Red Dog (3 page)

There was a man lifting sausages off his grill with a fork and bending down to put them on a plate that was on a rug beside him. On the plate were some salad and some new potatoes. When there were three sausages on the plate he straightened up to collect a burger from the grill, and when he looked down again, he had to look twice. There were no sausages. He gasped with surprise and shook his head in puzzlement. He scratched his head and looked around. Everyone was minding their own business. ‘Me snaggers!’ he said, ‘someone’s swiped me snaggers!’ He called to the man next to him, ‘’Ere, mate, did you swipe me snaggers? ’Cause if so, I want ’em.’

The man turned his head briefly, ‘Not me, mate. I got me own. If you want one, you’re welcome.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ said the first man, ‘they were just there and then there they were, gone.’

Jack Collins called after Tally, but the dog was licking his lips to get off the last lovely traces of sausage-grease, and planning his next foray. He went down on his stomach and laid his head flat on the sand, with his nose pointing in the direction of a nice succulent steak that had just been put on a plate. The man who was about to eat it looked away for a second, and Tally darted in and snatched it, leaving his victim with nothing but
a sliced tomato and a few scrapings of mustard. Tally bolted the steak and set off in search of a burger that he could smell quite distinctly at the other end of the beach.

‘Did you swipe my steak?’ the second man accused his neighbour, and ‘Who swiped me snaggers?’ called the first man, soon to be joined by ‘Bloody ’ell, where the devil’s me burger?’

Jack saw all this and crept away as quietly and inconspicuously as he could. He knew that Tally would find his own way home, and he wasn’t going to hang about to be blamed for his dog’s behaviour. An angry miner wasn’t the kind of man you’d want to have a blue with.

RED DOG MEETS JOHN

‘I don’t think he’s coming back,’ said Maureen Collins.

‘It’s easily the longest he’s ever been away,’ said Jack, shaking his head. They felt a little sad, as though they had both known that they were going to lose him, and had been trying not to think about it.

‘I hope he hasn’t been run over.’

‘We would’ve heard. In a small place like this, all the news goes round in a flash. Anyway, that one’s got more lives than a cat.’

‘I heard,’ said Maureen, ‘that he’s been going from door to door, bludging.’

‘He’s got a knack for locating tucker, that’s for sure,’ said Jack.

‘I suppose he’s probably all right, then. Still, it’s a shame. I miss the little fella.’ Tally had finally left home.
Unlike most dogs, who are happy to spend the day either sleeping or watching life go by, he found life too interesting to stay in one place. He wanted to see what the world was like, wanted to know what was going on round the next corner, wanted to join in with things.

He was too bright to spend his time being bored, and, whilst there were a lot of people he liked, he hadn’t yet found anyone he could really love, the way that dogs are always supposed to love. There wasn’t anyone to be devoted to. He would call in on Jack and Maureen from time to time, and he would always be happy to see them. He might stay a couple of days, and get fed and watered, but he and they knew that he had moved out for ever.

It was lucky for him that the town was so full of lonely men. There had been a few aborigines and even fewer white people there before the iron companies and the salt company had moved in, but just recently a massive and rapid development had begun to take place. New docks were constructed, new roads, new houses for the workers, a new railway and a new airport. In order to build all this, hundreds of men had arrived from all corners of the world, bringing nothing with them but their physical strength, their optimism and their memories of distant homes. Some of them were escaping from bad lives, some had no idea how they wanted their lives to be, and others had grand plans about how they could work their way from rags to riches.

They were either rootless or uprooted. They were from Poland, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, Greece, England, Yugoslavia, and from other parts of Australia too. Most had brought no wives or family with them, and for the time being they lived in big huts that had been towed on trailers all the way up from Perth. Some of them were rough and some gentle, some were honest and some not. There were those who got rowdy and drunk, and picked fights, there were those who were quiet and sad, and there were those who told jokes and could be happy anywhere at all. With no women to keep an eye on them, they easily turned into eccentrics. A man might shave his head and grow an immense beard. He might to go to Perth for a week, go ‘blotto on Rotto’, and come back with a terrible hangover and lots of painful tattoos. He might wear odd socks and have his trousers full of holes. He might not wash for a week, or he might read books all night so that he was red-eyed and weary in the morning when it was time to go to work. They were all pioneers, and had learned to live hard and simple lives in this landscape that was almost a desert.

These brawny individuals took a rapid shine to Tally. They had little affection in their lives, and they could feel lonely even with all their workmates around them, so it was good to have a dog that you could stroke, and have playfights with. It was good to have a dog to talk to, who never swore at you and was always glad to see you. Tally liked them, too, because they ruffled his ears
and roughed him up a bit, and rolled him on his back to tickle his stomach. They fed him meaty morsels from their sandwiches and dinner plates, and they brought him special treats from the butcher. Even though he was sometimes absent for days on end, there would always be a can of dogfood on the shelf, along with all the tools and oily rags, and there would always be a bit of steak left over from the weekend’s barbecue.

No-one knew his real name, and before long he was simply called ‘Red Dog’. A dog is happy to have lots of names, and it was no bother to him if someone wanted to call him ‘Red’. In any case, a red dog is exactly what Tally was. He was a Red Cloud kelpie, a fine old Australian breed of sheepdog, very clever and energetic, but some people thought that Red Dog might have had some cattle dog in his ancestry. He was one of three puppies, and Tally turned out a lovely dark, coppery colour, with amber-yellow eyes and pricked-up ears. His tail was slightly bushy, and on his shoulders and chest the fur was thick like a mane. His forehead was broad and his nose was brown, a little bit turned up at the end. His body was solid and strong, and if you picked him up you were surprised by how heavy he was.

Red Dog and the men from the Hamersley Iron Transport section got to know each other, because one of their bus drivers adopted him and became the only person to whom he ever belonged.

John was not a big fierce man like some of the
miners. He was small and quite young, and he loved animals almost more than anything else. He had high cheekbones because he was half Maori, and people used to say of him that he was a friend to everyone. One day John met Red Dog in a street in Dampier, when he was standing outside his bus waiting for some of his daily passengers to arrive. When he caught sight of Red Dog he reacted with instinctive pleasure, crouching down on one knee and saying, ‘Hey, boy! Here!’ and clicking his fingers and tongue. Red Dog, who had been busy with his own thoughts, stopped and looked at him. ‘Come on, mate,’ said John, and Red Dog wagged his tail. ‘Come and say g’day,’ said John.

Red Dog came over and John reached down and took his right paw. He shook it and said, ‘Pleased to meet you, mate.’ John took Red Dog’s head in both hands, and looked into his eyes. ‘Hey, you’re a beauty,’ he said, and Red Dog knew straight away that from now on his life was going to take a new direction.

When the miners turned up to take their big yellow bus to work they found John sitting in the driver’s seat, and Red Dog sitting in the seat behind him.

RED DOG AND NANCY GREY

One day someone turned up on the bus whom no-one had ever seen before. Nancy Grey was new in town, having come to work as a secretary at Hamersley Iron, and she had never heard about Red Dog.

When she got on the bus to go for her first morning at work, she found it full of miners, and with no empty seats, except for a seat behind the driver, which had a red dog in it. She looked at the rows of men grinning at her, and she gazed at the red dog, who looked away as if he had not noticed her.

None of the men offered her their seat, because they wanted to see what would happen when Nancy tried to move Red Dog.

‘Down!’ said Nancy, who wasn’t going to take any
nonsense from an animal. Red Dog looked up at her, and settled himself into his seat more firmly.

‘Bad dog!’ exclaimed Nancy, and Red Dog curled his lip and gave a low growl. Nancy was a little bit shocked, and drew back but at the same time she was almost sure that this dog would never bite her. His expression wasn’t quite fierce enough. The men in the bus began to laugh at her. ‘You’ll never get him out of there!’ said one.

‘That’s his seat,’ said another. ‘No-one sits there when Red wants it.’

Nancy faced the men, and began to blush. It was embarrassing to be outfaced by a dog and a busload of miners. Determined not to give in, she sat down gingerly on the very edge of the seat, where Red Dog wouldn’t be disturbed.

Red Dog was disturbed, however. This was his seat, and everyone knew it. What was more, the whole seat was his, and not just a half of it. Ever since he had met John, he had travelled around as much as he wanted on the company buses, no matter who the driver was, and he always had the seat behind the driver. It was emphatically his seat, and no-one else’s. He showed Nancy his teeth and growled again.

‘Well, aren’t you a charmer?’ she said, but she didn’t budge.

Red Dog could see that threats weren’t doing any good, so he decided to push her off the seat. He turned around, stuck his muzzle under her thigh, and pushed. She was surprised by how strong he was, and she was almost tipped off. Behind her the men began to laugh again, and she grew even more determined.