Read Online Into That Forest by Louis Nowra - Free Book Online Page A

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.
    Near the end of winter we ran out of food again so we went back to the bounty hunter’s place. We killed two more sheep. After we gorged ourselves til late morning in our hideaway in the forest of gum trees, Becky got it in her head to go back to the shack. There were no smoke coming from the chimney, there were no horse and there were no sign of the tiger man. I followed her, trembling a little cos I was worried he would spot us, but she had purpose on her mind.
    We snuck round to the front of the shack and peered into the window. The house seemed empty. We pushed open the front door and stood there in the doorway. Me fear was so bad that I felt meself leaking, a warm trickle running down the inside of me legs. Becky stood there for a time listening, and let me tell you, our hearing were extra good now. I could hear the footsteps of a dunnart on dead leaves a hundred yards away, and know that a low growl were a wombat and a solitary crunch sound were a quoll crushing a rabbit’s skull with a bite to the back of the neck. And our eyes, our eyes could see way deep into the darkness and recognise the shape of a pademelon or pygmy possum hiding in a night tree. Becky heard nothing. She looked at me, I heard nothing too, so we stepped inside.
    It were such a long, long time since we had been inside a house. It were really only a shack, but it seemed enormous to us. I think Becky were just curious, curious to know what sort of life she had left behind. She sat on the only chair while I touched the ashes of the fire. They were cold, so I knew the bounty hunter had been gone for days. She went into the other room where there were a bed and lied on it. She had a sort of sad expression when she got up, like she had lost something really important to her forever. I looked for food but there were none. Then I went back into the bedroom where I seen Becky staring into a shaving mirror. She were touching her muddy hair and face and running her fingers round the dried blood on her mouth. She bared her teeth and started to make growling, coughing sounds and then she opened up her mouth as far as it could go. She must have seen something terrible or hateful in the mirror cos she suddenly screamed and throwed the mirror against the wall. It shattered everywhere. She stared at the pieces on the floor for a moment and then ran out of the shack and back to the tigers, who were pacing up and down, real nervous.
    We picked up as much of the dead sheep as we could carry and set off home. We were nearing our den when we all stopped on account of hearing heavy footsteps. We rushed into the bracken and hid there. On top of a ridge we seen what looked like the silhouette of a half-man, halfbeast. Looking closer I seen it were a man on a horse. It were too far to see his face but we hid cos we were so scared that he were the bounty hunter. Pretty soon he vanished over a