Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,19

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