Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,20
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