Blacky Blasts Back

by Barry Jonsberg

  I glanced at John. His head was moving backwards and forwards, from me to Blacky. It was easy to see why he was confused. A dog in the wilderness? Doesn’t compute. I watched out for telltale wisps of smouldering brain matter coming out of his lug-holes, but couldn’t spot any.

  ‘Why?’ said John.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ I replied. ‘I might need more information before I can answer that one.’

  ‘You. Staring at dog. Dog staring at you. Why?’

  It must have appeared bizarre. Dyl, of course, was used to it, but to John it must have seemed as if Blacky and I had hypnotised each other. Or fallen in love. I almost threw up at the thought, though that might have had something to do with the smell that rolled off Blacky in foul waves. Luckily, I kept my stomach safely gathered in. I’d had enough of diced carrots. I imagine John felt the same.

  ‘It’s a long story, mate,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s been fun, but it’s time you went back to camp. Dyl and I are going for a little walk. Back soon. Say hi to everyone. Don’t save us any breakfast.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry? You will save us breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You wouldn’t care to elaborate on that, John?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can’t come with us.’

  ‘Can. Will.’

  I sighed and turned to Dylan.

  ‘You explain, Dyl.’

  Dyl took me by the arm and led me away a few metres. I glanced back. John and Blacky were eyeing each other. Neither seemed impressed. If it had been Kyle instead of John, it might have worked out. They could have taken it in turns to roll in each other.

  ‘Not goin’ to work, mate,’ said Dyl. ‘If John’s got it into his head to follow us, he will. Anyway, he saved my life. We can’t send him away, even if he’d listen. Which he won’t.’

  ‘He saved my life, too,’ I said. ‘But he can’t come on this mission, Dyl. He mustn’t know about Blacky or the Tassie tiger.’

  Dyl shrugged.

  ‘Okay. But we’ve not got much choice. Like it or not, he’s a part of this mission now.’

  I sighed. He was right. But I was not happy. Neither was Blacky. He’d got the whole story from reading my mind. He didn’t sigh. He snarled.

  Dyl and I trailed Blacky through the forest. John trailed us.

  Look. I’m a huge fan of Nature. If it released a CD I would be first in line to buy it. I’d follow it on Twitter. I’d go and see it live. I was seeing it live. But, after four or five hours of trudging through the same type of landscape, I was becoming tired, physically and emotionally.

  ‘How much further, Blacky?’ I asked.

  ‘About a day,’ he replied.

  ‘WHAAAT? You can’t be serious.’ I was flabbergasted. Never, in my short life, had something gasted my flabber so completely.

  ‘Do I sound like a stand-up comedian, boyo?’

  ‘But what are we going to eat?’

  ‘I thought that pack on your shoulders had provisions.’

  It did, though I hadn’t had time to check them out before. Emergency rations. Maybe it was one of those things where you poured water on a pill and it transformed into a roast chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing. Knowing my luck, it’d probably have Brussels sprouts as well. Dyl’s backpack, of course, was at the bottom of a gorge and John, I noticed, hadn’t brought his along at all.

  Survival food for one would have to stretch three ways.

  There’d be one tent for three of us. Not Blacky. I would barricade the flap and set up an electronic burglar alarm before I let that smelly mutt in. Then again, we’d probably wake up in the morning – freezing cold and starving – and find he’d spent the night in a five-star hotel with cable TV, gourmet food and a jacuzzi.

  We stopped for lunch around noon.

  I say lunch, but my hopes about the freeze-dried roast or a pill that would change into a Black Forest gateau turned out to be wildly optimistic. There were granola bars. High-energy, apparently. Low-taste, certainly. It was like chewing cat litter. Not that I’ve ever eaten cat litter.

  Well, yeah, okay. Once. But I was two years old. The cat scratched me as well.

  After lunch, just for a welcome change, we walked through forest. My feet were getting blisters. My blisters were getting blisters. The straps of my backpack were digging into my shoulders. All of my muscles ached.

  At least there was plenty of water. We often stumbled across small streams; the water was pure, cold and fresh. I had a water bottle attached to my pack and we drank as much as we could and then filled the bottle. You never knew if that was the last stream you’d ever see.

  The sun was low when we found a small clearing and set up camp. Dyl and John gathered dry wood while I found some large stones. The talk that Jimmy and Phil had given turned out useful. I arranged the stones in a circle and we broke up some of the smaller twigs into kindling and placed them in the centre. The matches in the survival pack worked, which was a relief.

  When the fire caught properly, we fed it bigger branches. Soon there was a roaring blaze. The four of us sat around it. Gradually, warmth returned. Nobody said much, but you couldn’t call our camp exactly quiet. For one thing, there was the sound of night-time critters stirring in the bush. For another there was the loud crackle of burning branches. But drowning all that was the sound of three stomachs rumbling. Blacky was okay. Maybe he’d brought along his stash of dried beef. But the rest of us were starving. Just as well the last Tasmanian tiger didn’t happen to stroll into our clearing. We’d have had it skinned and roasting in two shakes of a lamb’s willie, which wouldn’t exactly have helped our mission.

  After an hour of gazing moodily into the fire, we put up the tent. We were exhausted. Dyl, John and I stared at the space inside. It was the size of a welcome mat, but not as inviting.

  ‘If anyone farts,’ I said, ‘we are in real trouble.’

  Getting inside the tent was a problem. Dyl went first and scrunched himself up against the side. I went next and took up the other wall of the tent. This left a space of about six centimetres between us for John. He was thin, true, but not that thin. By the time he’d winkled himself in we were like sardines in a can.

  We smelt like them, too.

  No shower and a full day of walking through the forest. Not to mention sweaty brushes with death on a cliff’s edge.

  Maybe a fart would improve things.

  John’s legs stretched outside the tent flaps. We’d pitched it close to the fire, thinking we’d need the warmth. But three bodies generated enough heat to do without it. As I tried to sleep, I wondered if John’s legs would fall across the dying embers and barbecue themselves overnight.

  At least it would take care of breakfast.

  It was a restless night. I’d wake up and wonder where I was. Then it would all come flooding back and I’d try to get my nose out of John’s armpit. If anyone moved, everyone woke. This did nothing for our mood.

  Once, I woke and thought I saw something moving just outside the tent. I blinked groggily.

  ‘Blacky?’ I said in my head. ‘Is that you?’

  No reply.

  And then I saw it. Correction. I think I saw it. Between the flaps of the tent. A head. Thin, long jaws stretched in a grim smile. Rows of sharp teeth. I jolted upright and the violence of my action snapped Dyl and John to attention. John nearly put a hole in the tent’s roof with his head.

  ‘What the . . .’ said Dyl.

  There was nothing there. I stared at the opening in the tent. Blank. No sudden shifting of an animal alarmed at our movement. I must have imagined it. A nightmare.

  ‘Sorry, guys,’ I said. ‘I thought I saw something.’

  We settled down and I closed my eyes. When I opened them a moment later, John’s face was a centimetre from mine. His eyes bored into me. I nearly jolted upright again.

  ‘You will, Mucus,’ he croaked.

  ‘What?’ I whispered.

  ‘See something. My fis
t. In your eye.’

  On that cheerful note, I drifted off. The day had been a disaster. We were starving, wet and alternately freezing cold and suffocatingly warm. Surely things would improve tomorrow?

  If I’d known what the next day held, I probably wouldn’t have slept at all.

  I was woken by the sound of helicopter blades.

  At first I didn’t pay much attention, tried to brush the noise away as if it was an irritating fly. Then my eyes snapped open. At the same time, I heard Blacky’s voice in my head.

  ‘Hurry, tosh. They’re coming for you.’

  Jimmy and Phil! It had been a day since we left. They would have searched for an hour or so by themselves. The note I’d left wouldn’t have stopped them. Now the approaching helicopter told me they’d enlisted help.

  We got the tent down in thirty seconds, brushed away the remains of the camp fire and found shelter among the trees. The thrumming of the blades swelled to a roar, then faded. I let out my breath. I hadn’t realised I’d been holding it.

  I made to go back out to the clearing, but John Oakman took me by the arm.

  ‘Why, Mucus?’ he said.

  It was a fair question. I knew that. And I knew he deserved an answer. I just couldn’t give him one.

  ‘I can’t tell you, John,’ I said. ‘Sorry. But me and Dyl can’t go back. Not yet. We have something important to do. But you can, mate. Stay here in the clearing, light another fire. Put on plenty of green leaves. The smoke’ll bring the helicopter back. You could be eating breakfast in an hour.’ The thought of breakfast made my stomach rumble again.

  John fixed me with his eyes. They were light blue. I hadn’t noticed the colour of his eyes before.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Go with you.’

  ‘But, John . . .’

  ‘Go with you.’ His tone wasn’t firm. It was set in concrete. There was no point arguing.

  I stashed the tent away in my backpack. Ten minutes after waking, we were ready for another fascinating trek in the wilderness. Blacky once more led the way. The three of us trailed behind him. We didn’t talk. We were still tired. No. Weary. Starving. The day stretched before us and held no promise.

  ‘People!’ whispered Dyl. ‘I hear voices.’

  I almost bumped into him. I had been walking asleep and everything in the outside world had merged into a dream. Now I stopped. John, in turn, almost bumped into me. I had no idea where Blacky was. It took a moment or two for me to focus. Dyl was right. Voices. There were people ahead.

  Dylan padded softly forward, put his head around a tree. John and I followed.

  We had stumbled upon a clearing and in its centre were two mounds of camping equipment on legs. Two familiar mounds.

  Our tiger hunters had obviously stopped to have lunch. Remnants of food were scattered across a picnic blanket. George and Gloria stood about ten metres away from the blanket. They were examining a map.

  ‘What should we do, Blacky?’ I whispered. ‘Skirt around them? We could head into the forest, then circle back. They wouldn’t hear us.’

  I have no idea what Blacky’s response would have been because at that moment the tiger hunters turned their backs to us. Tombstone Teeth tapped the map and pointed into the bush. Dyl, meanwhile, slipped out from behind the tree and headed straight towards them. I tried to catch his arm but it was too late. I couldn’t even call out.

  What an idiot! He was going to blow everything.

  Dyl moved almost soundlessly across the intervening ground, and stopped at the picnic blanket. Then I realised what he was doing. Food!

  What a genius! He was going to save our lives.

  Now, I don’t want to give the impression I think stealing is okay. It isn’t. But we were starving and they obviously had plenty of provisions. My conscience was rumbling. But my stomach was rumbling louder.

  Dylan crouched at the blanket for a few seconds then spun away and raced back. I held my breath. My face must have been so purple you could have mistaken me for an eggplant. Only when he slipped behind our tree did I let my breath out. Dyl grinned triumphantly and held out a large bottle of cola.

  What an idiot!

  John and I stared at him.

  ‘I’m going to kill you, Dyl,’ I whispered.

  I even went to put my hands around his neck, but John stopped me. ‘No, Mucus,’ he said. ‘Can’t kill Dyl.’

  This struck me as generous from someone whose life’s ambition was to suffocate people. I looked upon John with renewed respect.

  ‘I kill him,’ he continued, reaching for Dyl’s neck with his hands. Dylan probably wouldn’t have resisted. That would have meant dropping the cola and I suspect you would have needed a chisel to pry it from his grasp.

  Luckily, death was averted. When Dyl realised that John and I considered food to be essential to survival – I suspect he thought we were being eccentric – he legged it back and returned with a couple of foil-wrapped packages. Our tiger hunters remained blissfully unaware. I reckon we could have removed their underdaks and they wouldn’t have noticed. Given they were hoping to sneak up on the most elusive creature in Australia, their inability to spot Dyl at five paces didn’t inspire confidence.

  We ripped the packages open.

  Sandwiches.

  Cheese and tomato sandwiches.

  Look, I would have eaten them if they’d been Brussels sprouts sandwiches.

  We tore into the food like wild animals.

  It’s amazing how much better I felt with something in my stomach. I rolled up the sandwich foil and put it into my pocket. Then I stowed the empty cola bottle into my backpack. I don’t litter. Not since I found out how much damage it does to the environment.

  Time to get moving again. I took a couple of paces and then heard another set of voices.

  Behind us, this time.

  Close.

  What was going on? I was beginning to wonder how a wilderness area could become so crowded. At the rate it was going we could organise our own full-strength rugby match. Including spectators.

  ‘Hide!’ hissed Blacky’s voice in my head.

  Trouble was, where? The voices behind were so close that taking off sideways into the bush would have been a dead giveaway. And we couldn’t move quietly away from the voices without running straight into the tiger hunters. I glanced up. The tree we were under had no branches close to the ground.

  That left only one direction.

  Down.

  I don’t think I would have been able to burrow into the undergrowth if I hadn’t just had an injection of cheese-and-tomato-sandwich energy. In ten seconds, the three of us were nestled under a carpet of twigs, yellowed leaves and rotting vegetation. Three seconds later the owners of the voices stopped right beside us.

  Jimmy and Mr Crannitch.

  You are probably amazed at my powers of deduction, since we were completely covered. And quite right, too. You see, I was staring at a boot only a few centimetres from my eye. I had to squint through a gap in the leaves. But, even with limited vision, I could tell by the small scratches and scuffs that this boot belonged to a person who spent time outdoors. The tufts of springy hair poking out at the ankle indicated the owner was genetically comparable to an orang-utan. The rest was elementary for someone of my intellect. Sherlock Holmes could have taken my correspondence course.

  Then again, Jimmy was yelling. That may have provided a small clue.

  ‘Ah dinnae ken where those boggin’ weans huv got tae. Gies a break, an’ at. Knaw what ah mean, eh?’

  Mr Crannitch was obviously still ill, because his words were slurred.

  ‘Oh, my God. Three! I’ve losht three kids. Wassa school goin’ to shay? Wassa parents goin’ to shay?’

  ‘Och, quit yer greetin, stop bumpin’ yer gums an’ put a sock in yer bletherin, ya galoot. We cannae give up oan ’em yetawhile.’

  It would have been fascinating to follow this conversation further, if only to see whether I could understand anything Jimmy said. But at that moment th
e Scotsman lifted his boot and brought it down on my outstretched fingers. I choked back a scream. Jimmy might be small but he packed weight. It felt like my hand was on fire. Then Mr Crannitch shifted his foot and brought it down on my other hand. Pinned to the ground by two gibberish-speaking adults, I discovered I’d lost my powers of concentration.

  There was more talking, accompanied by grinding of heels into my bruised and battered pinkies. Through the haze of pain, I managed to gather some information. Apparently, search parties were combing the gorge for our remains. They’d found Dyl’s ripped, battered backpack and jumped to conclusions. But Jimmy, it seemed, wasn’t convinced. He’d followed a trail away from the cliff’s edge and taken Mr Crannitch with him. Phil, I imagined, was looking after the rest of the group.

  At this stage, my fingers felt as if they’d been clamped in a vice and then had acid poured over them. To make matters worse, an ant had crawled up my left nostril in search of quality accommodation and a sneeze was building. I fought to control it. The pressure in my head was such that I worried the top of my skull would explode, spewing brains into the air like a volcanic eruption. And being splattered with grey matter might alert Jimmy and Mr C to our hiding place.

  Luckily they noticed the tiger hunters at this point and moved away. Thirty seconds later, we heard the low murmur of conversation, punctuated occasionally by bursts of high-decibel gibberish from Jimmy. I flexed my fingers and wondered whether I would be able to play the piano. I hoped so. I’d never been able to play it before.

  We lay for ten minutes while the ant continued to explore my nostril. It was probably considering where to set up its plasma TV with surround-sound and what colour to repaint the walls.

  The buzz of conversation was brief. Then we heard the tinkle of pots and pans fading into the distance. Jimmy’s voice dwindled and died.

  Silence.

  ‘Hurry up, tosh,’ came Blacky’s voice. ‘Time is running out.’

  We jumped up from our hiding place and brushed leaves from our clothes. I carefully evicted the ant from my nose and placed it on the ground. It wasn’t keen to leave. In fact, I suspect it was calling its mates to tell them it had found the perfect apartment. Vacant, apart from the odd booger, and with exceptionally reasonable rent. What’s more, there was another one next door.