Albert took out his pistol again and began to search the valley. He came upon another dead dingo lying half-submerged in the water hole. The body had been there for a while and the crayfish were beginning to feed on it. He walked the entire perimeter of the water hole but found nothing else.
Near the base of one of the cabbage palms, Albert found a set of bloodstained overalls that had been thrown on a bush next to the tree. The overalls belonged to one of the bandicoots, he couldn’t say which.
He walked up to the spring above the water hole and found a third dingo lying at the base of the path that led up to the rock shelter. Except for a blind eye and a small puncture wound on his nose, the dingo showed no signs of injury. The trail up to the shelter was spattered with blood.
Finally, he climbed the trail and crawled into the shallow cave.
The brown snake lay dead near the entrance to the shelter. Its head had been crushed, and someone had scattered red ochre over its body. Spent percussion caps were scattered around a pool of dried blood that had been smeared across the floor of the cave. Albert searched the back and sides of the shelter, but found nothing else.
He spent the rest of the afternoon searching the valley for signs of TJ, but found none. Once or twice he thought he saw movement at the end of the valley, but dismissed it as just reeds swaying in the slight breeze that rippled the pond.
After convincing himself that it was futile to search further, Albert walked back to the water hole and sat on the bank, staring into his own reflection. He knew that TJ had returned to the valley. His bloody coat was proof of that. There had been a fight and someone, probably TJ, had killed the dingoes. Other than that he knew nothing for sure. Albert stayed there trying to put the pieces together until darkness covered the pond and only then walked back to the camp.
A few sticks of firewood remained near the fire pit, and Albert started a small fire with the matches he knew would be in the pack Jack had given him. There were tins of sardines there also, but Albert couldn’t eat.
There was a chance the fire might attract attention. But Albert hadn’t seen any sign of the living in his search of the valley, and he knew the cliffs around him prevented the light from reaching the flats below the water hole.
Albert sat and stared into the fire in much the same way as he had stared into the water hole. He wasn’t sure that TJ was still alive—and if TJ was alive, he wasn’t sure where to start looking for him.
The fire had been reduced to embers when Albert heard a noise in the darkness beyond the camp. He put his paw on the pistol in his pocket. The wind was behind him, so he couldn’t smell anything. He sat quietly, waiting for another sound. When the wind shifted direction, he smelled stale gin.
A pair of eyes, reflecting the embers of the fire, appeared in the night across from where Albert was sitting.
“They ate Alvin.” Roger’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
Albert took his paw off the pistol. “Where’s TJ?”
“He screamed something awful.”
Albert could hear Roger scratching himself.
“You wouldn’t have a drink, would you, Albert?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to kill me, are you, Albert?” The eyes across the fire pit blinked several times.
“I thought about it.”
“I saved his head.” Roger’s voice was becoming a whisper.
“Whose head, Roger?”
“Alvin’s, of course, but don’t worry, Albert. I have it in a safe place.”
Albert moved slightly, and the eyes backed away from the campfire.
“I won’t hurt you, Roger. I just need to know what happened to TJ.”
After a moment the eyes came a little closer.
“I don’t remember, Albert. It was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday, Roger.”
“Was it?” The sound of Roger scratching himself intensified. “The dingoes were yelling and howling, and Theodore was hissing and shooting up at the cave. I remember that.”
Roger went quiet. Albert started to reach toward his pack, and again Roger backed away.
“I have some food in my pack, Roger. Do you want some?”
Roger giggled. “Alvin and I have plenty of crayfish. I put a dingo in the pond to feed them.”
Albert kept talking to Roger in an even tone, afraid that any change of pitch in his voice might send Roger back into the darkness. “I really need to know what happened to TJ. Try to remember.”
“The dingoes took him. I told you that already.” Roger sounded annoyed.
“Sorry, Roger, I must have forgotten. Where did they take him?”
“Bertram and Theodore were very angry.”
Roger came closer to the fire pit. Albert could almost see his outline.
“Bertram is not very nice. Did you know that, Albert?” Roger started whispering again.
“I know that, Roger.”
“When the dingoes took TJ out of the valley, Bertram started hitting Alvin. It wasn’t Alvin’s fault the dingoes wouldn’t let Theodore kill TJ, was it?”
It took an effort for Albert to keep his voice from showing what he felt. “I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“He was afraid to hit the dingoes, so he hit Alvin. That wasn’t nice, was it?”
“No, Roger. It wasn’t nice.”
“He took away my gin before he left. That wasn’t nice, either.” Roger scratched himself a few times.
Albert didn’t say anything, and Roger continued scratching.
“Alvin keeps asking me why they killed him instead of me and I don’t know what to tell him,” Roger said, beginning to worry. “What should I tell him, Albert?”
“I don’t know, Roger. I really don’t know,” Albert said honestly.
“They didn’t like the way I smelled,” Roger said after a moment.
“Who didn’t like the way you smelled?”
“The dingoes. That’s why they ate Alvin. I told you that.” Roger started getting annoyed again.
“I’m sorry.”
“They smelled both of us and then they started killing Alvin. After a while they ate most of him and then they went away.” Roger continued to fluctuate between confusion and reality. “Did you hear that, Albert?”
Albert listened carefully but heard nothing except a light wind moving the branches of an acacia. “I don’t hear anything.”
Roger shuffled his feet in the darkness. “It’s Alvin screaming—can’t you hear it?”
“It’s just the wind, Roger.”
The pupils of Roger’s eyes darted back and forth. “Alvin needs me. I have to go.”
“I can take you back to Ponsby Station.” Albert didn’t know what else to say.
“We like it here, me and Alvin.” Roger blinked twice before he closed his eyes and disappeared.
Albert didn’t sleep much that night, glad that TJ hadn’t died in the cave yesterday and worried that Roger might reappear with Alvin’s head.
At first light, Albert went and found Alvin’s bloody overalls and burned them in the fire pit with some leaves from a eucalyptus he had discovered near the spring. He hoped there might be some magic in the gesture that would ease Roger’s pain. Albert knew that one could never be sure about magic, but a lack of certainty is never a good reason to do nothing. Albert shouldered his pack and left the water hole while the smoke was still rising from the campsite.
21
A Circus Tent
Three of them were standing near a grevillea bush seventy yards up the shallow ravine from where he was standing. Albert had never been this close to a live dingo in the daylight, and it wasn’t an experience he had been looking forward to.
One of them was carrying a short flintlock musket; the other two were armed with spears and clubs. Other than woven bags suspended from their shoulders, the dingoes were naked. Their foxlike faces were covered with a reddish fur and showed the scars of past fights. The one with the musket was older than the other two, and the
fur on his muzzle was turning white.
Not so long ago Albert had assumed that fur was all anybody needed for modesty and had been insulted when Jack had mentioned he was naked. Now, the lack of clothing on the dingoes struck him as primitive. Old Australia had changed Albert in many ways, some for the better and some for the worse. Albert hoped that someday he would have the time to sort out which was which.
Albert had been glad to leave the valley. It had served its purpose in sheltering him and TJ when they were running from the Gates of Hell. Now it was just a place haunted by the dead.
He had gotten onto the flats and started walking toward the center of Hell itself. He had only a vague plan. He needed to find TJ and avoid a direct confrontation with the dingoes.
If he could locate TJ without being discovered, there was a chance he could find a way to help TJ escape and return with him to Ponsby Station. There were problems with the plan, and Albert knew it. If TJ was still alive, there was a good chance he was too badly hurt to travel. If that proved to be the case, Albert would deal with it when he had to.
His sense of smell had helped him more than once, and it stood by him that morning. He smelled dingoes from the moment he hit the flats. Albert tried to keep the wind in his face, and when he smelled dingoes, he would alter his course to the left or the right and continue walking.
But every attempt Albert made to continue in a straight line was met by the smell of dingoes on the wind or the reflection of light from what might be a gun barrel. After an hour of zigzagging deeper into the desert, the wind stopped completely. Albert stopped with it, afraid to move without some sense of what might lie ahead of him. The wind remained still, and finally he decided to try to find cover and a place to rest. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong ravine.
Albert’s train of thought was broken when one of the dingoes made a series of yipping sounds, ran down the ravine, and threw a spear at him.
He spun sideways, and the spear glanced off the back of his pack. He turned back toward the dingo, who was racing after the spear and transferring a club to his right paw. Albert managed to jerk Jack’s pistol clear of his pocket and pull the trigger before the dingo reached him.
Thirty grains of black powder blew gold dust and pieces of iron pyrites into the face of the oncoming dingo.
The dingo staggered back but didn’t fall. He had been blinded by the shot, and his face was a mask of blood and gold. The dingo began moving forward again, yipping and howling and trying to use his club on an enemy he couldn’t see.
Albert backed away from the wounded dingo, who kept swinging his club in wide arcs around his body and hitting nothing but air. The two dingoes at the end of the ravine watched quietly as their companion swung his club until he was exhausted. Finally, the blind dingo let the club hang at his side, then stuck his bloody muzzle in the air and let out a plaintive howl. The older dingo walked a few yards toward the wounded one and shot him with his flintlock.
The living dingoes made no attempt to move closer to Albert, and the one firearm they had was now empty. Albert wasn’t sure what to do next. Running was out of the question, and trying to kill the other two dingoes with gold dust was not realistic. Albert put the pistol back in his pocket. The spear that the dingo had thrown was on the ground near his feet.
At first Albert thought about grabbing the spear to defend himself, but then he remembered the body of the dingo he had found at the top of the trail to the valley. Acting more on instinct than reason, Albert picked up the spear and walked slowly over to the body lying in the middle of the ravine. The two other dingoes stood quietly as Albert laid the spear down next to the dingo sprawled in the dirt in front of him and then backed up a few yards.
Albert and the dingoes watched each other for a few moments. The older dingo handed his companion his musket and walked over to the body. He reached in his shoulder bag and took out a small leather pouch. The dingo opened the pouch and scattered the red ochre it contained over the body of the slain. A moment later, the old dingo heard something and looked up the ravine. Albert followed his gaze and saw a bulky figure wearing purple tights standing where the ravine sloped back up to the desert floor.
The old dingo raised his paw toward the figure, then disappeared into the brush along the ravine, followed by the younger one. The figure in the tights looked at Albert for a second, then turned and walked away, disappearing over the lip of the ravine.
Albert wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but for now, he was still alive. He walked up the ravine to where the purple-clad figure had disappeared. The desert at the top of the ravine was covered in bottlebrush and saltbush. Albert carefully wove his way through the brush until he saw the tops of gum trees growing above. He could smell water from the direction of the trees and headed that way.
The bush gave way to a series of rocky hills. At the base of the hills was a large water hole surrounded by wattle and gum trees. A circus tent stood under the sparse shade of one of the trees.
It was a small tent and had red-and-yellow stripes, just as TJ had described. A ragged pennant with the word Champion flew from the peak of the little tent. Over the years, the colors had faded and the canvas had been patched so many times it was difficult to determine if the stripes had originally been vertical or horizontal.
Muldoon sat on a three-legged stool in the shade of an awning that protected the front entrance of the tent from the sun. He had his paws on his knees, and his eyes were closed.
Albert approached the tent quietly. Muldoon made no movement but to cock his head, as if trying to hear a sound far away.
Albert didn’t say anything. It was obvious that Muldoon did not want to be disturbed, and good manners dictated that Albert wait for a better moment to try to strike up a conversation.
There had been a Tasmanian devil in the zoo in Adelaide, and once you had seen one, they stuck in your mind. The zoo had kept animals they considered dangerous in separate enclosures, but over the years Albert had seen the Tasmanian devil twice as they moved him in a portable cage to different places in the park. The devil hadn’t been much bigger than Albert, but there was a fierceness about him that Albert had never seen in any of the other creatures in the zoo. He kept striking out at the keeper through the bars of his cage, and he didn’t care how much it hurt, not if there was the slightest chance of inflicting injury on the object of his dislike.
Sometime in the past, Muldoon had been terribly burned. The fur on one side of his face had been replaced by wrinkled scar tissue that covered his eye socket and left him with a stub of an ear. One of the paws resting on a knee was badly scarred and had twisted as it healed. The fur on the other side of his face was now more gray than black.
Muldoon’s purple tights had been patched more times than the tent, and bits of fur showed through the places where older repairs had given way. It seemed to Albert that everything about Muldoon was being held in the present by a few pieces of thread.
Muldoon finally opened his eyes and looked over at Albert. “When I first came here, I could close my eyes and hear the crowds cheering my name.” He stood up and looked out on the desert. “It’s harder for me to hear them now.”
22
The Famous Muldoon
Albert had set up camp near the water hole some distance from Muldoon’s tent. As TJ had said, the Tasmanian devil was a creature of few words. He had told Albert he was welcome to water and then went back inside his tent. That had been several hours ago, and Muldoon had not reappeared.
Albert had emptied his pack, and for the first time he had a chance to make a complete inventory of what Jack had put together. Along with TJ’s coat, which Albert had brought with him from the valley, the pack contained two blankets, water, and some matches. Jack had also included some hard biscuits, several tins of sardines, and a half-pint of whiskey.
After his experience at Ponsby Station, Albert had given up hard liquor. But he knew TJ had a taste for it, and he was glad that Jack had included some.
> Albert ate two of the biscuits but didn’t open any of the sardines. He would hunt the lagoon in the morning. He knew that Muldoon liked sardines, and he was hoping to trade the ones he had for information about TJ. It was obvious that Muldoon knew much more about the dingoes than Albert did and might be in a position to help.
Darkness came without a sign of the Tasmanian devil. Albert laid out his blankets and started a small fire. He was sure that both Jack and TJ would disapprove of the fire as being a dangerous act in enemy territory, but Albert felt he could take the risk. Muldoon was close by and seemed to be on friendly terms with the dingoes. Besides, the dingoes knew where Albert was, and if they came looking they could find him, fire or no fire.
The hills blocked any view he might have had of the distant mountain, but he could see the stars beginning to appear. They were the same stars that appeared early when he watched the sky from the valley entrance not so long ago. He was glad to see them again.
Albert was just getting ready to put a few more sticks on his fire when Muldoon walked into the light carrying his wooden stool. He put the stool down across the fire from Albert and sat.
Muldoon had changed his clothes and was now wearing a dark peacoat and a watch cap. The coat was worn and missing a few buttons. The cap had been pulled over on the side of his head to cover the stub of his ear and mask some of the scars on the side of his forehead. Muldoon looked at Albert with his good eye.
“I’m Muldoon.”
“I’m Albert.” Albert sat down on his blankets.
The Tasmanian devil seemed hesitant, as if not knowing what to say next. After a moment he spoke again. “Do you need more blankets? I have a couple of spare ones in the tent.”
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