Albert shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks. It looks like a warm night.”
Muldoon sat and fidgeted for a minute. “You probably need to get some sleep. I guess I’ll head back.”
Muldoon stood up and made a show of picking up his stool. It was clear that Muldoon was either shy or unused to conversation and would need a little help to get comfortable.
“Would you like a drink?” Albert reached in his pack and took out the half-pint of whiskey. Albert had observed that almost any friendship in Old Australia required the offer of alcohol.
Muldoon gratefully replaced his stool by the fire and sat down again. He took the offered bottle with his good paw and, with some effort, extracted the cork with the burned one. He took a small drink and passed the bottle back to Albert.
“I guess you don’t get much company,” Albert said as he took the bottle and held it in his lap.
Muldoon thought a moment. “Dingoes, I get dingoes. But they don’t talk much.”
“I don’t know anything about dingoes,” Albert volunteered.
“Dingoes are pretty strange.” Muldoon thought for a moment. “They like living out here.”
He lapsed into silence. Albert passed the bottle back to him, and Muldoon took another drink.
“How long have you been out here?” Albert asked.
Muldoon held the bottle in his good paw for a few moments, then took another drink. “About eight years. I came out here to die, but it didn’t work out.”
He passed the bottle back to Albert, who once again held it in his lap.
“You don’t drink?” Muldoon asked.
“No.” Albert passed the whiskey back to Muldoon.
“Neither do the dingoes—they can’t stand the smell of the stuff.” Muldoon took a sip and stared into the small fire in front of him. The light was absorbed by his jacket and hat but was reflected by the scars on his face. There was a sadness about him that Albert had seen that morning at the circus tent, a sadness he could feel as he watched Muldoon across the fire.
The Tasmanian devil spoke again. “Nobody comes out here except the desperate.”
Albert waited for a few moments for Muldoon to continue, but he remained silent. Finally, Albert spoke. “Do you remember TJ? You helped him get through here awhile back.”
Muldoon nodded.
“The dingoes took him two days ago and I’m trying to find him. He’s a friend of mine.” Albert was relieved to finally be able to get directly to the point.
“What happened?” Muldoon started putting the cork back in the bottle with his bad paw.
“I don’t know for sure—I wasn’t there. But it looks like there was a fight up at the water hole you took him to. TJ shot some dingoes. He was hurt and got captured, but the dingoes wouldn’t let Theodore and Bertram kill him.” The words tumbled out of Albert in rapid succession.
“The possum and the one-eared wallaby; I know of them.” Muldoon had become focused. “What happened after that?”
“The dingoes took TJ out here someplace, and I guess Bertram and Theodore headed back to the Gates of Hell. That’s all I know.” Albert stopped talking and waited for some response from Muldoon.
Muldoon stood up and absentmindedly put the whiskey bottle in the pocket of his peacoat. He started pacing up and down by the fire.
“You can never tell about dingoes. They do one thing one day and then something completely opposite the next. But one thing they like is a good fight and another is bravery. If a dingo dies well they leave him with his weapons and scatter red earth over the body.”
“TJ was one to hold his own,” Albert said with absolute certainty.
Muldoon nodded.
“What will they do with him?” Albert was starting to hope that TJ might still be alive.
“You said he was badly hurt?” Muldoon sat back down on his stool.
“Theodore shot him in the back.”
Muldoon waited a few moments before continuing. “If he fought well at the water hole and he survives that bullet in his back, the dingoes might adopt him.”
“They adopt other creatures?” The more Albert learned about the dingoes, the more strange they seemed.
“As far as I know, the last time they did it was eight years ago. But there’s always a chance.” Muldoon picked up a couple of sticks and fed them into the dying fire.
“What happened this morning?” Albert asked.
“You mean with the dingoes?”
“Yes.”
“They’d never seen a platypus before. If the young one hadn’t gotten so full of himself, they might have left you alone.”
Albert sat up straight when he heard Muldoon say platypus. “I’m not the first platypus you’ve seen, am I?” It took every bit of self-control Albert had to keep himself from shouting.
“There was one in the zoo where I came from,” Muldoon said matter-of-factly.
“But not here. You’ve never seen another platypus here.” Albert was afraid he already knew the answer, but he had to ask.
Muldoon shook his head. “I’ve fought in every mining town in the territory and walked this desert for eight years, and you’re the only one I’ve seen.” He paused a second before continuing, “I’m the only devil in Hell and you’re the only platypus.”
Muldoon fished the whiskey bottle out of his coat pocket and sat down on the wooden stool. He started to pull the cork and thought better of it, then tossed the bottle back to Albert. “You heard the stories, didn’t you?” he asked.
“What stories?” Albert put the bottle in his pack.
“The stories about a place where nothing has changed and Australia was the place it once was.”
Albert nodded. “That was what everyone talked about at the zoo in Adelaide.”
Muldoon bent toward the dying fire. “Is this the place you expected to find?”
“No,” Albert answered.
“When I first got here I thought there would be some of my kind in Old Australia.” Muldoon stood up and used the side of his foot to push dirt over the embers of the fire. “Now I’m not sure anymore what my kind is.”
23
Dingoes
Before sunrise the next morning, Muldoon appeared back at Albert’s camp, carrying a walking staff and with several canteens looped over one shoulder. He was still wearing his watch cap, but the peacoat had been replaced by a stained cotton jacket that also had seen better days.
Muldoon told Albert he was going to try to find TJ, and he cautioned Albert to wait at the water hole until he returned. Then, without another word, Muldoon walked into the brush and was soon lost from sight.
Albert had wanted to give Muldoon the sardines before he left but had hesitated. He knew that once the sardines were brought out of the pack he would have to talk about Jack, and he wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. He was pretty sure that one of Jack’s fires had caused Muldoon’s burns, and he was afraid that Jack might be such a sore point with Muldoon as to interfere with TJ’s rescue.
The weather had been hot and the air so still that the pennant on top of Muldoon’s tent stayed limp in the daylight hours. The water hole was cool in the early mornings, and Albert spent the time hunting grubs and freshwater shrimp. By midday, the sun heated the shallow water to an uncomfortable level, and the little creatures that lived in the water hole went into hiding in the mud and rocks that lined the bottom.
Albert spent his afternoons lying in the shade of a blanket that he had suspended between two gum trees a few yards from the water. He would lie on his back with his head supported by his pack, close his eyes, and try to imagine what the world he was looking for would be like. It would have other platypuses in it. That was for sure. But he wasn’t certain what else that world might contain. His past visions of cool water and shady riverbanks hadn’t survived his time in Old Australia.
Dozing in the heat of those afternoons, Albert would sometimes dream that the place he was looking for would be just another zoo without bars, and the banks of any river he foun
d would be lined with unfriendly platypuses eating cotton candy and throwing rocks.
The noise of small black flies buzzing around his face would get louder, and he would pull himself back from the dream and into the shade of his blanket. He would lie there trying to brush away the flies and worrying that TJ might be a long time dead.
The water hole became a magical place in the brief dusk between the heat of the day and the cold of the desert night. Albert would walk in the fading light around the water hole to Muldoon’s tent and look at the red-and-yellow patches that covered the tent. If he was in luck, a small breeze might straighten the pennant for a moment, and the word Champion would flutter above the tent.
Albert wondered what the tent might contain, and what it might have looked like when Muldoon was still a champion and its stripes were new. The tent and Muldoon had become one in Albert’s mind, their current shabbiness making their past glories seem grander than they might really have been.
As much as Albert wanted to know what was inside the tent, he made no attempt to go inside or to peek through the drawn curtains that covered the entrance. It would be Muldoon’s life he was walking into, and one didn’t do that sort of thing without an invitation—and an understanding that you never walked into someone’s life without being changed by the experience.
Albert would stare at the tent for a while and try to imagine the crowds yelling Muldoon’s name, but he had never seen Muldoon fight, and his imagination wasn’t up to creating an entire world of mining camps and blood sports. All that came to mind was the Muldoon he knew: the one covered in scars, waiting for the cheers that he knew would never come again.
Then Albert would walk away from the tent, collect his blanket and his pack from the bushes, go back to his camp, and start a small fire. He would wrap himself in the blanket and lean against his pack. If he was still hungry, he would eat a biscuit or two and then watch the fire until he fell asleep.
Five days after Muldoon left to look for TJ, Albert woke up to find an old dingo watching him from the edge of the brush near his camp. Albert wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure the dingo was the same animal he had encountered in the ravine nearby.
The dingo was squatting in the open across the coals from where Albert had fallen asleep. He had his flintlock musket in one paw and what looked like TJ’s hat in the other. Albert sat up slowly and shrugged the blanket off his shoulders. He and the dingo watched one another for several minutes, neither making any sudden movements.
The old dingo got slowly to his feet and walked toward Albert. When he had covered half the distance, he put the hat on the ground and then backed his way to his original position. The dingo squatted again and waited.
Albert, following the dingo’s lead, got up slowly, walked over, and retrieved the hat, then returned to his blanket and sat down. He looked down at the hat in his lap. It was TJ’s hat, chinstrap and all. Albert raised his paw to the old dingo. The dingo raised his paw in return and stood up. He turned back toward the brush and beckoned for Albert to follow him.
Muldoon had told Albert to wait for him, but that had been several days ago. If the dingo was the same one from before, Muldoon had been on good terms with it—and so far, the dingo had been acting more like a friend than an enemy.
Albert had not forgotten that he had caused the death of a young dingo and that there was always the possibility that the old dingo’s manner masked an elaborate plan for revenge. However, it was certain that the old dingo had some connection with TJ, and that was enough for Albert to take the risk.
He stood up slowly, took the canteen out of his pack, and went to the water hole and filled it. When he returned, the old dingo was still waiting for him.
Albert picked up his blanket and put it in the pack along with the canteen and his jacket. He left Jack’s pistol in the coat pocket. It was going to be too hot to wear the coat, and the gun was almost useless. If the dingo meant him any harm, he would have to depend on the weapons nature had given him. He tied TJ’s hat on the back of the pack, pulled the pack straps over his shoulders, and started toward the dingo.
When he was sure that Albert was behind him, the dingo trotted into the desert. Albert followed and found himself keeping up a pace he wasn’t used to. The dingo moved effortlessly through the desert, and he seemed to know just when and where to go to keep from being slowed by clumps of brush or rough terrain.
The early morning air was cool, and Albert found that if he stayed close enough to the dingo in front of him, he could move along the desert floor with the same lack of effort.
But the dingo’s smell was very strong, and at first Albert was repelled by it. It still reminded him of the killing of his mother, and that conjured up the zoo in Adelaide, and the horrors that had resulted from her death.
The longer the smell surrounded him, the less it bothered him. As an adolescent he had smelled the dog that killed his mother and that he had killed in turn. There was no subtlety in the memory of that smell from so long ago.
The scent of the dingo in front of him was different. The odor of dog was still there, but it was only a part of something more complex. The dingo smelled like wattle, like the red earth that covered the desert floor, like wood smoke, and like the distant smell of water and gum trees. The dog had smelled of domestication and slavery.
None of the things that Albert had thought were simple in Adelaide had remained that way in Old Australia. What he had thought was evil for so long was now helping him to save a friend.
The dingo slowed his pace with the coming of the midday heat. They kept walking for a while, but before the sun reached its zenith, the dingo led Albert to a rock outcropping that provided enough shade to offer them some relief.
The dingo leaned his musket up against one of the rocks and took a pawful of dried beetles from his woven bag, ate some, and gave some to Albert. In turn, Albert took his canteen out of his pack and passed it to the dingo. The dingo wouldn’t drink directly out of the canteen, but would pour a little water in a paw and lap it into his mouth.
After they finished eating the beetles, the old dingo curled up in the shade and closed his eyes. Albert prepared to wait out the heat with his new companion.
The stillness of the desert was broken by the whisper of a dry wind that came up almost as soon as they had reached the shelter of the rocks. The wind was strong enough to keep the flies away, and Albert was grateful for it. The dingo lay still, his short fur occasionally ruffled by the moving air that found its way between the stones around them. Occasionally, he would flick an ear to the left or the right, as if trying to identify a distant sound, or he would raise his head, smell the wind, then settle back and close his eyes again.
Albert had known nothing of the desert when he first came to Old Australia. He had learned what he knew from Jack and his own trips across the flats of Hell. The morning he had spent trotting after the dingo had taught him a little bit more, but Albert knew it wasn’t enough and never would be. The dingo sleeping near him was at home here. It was where he belonged.
Albert knew that he belonged someplace else. Where that place was, he didn’t know, but it was somewhere, and as soon as his friends were safe, he would look for it again.
A gentle tap on the shoulder roused him from a light sleep. He opened his eyes to see the old dingo standing in front of him. The sun was getting low on the horizon, and the dry wind was cooler than it had been before. The dingo trotted back into the desert. Albert struggled to put on his pack and hurried after him.
The nature of the desert had changed that afternoon. Albert and the dingo trotted out of the flats onto a finger of red sandstone that extended into the desert from a low-lying rock ridge a mile or so ahead of them. Albert could see small columns of smoke rising from somewhere beyond the ridge.
They walked slowly up the finger of rock for an hour, and it was nearly sunset when they reached the top of the ridge. Below them, a small dingo encampment was scattered across a small sandstone plateau. Near
where they stood, a spring trickled clear water through the rocks and down onto the plateau. The water ran into small pools worn in the sandstone, overflowed them, then escaped over a lip of rock beyond the camp.
Small campfires were burning in front of simple brush shelters that had been built haphazardly across the plateau. Dingoes sat near the fires working on stone tools or cooking pieces of meat that Albert didn’t recognize. A few dingo pups played an endless game of tag through the camp, and their yips of excitement were the only sounds Albert could hear.
Muldoon was standing in the middle of the camp, his burned paw in the jacket of his peacoat. He looked up on the ridge and waved to Albert with the paw that still worked.
24
Moonlight and Laundry
TJ lay on his stomach on a pile of cut grasses that had been placed on the floor of one of the brush shelters in the dingo encampment. He turned his head slightly when Albert crawled through the entrance.
“I should have known better than to trust a drunk.”
It was dark in the shelter, and what light there was came from a campfire not far from the entrance. It took a few moments for Albert’s eyes to adjust to the dim light.
Woven bandages had been wrapped around TJ’s chest, and they held a poultice of leaves pressed up against the wound in his back. His bloody long johns and canvas pants lay folded at his feet, and next to them was the cotton sack holding the rest of his possessions. The Enfield carbine had been propped against the brush wall of the shelter, close enough for TJ to reach it. A bowl of water was sitting on the ground.
Albert sat up and his hat brushed the roof of the shelter. “How are you doing?”
“Better than I was a week ago.” TJ propped his head on his paws and spoke in a low voice. “How about yourself?”
“A little tired.” Albert crossed his legs and leaned forward so he could hear TJ better.
“What happened to the rodents?” TJ asked.
“Alvin’s dead and Roger went crazy.”
Albert of Adelaide Page 14