Authors: Stephen Daisley
Coming Rain (25 page)
Almost immediately he began to throw his head and neck while Pearl's nostrils distended
and she looked back at her foal with savage eyes, as wild and profound an animal
as Clara had ever seen.
She watched the foal's efforts for a moment and then stepped forward, to clear the
white membrane off his head. Both mother and baby seemed to rest. Pause, and think.
Some time passed
like this. They were both exhausted.
âOh, the good girl,' Clara said and she felt a shiver run up the back of her neck
and across her shoulders.
The mare swung her head around again to smell her newborn and began to position her
front feet under herself to stand. Careful, aware of the foal, she rose to her feet
and turned to lick off the remaining gauze and blood and matter. As she licked him,
the foal suddenly put out a long front leg, started and put out another. His little
head swaying and he twitched and all the time Pearl was patiently cleaning him and
urging him to rise. His neck becoming stronger, eyes brightening as he listened to
his mother's feet moving in the straw. Shook his little head. Alive. Gathered his
legs under him and stood, staggered, swayed and tumbled over backwards.
Clara laughed at this most tender of sights, put her hand to her mouth as if to weep;
she had no idea how much time had passed. A moment or two, five, fifteen minutes.
A newborn standing, staggering, falling and desperate somehow to keep trying. Pearl
came to her foal, some of the white shroud and afterbirth still swinging from her
vulva. Made an ancient throat and belly noise of recognition. Using her nose and
face, she lifted and gently urged him to stand. The foal seemed to nod and steady.
He swayed and found his feet. And, after a moment, began to search for her teats
beneath her front shoulder. Pearl guided him as he kept smelling along her belly
until he found her milk. He somehow knew to bend his head, turn it slightly, open
his mouth and begin to suckle.
Tears were streaming down Clara's face and she was laughing.
It was early evening when Lew parked the Land Rover in a dry creek bed about half
a mile from Daybreak Springs.
A pack on his back, he carried the twelve gauge Remington shotgun in one hand and
the Lee Enfield rifle in the other. Long shadows across the land as he made his way
to the scrub-covered crest above the waterfall. It was the location he had found
and prepared the previous week. He lifted the scrub from the hollow and lay down.
Took off his hat. Studied the country stretching out below him. Hollows and lees,
flat rocks on which to stand. Approach tracks to the water and the places animals
and birds came to drink.
The long pool where they had swum was in darkness. He waited for a while and prepared
a firing position. Laid the rifle out, sighted it, opened the bolt, and pushed a
magazine into place with an oiled click. Closed the bolt, sliding the brass round
into the breach. The .303 was loaded. He made sure the safety catch was off and it
was ready.
Lew sat with his back to a gimlet tree and watched the sun setting in the west. A
dark red semi-circle and black land for as far as you could see. The air was becoming
cold and clean as the desert night closed over him. He leaned forward and touched
the rifle. There was a slight dew on the breech block and it felt cold. Thought,
I will not think of you old man.
Great black shoulders the boulders. He could hear the scurries of the night creatures.
Rock wallabies, woylies. Birds flew to their night perch. And the stars were as if
God was showing off. Painter had said would you look at them? Babies hiding in an
old woman's hair.
He knew the dingo would come tomorrow. Lay down in the dirt hollow and pulled a thin
blanket over his shoulder, thought about Clara. Her smile and approval. How her mouth
felt as she kissed him.
The den was warm and dry and the dingo bitch had whelped in the sand. Eaten the placenta
and had begun to suckle the three pups that remained alive.
She had taken the three stillborn and left them near the entrance to the den. Carried
them gently as she would a live mewling pup, by the tiny scruff. Laid them out, little
curled feet and closed eyes: for the black crows. As a gift to the hated black waahdong
dog crows who had followed her all her life. This was an offering and her kind would
be in them now as they ever shadowed her and her offspring. The rotation of their
black wings as they flapped away with her dead pups in their triumphant mouths.
Dark shapes in the blue sky.
She had denned near the water below the cave. White gum and paperbark. Tall reeds
and spear grass. The comings and goings of zebra finch. Wallaby come down from the
rocks to water and once a mob of swift, hard-eyed desert kangaroo come in slowly
too. Big sandy boomers overlooking their clan, the dangerous wide-shouldered fighters.
Lifted chins.
The young red dog had gone to hunt. He stayed away for a day and a half and returned
as the sun was setting. He carried the partial gut and spine of a young rock wallaby;
laid it at the entrance to the cave and retreated to watch and listen to the world
from the place they had found for her to give birth. He knew he would mate with her
soon. He had, as she had taught him, begun to cut large circling tracks from where
they were. To stop and wait. To listen and smell the country. Notice what had changed.
To allow the hunt to come and to be there when it came. To distrust everything and
at the killing, to act and take what was needed to be taken. She had showed him and
he had begun to grow with confidence in such instruction. His ears were forward and
his mouth open, panting as he watched the world. The burnt whiskers had grown back
and he had become a strong and beautiful male dog.
She lay and sighed. Panted as the pups found her teats and bunted at them. The milk
came down and flushed through her. Helpless, an arched throat, she looked away as
they fed. Courage to feed your young like this. There were more than enough teats
now with only three pups. They would be fat. Already they were warm and round and
hungry.
She heard a shot coming from a long way off. The red dog hunted in that direction.
Two more.
It was early morning when Lew saw the dingo coming down the slope of a rock-filled
gully. He saw the liquid working of the dog's shoulders beneath the red fur, how
his back feet and tail slowed and balanced his descent, his long tongue, yellow eyes
and moving ears. Lew watched as he paused and waited, looked about and raised his
nose. How cautious he was, his ability in this land. There was a beautiful silence
about him as he made his way down to the water.
When the .303 took him, he lifted both front feet off the ground and spun. Fell over.
Got up and tried to run, staggered sideways and fell down again. Cried out at his
awful wound.
Lew saw his courage. Blood spurting from his mouth almost like fire. Back legs working,
tail out. Old burns along his back. Shot through the chest yet still trying to run.
Lew knew now the direction of the cave where the bitch would have whelped. Where
she and the pups would be. The red dingo, trying to get back to her as he died. What
else would he do?
The youngster had not come back for a week. She had fed on the remainder of the carcass
he had brought to the cave but soon she would have to hunt.
Her three blue-eyed pups sat in the sun and looked at the blinding immensity of the
world. Then they began to squeal and whine for milk. Rolled over into their furred
selves and pretended to bite. The bitch stepped over them and walked to a flat piece
of ground below the den with a good view of the country beneath.
The three mottled pups began to bumble towards the presence of their mother. She
looked to where the young red dog would bring meat and lay down and presented her
belly to her whelp. The pups ran to bury themselves into her teats.
She opened and closed her mouth a few times but her eyes did not leave the country
below them. The hunting country. The ancient lines of her coming to be here and she
lay, and knew. Allowed her head back, throat exposed, content with this moment.
She looked up as the light was blocked and his darkness, like a cloud, moved over
them.
She did not see the features of the young man. She had not heard him, smelled him.
She did not hear the shots.
When Clara saw him again he stood still and she walked to him.
âLewis.'
âI have brought you these,' he said.
She looked at the sack he was carrying. The tiny pups were moving around in it. Their
mewling sounds high pitched.
âThey will be hungry.'
âThey will,' he said.
She put her arms around him and he felt her fingers, each one of them, on his back.
âThank you.'
Her breathing and the beating of her heart were loud against his chest, and after
a moment, they began to coincide with his.
To Lyn Tranter, an extraordinary woman whose guidance, patience, belief and forthrightness
are without equal.
Coming Rain
is published
because
of her. My deepest respect and thanks.
Also many thanks to UWA for their support during a very difficult time in 2011.