CHAPTER 15
Taj nailed the corrugated iron ridge cap onto the new roof, and stepped back to survey his handiwork. He’d rebuilt the old hay shed almost from scratch, replacing rotten beams, rusty struts, missing tin. This was the kind of work he loved. Restoring things. Creating something intact from what had been broken. The shed should last Kim another hundred years.
From his vantage point on the roof, Taj could see the rear of the homestead. Jake was talking to his mother. Another argument perhaps? It was impossible to spend very long at Journey’s End without realising how very alike mother and son were. Jake was a handful, no doubt about that, but Taj recognised where the antagonism stemmed from. As a child he’d been just as lost, just as angry, when his own father died. Furious with the world, needing somebody to blame. For him, that part had been easy. A Taliban commander had murdered his father. The enemy had a face, a name. How different it must be for Jake, with no tangible target for his bitterness, no picture in his mind of the man responsible. Nobody to hate. Not until now.
Down on the ground, Dusty ran about, not looking where he was going, his gaze fixed skyward on Taj. He kept tripping over his own feet and running into the ladder. ‘Hold on, little one,’ said Taj. ‘I’m coming.’ He climbed down, finding it hard not to step on the excited pup as he reached the ground. Taj picked Dusty up and hugged his wriggle-happy body.
Dusty was one of three orphaned puppies Taj had found before Christmas up in Tarringtops. He was collecting bush seeds and firewood, when Saber picked up a scent and wouldn’t let it drop. Taj shouldered his rifle and followed him along an animal track that ran up a scrubby slope. The dog normally only showed such keen interest in foxes or wild goats, and either one was fair game.
The trail led to a mass of big boulders near the top of an incline, all overgrown with bangalow palms and climbing wombat berry. Saber thrust his way forward, nose to ground, then disappeared abruptly. Taj stopped just as suddenly. Where had his dog gone? He investigated the pile of rocks, edging his way in, methodically parting the leafy screen. There, a flash of white fur just ahead of him. He pushed through the tangle of vines. Beneath the dead stump of a forest giant lay the yawning mouth of a wide den. Saber stood to one side, whining and wagging his tail.
Huddled near the entrance were three little puppies, suckling in vain at the belly of their dead mother. They couldn’t have been more than a week old; their eyes still closed. There was no pungent smell of death. The she-dingo had only recently lost her fight for life. Taj examined her body. She’d been shot in the hip and the wound had not proved immediately fatal. There’d been time to struggle back to the den, agonising as that crawl must have been. Time to wrap herself around her pups. She’d died with her head bowed and tongue extended, in a last attempt to clean and comfort her young.
Taj had seen a lot of human suffering in his time, more than a man had a right to. He’d lost a lot of people he loved. Not much made it through the shield he wore. Yet something in this mother dingo’s devotion and courage moved him to tears. Tenderly he covered her body with branches, and sprays of rose myrtle. And though he wasn’t a religious man, he offered a prayer to Imra, as his father might have done. Then he bundled up the whimpering babies, two girls and a boy, and brought them home.
Carla was delighted. She eagerly adopted the orphans, adding them to her own litter of newborn pups, suckling all ten of them. But it had been a month now, and the physical demands of her growing family were taking their toll. Carla was tired, losing weight. It was time to wean the cuckoos from the nest.
Like wolf cubs of his native Nuristan, the dingo puppies were developing more rapidly than domestic dogs. At around five weeks of age they were as forward, physically and mentally, as a maremma pup at eight weeks. And although they were all thriving, the little male, Dusty, had grown much faster than his littermates. He was different from his sisters in other ways too. They had sandy fur and white-tipped tails. Dusty bore the dark black and tan coat of the forest dingo. He soon learned that the sound of an opening fridge on the verandah meant a meal was close, and would sit by his bowl. He learned to climb up the netting to the roof of his kennel, and stash food there out of reach of the others. He learned that by working at the joins in the wire with his teeth, he could squeeze out of his pen altogether. Such a smart dog. In many ways Dusty reminded him of Aakil.
Yesterday Taj had moved the pups to a nursery yard adjoining the dingo enclosure. Here they could safely meet the four other young dingoes, all orphans themselves. In time, he hoped they might bond and form a functional pack.
The adult dingoes showed a lot of interest in the little newcomers. Red, the alpha male, especially so. He greeted the female pups with friendly overtures, wagging his tail and yodelling in excitement. But with Dusty it was a different story. Red homed in on the little male with snarling intent, never taking his gaze off him. He prowled the fence-line, testing it with teeth and claws, then almost succeeded in scaling its three-metre height.
Taj frowned. Things were not going to plan. He knew of the dingoes’ famous problem-solving ability. Some said they rivalled that of the wolf. But if he hadn’t seen what happened next, he wouldn’t have believed it. Red sat down for a few minutes, looking around the enclosure, for all the world like he was deep in thought. His intelligent brown eyes settled on the tug-of-war toys that lay several metres from the fence – old car tyres with lengths of tow rope attached. He bounded to the closest one, seized the rope between his teeth and dragged it towards the boundary. By the time Taj realised what was happening, Red had made a new run at the fence. And by using the tyre as a springboard, this time he scrambled to the top. He teetered for a moment at the apex, balancing himself for the leap down. It gave Taj a few precious seconds. He sprang into action, unlatching the gate and scooping Dusty into the air, just as Red snatched at him with bared teeth.
The three other dingoes trotted over to examine the tyre, then as one, gazed up at the fence top. Dingoes were observational learners. If he didn’t remove those tug-of-war toys, they’d all soon be out of their enclosure. Taj had hugged Dusty to his chest, mindful of Red’s baleful glare. ‘Bad luck, my friend. This little one’s coming with me.’
Taj kept glancing towards the house, toying with the idea of going up to see Kim. Finding the courage to hand out the gifts he’d made was proving harder than he thought.
He felt a tug and looked down. Dusty had seized his bootlaces, growling comically, and thrashing his head from side to side. Taj wiggled his foot, provoking a fresh flurry of growling. He picked Dusty up. ‘You’re a fine, strong pup, aren’t you?’ He was rewarded with a lick on the nose. Dingoes, like wolves, were intensely social animals, fiercely loyal and bonding strongly to their family. They needed that. Without a dingo pack for Dusty to join, he’d need a substitute human family. Yet raising the pup with his own maremma dogs would blunt their guarding instinct, their natural protective response to predators. Perhaps there was another option for Dusty, a better option.
Taj had spotted Jake early that morning, after the boy became bored with chopping wood. He’d been lurking in a yellow-flowering cassia thicket above the hay shed – eyes trained on Dusty. Occasionally he dropped to his knees, crawling partway from cover, calling the pup at a whisper and clicking his fingers. Dusty needed little urging, as curious about Jake as Jake was about him. Soon the pair were rough-and-tumbling together in the shade. Caught up in play. Forgetting all about Taj on the roof. It was only when Kim called to Jake from the house that the spell was broken and he remembered he was supposed to be hiding.
The boy quickly backed into the thicket and out the other side, waving the pup away. Dusty had other ideas. He pounced after Jake, grabbing at his jeans and whining. ‘Shoo, shoo.’ It was no use. Dusty was determined his playmate should not escape.
Taj smiled and took pity on the boy. Climbing noisily down the ladder, he called the puppy, pretending not to know what was happening. This was just the distraction Jake needed, and
he managed to slip away. A disappointed Dusty trotted back to the hay shed.
‘So,’ said Taj, chucking the pup under the chin. ‘You’ve found a new friend, eh? Somebody more fun than me?’ Taj fetched a shallow dish from the car, filled it with water and gave the pup a meaty marrowbone to chew on. ‘Now, you stay put. Something tells me your friend will soon be back.’
As if on cue, Dusty turned his head and pricked his ears. Moments later Taj could feel the boy’s eyes upon him.
‘That’s a nice dog.’
Taj turned to find Jake standing out in the open, watching him warily. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Dusty.’
‘Can he have some toast?’ Taj nodded and Jake dropped two triangles of vegemite toast on the ground. The pup chewed them up.
‘Would you like to hold him?’ asked Taj.
The boy moved restlessly from one foot to the other. ‘I suppose.’
Taj picked Dusty up and stepped towards Jake, who flinched but held his ground as he took the pup. Jake’s guarded expression changed to one of pure joy. He gazed into Dusty’s topaz eyes, transfixed. The pup squirmed closer, resting his head on Jake’s heart, making contented rumbles in the back of his throat like he was purring.
‘That pup likes you,’ said Taj. Jake clutched him tighter. Dusty proceeded to wash Jake’s face with his neat pink tongue. ‘He’s yours now.’
Jake blinked in confusion. ‘Mine?’
Taj shrugged. ‘Only if you want him.’
‘Oh, I want him,’ said Jake. ‘I want him more than anything.’
‘You’ll have to ask your mother.’
Jake’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t get it. Why would you give me a puppy?’
‘He needs a home.’
‘This won’t change anything,’ said Jake. ‘You can’t make me like you. I’ll never like you.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Taj took a swig from his water bottle and began collecting up his tools. When he turned around, Dusty and Jake were gone.
CHAPTER 16
‘I’m Lizzie,’ said the plump young woman with the baby on her hip. ‘You’re welcome to browse, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about the stock. There are more than five thousand plants, and lots of them aren’t labelled. Plants aren’t my thing. Grandpa’s the only one who knows what half of them are, and I’m afraid he’s not here.’
‘I heard about Doug,’ said Mel. ‘So very sorry.’
Lizzie gave a sad smile. ‘It will kill Pa to see this place go, but what else can we do?’ She looked from Mel to Kim as if hoping to find the answer written in their faces. A soft sigh. ‘Tube-stock’s one dollar. Everything else is two dollars. Oh, except for the orchids. They’re three dollars, but all the big ones have already sold. You get a twenty-five per cent discount on bulk purchases – that’s twenty plants or more.’
The baby smiled and cooed. ‘She’s so sweet,’ said Nikki. Abbey tickled her plump, pink feet.
Lizzie beamed. ‘She’s about to have her bottle. You girls can come and watch if you like, give your mums time for a proper look round.’
‘Can we?’ chorused Abbey and Nikki.
Mel looked at Kim, who nodded. ‘Go on then.’
Lizzie looked as pleased as the girls. It would be lonely, stuck out here all day in the middle of nowhere, with a baby and hardly any customers. That’s if you weren’t interested in plants, of course. Kim surveyed the cluster of broad shade-houses. For her it would be heaven.
‘Let’s grab ourselves a trolley,’ said Mel.
Kim wandered around the soon-to-be-defunct Cedar Creek Rainforest Nursery, unable to believe her eyes. It was simply magnificent. A cornucopia of subtropical rainforest species. Some very rare, all of them endemic to the Great Eastern Escarpment and Manning Valley. Bleeding-heart, blueberry ash, booyong and cassowary pines. Snow-wood, sassafras, figs and flame trees. Even with every ounce of her botanical knowledge, Kim found it hard to recognise some seedlings. Many were too young. Even the labelled ones were tricky, with cryptic tags written in a kind of shorthand.
‘Thank god you’re here,’ said Mel. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t know where to start.’ They wandered the shade-houses, finding fresh treasures around every corner. What a man this Doug Henderson must be. How heartbreaking to leave behind what was clearly the work of a lifetime. ‘What did I tell you?’ Mel grew more smug with each new discovery. ‘I knew you’d like it.’
Like it? That was an understatement. Kim loved it. How would she ever drag herself away? She wanted to take every single plant home with her, all five thousand of them.
They set to work loading up their trolley. Mel took notes. ‘So I know what to buy when I come back with the truck,’ she said. ‘I won’t be able to fit all the plants in this trip.’
Kim couldn’t conceal her enthusiasm. Such fun, planning a mass planting like this: the sort of thing she used to dream of doing. ‘I’m getting another trolley,’ said Mel.
Kim wasn’t listening. She’d found the orchid house.
Hundreds of tiny pots, full of strappy green mysteries, stood on double rows of trestle tables. All tiny, far too tiny to identify by leaf structure or growth pattern. She picked up the nearest pot and inspected the label. The letters, written in marker ink, were faded and hard to read. Gracs. What on earth did that mean? Kim examined some more labels. None of them made sense. They were in some sort of code that no doubt only the tragically silenced Doug Henderson understood. Specd, Falcs, Kingd, Austs. Kim tilted her head, as if looking from a different angle might make a difference. There was a pattern here, there had to be. It was just a matter of thinking logically.
Kim examined another pot. This orchid had a companion: a tiny, self-seeded staghorn fern. What a sweet thing. She ran her finger down a channel in the orchid’s jade-green leaf. The same colour as the tree frogs frequenting the ferns at Journey’s End. Delicate aerial roots spilled out, reaching for her. She felt the pot – way too dry. ‘Lizzie needs to water you guys.’ The label had fallen out, but what did that matter? She wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. She’d take this pot home, separate out the staghorn, and give them both a fighting chance.
As Kim turned to go she spotted a little white tag on the ground. Picking it up, she wiped away the grime with her finger. Her heart beat a little faster. Fitzs. Surely that must stand for fitzgeraldii. Sarcochilus fitzgeraldii. She stared at the pot in astonishment. This was a baby ravine orchid.
Kim carefully put it down and started sorting through the pots in a kind of controlled frenzy. In a minute she had half-a-dozen more Fitzs, and the key to the code. The S after Fitz stood for the genus, Sarcochilus. She read another label: Falcs. So if the S stood for Sarcochilus . . . of course. Sarcochilus falcatus. An orange-blossom orchid.
She read another label: Specd. And the D stood for the genus, she knew that now. So . . . Kim laughed aloud as it suddenly made sense. Dendrobium speciosum. This was a rock orchid, a species found all up and down the eastern coast, including at Tarringtops. The names on the other tags weren’t so obvious. She should have paid more attention during Native Orchids 101. Kim gazed around the tables – all those orchids, and she had the key to their identity. It was like discovering the Rosetta Stone. Now they had internet access at home, she’d be able to track down their names and decipher every label.
‘What have you found?’ asked Mel.
‘Orchids.’ Kim’s arms were overflowing with pots. ‘I’d better get a box.’
It was after five when they arrived back. Taj’s ute had gone, and Jake was nowhere to be seen. ‘Why not let Abbey come with me?’ said Mel. ‘Jake too, if he wants. Todd will be home soon. I’ll drop them back after dinner.’
‘Can I?’ asked Abbey.
‘Okay, run and find Jake. See if he wants to go too.’ Abbey trotted off. She always seemed to know where to find her elusive brother.
Kim carried the box of orchids to the back verandah, found a watering can and gave the plants a good soaking.
Abbey cam
e running back. ‘Jake doesn’t want to go.’
‘Did you say Todd would be there?’
‘Yep,’ She was shuffling about in an odd fashion, not meeting her mother’s eye. ‘Mum . . .’
‘Yes, sweetie?’
‘I don’t want to go either.’
Kim looked up. ‘But you just said you did.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘Why?’
‘Hush will miss me.’
‘He’ll be fine,’ said Kim. ‘I’ll look after him.’ Abbey squirmed. ‘Did Jake say something to you?’
‘No.’ Abbey was glancing longingly towards the sheds. Something was definitely up.
‘I’ll go see Jake,’ said Mel. ‘See if I can talk him into coming.’
‘No, you can’t,’ yelled Abbey, growing wide-eyed with alarm. She tried to push Mel back. ‘He doesn’t want you to.’
‘Right.’ Kim started for the sheds. ‘Where’s Jake?’
Abbey blocked her path and began to cry. ‘Please, Mum . . . don’t go down there.’
By now Kim was getting worried. She thought about the awful row she’d had with Jake that morning. He seemed to have calmed down before she left. Yet Abbey’s tear-stained face showed that something was seriously wrong. What could have happened? She should never have left Jake alone for the afternoon.
Kim pushed past her daughter. ‘Jake,’ she called. ‘Where are you?’ She strode around the corner of the woodshed, saw a flash of brown. Jake was hugging something to his chest, chin thrust out, wearing his most defiant face. Thank god he was all in one piece. ‘What have you got there?’ Kim edged closer. How extraordinary – a puppy.
Mel and the girls arrived, and Jake rounded on his sister. ‘I told you not to say anything.’
Journey’s End Page 13
