So it wouldn’t be over.
Only that part of the entertainment would be over. I would be alive.
Like Katelyn.
Get off the path, idiot.
I veered right, into the scrub, the moon was gone, ran over roots, ran into something, a tree, stunted thing, hit it with my right shoulder, spun around, fell over, got up.
Run.
Chokka wouldn’t wait five minutes, this wasn’t a sport with rules. He wanted to see if the small killer dog could track me.
Just run.
I ran, stumbling, falling, face whipped by low branches, I could see things, the moon was out, a sharp dip, going down, I kicked something, arrow of pain, broken big toe. I fell, knees in water.
A creek.
Go up the creek, stay in the water, dogs can’t smell you in water.
Hollywood. I knew that from films. Would the films save me? Would Cool Hand Luke save me? Water didn’t save Cool Hand Luke. No, that wasn’t Cool Hand Luke, that was Sidney Poitier handcuffed to a redneck.
How long? How far had I run?
I walked in the water, wobbly walking, no firm footing, feet freezing, slipped on a rock, fell awkwardly, my right knee meeting something hard.
Fuck the creek.
I got out of it, uphill now, some strength in my legs, surprising, a small hit of optimism moved through me.
I could get away from these mad ferals and their killer dogs. They were not very smart.
I was smart.
Smart enough.
Apes would be fucking insulted to be related to these idiots. Exactly. Stedman told them to kill me. But they wanted some fun.
I could come out of this.
A branch caught my nose, blood in my mouth, lots of it. I swallowed blood, blood was probably good for you, drinking your own piss was said to be good for you. Gandhi drank his own piss. A pioneer recycler.
The scrub was denser here, the ground riven with erosion furrows. I kept falling. Once I thought I’d sprained an ankle but the pain subsided.
Top of the hill. A stitch, pain in my side.
Barking.
Oh Christ, they were coming.
Keep going. Just keep going.
Downhill, steep, I tripped over something and rolled four or five metres. Felt no pain, just exhaustion.
Get up. Run. I couldn’t, I walked.
Barking. Much closer.
Run.
I stumbled down the slope, sweat in my eyes, mouth open gasping, trying to get air, legs like stumps, dead things, weights I was dragging.
I didn’t see the dense bush until I hit it. It seemed to grab me. I fought it, wrestled my way into it…
Oh Christ, trapped in a thicket like Brer Rabbit, the savage creatures would tear me apart at their leisure.
Barking, loud, maddened barking, not twenty metres away.
No. No.
I threw myself forward, dragged at the branches.
Ground crumbling under my feet. A precipice.
Jesus. Falling.
I tumbled down a slope, grabbing at stones, saplings, nothing holding. I hit water, rolled into it, got water in my mouth, swallowed it, mud-tasting water, ice-cold water, in my nose. I got up. I was up to my waist in a dam, a few metres from shore.
Howling dogs. Somewhere above me. Close.
I turned, tried to see the bank I’d fallen down, just a dark mass.
A blur. The smaller dog, coming down.
It landed on the narrow muddy bank on four paws, bounced, did not hesitate.
It leapt for me, straight for my chest, my throat.
In the second it was in the air, the moon came out and I saw its fierce cannonball head clearly, the whites of its wide-spaced eyes, the open jaws, the spiky teeth, the tongue.
Then the animal was on me.
Our heads collided. Blackness, pain.
I went over backwards, fierce pain in my left shoulder now, the dog’s teeth in me, both my hands on its broad collar, trying to pull it away.
We were under water, its weight on my chest.
Something said: Don’t push. Pull.
Stay down.
I pulled the dog to me, felt its jaws moving in my flesh, intense pain in my whole shoulder, up my neck.
Stay down.
I needed to breathe. I hadn’t prepared myself, hadn’t drawn a deep breath.
Hold on.
The animal’s body was thrashing, paws scrambling against me, trying to get purchase. I could feel its strength, totally out of proportion to its size. My grip on its collar was weakening, I had to let go, get my head out of water. Breathe.
Stay down.
I felt the teeth come out of me. It did nothing for the pain. The dog’s head was pulling backwards, astonishing strength in the neck. I couldn’t hold it.
Hold on. Just hold on.
No, I couldn’t.
I felt the dog’s strength go, I felt it as intimately as if it were my own.
It stopped thrashing, the neck was not fighting me.
I rose to the surface, breathed in the cold night air, smelling of stagnant water and mud. The dog was on my chest. I let it go, it floated away.
Baying from the shore. The huge white dog was a few metres away, looking at me, the hayfork teeth.
Christ, this would never be over.
I backed away, across the dam, it wasn’t wide, ten metres perhaps. It was deep in the middle, I turned, swam the five or six strokes needed, started to walk out, mud holding my shoes, looked back.
The big dog was gone.
It was coming around the dam. How long would that take? From which side? I couldn’t see the end of the dam, it tapered at both ends, that was all I could see.
I could hear shouting, then a whistle, not a human whistle. A beam of light touched the top of the vegetation across the dam.
Chokka and Jimbo were on their way.
On the bank, I stood in complete exhaustion, nowhere to go, I couldn’t run anymore. I touched my shoulder, looked at my hand. It was black with my blood.
I turned and walked a few paces, kicked something, almost fell over. It was an old truck door lying on the mud. I stood and looked down at it in a stupid, fuddled way, shook myself, looked up.
The white dog was twenty metres away, in full stride, all legs off the ground, coming for me, silent, huge, powerful, head the size of a giant marrow.
Fuck you.
I bent and grasped the ancient door by its top, pulled it up, heard the glup sound as I broke the bond between metal and mud, it wasn’t heavy, just a sheet of rusted tin.
The dog was two cars’ length away, the awful teeth biting air.
I turned like a hammerthrower, turned to my right, arms at full stretch, swinging the door parallel to the ground, reversed direction, came back with the door, released it, threw it at the dog, he was about to spring, melon head up.
The door’s rusted bottom edge severed the massive Baskerville head. The head went up, the torso kept coming, ran into me, hit me like a motorbike, knocked me flat, lay on me, covered me.
Hot blood in my mouth, in my eyes, up my nose, I breathed in the blood, felt the warm weight of the headless creature on me, its final jerks.
The whistle, three or four blasts, sharp, imperious. The light coming around the other side of the dam.
Chokka and Jimbo. No more dogs.
Just me and the boys left.
41
I was filled with a maniacal joy, a fifty short-blacks hit, anything was possible, I didn’t much care about anything. I got out from under the dog, spat the blood, walked the way it had come, walked, to fucking hell with running, I’d done the running.
Jesus, Chokka would shoot me. He was always going to shoot me when the dogs had finished.
Run.
Still able to run, my legs moved, how amazing, no, not amazing, running on terror-produced chemicals flooding through me, why doesn’t matter, just run.
I ran, clockwise, around the dam, crawled up a bank, away from the flashlight, away from the boys, I had a start. There was a passage through the scrub here, once a path perhaps, running again, this wasn’t bad, settle down to a pace, I could keep going like this…