Abbie rode the stag in its long fall from the sky, until she snatched a low branch and swung away.
Ian squatted next to Gistok on the edge of the wharf at Pondok Tanggui and stared across the river at the black forest.
‘Can’t find her, Gistok. She is nowhere.’
He had wandered around Tanjung Harapan downriver, he’d mingled with the crowd in Camp Leakey and trekked the long trail from Leakey to here. He thought he’d seen Komo through the haze along the trail, maybe Sadi in a berry tree, but that was it.
Gistok picked at the shoulder of Ian’s shirt.
She’s gone, Ian thought bleakly. Gone the same way as Cas, or she was blinded by the haze and fell from a tree, or just got sick. She beat a cyclone and the sinking wreck, but she couldn’t beat the fires.
Gistok turned downriver and waited.
‘What?’ After a moment Ian heard the growl of a speedboat and grunted. ‘It’s nothing, Gistok. It’s not Harry coming back, not Abbie. It’s nothing.’
When Gistok saw that it was Yos and Ki in the Dragonfly she slumped a little.
Yos slowed the Dragonfly and moved towards the wharf.
‘Anything?’ Ki said.
‘Nothing at all. I’ll have to go home.’
‘Maybe it’s best.’ Ki hesitated. ‘We’re going to help bring down an orang from some burned-out trees across the river. Want to come?’
‘Across the river?’ Ian shrugged. ‘Might as well.’ He slid from the wharf, stepped across the floating landing and flopped into the stern of the Dragonfly. Gistok watched the boat until it was out of sight.
Yos sped up the ash-coloured river, past the fork to the sanctuary of Leakey Camp, towards the goldmine. He and Ki frowned at each other as they passed an abandoned klotok and a long chain of logs caught up in the mud. But they said nothing and shortly Yos slowed near another speedboat pulled up to the bank.
There was some shouting from the scorched trees. Yos ran the Dragonfly next to the other speedboat, Ki jumping from the boat while it was still moving. Ian ran after him into the black trees.
Ian could see a panting man with a rifle weaving around tree trunks and a very tired female orang moving about in the top of a tree. He rushed towards the man. ‘No!’
The man lowered the rifle, saw Ian charging towards him with his hands clutching the air, and stumbled back.
But Ki quickly stepped in front of Ian, pushing him into a tree. ‘It has to be done.’
‘You can’t …!’ Ian pushed himself away from him.
‘There’s nothing here for food now. She’s got to go to the park.’
‘You …’ Ian stopped. ‘To the park.’ And he looked at the man with the rifle, saw the darts, saw the other three men with a net, and sagged back. ‘Macbeth again,’ he muttered.
‘All right?’ Ki said.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ The guy with the rifle hits the orang with the tranquillising dart, the orang drops from the tree and the three guys with the net catch her. That’s it.
The man lifted his rifle.
Ian peered through the haze to the high tree crown and the shadow of the orang.
But that is not it, is it? The dart knocks her out up there so she falls, spinning, hitting branches, and maybe the guys with the net can’t catch her. And …
‘There’s a baby up there!’
The man with the rifle hesitated.
‘Yes,’ Ki said. ‘We hope the baby stays with the mother and gets a good fall.’
‘There’s got to be a better way.’
‘There isn’t.’
The orang lurched around the trunk. She was too exhausted to swing off into another tree, but she was still trying to escape the gun. As if she had the experience of a gun before, maybe a long time ago …
‘Wait.’ Ian stepped up to the man with the rifle. ‘Can I try something? Please.’
The man looked at Ki and Ki shrugged.
Ian moved into the open, to where the orang could see him. He looked at the men around him. ‘Could you move away?’
Ki and the men walked away from the tree.
Ian spread his arms and called gently: ‘Abbie. Abbie, this is Ian, remember …’ This is a bloody stupid idea. Even if that is Abbie you are twice as big since the time she saw you, and your voice has changed.
A drop of water exploded on Ian’s forearm. He frowned at the splash, stained with the red dust from his skin. He looked up but there was just sky, just the endless brown-yellow fog. Another drop crashed on his forehead.
‘Hey, Abbie, you are going to get wet up there. It’s going to pour and you will be a wet ape, like in the sinking ship. Yeah, that sinking ship.’
The orang cocked her head and stared at Ian.
‘You don’t want to stay up there, Abbie. There’s going to be lightning and thunder. Maybe the fires will die but there’s no food up there …’
The orang swung down a branch and hung in the air.
‘But we have a lot of green trees, and fruit in the park. No fire at all now. Not now …’
The orang swung again very slowly, with her eyes fixed on Ian’s face. And she slithered down the trunk.
‘You have a hurt foot?’
Silently the rain began to fall. The orang stopped on a low branch with a wide-eyed baby clinging to her side, and seemed to shrink as her long hair became plastered to her thin body. There were smears of blood in her hair and a foot dripping red water.
Ian sucked in a long deep breath but he held a smile on his face. He reached out towards her. ‘Hi, Abbie.’
For a long time Abbie stared at Ian’s face. She swung down to the ground and took his hand.
Ian squeezed Abbie’s hand in his. ‘Let’s go home.’
In the 1930s an orangutan could swing from tree to tree from edge to edge on the vast island of Borneo, without touching the ground. Now, huge tracts of forest have been burned and cleared and the orangutans are rapidly losing their home and food supply.
In 1993 there were somewhere around 30,000 orangutans living in their disappearing forests in Sumatra and Borneo. But now, a mere seven years later, there are only 6000 orangutans in Sumatra and 15,000 in Borneo.
Every year, farmers and the timber companies have been torching the jungles before the monsoons, relying on the monsoons to put out the fires. There had been great fires in 1982 and 1983, but in 1997 and 1998 the monsoon did not arrive and much of the islands of Sumatra and Borneo were ablaze.
In those Borneo fires 129,000 square kilometres of jungle were lost – and 8000 orangutans died.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meet Abbie. She swung into my life in a jungle clearing in Borneo, but after polite conversation she raced off with my water-bottle. In another place a larger orangutan kissed me, and that was something! I don’t know how I am going to tell my wife Agnes …
Allan Baillie was born in Scotland in 1943, but has lived in Australia since he was seven years old. On leaving school he worked as a journalist and travelled extensively. He is the author of many highly acclaimed novels, picture books and short stories for children. His books include The China Coin (shortlisted for the 1992 Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the 1992 Adelaide Festival Literary Award, and winner of the 1992 Australian Multicultural Children’s Literature Award), Drac and the Gremlin (winner of the 1989 Australian Picture Book of the Year Award), Songman (shortlisted for the 1995 Australian Multicultural Children’s Literature Award and winner of the 1995 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award – Children’s Books) and Wreck! (the first story about Ian and Abbie the orangutan).
Allan now lives in Sydney with his wife and two children and writes full time.
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Saving Abbie Page 16
