Into That Forest

I recognised him; it were that terrible tiger man who sometimes stayed with me parents. Then I seen he were holding something that made me want to piss meself. I squeezed Becky’s arm real hard. She spinned round wanting to hit me. I pointed to a huge carving knife he had in his hand. So what! she replied, thumping me back. I were aware of a padding sound behind us and seen the two tigers had joined us. They too were watching this fella as it began to drizzle. There were something ’bout the way he held the knife that scared me. I thought he were going to kill the horse but he threw the knife into the ground and untied a bundle that were strapped to its back. I heard Becky gasp. It were a dead tiger. Then before we had time to think what this meant, he pulled the knife out of the earth and made a deep cut along the tiger’s belly. He were good at what he were doing. In next to no time he had skinned that tiger, ripping its skin off in one tremendous yank. He carried the skin to a lean-to round the side of the shack then went back inside as it began to pour down something shocking.

The horse sniffed the shiny skinned body of the tiger and went back to eating grass. Both Becky and I looked at our tigers and hoped that they didn’t know what were happening, but they knew. Their noses were working overtime cos they smelt raw flesh and blood. Their tails were rigid with fright. Come on, said Becky, grabbing me, let’s go to him. I shook me head, I didn’t like that man. I didn’t like anyone who killed tigers. Becky didn’t wait for me answer and crept closer. I followed. The horse looked up when it seen us and made a snuffling noise. Becky stared at the dead tiger. It looked like something out of a nightmare. Its veins and pink bloody flesh were awful to see and it seemed so helpless, so naked as the rain fell on it, causing the blood to weep down its sides into the earth.

I thought Becky were going to run inside the house, but she were heading towards the lean-to. There were no door and by the time I had reached her she were stiff as a statue, standing in the doorway gobsmacked. I peered inside. O my, O my, me heart and brain were filled with shock and the most awful pain. I had to suck in me breaths so as to not cry or faint. The lean-to were filled with tiger skins all nailed to the walls or hanging from the beams - all in different stages of curing, so it stank like a swamp filled with rotting animals. I think I lost most of me language there. I mean, where are the words to explain what I seen? There must have been twenty or so skins, male and female, big and small. It were like a slaughterhouse. I felt sick to me stomach and coughed up a purple vomit of berries. I felt like I were nailed to the earth. I couldn’t move. Becky grabbed me and put her fingers to her lips, telling me to be quiet. I followed her from the lean-to round to the front of the house. The tigers had backed away and were staring at us from the bush. Their eyes were full of fear and trembling for us and for them. I wanted to join them but Becky were curious ’bout something and she grabbed me by the hand and led me to the shack.

We creeped onto the front verandah and looked in through a grubby window. There were the murderer sitting and watching his billy boil in the fireplace. He had taken off his wet clothes and were drying them in front of the fire. He himself were naked as the day he were born, as if he too had been skinned. Above the fireplace were a huge tiger skin nailed to the wall. I could stand no more and found meself walking down the side of the house back to the tigers. Becky stopped me, asking where I were going. It seemed right obvious to me. I were going back to the tigers. No, we ask him to take us back home, whispered Becky. He won’t kill us. I shrugged her off. I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was that our tigers, who were still waiting for us at the top of the slope, had to be warned to run, to run as far as possible away from this goddamn awful place. He’s just a bounty hunter, she said. I told her I knew the tiger man with the ginger hair. He had stayed with me parents and me. I had never liked him. He smelt like shit and death. I were afeared this fella would kill us and skin us too, that’s how close I were to the tigers. All right, she said. You go with Dave and Corinna. Me, I’m going to ask for his help in getting home. I said nothing and walked back to the tigers. Becky disappeared round the front of the house. I ran me hands over the tigers’ backs. Their hair were bristling with terror. Just the thought of seeing their skins on the wall above the fireplace were enough for me to think to flee and flee and flee til I dropped dead of exhaustion.

Then, when I thought Becky were gone for good, I seen her tearing down the side of the house towards us, shouting, Run! Run! The man appeared round the side of the house brandishing a shotgun. The strange thing were that he were still naked, except for boots. Becky cut across the back yard, jumping over the skinned corpse of the tiger and scaring the horse so that it reared up on its back legs, and ran towards us. The man were calling out, Come back! But we were shit-scared - the four of us - and raced off, heading down the slope, into the mess of trees and through the button grass. I expected to hear shots, but there were none, only faint calls for us to come back. We were full of panic and we ran til we could run no more. When we stopped the tigers’ tongues were hanging out and ours were too cos we were panting so hard.

The rain were growing thick and we looked for some shelter and found an overhanging rock pale green with lichen. I asked Becky if she had talked to the tiger man. I were going to go inside, she said, when I seen something.I asked her what she seen but she closed her mouth real firm and shooked her head til she got sick of me questions, and suddenly snapped at me, He were doing stuff to him self that were rude. I had no idea what she were talking ’bout and even though I pestered her for days, she wouldn’t tell me. Then it didn’t matter any more. But I were glad we didn’t ask him for help. I couldn’t have asked anybody for help who did what men like him did to tigers. Tiger men are the spawn of Lucifer. I think Becky were glad too. She had seen things she didn’t want to see again.

We slept til evening and set off downhill, finding some shrivelled heartberries that had fallen on the ground. One time we came upon some rusted-out boilers. It were the ruins of a piners’ camp and the boilers were where the men distilled the Huon pine oil. We were walking on a gum tree that had fallen across a creek when I slipped on the mossy trunk and fell into the water. It took me some time to reach the bank and I were a right sight. Me body were one squirming mass of shiny black leeches, on me legs, arse, arms and a couple sucking at me nose. It took me and Becky some time to remove them all. Oh, I shiver even now at the thought of those dreadful creatures sucking me blood.

We travelled for a few more days - forget how many - til one late afternoon I stood on a hill and seen the horizon flat as a pancake. It were the distant sea. Then I knew: it were the coast we had been making for. And I knew it were what Dave and Corinna had been aiming for all along. The way the tigers moved through the countryside to the sea was real dead certain. They were used to doing this.



The day before we reached the sea the four of us dozed in a small cave that could barely fit us all in. Becky couldn’t sleep and woke me up and said to me in a voice full of real purpose. That man who killed all those tigers were a bad man and he would have killed us. We will find a good man somewhere round here and he’ll take us home. I knew she were saying it for me own good but she were also saying it for hers, to try and calm down her dread. We had come close to getting home and next time, she were saying in that bent way of hers, we would find a man who would rescue us. But really, I didn’t think much of being saved. I were a kid, a child, and children get used to a lot of things and I were now used to this way of life, unlike Becky. Sure, I missed me father and me mother but cos I reckoned they were dead it were becoming easy for me to get used to this new world and it were becoming second nature to me.



That evening round dusk we reached the sea. It were calm and flat like a verandah floor. We were starving and I were disappointed. What were there to eat? Why had Dave and Corinna come this far? The tigers went off towards some rocks and after Becky and I couldn’t find food, we joined them. They were ripping mussels off the rocks and crunching them up as they ate them. Becky and I couldn’t do that, so we broke the mussels off their perch and after smashing the shells open ate the flesh. Oh, we ate so many. I can still taste their soft, salty meat. It were so different from what we had been eating. Even though I remembered eating mussels me father had brought back from Hobart, these were different, they were real fresh, plump, really fatty plump, and we laughed and laughed as Becky and me popped mussels down each other’s throats and down the throats of the tigers, who liked us doing it cos the meat didn’t have any shell bits. Once I cut me ankle on a mussel shell but I didn’t care. Corinna licked me blood til the wound closed and I s’pose because of the sea water it didn’t become infected.

The tigers didn’t head back from the beach near dawn, instead they waited near the sand dunes facing the sun, their eyes and bodies alert. Then as the sun came up, washing the sea in light so it shone brightly, black dots appeared and disappeared in the golden water. I heard the tigers’ throats rumble and their noses sniff hard. Their bodies trembled with excitement as the dots swam closer. Then the dark blobs emerged from the sea, flopping and scrambling up on the beach. They were seals and about the size of me and Becky. I seen the tigers’ fur bristle and their tails go stiff. Then before I knew what was happening they were rushing across the dunes down to the wet sand where the seals were making their way to the rocks. Dave jumped at the throat of one and ripped it open. Corinna leaped on a smaller one and did the same. The seals were hollering and squealing. Dave looked back at us with his eyes burning bright with the scent of blood. He were calling us. I ran down to join them. I heard Becky calling me back, but I didn’t care. I were excited by the smell of blood too. When I reached the tigers they were putting their snouts down the throats of the seals and ripping out their tongues which they chewed up in a blink of an eye and then they were off to kill more. I didn’t know what to do. I had never eaten seal before. I didn’t fancy the tongue but then I knew the tigers wouldn’t let me have any tongues cos they were in a right frenzy ripping them out of every seal they killed. Becky came up to me trembling at the slaughter and the agonised groans of the seals and their squealing, squeaking pain. This is terrible. This is terrible, she kept on saying. It turned me guts a bit, especially the cries of the seals, but mostly I were not that upset about it. I knew I had to eat.

God knows where me sense of survival came from. Maybe it’s natural cos humans are just animals too. But I went over to the rocks which were slippery with blood and got meself a mussel shell, which I knew would be as sharp as a knife. I used it to slit open a seal’s belly. Inside were hearts and lungs and stomach. I licked some of the blood and then cut off a hunk of the black skin which had pink flesh sticking to it. The outer skin were tough and tasteless but the inner lining were fresh and pink and was like chewing gristle. Even though it didn’t seem to taste like anything special - in fact, it were a bland taste - it had this real odd effect, as if me skin were suddenly alive. The prickly feeling started in me upper lip near me nostrils and then headed up both sides of me nose and met in the middle of me brow where people think a third eye is and Bang! there were this explosion of high spirits in me. I were grinning like a fool. I looked round me. Becky’s pained expression seemed funny, the tigers ripping out the tongues of the seals seemed wonderful and the sea were made from gold.

Some men say that when they drink whiskey there is a moment when they feel the happiest they have ever felt, when they feel like they can move mountains, chop down a tree with their bare hands or wrestle a man to death. Well, that’s how I felt. What were ever in that shiny pink gristle surged through me in waves of ecstasy. Becky asked if anything were the matter. I think I told her to try some of the pink flesh. I were cutting great chunks of it away from the black outer skin and chewing and chewing and chewing til me forehead were full of joy. Becky ate some and she became like me. She were ecstatic too. She danced along the wet sand. I danced with her and ran with the tigers who were jumping with high spirits too cos of something maybe similar in the seal tongues, and we ran and played til way into the afternoon. I had never had so much aliveness in me. Becky yafflered and yafflered at me, but the tigers and me paid no attention to her. We didn’t want to talk. When the sun were on top of our heads we found some shelter behind the sand dunes and we slept snuggled up to each other. I could feel Becky’s heart, Dave’s and Corinna’s racing hearts, as I put me head against their chests and fell asleep.

Seal gristle and tongues became our one and only food, and that food were the cause of so much happiness. We were there for some days, I don’t know how many cos I lost track of time. The seals stopped coming ashore and we could only kill the stragglers who had lost themselves from the main pod. One evening after the four of us had feasted on one scrawny thing, Dave spinned round as if he heard a noise but then I saw his nose were working overtime and I realised he smelt something powerful in the sea. He jumped from the rocks into the water and started to swim towards a dark object about the size of a cabbage. But he couldn’t reach it and had to turn back. He and Corinna stood on the rocks staring at this thing bouncing on the incoming waves, their bodies straining towards it, as if they thought their necks could grow long enough for them to grasp it. Becky seen their hunger for it so she jumped off the rocks into the water. She started to walk through the waves towards it. She were taller than me, but the water rose up to her waist, then chest and neck and still she went forward. I were out of me skin with worry cos sometimes the waves completely swamped her and she vanished beneath them, frightening me to the core of me heart. Then when I thought she would surely drown and I were pissing meself with fright I seen her hand reach out of the boiling white foam and grab the thing. She allowed the waves to carry her back on shore. We three ran from the rocks to the wet sand where she lay coughing and spluttering but still holding it.

It were a greyish colour, with sharp bits of bone and shells sticking out of it. The tigers sniffed it. The smell made their tails go stiff with rapture. They nibbled at it. I knew I had to wait me turn but I couldn’t wait. I grabbed it for meself. The tigers yawned at me and their eyes burned darkness into me, but I knew what I held in me hands - ambergris. It smelt of rotten stink and perfume. I told Becky what it were. She asked what it were for. I told her and said that if Dave and Corinna could eat it, then we could too. I gave it back to the tigers who were coughing threats at me. After they had chewed a mouthful the tigers’ eyes went glassy and their legs gave up under them. They wobbled off to the dunes where they lied down and watched the stars. I ate a mouthful and felt me blood become perfume. I couldn’t eat any more. It were richer than plum pudding. It were more powerful than seal gristle. I felt me legs turn soft, as if me bones had melted. I crawled to the dunes to join the tigers. Becky picked up the ambergris where I dropped it and carried it to the dunes where she ate a mouthful. Halfway through chewing it, she sighed, her eyes rolled back in her head, her expression were ecstatic and she fell down beside us real slow like she were in a dream, and when she landed next to me she sent up a puff of fine sand like dust in a room bright with sunlight.

We lied in the dunes like pieces of jelly. The next few days that’s all we did. We ate ambergris til there were none left, except for the sharp bony things that were stuck in it. Sometimes I thought I were filled with honey. Other times I felt me body were a fish. I dreamt with me eyes open about whales. I dreamt with me eyes open about me father living inside a whale and it made me happy. Becky and I hardly said a word to each other. We were beyond words. When we moved round we did it on all fours, like we had become tigers too. I took off me dress and threw it away. I had no use for that, no use for words. Becky and me were in a heaven made of clouds of perfume. The tigers too. We all had the same expressions of bliss and happiness and we all had eyes that were glassy. We were full as a goog with joy.

Once the ambergris were finished, we slept for a couple of days and nights. I were now naked as the day I came into the world and Becky seeing me so carefree took off her dress and threw it away. It were a big thing for her to do but the dress were ragged and torn. She still wore her underclothes and put the cameo inside them so she wouldn’t lose it. One late afternoon when we were back to our real selves, and it were time to go, we set off the way we had come, avoiding the tiger man, and heading back to the den. It became colder on our journey home, but the lair were warm, especially after we followed the example of the tigers, who ripped off fern fronds and put them on the floor. Becky took off her filthy underclothes and wrapped the cameo in them and put it in the corner of the den cos it were precious to her. I think in becoming naked it made her even more determined not to lose her language and she’d sing, tell stories from the Bible or recite poems, not caring if we listened or not. The deepest part of her were fighting real hard not to become an animal.

Winter is cruel. It’s like having your bare bum whipped with a switch every day. It’s a constant sting, especially in your stomach. We were in ferny country so there were still animals ’bout, but not as many. Cos we wore no clothes we covered ourselves with mud from the creek. The wind didn’t cut us half as bad then. When snow fell we just stayed in our lair, snuggled up, snoozing all the time. Sometimes when we were really desperate for food we’d find a dead devil, but the flesh were rank and some of it would not stay down in our throat and it would come up again, but it were warm by then so we chewed it again and it were easier to swallow warm gunk. We went after wombat babies cos the mother and father were away hunting for their food. The tigers digged out the opening then Becky and I would attack the hole with sticks, digging deeper and deeper til we found the wombat pups. They were good nights. But in the real dark cold part of winter there were no food.

One evening as we looked out on the deep snow and shivered we knew it would be bad hunting. All our usual prey were in their burrows or dens. The world outside were empty of life. Our stomachs were full-bore empty too. Becky said she had an idea. So the three of us followed her through the ferny country, through the gum tree forest and into the scrub. We were still walking hours later when the sick sun came up.

We stopped on top of a hill and me heart started to beat like it were an animal trying to escape from me ribcage. This were where the evil tiger man lived. The tigers were frightened too; I could see by their stiff tails. I were clutching Becky’s muddy arm and saying, No, no, no. I didn’t want to give meself up to the man cos he skinned the tigers. She looked at me hard - oh dear, I remember that look so well, it were branded on me brain. It said I were stupid and silly and weak. She dragged me up to the top of the slope. The horse were still there, its blanket covered in snow - it looked white like a unicorn in me picture book. There were no smoke coming from the chimney so the fella might have been sleeping or away hunting tigers, I didn’t know. There, said Becky pointing to a dozen sheep dozing under a gum tree. I knew right then, like being whacked over the head with a piece of ironwood that the sheep were our food. So did the tigers. There were no words said. We all knew we had to do this quickly and quietly. And we knew our part in the hunt.

The tigers ran in a wide arc so they could be behind the sheep while Becky and I herded them. We knew they would turn tail and run. Once we seen the tigers had cut off the sheep’s escape route we ran straight at them. It were only later that I realised I were on all fours. It seemed more natural. We were so good at hunting, and so silent, that we were practically on the sheep before they realised. They tried to flee, but they went straight into the jaws of Dave and Corinna, who ripped the throats of two of the sheep while the others escaped. The horse were afeared and tried to get away but it were tied to a tree. We stood there, the dead sheep at our feet, panting and listening hard to any movement inside the shack. But there were none. I wanted to eat the sheep then and there and so did the tigers, but Becky said no. She were very quiet and forceful. She grabbed a sheep by the legs and told me to do the same. We dragged those two creatures from the back yard up the slope and boy it were hard yakka, let me tell you. It were easier going down the slope into a hiding place deep in a forest of peppermint gums, where we ate with a fury only the truly hungry could understand. Then Becky and me took turns carrying the remains of the sheep back to the den.

We became full of life and Becky and I didn’t feel the cold quite as bad. The tigers started the habit of going off by themselves, not wanting us to come. It were strange behaviour and I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Then one day, as the sun were setting, Becky were outside when she called to me. I crawled out of the lair and seen what she were seeing. Dave were mounting Corinna in a clearing covered with snow. I had seen this sort of thing with me pigs. I knew they were making babies and so did Becky. I were troubled. Not by what they were doing, but what it meant for Becky and me.