Tiger Men (21 page)

Scraggy versus Ginger Beard, Mick thought, very interesting. Despite the size and age discrepancy, he’d probably put his money on Scraggy. The man looked tough. There was something feral about him.

Several of the drinkers standing nearby realised a fight was imminent and started backing off to allow the protagonists space.

On the other side of the room, Tiny finally got the message and started edging his way through. But by then Mick had seen the flash of metal. Ginger Beard had a blade. It was going to be a knife fight. And Peg was in the middle.

‘Give us the pistol, Billy,’ he hissed, and Billy dived his hand under the bar.

Peg screamed as the big man clutched her to him, thrusting the knife at the newcomer, daring him to try and take her. The newcomer, however, was undaunted by the knife. If anything, the appearance of the weapon made him all the more dangerous. He assumed a crouching position and stared the big man directly in the eyes, like an animal about to launch its attack.

A circle quickly formed around the two men, but the fight didn’t get any further.

‘Let her go,’ Mick said as he stepped into the circle, the pistol aimed directly at the big man’s head.

Ginger Beard slowly released Peg, who backed off thankfully to join Maeve and the other girls.

‘No knives in the bar.’ Mick kept his aim steady. ‘Give it to Tiny.’

Tiny, who was now standing impotently nearby, stepped forwards and held out his hand.

Ginger Beard looked from the pistol to the giant and back again, but seemed reluctant to relinquish his knife.

‘It’s simple.’ Very patiently Mick spelt out the rules. ‘Either leave now with the knife, or if you want to stay give it to Tiny. You can collect it from him later, on your way out.’

Ginger Beard handed the knife to Tiny, and Mick lowered the pistol, although he kept it at the ready.

‘Well now,’ he said pleasantly, ‘if you two gentlemen wish to fight over Peg’s favours, I suggest you do so outside.’

Scraggy and Ginger Beard eyed each other off for a second or so. Then Ginger Beard removed his jacket and dumped it on a bench. Scraggy didn’t bother removing his. He simply turned and led the way out into the back lane. Ginger Beard followed him and, drinks in hand, the crowd followed Ginger Beard, two of the men fetching lamps to light up the show. This was true Saturday night entertainment.

‘Hardly a fair fight though,’ someone muttered, and others agreed it was a bit of a disappointment. They would like to have laid bets on the outcome, but most of them knew Dave, the big man. Dave was handy with his fists. Besides, he was heavier and younger than the scrawny newcomer: no point in wasting money.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Maeve said scornfully, ‘your mate Dave doesn’t stand a chance against the tiger man, am I not right, Peg?’

Beside her, Peg nodded. ‘You are indeed. Dave won’t last two minutes, and that’s a fact.’

There were one or two others present who knew of the tiger man’s reputation and word was quickly passed along. Men started betting one another, the tiger man or Dave.

Mick watched, intrigued. Who is this tiger man? he wondered.

As it turned out Peg was right. Dave didn’t last two minutes.

The tiger man was agile, avoiding punches and clinches while landing blows in vulnerable places with lightning speed. There were no rules to the way he fought. Fists or feet – whatever proved effective. After catching Dave off balance and wearing him down, the tiger man closed in to deliver the final blows. A chop to the throat, and the side of his hand connected with the Adam’s apple. A further chop to the nose, and there was the crunch of cartilage. A lethal fist to the solar plexus and the big man was on his knees. And, finally, just to make sure, a well-aimed boot to the kidneys.

Dave sprawled face down in the mud. He struggled to rise, making it once again to his knees, but a forceful kick in the ribs found him flat on his back, blinking up through the haze of mud and blood that blurred his vision.

The tiger man placed his boot on Dave’s chest, like a hunter posing with his kill. ‘Your knife wouldn’t have done you much good, my friend,’ he said looking down at him, ‘I’d have skinned you alive in there.’

It was the first time Mick had heard the man speak. The tiger man was an Irishman, he realised, a northerner – Belfast by the sound of it.

‘Perhaps I’ll flay you right here and now, what do you say about that?’ Reaching beneath his jacket, the tiger man drew his Bowie knife from its sheath. ‘I’d need to gut you first of course.’ He took his boot from the man’s chest and, bending down, he placed the tip of the knife’s ten-inch blade between the base of Dave’s ribs. ‘I’d start around here,’ he said and very slowly he traced a line down the stomach, his knife cleaving a path in the mud. ‘And I’d end up around here.’

With the knife’s tip now resting just above his genitals, Dave continued to blink foggily up at his tormentor.

‘But then perhaps not.’ The tiger man stood, and his leathery face crinkled into a humourless smile. ‘I don’t think I’d get much value for your hide.’ He turned to the crowd, his eyes searching for Peg. She and Maeve were standing right in the front. ‘Come on upstairs now,’ he said.

Peg flicked her hair back and puffed her chest out like a pouter pigeon. She was well on the wrong side of thirty and men were still fighting over her: it was something to be proud of, there was no denying it.

The tiger man draped his arm around his prize and was about to return to the bar when he caught sight of Mick.

‘Oh, I forgot. No knives in the bar.’ This time the smile was humorous, although it was curiously lopsided, and Mick could see in the eyes that met his the glint of something that might have been just a little unbalanced. ‘Perhaps you’d look after this for me, friend,’ the tiger man said and he handed the Bowie knife to Mick. ‘I’ll collect it from you later, on my way out.’

He departed with Peg firmly in tow and the crowd dispersed leaving several of Dave’s friends to tend to him.

As he walked back inside with Maeve and the girls, Mick examined the Bowie knife. It was a lethal-looking weapon, but handsome, of the finest steel, coffin-handled and well crafted. This is not a Sheffield Bowie of English manufacture as many are, he thought. This is the real thing, a genuine American ‘Arkansas toothpick’. He wondered why the tiger man had entrusted him with such a valuable possession. This knife would be worth a tidy sum.

‘Who is he, Maeve?’ he asked. ‘What’s his real name? Why is he the tiger man?’

‘He’s the tiger man because he hunts tigers,’ Maeve said as if Mick was daft for asking. ‘I’ve no idea what his real name is. I don’t think anyone around here knows. Peg doesn’t, and she’s been with him a number of times.’

‘How is it that I’ve never seen him then?’

‘He hasn’t been near the place for a good two years or more. Used to come in once or twice a year. Never chose anyone else but Peg.’ Maeve smiled knowingly. ‘The scrawny ones always fancy big breasts – have you noticed that? Anyway, there’s been trouble like this before. The tiger man won’t wait his turn. If Peg’s chatting with someone else, he just drags her off upstairs and woe betide any who stand in his way. Personally, I think he enjoys the fight as much as the fuck. But if the truth be known, Mick,’ Maeve gave him a wink – she loved sharing the gossip – ‘a man would be wiser to bide his time and wait. A glass of ale and Peg’d be back.’ She rolled her eyes heavenwards, indicating the bedrooms. ‘The tiger man doesn’t muck about up there.’

‘Oh is that so?’

‘Indeed it is. You just wait and see. He’ll be downstairs inside fifteen minutes, and bear in mind that’s accounting for the undressing and all. Not that he undresses,’ she added with a snort, ‘but Peg does. Like I said, he fancies big breasts.’

‘Right you are. Thanks, Maeve.’

Maeve’s reckoning was only slightly out.

‘I’ll have my knife back now, thanks.’ It was twenty minutes later.

Mick handed over the Bowie knife, and was surprised when the tiger man suggested they pop outside with an ale.

‘It’s too noisy in here and I’m starved for a chat,’ the tiger man said. Then he added with an air of mockery, ‘Besides, no knives in the bar.’

Billy poured them their ales and they adjourned to the back lane where they stood in the light that spilled from the open doorway. As they raised their tankards in a silent toast Mick wondered why, of all those present, the tiger man should have singled him out for a chat.

‘What’s your name?’ the tiger man asked, wiping ale from his moustache with the back of his hand.

‘Mick. Mick O’Callaghan.’ Mick looked the older man boldly in the eye. ‘What’s yours?’

The tiger man gave a careless shrug. ‘Dan will do.’ In offering no surname he intended no insult, however, for there was approval in his eyes as he sized up his fellow countryman. ‘You did a good job in there, Mick,’ he said. ‘You’re a young man who handles himself well. I like the cut of your jib.’

The nautical reference seemed a bit of a giveaway. ‘You’re a seaman?’ Mick asked.

‘Of sorts. In my youth, many, many years ago, I was a sealer. Worked right here from Hobart Town,’ he gave another shrug. ‘But the seals ran out.’

‘So now you’re a tiger man.’

‘I am that. There’s money in thylacines. The Van Diemen’s Land Company used to pay a good price, but for the past ten years or so I’ve found the sheep farmers are offering more than the consortium. These days I collect from both, which proves quite profitable I must say.’

‘You’re a bounty hunter then?’ Mick was fascinated. During his eighteen months in Van Diemen’s Land he’d never been outside Hobart Town. He’d heard of the bounty hunters, tough men who lived mostly to the north, but he’d not met one before.

‘Indeed I am.’ Dan was gratified to see he was making such an impression on his newfound friend. ‘I collect bounty on whatever’s going. Devils and tigers and feral dogs – you name it – but the tigers fetch the best price. In the old days of course it was the blacks. There was good money in blacks.’

‘Blacks?’

Mick was momentarily bewildered, but Dan carried on, oblivious to any confusion on his audience’s part. He was very much enjoying the chat.

‘Twenty-five years ago now it was, in Governor Arthur’s time. I’d have been about your age. Dear God,’ he added wryly as he stared out into the night, ‘it seems like only yesterday. Back then the government offered a bounty for the capture of Aborigines: five pounds an adult, two pounds a child. Oh, I tell you, Mick, a man could get rich in those days. A black was worth a lot more than a tiger.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘But like the seals of course they’re gone.’

Mick remembered a conversation he’d had with Jefferson about the shameful annihilation of the Aborigines, and how their dwindling numbers had finally been rounded up and taken to Flinders Island. It hadn’t really been a conversation at all, it had been one of Jefferson’s tirades. He’d just nodded at the time – he’d been a bit out of his depth. But he wondered now what Jefferson would say if he could hear Dan the tiger man.

‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Dan said, ‘tell me about yourself, Mick. This is what I come into town for,’ he urged enthusiastically, ‘a woman first and then some hearty conversation. A man gets starved for both out there in the wild.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Nothing too personal,’ Dan quickly assured him. ‘I wouldn’t want to pry, God forbid, only after a bit of a chat. How long have you been working at the pub?’

‘I don’t work here. I used to once, but not now.’

‘Ah.’ There was a pause, Dan was a little confused. ‘So why’d you break up the fight the way you did?’

‘I was just looking after Peg. She’s a friend.’

‘Really? Had I known that I’d not have entrusted you with my knife.’

‘Why
did
you give me the knife?’ Mick was curious. ‘I didn’t ask you for it.’

‘I was lining you up for a chat is all; you interest me.’ Dan smiled his lop-sided smile. ‘There’s something about you that reminds me of myself when I was your age.’

Mick wasn’t at all sure the remark was a compliment and his dubious reaction was so readable that Dan gave a bark of laughter.

‘Oh you’re a damn sight better looking, I’ll grant you that. But you’re out for adventure and a cocky young bastard, just like I was.’ He took another swig of his ale and wiped his moustache again. ‘So tell me, what are you up to now you’ve left the pub?’

‘I’ve recently become the manager of the Powell Ferry-Boat Service.’ Mick tried to sound casual, but there was no disguising the ring of pride in his voice.

‘My, my, a move up in the world, and a big one by the sound of it.’

Unsure whether or not he was being ridiculed, Mick made no reply. He stared defiantly back at the older man.

Dan studied him for a moment or so. ‘You’re a tiger man too, aren’t you Mick?’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you’re out to catch what you can. I mean you’re after the main chance.’

‘And what if I am?’ Mick’s tone was belligerent. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Dan said reassuringly. ‘This town is full of tiger men. Just look around you. The merchants, the builders, the bankers, the company men: they’re all out for what they can get. This is a tiger town, Mick. A place at the bottom of the world where God turns a blind eye to pillage and plunder, and all is fair game. You’re living in a tiger town, my friend.’

Mick realised that he was not being ridiculed, but he found the exchange disquieting nonetheless. There was something a bit mad about Dan.

‘If you want to move up in this world Mick, and I can tell that you do –’ Dan leaned his leathery face close as if sharing a secret ‘– you’d best follow the path of the tiger man, and you know what that is?’

The question was obviously rhetorical, but Mick found himself resisting the urge to nod.

‘You take whatever you can get. And you use whatever you’ve got to take it.’

The advice, crass though it was, had a familiar ring. How disturbing, Mick thought, to hear my own credo from the mouth of a man like Dan.

‘With looks like yours I know what I’d be doing,’ Dan said, ‘and it sure as hell wouldn’t be managing a ferry service.’ He polished off his ale. ‘Find yourself a wealthy woman, my friend. Don’t work for your money. Marry it.’