throat and eyes as I stared out across the wild unselected country. I tried to imagine how the tigers would roam, and perhaps find the remaining few of their kind.
I cheered to think that they would thrive, that my own tiger received his wish. “You were a most cunning beast. Any tigers that come from you will surely be wise,” I said. “Perhaps they will know to keep far from man.”
For myself I had no such hopes; I lapsed into a dark tar-pot of loneliness and despair. As I saddled up the grey mare and prepared to leave the high plains of the central plateau, my thoughts fell on my own family. I stood still, as if in a dream, unmoving; these thoughts rounded me as once my father’s dogs rounded so many of the island’s tigers.
What have you done, Myko? I thought, what have you done?
The grey, keen to stretch her legs, splashed in the wet soil with her front hooves. I placed a calming hand on her withers where her coat ran smooth and ivory-coloured. For a moment she calmed, but then she roused again, straining at her bit and cleaving the air with white breath from her flared nostrils. I could not constrain her for long; as I dug my heel in her broad flank she quickly broke free.
The grey’s stride gathered up pace as we ploughed, robust and restless, through the dark tree-bordered scrub. Her legs strained ready to the task for some time, but my own limbs trembled as I sat tightly on her back, ducking the sweep of ropey wet branches.
A slow wind breezed among the reed-sheaves and the steady rainfall washed the sloughed bark strips in the grey’s path, but failed to slow her. For miles she galloped on, beating hard through the forests and lower foothills until we reached the silver fields of bracken on the edge of the plains.
The expanse of air calmed the grey’s ardour and she dropped into a settled trot. I felt relieved to give up the wild galloping, but as we travelled slowly towards the sparse vegetation of the gulch that skirted the central plateau, I found my own emotions begin to alter.
Thoughts of my father’s face on the night I deserted my family stampeded on my mind. I had not believed he held any feelings before then, but now I saw the blood leave his cheeks again and I followed his eyes as they pitched from side to side, searching for the answer to my accusations. I tried to push away the idea, but it did not subside.
The rain stopped falling as I looked up from the grey’s back. The sky above was lit with a wide flash of amethyst. At its edges the deep blue turned to black and then the sun slid beneath the horizon. A moon was already waiting to take the sun’s place and the air felt still and cool. Night approached fast. On the island, all was as it should be.
About the Author
Tony Black was born in NSW, Australia and grew up in Scotland and Ireland. An award-winning writer, The Last Tiger is his 12th novel. He lives in Scotland with his wife and son.
tonyblack.net
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
About the Author