Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,57

Ernie said he were going to record a bounty hunter. When he heard this Mr Carsons said he might tag along, but Ernie were having none of that. He were afraid that this lunatic might rob or kill him. Mr Carsons demanded to accompany Ernie and refused to take no for an answer. Ernie led the way, but during the next several hours he had the creepy sensation that Mr Carsons were going to shoot or jump him from behind.

When they dismounted at the bounty hunter’s shack, Ernie told Carsons that the man were part blackfella so he were hoping he knew some Aboriginal songs cos there weren’t many blackfellas left. The tiger man were at home. He had to be. He had put an axe through his leg a few weeks before and it were in a splint. His walls were covered with curing tiger skins. Once he were fit again he were taking them to Hobart to sell. He were one of the few professional hunters left cos there were less and less tigers.

The blackfella knew a few songs from his ancestors and sung them for the phonograph. Carsons asked the hunter if he had heard stories ’bout two girls with two tigers. He said he had. He didn’t believe they were two ghosts, as some rumours had it. Carsons asked him why. Cos I seen them with me own eyes, he said. He had seen an eastern grey, a boomah, hopping through the bush and were going to shoot it when he seen two tigers chasing it down with the help of two humans. Mr Carsons showed him a map and asked him where he had seen them. He pointed to a place near a large lake and also marked an area where he had spotted several lairs and just missed killing the largest tiger he had ever seen.

When the two men left the hunter’s shack, Mr Carsons said goodbye to Ernie and prepared to ride off towards the lake. Now it was Ernie’s turn to say he were going to join Mr Carsons and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He were so keen to see if the girls were real and told Mr Carsons he might need someone to help him. So they set off together, sometimes riding, most times walking their horses through the dense bush. It took them four days to cross the tablelands to where the lake were. For the first two days Mr Carsons did not talk to Ernie, who suspected that the driven father were annoyed that Ernie were so fat he were slowing him down. On the third morning Ernie began to talk aloud to ease the silence. He knew all of Shakespeare and began quoting him. To his astonishment Becky’s father, riding ahead of him, began quoting from Shakespeare too. He knew Shakespeare, as Ernie said to me, backwards, frontwards, sidewards and upside down. For hours all they did was recite Shakespeare so that, Ernie said, our quest seemed to take on an epic quality as we went through the History plays. By the time they got to the comedies on the fourth day they were laughing and joking. It was the first time Ernie had seen Mr Carsons laugh.

They reached the lake just before dusk on the fourth day. It were high where the air was cold and crisp and behind them were the hills covered in snow. It were heavily wooded, so the men had to leave their horses by the lake in order to make their way to the area where the bounty hunter had seen a tiger den. As they made their slow way up Ernie suddenly cried out to Mr Carsons that he had seen something on the ridge in front of them. Mr Carsons took out his binoculars and seen four silhouettes against a setting sun. They were two tigers and two small humans. Ernie heard Carsons say Oh, my God, and he handed Ernie his binoculars. I remember Ernie still with astonishment in his voice, when he told me his stunned reaction on seeing Becky and me through the binoculars - we were naked, scrawny, covered in dirt and moss and with long, matted hair, and walked with a strange gait more animal-like than human and occasionally we’d move on all fours to catch up with the tigers. You didn’t look like two girls but a nightmarish version of them. The four of us were making our way down the