The other cormorants in the area show no interest in the activities of the farm—and even if they were acting out of the ordinary, the wounds I’ve found have been far too large to be the work of a cormorant’s bill. The parrots, meanwhile, are incapable of harming anything other than themselves.
Logic points to the killer being human, but the only people here are the two farmhands, Nicola and Charlotte, and myself. The park ranger visits every so often and a pilot drops off supplies once a month, but other than that it is just the three of us. The situation is perplexing and upsetting—I must admit that the deaths are taking a significant toll on me. Over the years I have formed a strong bond with the wombats. It is hard to explain, but if you have seen one and admired its friendly face, its amiable trot or its marvellous thick coat, you might begin to understand what it is like to raise these creatures from the moment they emerge from their mother’s pouch. Having failed to meet the right woman I do not have children of my own, and this herd of wombats is the closest thing to family that I might ever know.
Obviously I am not killing the creatures, but I cannot bring myself to believe that either of the women is doing it—especially Nicola. In her second winter with us she has proven to be the most reliable hand the farm has ever hired. Hard-working, capable and diligent, she also displays a level of care and affection for the livestock that I have never seen in my twenty-odd years of farming. It’s hard to believe that she has come to us all the way from the north coast; it is as if she had been born here. She is as close to the wombats as I am. I have no doubt that she will make a fine vet once she has finished university, although she will need to toughen up. Each time we find a new corpse she cannot help but weep, and the anguish in her expression often inspires in me an intense feeling of despair.
I suppose if you were to suspect one of us, it would be Charlotte, the new hand—but, hard as I try, I cannot convince myself that she is responsible. Yes, behind her pale face there lurks a curious ferocity; and yes, she often wanders through the freezing fields alone after her work for the day is done; and yes, she occasionally seems to lose control of herself in fits of quiet emotion, eyes closed, hands clenched, small noises leaking through her gritted teeth. But it cannot be her; she loves the wombats more than Nicola does, if that were possible. After checking their skin for ticks every morning she brushes them, an inessential task that she revels in, murmuring in their ears, ruffling their necks as if they were pets. In the afternoons she watches over them so intently that I worry for the health of her eyes. And in the evenings she shepherds them into their burrows with a wordless song that lulls them into a state of hypnosis; as she sings they march sleepily towards her voice and tumble into their holes, more placid than I have ever seen them. While Nicola cries over the fresh corpses, Charlotte cannot look at them; she retreats to the farthest part of the farm to scream, and scream, and scream. Her care is as obvious as it is distressing. It cannot be her.
I do not believe there is yet a need to contact Mrs Quorn, the owner of the farm. She has left the property in my care for nearly a decade now, and I would hate to give her a reason to doubt my reliability. It’s possible that she would want to come and see the corpses for herself. Or worse—she might fire me. I cannot bear the thought of being taken away from the farm, or from Melaleuca. If the wombats are my family, then this place is my home. Its undulating moorlands of peat and buttongrass; the glints of white quartzite that blink on the mountain caps; the cold, clean welcome of its unbroken sky; the harsh cliffs and tea-coloured waters; the gathering sense of wild solitude that breathes out of every crack in the land. I cannot go back to the flat brown farms of the Midlands, or the over lush dairy pastures of the northwest. I won’t be leaving the lonely beauty of this place; not if I can help it.
In any case, the hands and I have come up with a plan: like shepherds of old we will begin sleeping among our flock, taking turns to stay up all night beside the vulnerable burrows. This will surely help us catch the killer, although I am aware that it will play havoc with my already troubled sleep. For weeks I have been unable to find sufficient rest. I have been lying awake, my mind plagued by images of the wombat corpses, and what sleep I have been snatching has been filled with inky shadows and surging fears that I can never recall in any detail. Still, it cannot be avoided. And besides—these nightly distresses are surely being caused by the dying animals. As soon as they are safe, I’m sure my sleep shall return to its normal state.
TWO
Our plan to safeguard the wombats at night seemed to be working. While we did not catch whatever has been killing them, neither did any more wombats die for the first six nights of our vigil. A sense of cautious optimism began permeating the farm. Perhaps the killer had been a wild dog that, now faced with our presence, had decided to move on? This story became more convincing after every successful watch, and by the seventh night—my third turn to act as watchman—I was half-convinced that the threat had disappeared. Perhaps this was why I let my concentration slip. By two o’clock a sense of weariness came over me, and after such a long time without a proper sleep I did not have the strength to resist it. I remember my head nodding forward, but instead of finally experiencing the deep sleep my body had promised I was again visited by the dark, flickering dreams that have been my nightly companions for weeks. These shapes sent a nameless horror clattering through my soul, even as I lay dead to the world under my fleece parka.
At daybreak I awoke with a sudden lurch, slumped at my post, exhausted and thankful to be free of the dreams. I looked around, seeing the wombats happily emerging from their subterranean lairs, and felt a tremendous sense of relief. They were only waking up; none had been harmed. But as I stood and stretched and flexed my fingers against the cold I saw them ambling in a wide, strange pattern, avoiding a low part of the paddock just beyond the mouths of their burrows. With apprehension churning through me I wandered over to find not one but three dead wombats lying in a neat line. The wounds were identical to the previous victims, and their eyes, of course, had been neatly removed. Horror even greater than I’d felt in my dreams overcame me, but it was soon replaced by fury—at myself; at whatever was responsible; and, for the first time in a decade, at Melaleuca, for being so isolated and primitive. At some point grief crept into me too, I am sure, although my memories of its cold touch are obscured by the red rage that was swelling inside me.
Needless to say, the hands were grievously upset when I told them what had happened. Nicola tried to maintain a brave face, but I could see that these killings had affected her more than all of the others combined. Charlotte did not attempt to conceal her reaction. A howl of despair burst forth from her mouth, right there in front of us, a howl not aimed at me or my laxness or at anything in particular: a torn, broken howl.
We buried the bodies and tried to get on with the farm work. I confess that it was hard, perhaps the hardest day I have ever spent on the land. But I refuse to give up hope. Far worse things have been happening to farms and farmers all over the world for thousands of years. Floods, fire, pestilence, disease; yet farmers always find a way to push on. I will not let a few dead marsupials conquer my spirit.
THREE
Hope has appeared, although not in the form any of us expected. The most recent wombat corpse—there have been six more since I last wrote—was accompanied by a number of midnight-black feathers that could only belong to a black-faced cormorant. Their abnormal size told me that they must have fallen from the wings of the huge specimen that lives in Old Quorn’s burial field.
We had finally learned who the killer was! But the hands were not as relieved as I had expected them to be. If anything, the feathers only increased the gloom and mistrust that has been hovering over them for the last week. It is as if they have given up hope, or as if—and this is surely impossible, no matter how many times the thought occurs to me—they are blaming me for what has happened. I am quite sure that I can see their eyes narrowing every time I wander past them in the yard or wa
ve to them in the field from my quad bike. It is true that these troubling times have brought them closer; their dining chairs practically bump legs at the table, and it has become a rare sight to see them alone. I do not like this closeness. I feel that they are gossiping, murmuring falsehoods about me, plotting to abandon the farm and accuse me of misdeeds. Where once I admired them, now I regard them with suspicion.
Still, they are performing their duties adequately, even though the herd is suffering, and not only from the drop in numbers—the remaining wombats have gone off their grass. Almost all of them are now small enough to allow their ribs to poke out against the dull folds of their usually lustrous fur. Instances of ticks, fleas and mange are also rising, and caring for this reduced number of creatures is more work than the large, healthy herd ever was.
It is obvious to me that the loss of stock, combined with the ill-health of the remaining beasts, means that we will not be able to meet our orders by the end of the season. We had agreed to supply over five hundred premium-grade pelts to various clients, but at this rate we will be lucky to harvest even half that number. I know that I need to tell Mrs Quorn—and I know that she will be unlikely to retain my services once she discovers what has been going on—but I cannot bring myself to tell her of the problem without first having solved it. And with these feathers, I finally have a way to do so. Once I have killed the monstrous cormorant I will telephone her immediately.
Another thing: since I found the feathers my dreams have changed. They are still visiting me, every night, and they still contain the flickering, shifting tongues of murky darkness, yet they have been robbed of their menace. I no longer feel horror when they swamp my sleeping mind, only curiosity.
FOUR
It has been years since I last hunted, so I am trying to be forgiving of myself. But my inability to catch the cormorant is as confounding as it is vexing. For the past six mornings I have ventured out into its field, armed with a shotgun, net and knife, and each trip has been an utter failure. I can find the bird without any trouble—it is never far from its home, the looming blackwood—but somehow it always evades me. It sits in the upper branches, huge and silent, preening its cloud-white chest with its dagger of a bill, paying no attention to me other than the occasional flick of a sharp eye. But as soon as I take aim it trades perches, hopping up, down, left and right, every time I try to get a sight on it. At no point does the creature seem perturbed. If anything, the glint in its eye is one of humour.
If I try to force it lower it descends only far enough to trick me into leaping, casting my net and getting it caught on the branches. Occasionally it takes wing and flaps to a fence post on the other side of the field. On more than one occasion this has tempted me into firing after it, my gun booming a scatter of pellets that never even graze the webbing of its feet. I am often tempted to pursue it on foot, but I dare not risk going near the abandoned mine. Its rusting maw gapes at me from across the field, and I think the cormorant can sense my fear. Once landed it turns, beholds me with its pointy eyes and releases its high harsh cry, which has followed me out of the paddock every afternoon for the last six days—a cry I cannot mute or halt or escape.
I am being toyed with: that much is certain. And even more frustrating than my inability to kill the beast is the fact that the wombats are still dying. Each morning reveals a new victim. Now that we have reached the dead of winter frost has begun snapping in pink-white sheets across their wounds, forming ice webs over the frozen blood and viscera. It is tempting to believe that the monstrous cormorant has taken revenge on my harassments by increasing its quota of kills, but it seems just as likely that other cormorants—its minions, perhaps—are responsible. More of them have been arriving on the property with every passing day, abandoning the harbour for reasons I cannot explain. Their feathers have begun to scatter in great numbers across the fields, black quills darkening the grass and frost and intermittent snow.
This assault of plumage has taken a toll on the hands. Each time they see a fresh feather they shudder and turn away, so I have taken to collecting them and storing them in my room, away from where Nicola or Charlotte will see them. But all this cringing, this flinching—it is not fitting for professional farmhands to behave in such a manner. And their attachment to the wombats, once such a benefit to the farm, is now a sappy and enraging show of foolishness. They simper after the herd, cooing and frowning at the skinny beasts, treating them as if they were sick children, not mindless marsupials. They are certainly no help in dealing with what is actually threatening them. Each morning I march off, gun in hand and knife in belt, as their eyes follow me filled with what looks more and more like fear. It is futile, feminine softness, and nothing more. I am beginning to regret hiring them.
I can kill the monstrous cormorant. Of this I am sure. Yet the longer I hunt it, the less angry I become at my failure. Initially it was infuriating, but lately I have caught myself studying the creature for nearly an hour without even raising my gun. There is a calculated wisdom in its black stare; or if not wisdom, a depth, an intensity, a kind of primitive understanding of things; and my respect for it grows each day. I would write more, but I am exhausted. Sleep is calling me. At least this is something I can rely on—for as tough as life has become, recently my sleep has never been better.
FIVE
To describe what I saw in my sleep last night as dreams would be like calling a whale a fish, a storm a cloud. What I had were visions. As soon as my head hit the pillow my mind was swamped with the dark, flickering shapes that I have become well used to, yet never before have they been so clear. Their nameless murk had transformed into sharp imagery that reared before me, bold, violent and profound. As I watched them, in this newfound clarity, I saw that they were more than just shapes: they were creatures. And not just creatures: birds. And not just birds: as they wheeled through the hazy sky I made out the shapes of their wings, the cruel hooks of their bills, the pale shading of their chests against the hard blackness of their backs, and suddenly I saw they were cormorants, hundreds of cormorants, thousands of cormorants, all careering in a whirling dance before me. Below them I saw that the shrouded landscape was not a bare dreamfield but a version of the farm, cast in twilight, with the wilds of Melaleuca turned grey instead of green. Here there were no wombats, no fences, no meddling contraptions of machinery or human design. Only cormorants, and quietness, and for some reason, me.
I waited for them to turn on me, strangely unafraid of the death they carried in their bills, yet they did not. Then I realised: this flying dance was not a threat, but a message of acknowledgment, or acceptance, or even friendship. They had been trying to tell me this ever since my dreams began—that we were close, somehow, and should be closer. It dawned over me like a crashing tide, knowledge that felt powerful and immense: I was welcome here. My dream-self turned weak and watery. And when the realisation had seeped right through me, from my forehead to my toes, I saw into the centre of the flock of birds, straight at a figure I had not previously seen, a figure they were circling. A single huge member of their species, sitting still and calm on a blackwood branch: the monstrous cormorant of Old Quorn’s field. Through the vortex of shadows and feathers it was branding me with a muscled, soulful stare. It opened its bill and, just as the first note of its high cry screamed across the twilight field and into my ears, I woke up.
Light had filled my room through the small window. The smell of salt and oil was thick in the air. Usually after I awoke I would be groggy and disoriented, but this day I had never felt more alert. Rolling over I saw that I had somehow gone to sleep on the pile of cormorant feathers that I have been collecting over the past few days. I couldn’t remember placing them on my bed before I fell asleep, but this seemed unimportant.
I got dressed, washed my face and headed outside into the fields. I didn’t know what time it was. It must have been around dusk, because I could hear Charlotte singing the wombats into their burrows. Her lilting, wordless ramble scratched at my ears
. Its docile tone reminded me of her stupidity, of her pointless quest to care for these wretched beasts. Couldn’t she see that they were doomed? I watched them lumber towards her, four-legged lumps of uselessness made flesh, and realised that I hated them, that I must always have hated them, that I had been lying to myself for all the long years I have been trapped in this barren southern hell.
SIX
Damn these women! Damn them! They have contacted the ranger without my permission, telling him uncounted lies and exaggerations about the business on the farm. He arrived here this morning, full of questions and concerns, as if I had done something wrong. I was roused from the depth of my murky visions by his knocking and shouting, and was in mind to turn my shotgun on him. Perhaps I should have. Or perhaps I should have aimed at those feeble, treacherous women. How I hate them; oh, how I wish them pain.
The ranger had taken it upon himself to tour the farm without me, no doubt encouraged by Nicola and Charlotte. I glared as he fumbled through his inane questions—about the farm, the wombats; about me, if I was feeling unwell, did I need to see a doctor, did Mrs Quorn know, what was my plan, why hadn’t I contacted anyone, et cetera, all in a wheedling, faux-friendly tone. A jellyfish of a man. I can’t remember exactly what I told him, but my words must have been harsh, for after I responded to his lengthy ramble he finally rediscovered his spine. It straightened, pushing his chest outwards so that his toy-like badge glinted in the weak sunlight, as he told me that I needed to do something—fast, and alone. For the hands, he claimed, had asked him to organise them a flight out. They were resigning, the buffoon told me, and did not feel like they could tell me to my face. They were scared, he said, scared of me and scared for me. And so was he: in his pink face I could see the concern of a simpleton. You aren’t yourself, he said. Let me give you a hand and we’ll sort all this out.
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