The Last Tiger

Chapter 4

We wended our way north, on the cart of a merchant haulier from Hobart. The bushcutters were still at work, clearing the way for the packhorse.

“These roads are no better than tracks,” said Father, staring into the wind as it blew through the w**d-wreathed rocks.

The dry clay was hard-packed beneath the cartwheels and cracked as we went. “Be careful, Myko,” said Mother. She reached above me to snatch the dipping branches that scratched at our heads, poking and prodding to keep us from rest.

The sky’s white clouds, which followed us from the township, turned grey as the rain picked up. It was heavy rain, unlike any we had ever known, and I grew wet-through. Lorikeets and orange-bellied parrots sheltered on the branches above us and cried out as we approached, flapping their wings defiantly.

“Myko, come here to me,” said Mother. She tried to draw me closer to her side in the back of the cart but I stayed by the edge.

“No, Mama,” I said, eyeing the dark forest, wondering what lurked within.

“Myko, come here …” Mother held out her arms to me, motioning me to huddle at her side.

I shook my head. I would not move and soon my mother lowered her reach from me. “Father, where are we going?” I asked.

“To Woolnorth.”

“What is Woolnorth?”

My father shifted to face me. He raised his hat and shook out the rain before replacing it on his head. “The Van Diemen’s Company sheep station is at Woolnorth.” His eyes looked dully before him. “I hope to find work there.”

The sky turned the colour of an old skillet’s base. The rain continued to pound and the cold of the coming night’s chill settled all around us. I longed to be indoors and warm, by our homefire in the Sakiai, but we were far from such comforts now.

The rugged crags of the rock face soon came upon us. Rumpled grey paddocks and the wet trees along the horizon turned black against the purple sky. The trees’ roots, sparkling like silver buckles, looked as if they might run towards us and sweep us up above the waist-deep wattle.

The haulier grunted, drawing the cart to a halt. The packhorse whinnied and was still. As the haulier turned, dark shadows drew the silhouette of his features on the canvas packs. “This is as far as I go,” he said.

For a moment my father had no words, he merely scanned the pouring skies and the dark forest.

“This is Woolnorth?” he said.

The haulier leaned back towards us in the cart’s rear, then twisted long-necked to point out a muddy trail. “Up that track.”

Dense black branches hung low above the dark trail.

“This is as far as I go,” said the haulier. “Out!”

My mother turned to look at Father. “Petras, this cannot be right.”

Father arched his back, leaning over the cart rails to face the haulier. He held open his hands as he spoke, his shoulders bunched tight under the wet folds of his coat. “This is where we will find the sheep station?”

The haulier looked ready to release a gale of wind from the tight slit of his mouth. “Out!” He knocked away Father’s hands with the handle of his stock whip.

We stepped down from the cart, bent to the wind, and deep in the wet mud of the track. Like a family of rats, we were drenched black by the rain.

“Stay close, Myko,” said Mother. “Petras, we cannot walk far like this. The wind could raise him from his boots.”

Father turned to me. He rested on his haunches and patted his shoulder. “Climb on my back.”

“No. I will walk by myself.”

“Myko!” said Mother.

“I will walk,” I shouted to them, as I brushed past my father.

The track soon opened, giving way to flooded paddocks. The pastureland was hidden beneath trembling grey sheets that stretched as far as I could see.

Father shook his head. “Come, we will try the shearers’ cottages.”

At the first door Father knocked we were confronted by an unfriendly sort. His coarse words had a strange lilt that I came to know as Irish.

The Irishman’s eyes were vicious, a mix of red and yellow ringed the rusty pennies of their centres. As he squared his shoulders and walked out of his shearer’s cottage, he pointed at us.

“Go back where ye came,” he said. When the Irishman spoke he pressed his tongue upon his teeth forcing out a clacking noise that was followed by spittle.

Father stood before the Irishman and we sank behind his greatcoat like field mice avoiding the sweep of a plough.

“I said, go back,” repeated the Irishman. “Go away with ye!”

My father kept still and did not alter his stance. The Irishman had many years over Father; as he stepped forward I saw the grey twisting its way through his hair.

No words passed between the two men, as my mother reached out her thin arm to tug at my father’s coattail.

The air was clogged with threats and conflict.

Soon the Irishman leapt into a jaunty stride, walking a circle around my father. I dared not shift my gaze for a moment. The two men were like fighting dogs sizing each other – but neither man was willing to make the first lunge.

The Irishman eyed my calm father, his stare subsiding, his temper proving no more a threat than a damp powder flask. He threw up his hands and stamped indoors.

Behind us a voice called out above the wind and rain, “Fair play to you, sir. Fair play indeed.”

Beside a barn some men gathered, huddled at the gable-end. The men wore short sleeves folded past the elbow, their thumbs tucked in dark waistcoats. Some wore stovepipe hats tipped far back on their heads and they all stood firm in heavy, thick-soled bluchers laced above the ankle.

“Best leave the old Irish alone,” called a man at the front. He was small with narrow shoulders; a neat scarf was tied around his neck like a bandage to protect his throat. “He thinks he owns the station, been here man and boy.”

My father looked down at me in his usual way but I was too slow to convey the man’s words.

“Come out of the cold, we have a grand fire roaring in the barn.”

We followed the crowd inside. Children played on the hay bales and women boiled billycans by the fire. We were a spectacle for all of a few minutes and then the curiosity waned and we were just another one of the families fate tossed northwards to break, or be broken, by the land.