Red Dog

by Louis de Bernières

  Peeto drove a bit faster than he should have. For the most part they said little, but every now and then one of them would voice his anger against whoever it was who had shot Red Dog.

  ‘I’d like to put him through the ore-crusher at the mine,’ said Vanno. ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘I’d like to get a chance to munch him,’ said Peeto. ‘I’d like to be at the zebra crossing just when he gets there, and I’d stop for him nice and polite, and then I’d put my foot down and knock him flat.’

  ‘I’d just like the chance to punch him in the face,’ said Jocko. ‘Just once. For the satisfaction. Then I’d walk away.’

  John was just looking down at Red Dog, breathing heavily in his arms, and he said, ‘Don’t die, daggy dog, don’t die.’ He kept looking at the wounded leg, as if looking might make it better.

  Peeto drove right up to the limit, and soon they were speeding along the North Coastal Highway. They passed through Roebourne, once such an important town, now so abject and neglected, over the dry beds of the creeks, and on towards Sherlock Homestead. The men couldn’t help noticing how many kangaroos and wallabies had been hit by cars, and lay dead in horrible attitudes at the side of the tarmac.

  ‘They should do something about it,’ said Vanno. ‘I just counted ten in five k’s.’

  ‘They should put up fences,’ said Peeto.

  ‘They jump fences,’ said Jocko. ‘And anyway the farmers want them run over, right enough, so who’s going to put them up?’

  ‘I’m just wondering,’ said Vanno, ‘why there’s any of them left when there’s so many on the highway.’

  ‘It’s because there are so many,’ said Jocko. ‘There’s an endless supply.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Vanno, ‘they’re so stupid, they see a car with lights on and they hop in front, and bang, that’s that. One big mess and no more roo. You know, once I saw a wallaby at the side of the road, OK? It was early, very early, and I slowed down for him and I let him hop across, and just when I put my foot down to get away, he hopped back straight out in front, and there’s nothing I can do. Not one thing. What can you do with a critter as dim as that?’

  Jocko stroked Red Dog’s back and said, ‘You better watch out, old boy, ’cause the way you jump out, one day you’re going to be like all these roos.’

  The sun poured scalding light onto the flat grassland, creating strange mirages of islands floating in water above the horizon. There were mirages on the road ahead too, so that sometimes Peeto didn’t know whether or not it was safe to overtake the tractors and heavy-laden lorries. The journey seemed to take for ever, and John suffered the continual torment of wondering if Red Dog would live long enough to get to the vet at all. He seemed very quiet and still and his breathing had become light and irregular. His owner was still feeling an awful fear in his stomach that made him feel sick, and he was thinking about all the fun that he and the dog had ever had together, and might never have again. When they did finally arrive in Port Hedland after nearly four hours’ driving across that harsh landscape, he felt as if he had already been to the moon and back.

  Peeto drove the car straight to the old part of town, by the waterside, and stopped outside a newsagent’s shop in Wedge Street. Vanno jumped out, and ran in. ‘Where’s the vet?’ he asked bluntly, and the woman reached under the counter for a Yellow Pages. She handed it over to him, Peeto leafed through it hurriedly, memorised the address by reciting it to himself a couple of times, and ran back out to the car. ‘Well, thank you too,’ called the woman after him in a very sarcastic tone of voice.

  They were fortunate that they happened to arrive in Port Hedland during surgery hours, and that the vet wasn’t too busy with other clients. When John walked in with Red Dog in his arms the vet was just dealing with his last client of the day, a cat that had come in for her regular check-up.

  ‘What have we here?’ said the vet, looking at the four worried men in the uniforms of Hamersley drivers, with battered akubras on their heads. ‘Bring him in, boys.’

  The vet asked John to lay the dog on the table, and he lifted the dressing that was now dark with dried blood. ‘Nice job,’ said the vet. ‘Who did this for you?’

  ‘It was me, mate,’ said Jocko. ‘Hope it was up to scratch.’

  ‘Couldn’t have done better,’ said the vet. ‘You’re in the wrong job.’

  ‘Glad I didn’t stuff it up.’ Jocko looked proud of himself, and Vanno clapped him on the back. ‘Good on ya,’ he said.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ asked John.

  ‘Too early to say,’ said the vet. ‘First thing is I’ll have to get those bullets out.’ The vet looked at the animal a little more closely and exclaimed, ‘Well, I do believe it’s Red Dog.’

  ‘Jeez,’ said Peeto, ‘how did you know that?’

  ‘This dog,’ said the vet, ‘everyone knows. The first time I met him, it was at Pretty Pool, and we were waiting to watch the stairway to the moon, and we’d all brought stuff for the barbie, and Red Dog here, he ate my salami, and he got my neighbour’s steak. Everyone knows Red Dog.’

  ‘He’s been here a lot?’ asked John, astonished. Red Dog followed him about faithfully for most of the time, and it was hard to imagine when he might have found the opportunity to travel so much.

  ‘Every time anything’s going to happen,’ said the vet, laughing, ‘along comes Red Dog in a road-train, and then when it’s over off he goes. It’s my belief he’s got a couple of girlfriends hereabouts, ’cause just recently I’ve noticed some of my youngest clients look just a little bit like him.’

  ‘Good lad,’ said Jocko, stroking his muzzle.

  The men sat outside in the waiting room whilst the vet and his nurse extracted the bullets. They couldn’t think of very much to say to each other, and just kept exchanging glances, and wiping their brows with the backs of their hands. The suspense was too much to bear, as it seemed to them that Red Dog was fighting for his life and could very easily lose the battle.

  After half an hour or so the vet came out and told them, ‘I think he’ll be fine. Lucky for him, the bullets missed the bone. He probably lost a lot of blood, but he’s strong and obstinate, that’s for sure. Give him a while to wake up, and we’ll see how it goes.’ He held out his hand and dropped the two distorted bullets into John’s outstretched hand.

  John looked down at them and shook his head. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is why anyone wants to go around shooting at dogs.’

  ‘You’ll be surprised,’ said the vet. ‘It happens all the time, and I take out more bullets than I’d ever expect. It’s the farmers and the station men. They’ll shoot anything that looks like a fox or a dingo or a dog, and they say they’re protecting the stock, but if you ask me half of them are trigger-happy morons who do it for the sake of it. They’re the kind of people who still eat damper and think they’re starring in a western. I’ve heard of people driving around with hunting rifles sticking out of the windows, blasting away at anything that moves. It makes you despair, it really does. The only thing that’s worse is when they go round leaving poison bait. That’s what really gets me riled. It makes you sick to see a dog die of strychnine. If they could see how horrible it is for a dog to die of poison, I don’t believe they could bring themselves to do it.’

  Before long the men were called into the surgery, and found Red Dog, his wound heavily dressed, lying motionless but awake on the table. ‘I doubt he’ll be able to move,’ said the vet, ‘but he’ll certainly recognise you.’

  The four fellows made a fuss of him, and Red Dog sighed happily. ‘I’ve got to keep him a couple more hours,’ the vet told them, ‘so why don’t you go out and get a bite, and come back later? I don’t mind hanging about. I’ve got paper to shuffle about in the office.’

  John looked at his watch, and said, ‘Well, I reckon it is tucker time.’

  Jocko pulled a face; ‘I’ve just realised I haven’t told me missus where I’m gone.’

  ‘You’re for it,’ said Va
nno. ‘I bet you a dollar she’s cooking something up right now.’

  ‘I’ll give her a tinkle,’ said Jocko.

  The men turned to leave, and Red Dog, thinking he was going to be left, struggled to his feet and made to jump down. ‘Hey, you,’ said the vet, ‘you’re not going anywhere.’ He told John to keep the dog still, and gave him another dose of sedative with the hypodermic. ‘I can honestly say,’ said the vet, ‘that I’ve never known a dog as ill as this do anything like that before.’

  They made their way to the Bungalow Café and ordered plenty of food. They ate with the appetite of men who have been reprieved, and it put them into a thoroughly good mood. ‘What say we find a bar?’ said John. ‘It’s my shout. Least I can do.’

  They started off with a couple of middies each, and then Peeto said he’d taken a yen for a Bundy, ‘just to top it off.’ The others declared it a fine idea, and they had a Bundy each. ‘Here’s to Red Dog,’ said Vanno. ‘Chin chin.’

  ‘Long life and good health,’ said Peeto.

  ‘Lots of girlfriends and lots of pups,’ said Jocko.

  ‘Here’s to you lads for helping me out,’ said John.

  They knocked back their Bundies, and sighed with satisfaction. ‘Just one more,’ suggested Peeto.

  ‘Let’s have a Scotch,’ said Jocko, licking his lips and raising his eyebrows. ‘It’s a special occasion, is it not, and nothing’s better than Scotch.’

  An hour later they staggered out of the pub, happy and hazy, full of beer and Bundie, and made their way back to the vet’s. There they found Red Dog in spirits almost as good as their own, and such was their state of happiness that they read the sum at the bottom of the vet’s bill several times before they appreciated how big it was. ‘Would you mind,’ asked John, ‘if we paid you later? Some of the boys are having a whip round.’

  ‘We haven’t got this much,’ said Peeto.

  ‘If we pay it now we couldn’t buy enough petrol at the servo to get us home,’ said Vanno. ‘We’d have to push it all the way from Whim Creek.’

  The vet looked at their anxious and slightly drunken faces, and decided he could take the risk of deferring payment, but he warned, ‘I don’t think any of you should be driving. You’ve had a few too many.’

  Such was their confidence, inspired by alcohol and relief, that the four fellows decided to drive home anyway. Somewhere near the Sherlock River bridge, however, they realised that behind them was a car approaching quickly, with its blue light flashing.

  ‘Oh, jeez,’ said Peeto, ‘it’s the coppers.’

  ‘We’ll help you pay the fine,’ jested Vanno, and then regretted it later.

  Peeto pulled in to the side, and got out of the car as the policeman approached him with his notebook at the ready. ‘Hello, Bill,’ said Peeto.

  ‘I’m not Bill when I’m on duty, mate,’ said the policeman, who was in fact one of Peeto’s neighbours.

  Peeto couldn’t resist saying, ‘And when you’re on duty I’m not “mate”. I’m“sir”.’

  That was Peeto’s big mistake. No-one with any sense should be cheeky and clever with a traffic policeman who has been on duty for six hours and has become so bored with sitting at the side of the road in his car that he is in just the right frame of mind for being nasty to someone.

  Peeto failed the breathalyser test, and the policeman wouldn’t let him off, even though he had been one of the saviours of the famous Red Dog.

  Next day during smoko they worked out how much it had all cost. There was the loss of the day’s wages, the cost of the petrol, the food and the booze, there was the vet’s bill, and the fine for driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.

  ‘Hey,’ said Vanno glumly, ‘what say the next time we fly a surgeon in? It’s gotta be cheaper than this.’

  RED DOG

  AND THE WOMAN FROM PERTH

  One evening John was sitting in his hut drinking tea, when there was a scratch at the door. It was Red Dog’s scratch, so he got up to let him in. Just as he was reaching the doorhandle, however, there was also a knock. ‘Strewth,’ thought John, ‘Red’s learned a new trick.’

  He opened it, and there was Red Dog with someone he had never seen before. She was a woman in early middle-age, with a tightly permed hairstyle and a worried but resolute expression.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said, ‘but I’ve come about the dog.’

  ‘I’m not selling him,’ said John. ‘In fact I’d sooner sell me mum. If she was still alive, that is.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to buy him,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve just come because I’m worried about him, and I know he’s yours.’

  ‘Belongs to everyone, really,’ said John, ‘but I’m his best mate. What’s up then?’

  ‘It’s the ticks,’ said the woman.

  ‘Ticks?’

  ‘Yes. Look, my name’s Ellen Richards, and I just moved up here from Perth, and I’ve got a job at Hamersley, in the admin office, and I heard there’s a problem with ticks round here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said John, ‘you burn ’em on the backside with a hot needle, and they drop off, and you kill ’em in metho.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s just that Red Dog visited me this evening, and I couldn’t help noticing that he’s got ticks.’

  ‘He gets them sometimes,’ said John. ‘I check him every couple of days.’

  ‘Well, I checked him too,’ said the woman, ‘and I found some on his ears and one on his back and I burned them off, but there are some strange browny pink ones on his stomach, and I can’t get them off; and when I try to burn them off, he just squeals. I’m worried about it, and as he’s your dog, I thought I ought to let you know.’

  It was John’s turn to be concerned. ‘Ticks on his stomach?’

  ‘Yes, on both sides.’

  John called Red Dog and rolled him over on his back. He lay there with his paws in the air, wondering whether his master was going to rough him up and tickle him, which was very acceptable, or whether the woman would be coming at him with hot needles again, which definitely was not. ‘Where are these ticks?’ asked John.

  The woman knelt down and pointed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s about four or five on each side.’

  John was horrified. ‘You haven’t been putting hot needles on those?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but they wouldn’t drop off.’

  John scratched his head in disbelief. ‘And he squealed, did he?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was horrible. I think that when I burn them they just bite into him harder. Maybe you should take him to the vet.’

  ‘Listen, lady,’ said John, ‘I can’t think of a nice way to put this, but those aren’t ticks.’ He paused, thinking how best to express himself. ‘You’ve never had a dog of your own then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ve had several.’

  ‘Were they dogs or bitches, then?’

  ‘Both. I’ve had both.’

  ‘And you’ve never noticed?’

  ‘Never noticed what?’

  ‘They’ve all got … well … they’ve all got tits. Even the dogs. They don’t use ’em, but they got ’em.’

  Ellen put her hand to her mouth. ‘You mean?’

  John nodded, ‘Those aren’t ticks, they’re tits.’

  She went pale and sat down on John’s only chair; ‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘and I’ve been putting hot needles on ’em.’ She forgot about John and went down on her knees. She put her arms around Red Dog’s neck and started to cry ‘Oh, Red, I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry, so sorry …’

  Red Dog looked up at John, sharing this moment of embarrassment. Red liked to be hugged as much as the next dog, but not necessarily by somebody who was whining and wauling in his left ear, and whom he didn’t know very well at all.

  The next day, much to her shame, and much to the amusement of the workers at Hamersley Iron, Ellen discovered that the news of her mistake had got to work even before she did. ‘Watch out for your tits, mates,’ called th
e men, covering their chests with their hands, and pretending to run away.

  It took years for Ellen to live it all down, but Red Dog came and visited her anyway, because he could forgive anyone who was generous with food, and she’d soon given up all that painful business with hot needles and methylated spirit.

  HAS ANYONE SEEN JOHN?

  John bought a nice powerful motorbike because, although he already had a car, he liked the idea of riding around on hot days with the breeze blowing in his face. It was great for short journeys, as long as you weren’t carrying much with you, and anyway, the girls quite liked a man with a motorbike as long as he wasn’t a crazy driver. Once or twice he put Red Dog on the seat in front of him, with his paws on the petrol tank, but he didn’t seem to like it very much, greatly preferring the comfortable seats of trucks, buses and cars. When John kickstarted his bike, Red didn’t make any moves to come too, as he always did when his master started up the car. Instead he lay in front of the door, waiting for John to come back, or he consulted his encyclopaedic memory, and took a stroll to one of the houses where somebody might have fed him years before. Sometimes in the fierce summer he went to the shopping centre where Patsy had once tried to kick him out, and lay in the air-conditioned cool of one of the shops, seeming to know by instinct when John was due to return.

  One night John went to have a meal at the house of a couple of friends, and he took the bike even though it was July and the nights had been very cold indeed. Red Dog was out on patrol, looking for other dogs to fight with and cats to chase, and by the time he came back, John had already gone to dinner.

  What happened after that dinner will always be a mystery.

  John had some beers, but he wasn’t too drunk to drive. He was in a happy mood, because of the company of his friends and the good meal they had given him, and there didn’t seem anything wrong with the bike as he started it up and drove off down the road. His friends waved him goodbye and went back inside to clear up and go to bed.

  There is a sharp bend on the road coming into Dampier, and the turning is very abrupt in the place where John had to turn off. In the undergrowth around the verges are heaps of the great red rocks that make the landscape of the Pilbara so particular.