Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,32
owls and feel me blood go hot when I heard the squeal of the animals they catched. Becky’s body went rigid when she heard it too. We were alive at night, all our nerves were sparking and prickly. Mr Carsons were worried about us being awake at night, so he stayed up watching us and then the fat bloke woke to take his turn to guard us. We went to sleep near dawn and then snoozed on the packhorse as it made its way down the hills.
On the morning of the third day I seen a thin line of smoke in the distance and knew it were a house. We did not make for there, instead we took a trail through some trees and once they had thinned out we entered a huge valley. It were hotter now we were down from the hills. I seen some sheep and me stomach rumbled and me blood got excited. As we got closer I could see a house and barn. Mr Carsons turned round on his horse and said something to Becky. She did not answer. Maybe she wanted to but she didn’t have the words for it any more.
As I peered over Becky’s shoulder, cos she were in front of me, I remembered like it were a dream that I had seen this farm before. It were Mr Carsons’s place. Becky were tied to me and I felt her body tremble like it were a fern in a violent wind. Mr Carsons got off his horse and walked the packhorse down the track through the front gate into the yard. Dogs ran out to greet him but on smelling us started barking like crazy. They jumped up at us so we snarled and barked back at them. They were scared shitless and skedaddled back to their kennel boxes, tails between their legs.
We rode towards the barn. Me blood got excited again when I seen chooks wandering round with no fear in their eyes. We stopped and Mr Carsons and the other bloke took us down from the packhorse. Once the dogs seen we were off the horse, they howled and barked and huddled up in a corner of the back yard. I smelled their fear and me body tingled with excitement. I also felt peculiar. I knew this were Mr Carsons’s farm, cos I had seen it a couple of times, but I had forgotten it so it were new and strange to me now.
Still roped up, we were led to the verandah in the shade where we flopped down, exhausted and confused. I didn’t know if Becky understood her father. He spoke to her a lot while Ernie were busy near the horse trough boiling water in a huge tin can on a fire. All I could understand in the mosquito buzz of Mr Carsons’s words were bzzz . . . Becky . . . bzzzz, Becky. He kept on forcing her to look at him by holding her head like a vice and turning it towards him, but she coughed and opened her jaw, letting him know she did not want eye contact. We had learnt not to do that, cos it makes a tiger angry.
Before we had time to recover, the men took off our clothes and carted us to the trough. We were struggling cos we didn’t know what were happening. Ernie had poured the hot water into the trough. When I seen that water and felt the men’s strong arms trying to push us in, well, I barked, coughed and gave them a threat yawn, but they still shoved me in. I can see now how filthy we must have been. We were a mess of bruises, scars and calluses, especially on our hands and knees. Our hair were dirty, so dirty that Becky’s blonde hair were black. The men were trying to calm us with their words and firm grip. It were like torture as they soaped us. I could take no more and bit one of the men’s hands - I have no idea whose hand. The grip went weak and I jumped out of the trough and started running. There were a right kerfuffle with yelling, shouts and barking - and howling from the scared dogs - as I made a run for it. I seen the far cloudy mountains and I set out for them.
I had only taken a few steps when I slipped in the mud and Ernie dived on me.