“I’m glad he’s back, Dad,” was all he said. “And your old Taocat, too!” he added to Elizabeth, with a difficult smile. Elizabeth, the factual, the matter-of-fact, burst into tears. Peter scratched Tao behind the ears, awkward, embarrassed. “I didn’t expect anything else—I told you that. I tell you what,” the boy continued, with a desperate cheerfulness, avoiding the eyes of his family, “You go on down—I’ll catch up with you later. I want to go back to the Lookout and see if I can get a decent picture of that whisky-jack.” There will never be a more blurred picture of a whisky-jack, said Uncle John grimly to himself. On an impulse he spoke aloud.
“How about if I came too, Peter? I could throw the crumbs and perhaps bring the bird nearer?” Even as he spoke he could have bitten back the words, expecting a rebuff, but to his surprise the boy accepted his offer.
They watched the rest of the family wending their way down the trail, Tao still clutched in Elizabeth’s arms, gentle worshiping Luath restored at last to the longed-for position at his master’s heels.
The two remaining now returned to Lookout Point. They took some photographs. They prised an odd-shaped fungus growth off a tree. They found, incredibly, the cylindrical core of a diamond drill. And all the time they talked: they talked of rockets, orbits, space; gravely they pondered the seven stomachs of a cow; tomorrow’s weather; but neither mentioned dogs.
Now, still talking, they were back at the fork of the trail; Longridge looked surreptitiously at his watch: it was time to go. He looked at Peter. “We’d better g—”he started to say, but his voice trailed off as he saw the expression on the face of the tense, still frozen boy beside him, then followed the direction of his gaze.…
Down the trail, out of the darkness of the bush and into the light of the slanting bars of sunlight, joggling along with his peculiar nautical roll, came—Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune.
Boroughcastle Brigadier’s ragged banner of a tail streamed out behind him, his battle-scarred ears were upright and forward, and his noble pink and black nose twitched, straining to encompass all that his short peering gaze was denied. Thin and tired, hopeful, happy—and hungry, his remarkable face alight with expectation—the old warrior was returning from the wilderness. Bodger, beautiful for once, was coming as fast as he could.
He broke into a run, faster and faster, until the years fell away, and he hurled himself towards Peter.
And as he had never run before, as though he would outdistance time, Peter was running towards his dog.
John Longridge turned away, then, and left them, an indistinguishable tangle of boy and dog, in a world of their own making. He started down the trail as in a dream, his eyes unseeing.
Halfway down he became aware of a small animal running at lightning speed towards him. It swerved past his, legs with an agile twist and he caught a brief glimpse of a black-masked face and a long black tail before it disappeared up the trail in the swiftness of a second.
It was Tao, returning for his old friend, that they might end their journey together.
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The Incredible Journey Page 10
