Meanwhile Clarrie was still under attack from the pack leader. The yellow-eyed dog had just been repelled with another kick but now the lithe body was compressed like a coiled spring, ready to relaunch itself at him.
It was then that Noelie appeared alongside brandishing the thick mulga branch. THWACK! The sound of the makeshift club coming down on Yellow Eyes’ skull sounded like a ball being hit by a cricket bat. The dog gave a yelp, louder and shriller than before, and this time the cry had a note of fear and capitulation. Yellow Eyes slunk off, body hunched and cowed, tail tucked between his legs. At the same time, the other dogs began melting away into the scrub. All of them except Pig Eyes, who for several seconds remained just a short distance away trying to devour Chaseling’s Redback. But now she released the boot from her jaws. She stepped forward, lowered her haunches and anointed the boot with a squirt of urine. Then she ran off towards the other dogs.
Seconds later there were snarls and howls so bloodcurdling you might imagine them coming from Cerberus, the multi-headed guard dog at the gates of the underworld.
Wild dog packs often turn to cannibalism to survive. Usually they go for the smallest and weakest member of the clan. But this time it was the pack leader. Having let the tribe down, he’d toppled from the top of the pecking order to the bottom. A snarling Pig Eyes rushed at him, large, bony head lowered and the little eyes glittering evilly as she used her head, and the heavy body attached to it, to knock the leader’s legs out from beneath him. Yellow Eyes fell to the dirt, growling a furious challenge. But he was now at a fatal disadvantage because, after hitting the ground, he’d rolled onto his back, the pale fur on his stomach standing out in the gloom. Chaseling saw Pig Eyes lunge forward and bite into the exposed belly. Yellow Eyes gave a howl of agony as Pig Eyes jerked her head backwards, pulling out a shiny length of intestine.
Frantically windmilling his legs, Yellow Eyes tried to get back on his feet. But now the other dogs moved in, clamping their jaws around their victim’s legs. Chaseling could hear the crunching of bones as they pulled in opposite directions, trying to tear the limbs off their former Top Dog.
Now Pig Eyes lunged forward again, ripping into Yellow Eyes’ abdomen and hauling out something dark and glistening that Chaseling thought was a piece of liver, although it was difficult to tell for sure in the dim light.
Pig Eyes let the prize fall to the ground, placing a paw over it. Raising her bloodied snout to the sky, she let loose a loud, commanding bark that told the others, ‘It’s party time fellas, tuck in!’ And that’s what the pack did.
Seemingly oblivious to the humans watching from less than ten metres away, the pack went into a feeding frenzy. Chaseling could hear wet snuffling noises as dogs pushed forward and ripped the rest of the yellow-eyed dog’s innards out while others gnawed and pulled at legs.
Yellow Eyes gave a final, agonised cry, a dreadful ululation that seemed to go on for ever. Then, once he’d fallen silent, there was a rising chorus of growls and yelps as animals fought for prime pieces of flesh and viscera.
Chaseling and his companions had remained frozen with shock as the grisly spectacle unfolded in the moonlight. The boy in Chaseling’s arms was whimpering with terror, his body shaking violently. Clarrie took his son from Chaseling’s arms. The boy burst into tears.
Clarrie rocked Davie from side to side and spoke some comforting words in Pitjantjatjara. Then, looking over the child’s heaving shoulders at Chaseling, his teeth flashed in the moonlight as he said, ‘Welcome to central Australia, Kumina.’
The three men laughed. Chaseling could hear a note of near-hysteria in his own laughter. He retrieved his boot from the edge of the track, where Pig Eyes had taken it before attacking Yellow Eyes. Standing on one leg, he slipped the Redback onto his foot. There were deep teeth imprints in the toe of the boot and it was wet, slimy and rank-smelling.
They briskly walked away towards the distant lights, Clarrie carrying his son and old Noelie holding the mulga club across his chest like a soldier patrolling with his gun. Soon the sounds of the feasting dogs began to fade and Chaseling could hear the chirping of crickets and the whisper of a breeze sweeping across the plain.
4 ST CATHERINE’S
THE LIGHTS in the distance grew brighter and they soon came to some small, decrepit-looking houses beside the track. Clarrie called out to a group of people tending a fire in front of a home which had orange bin liner plastic taped across the two front windows. In the bare dirt yard, half a dozen children were playing in the shell of a derelict car. The youngsters ran out onto the track and started skipping about as though the circus had just arrived, with Chaseling playing the part of chief clown – three of the children were dancing around him in a circle. He noticed that two of them had twin rivulets of yellow mucous running from their nostrils, the result, he knew from his medical training, of a chronic respiratory infection endemic in remote indigenous Australia. A woman’s strident voice sounded from the edge of the fire and the children ran back to their makeshift playhouse in the car shell.
Chaseling and his three companions continued down the track to the centre of the community. There was a general store, its cyclone-meshed window display and padlocked roller door starkly illuminated in the amber light of a sodium lamp set on a steel pole in front of the building. Dozens of large brown moths were flying around the light in frantic circles.
Next, they passed a community hall that had a huge dot painting of a multi-coloured snake along its side. ‘The Rainbow Snake, Wanampi,’ Noelie said.
‘Wanampi,’ Davie trilled.
Clarrie led them past what looked like a disused classroom. Confirming this, he said, ‘Not enough kids here anymore for a school. They go to classes in another community, 40 minutes’ drive away.’
They passed more houses, none of which were ever going to be featured in Home Beautiful. The houses stood on bases of metre-high brick, presumably to handle flooding, although Chaseling couldn’t imagine this area ever being anything other than a parched desert. Above the bricks were box-like cement board structures with tin roofs.
Clarrie stopped alongside a home that was in a better state than most of the others, apart from the light green paint peeling like sunburned skin from its walls. He called something out in Pitjantjatjara. A woman appeared in an open doorway, her body silhouetted against the yellow electric light from inside. She hurried down the steps and walked across the yard towards them in bare feet, unfettered breasts swinging under a knee-length floral print dress. At the same time, young Davie ran towards her.
‘His mum,’ Clarrie explained to Chaseling. ‘We’re not together anymore.’
‘The new normal,’ Chaseling commented.
Clarrie introduced him to his ex. Her name was Sandy. ‘What are you doing out this way?’ she asked him, making shy, faltering eye contact.
‘Reducing the local kangaroo population,’ he said. ‘My car hit a roo and Clarrie gave me a lift. And he says he’s going to cook up the roo.’
‘Yeah,’ Clarrie said, ‘but first we gotta get petrol for the car.’
They continued on through the small community till they reached a house fronted by a yard where a small group sat round a fire. A middle-aged woman stood up and approached them. She was wearing what seemed to be the obligatory floral dress. On her head was a beanie displaying the Aboriginal colours of red (for the blood that was shed), yellow (the sun) and black (the skin). After a conversation with Clarrie and Noelie, she turned to Chaseling and smiled. ‘Hello, I’m Clarrie’s Auntie. They call me Cookie.’
She invited Chaseling to sit by the fire. Meanwhile Clarrie and Noelie disappeared to get a jerry can of petrol and a lift back to their car. There was also mention of ‘malu,’ which Chaseling, having mastered his first word of Pitjantjatjara, now knew meant ‘kangaroo.’
Chaseling followed Cookie over to the fire pit, where mulga branches were crackling away, tongues