Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent (2 page)

The pig guts smelled warm, bloody and wonderful. The dog got her teeth into the meaty pig's heart before her brothers could. She pulled at it, determined to carry it off, to eat by herself under the trees.

Suddenly one of the older dogs growled a warning. She looked up as something fell from the sky.

The net covered her, almost blinding her. She tried to run but her paws caught in the holes. Her brothers struggled and clawed, trying to bite their way free.

‘We caught the dogs!' yelled a boy. The other boys' feet thudded on the dirt as they danced around the net.

The dog tensed, waiting to bite if one came close enough.

‘Loa?' It was his nephew again.

‘What?'

‘We netted the dogs! How do you tie them up?'

‘Carefully,' said Loa. ‘They'll bite your fingers off.'

‘Loa! Show us how!'

Loa heaved himself to his feet. He was a man, a hunter. It was his duty to show the boys what to do. He trudged over to the heaving mass of dogs and net. ‘You put your foot on their snout, see?' He stamped down on the biggest dog, a male. ‘That way they can't bite. Now reach through the net and tie up the front paws. That's it. Now the hind paws. See how I tie up his jaws? There. You tie up the others.'

He stepped back, ready to help if it looked like the boys would be badly bitten. But despite yells and lunges they managed it. They stood back, staring as proudly at their three bound dogs as Loa had at his sow.

‘Will Grandfather cook the dogs now?'

Not till it's time to put in the piglets, thought Loa. ‘Go and ask him.'

He watched the boys run off again. Soon the women would be back. Bu and his friends would arrive with
the gifts for Leki's family. Bu was a canoe maker, so a beautiful new canoe would be the main bride gift. But there'd be others: strings of beads and fish to add to the feast.

Everyone would sit and eat and eat, calling jokes, while Leki and Bu …

Suddenly he couldn't stay here, with the smells of smoke and feasts.

He ran down to the beach. He jogged along the hard wet sand, away from the camp and the cooking pit, the boys and their laughter. Away from everything!

Small waves splashed at his ankles as the sea sucked in and out. He rounded the headland. The waves crashed high and long here, away from the protection of the reef and the lagoon.

At last he sank to his knees. The sand felt as hot as the sun above him. He didn't care. He put his face in his hands and thought of Leki.

 

He didn't know how long he'd sat on the beach when he heard Leki's voice.

‘Loa?'

Loa scrambled to his feet. It was as though his dream had conjured her up.

But he had never seen Leki look like this. Her dark hair was hidden by a wig of dried grass, standing like rays of the sun. Her skirt was new bark cloth, faintly patterned with leaves. Ropes of shell beads hung from her neck and waist. She held a paperbark bag in one hand, bulging with shellfish gathered along the shore. She is already gathering food for Bu, he thought.

She was more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen.

He felt like a small boy, not the hunter who had killed a massive sow just that morning.

‘Leki.' He walked up the hot sand towards her, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Don't leave your people to live with strangers! Your parents can't make you marry Bu. You could … you could marry me.' His tongue felt tangled. ‘I speared a sow today. Grandfather will tell your parents I'll be a great hunter too …'

His voice died away as she smiled at him. It was the smile an older sister might give her brother. Suddenly she seemed years older than he was. ‘Loa, I want to marry Bu.'

She said it so simply Loa knew that it was true.

It was as though a wave had leaped from the sea to slap his face. Bu was older, stronger. He had shown the uncles and grandfathers a new way to shape a canoe to give it better balance. His muscles had gleamed as he swung his adze.

How could a girl not love Bu?

That was the worst of all.

‘I want to go back to Bu's clan too. Haven't you ever dreamed of new places, Loa? Something beyond the hunting ground and the lagoon?'

No, he thought. Why would I want to leave here?

Leki looked back down the beach towards the camp. The smoke from the cooking pit had vanished into faint shimmers in the air. She smiled, almost as though she no longer saw him. ‘Go back to the feast.'

As though I'm a child to be told what to do, Loa thought bitterly.

‘Bu might bring some of his sisters with him. Maybe you'll fancy one of them.'

‘No!'

Her smile disappeared. ‘Loa, don't be like this —'

‘I'm going fishing!' he yelled. It was the first excuse he could think of.

She looked at him like she had when they were toddlers pretending their sticks were canoes in the lagoon. But at least she was seeing
him
now, not dreaming of Bu. ‘You're stupid. No one will take out a canoe with you today. They'll want to be at the feast.'

He
was
being stupid. There was no need for fish, not with pig and dog in the fire pit. But he couldn't take his words back.

Leki wasn't the only one who could go to new places.

‘I'll take the canoe out by myself. I'll paddle down the coast to the clan who lives beyond the giant-headland-near-the-sky. I'll come back with the most beautiful wife in the world. Two big, fat wives!'

‘Loa.' She looked at him indulgently, as if he'd boasted he could climb up the pig-tusk path across the ocean to the moon.

He wondered if he had ever really known her. She was the most familiar thing in his life — and suddenly the strangest.

And even if he did bring back a wife, Leki would be gone with Bu.

She stood there on the beach, exotic in her golden-grass headdress. No matter how long he looked, he knew he would never find anyone as beautiful as her.

He tore his gaze away and ran back towards the camp.

The dog's legs ached from the cords. She wanted to run, to whimper.

She couldn't do either. The cords held her jaws shut too.

The world smelled of death and pig blood. It would smell of dog blood soon too.

An old man limped over to the rubbish dogs. He grabbed her uncle by the cords that held his paws. The dog remembered her uncle bringing her monkey meat when she was a puppy; and sitting guarding the litter while the others hunted.

The old man slashed Uncle's throat. Suddenly Uncle was meat, not her uncle at all.

She wanted to howl, to whine. All she could do was shut her eyes or watch.

She watched. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was a chance to get away.

She wriggled her paws again. The cords still held them tight. She moved her jaws from side to side, but even that didn't lessen the bonds.

Only she and her brother were left now. She growled as the old man approached them. He grabbed her
brother this time. The old man dragged him to the killing ground, then threw his body in the pit.

The old man made a noise. He sounded happy.

The dog stared at the lounging humans, at the heap of pig entrails, flies buzzing around them, at the waves lapping on the beach. She watched for any chance to struggle, to bite and run …

She was next.

The men dozed in the shade around the cooking pit; the boys were off somewhere. None of the women had come back.

No one noticed Loa grab his fishing spear. He jogged down to the lagoon where the canoes lay high on the sand, away from the reach of the tide. He tied his spear into the smallest craft. Canoes sank down almost to the level of the water when there was a pile of fish in them. You had to tie your spear on so it didn't float away.

The canoe needed two paddlers, but he could manage it alone. He was Loa, pig killer! He untied a bundle of dried pig bladders from one end of the canoe and filled them with fresh water from the stream, then fastened them carefully in the canoe too. His new knife hung on the cords around his waist.

What else did he need? Food?

He hadn't eaten all day; no one ate before a feast. But he'd be at the next clan's camp by nightfall. There'd be food there.

He hesitated. He'd never been to the giant-headland-near-the-sky, though his grandfather had found a wife
there. You could only see the headland on clear days. What if it took more than an afternoon to paddle there or find the camp?

Of course he could find the clan! He only had to look for the smoke of their campfire. And if the journey took longer than he thought he could come ashore tonight to make a sleeping platform out of reach of crocodiles and rats. He could eat shellfish and long fat mangrove worms in the trees. The world was full of food.

Maybe he could spear a big fish as a present for the headland camp. A shark, perhaps …

He bit his lip. He'd be alone on the water, with no one to look out for sharks. A shark could snap you right out of a canoe. A crocodile could too.

He needed a rubbish dog. Crocs and sharks liked rubbish dog more than man. Fishermen always took a rubbish dog on long voyages, so they could throw the dog out to any circling sharks.

A rubbish dog was the best food to take too. Even strips of salted shark went bad in the glare of the sea, but you could kill a tied-up dog to eat whenever you wanted to go ashore, or make a tiny cooking fire on board and roast it piece by piece.

He ran back to the camp. Some of the women had returned. They sat in the shade, laughing and talking, wrapping their tubers in arrowroot leaves. But there was no sign of Leki, or her mother, or his own mother either.

His mother would worry when he wasn't at the feast. That's what mothers did: they worried. But
Leki could explain where he'd gone. His mother would be glad when he brought back a wife, he told himself.

‘Loa!' One of his friends gestured for him to come over and sit with them.

Loa pretended he didn't hear. He looked over to where the netted rubbish dogs had lain. Only one was left — a small female. She glared at him as he walked up to her.

‘You'll do.' He picked her up by the cords that bound her paws and carried her upside down.

The dog struggled, but she didn't make any sound. Rubbish dogs didn't make much noise: just growls, if you came near their pups, or long slow howls at night. This one didn't even whimper. Her jaws were tied too tightly.

He slung the dog into his canoe, then lashed her securely to the side next to his spear so no wave could wash her away.

He hesitated.

This was a big thing — to leave his clan, to try to find a wife all by himself. Young men went off to find wives, even sometimes stealing them. But not alone.

Should he wait? Ask some of his friends to come with him tomorrow?

Deep down he realised he didn't want to go at all. He didn't want a wife from a different clan. He wanted to be at the feast as everyone ate his pig meat and exclaimed; he wanted to make his pig's-teeth necklace; he wanted to hunt pig again in a few days' time.

But he had told Leki he would go. He wasn't going to hang around the edges of her feast, like a rubbish dog looking for her scraps of attention.

He had to go! Now!

He pushed the canoe over the sand, through the first waves, then clambered in. He began to paddle across the lagoon, towards the reef and the sea beyond.

Someone shouted from the shore. He looked back, but he was already too far away to see who it was. He waved, then turned back to paddling.

The rubbish dog stared at him from the end of the canoe.

Her back was bruised where the bony boy had flung her into the canoe. Her legs ached from being tied in one position. She needed to drink, to howl. But she was tied too tight to move.

She sniffed the salt water, trying to find familiar smells. It wasn't right to be out here on the sea. It wasn't right to be tied up either, or to be alone away from the other dogs, with just a boy. Bony Boy, she thought, not a pup but not grown up either.

She wriggled to ease the pain in her legs. Suddenly her muzzle felt a sharp edge on the canoe. Cautiously she rubbed her nose along it.

The rope moved, just a little.

If she could get the cords off her muzzle then she could bite through the cords that held her paws. She could bite Bony Boy too.

She could be free.

But first she needed to move the cords. She rubbed again, slowly, keeping her eyes on Bony Boy as he paddled.

The breeze ruffled the surface of the lagoon. Loa paddled towards the white water that led out to the open ocean. The sea was rougher beyond the reef, but he needed to leave the safety of his own lagoon if he was going to paddle along the coast to the headland clan.

He tried to think of returning with a bride of his own. She'd have plump legs and a little round tummy, to show how good she was at finding tubers and catching birds …

Reality spat in his face with the windblown spray from the waves on the reef. How could he get a wife like that, when even Leki — who had known him all her life and his family's worth — had chosen someone else?

In a few years, when he'd proved his worth as a hunter, he could have his choice of wives. He'd be taller and stronger, instead of being only just a man. But now?

He gritted his teeth. He was already a hunter! Hadn't he caught the sow this morning and with his first spear thrust too?

He'd show the men of the giant-headland-near-the-sky clan just how strong he was, despite his age. He'd
hunt pig with them. Show them Loa the hunter! They'd see his fine fish spear, his obsidian knife …

The canoe bucked as it reached the rougher water beyond the lagoon. He paddled out far enough from the reef to be safe from the waves that might suck him onto the jagged teeth of the coral or swamp him in their froth and tumble, then turned the canoe expertly and began to paddle parallel to the reef and the beach. The sun beat hot on his back. It was almost midday now. Back at the camp the women would have baskets of wild figs. The young men would be dozing in the shade till the feast was cooked.

The coastline began to curve. Soon he wouldn't be able to see their campsite, the dark figures on the beach, the faint hint of smoke in the air. He looked ahead.

He couldn't bear to look back now.