Part 3 (1/2)

Red Dog travelled as usual on the Hamersley Iron buses, in their utes, and in the train to Mt Tom Price. Keenly he looked at everyone they pa.s.sed. People noticed that he still seemed to be searching.

Red Dog travelled the 900 kilometres to Broome, a magical tropical town where there are tata lizards that wave to you every few seconds, where there is Cable Beach, whose waters in the summer are as warm as a bath, where the raindrops are as big as plums, where divers bring pearls from the bottom of the sea, and where there are salt-water crocodiles in the mangrove swamps, who like nothing so much as to swallow a nice plump dog.

Red Dog went there with a road train, and stayed for two weeks, eating every night at the local hotel. He looked everywhere, but couldn't find John, and so he came back very slowly in an ancient car crammed to the brim with a large family of aborigines.

One day he happened to be outside her caravan when Patsy was loading up her car for her holiday. It was midsummer, and the tropical heat was unbearable for many of the folk of the Dampier Archipelago. The March flies were stinging anyone who went outdoors, and warnings were being issued about not letting the sun s.h.i.+ne directly onto fuel tanks. They had been known to explode, with fatal consequences. Patsy had made friends with Ellen, the unfortunate lady who had made the mistake about Red Dog's ticks, and these two had planned to go to Perth with Nancy Grey, because Perth is 3,000 kilometres to the south and is cooler and breezier. Because Ellen had come from Perth originally, they were planning to stay with her relatives, and anyway, sometimes women like to go off and have fun together, without being inhibited by men.

'h.e.l.lo, Red,' said Patsy, and he gave her his dog's version of a smile. 'Got nothing to do?' she asked.

'Why don't we take him with us?' suggested Ellen. 'He might enjoy it.'

'Want to come to Perth?' asked Nancy. 'If you're lucky, we might even take you to Freo.' She patted the seat beside her, and the dog jumped into the back. Women smelled nice, and often gave you sweet things to eat, so it struck him as a good idea to go on a trip with them. It was because of women that he had acquired a taste for chocolate.

The three had clean forgotten that Red Dog was not necessarily very good company in a confined s.p.a.ce, and they spent the two days' drive making disgusted expressions and exclaiming, 'Pooee! Pooee! Oh, my G.o.d, I can't believe it! Not another one!' The dog stuck his head out of the window to enjoy the breeze in his face and to make it easier to keep an eye open for John, so he had no idea of the torture endured by the three women, who would remember this trip for the rest of their lives, and not just because of the smells.

What happened was that they went to Cottesloe beach, a long beautiful stretch of sand, opposite Rottnest Island, where people like to go for walks, to do their exercise, and to take a swim after work. Some people get up early and have breakfast in one of the cafes overlooking the sea. Sometimes friends.h.i.+ps spring up because one meets the same folk over and over again, and dog owners get to know each other's pets first, and only after that do they get to know each other.

Patsy, Ellen and Nancy were sunning themselves on the beach after a swim in the surf. Red Dog loved the surf, and devoted much time and energy to trying to round it up, as if he were a sheepdog and the waves were some very strange and difficult variety of sheep. He had also pounced on the shadows of lots of seagulls, and had caused much distress in one small boy by mistaking his model aeroplane for a bird. By the time he had jumped on it and given it a good biting, it was too late to repair the mistake. He had joined in with one game of frisbee, another of volleyball, and another of beach cricket, in which he had briefly confiscated the ball, forcing the cricketers to chase him up the beach.

The three women dried themselves after their swim, and lay down in the suns.h.i.+ne. In those days n.o.body bothered much about whether or not the sun was bad for your skin, and so they were planning to get as suntanned as possible before they went home, where just now it would be too hot to lie in the sun at all. They frequently compared forearms in order to see who was getting the brownest.

'Let's go to Rotto tomorrow,' suggested Nancy.

'Oh, yes,' exclaimed Patsy. 'I'm dying to see the quokkas. They're supposed to be really sweet.'

'Well, they are,' said Ellen, who had seen them many times before, 'but they're not exactly bright. Sweet and stupid, that's what they are.'

'They don't allow dogs, do they?' said Nancy. 'What'll we do with Red?'

Ellen suddenly sat up; 'Where is he anyway?'

They searched up and down the beach, and they asked everybody they saw, particularly those with dogs. No-one had seen Red Dog at all. They whistled and called, and then they enquired in the local cafes and hotels, in case he was busy befriending the chefs. They went into Fremantle, and they searched Mosman Park.

'You know what we've done?' asked Patsy. 'We've only gone and lost the most famous dog in Western Australia.'

'In all of Australia, probably,' corrected Ellen.

'When we get home, they're going to kill us,' moaned Nancy. 'What are we going to do?'

'Just imagine,' said Ellen, wide-eyed, 'Jocko and Peeto and Vanno, and the other drivers, they'll go crazy.'

The holiday was ruined. They went to see the quokkas, but it wasn't enough to cheer them up. They went to the best fish restaurants at the water's edge, but found that they couldn't eat. They shopped for souvenirs, but didn't find anything that they really liked.

They cut their holiday short and drove home. It took them another two days, taking turns at the driving, and they hardly said a word. They remembered Red Dog, with his head out of the window, and the awful smells he made, and they felt completely miserable.

When at last they reached home, late at night, they found Red Dog waiting for them outside Patsy's caravan. He had hitched a lift home from a truck-driver who recognised him. He hadn't liked Perth all that much, with its bottle-brush and peppermint trees, its pretty yellow sourgra.s.s, its military-looking Norfolk Island pines, and its s.h.i.+ny modern buildings. He preferred the tougher life up north, with its poverty bushes, its Brahminy kites, its silvery river gums, its rock wallabies, its Ruby Saltbush, and its deep red stones. Besides, he had been to Perth before, with John, to that very same beach, but this time there had been no sign of him at all.

The three women fussed over him and fed him, with a sense of relief such as they had seldom experienced before, and after that they told him off for ruining their holiday and causing them so much guilt and worry. Then Nancy pointed out that they had a few days of their holiday left and suggested, 'Why don't we make the most of it, and go to Exmouth?'

'Yeah, why not?' agreed the other two. They looked over at Red Dog, and Ellen said, 'Are we taking Red?'

'No chance,' said Nancy.

'Not on your life,' confirmed Patsy.

In the morning they piled back into the car and with light hearts headed south once more on the North West Coastal Highway.

Red Dog called in on the new vet in Roebourne, and then he went to Point Samson and Cossack. He visited Jocko, Peeto and Vanno at Hamersley Iron, and afterwards he went and stayed for a night at the Walkabout Hotel in Karratha, where the chef was one of his providers. Finally, he surprised and astonished the three women by turning up in Exmouth three days later. They spotted him walking by when they were all having a milkshake at a cafe. He seemed pleased to see them, but by the next morning he had hitched a lift to Onslow.

Red Dog used to call in quite frequently on the caravan park where Nancy, Patsy, and Ellen were living whilst the new houses were being built. It was a pleasant enough place, with tubs of flowers set out on either side of the pathways, and people's was.h.i.+ng hanging on lines.

The only thing wrong with it was that there was a rule that stated NO DOGS, and a caretaker who not only did not like dogs, but was determined to enforce the rule. His name was Mr. Cribbage, and whenever he saw Red Dog he tried to shoo him away. Later on Red Dog was to cause Mr Cribbage a considerable amount of trouble, but right from the start he also caused some trouble for Red Cat.

Red Cat definitely approved of the rule about NO DOGS. In fact, Red Cat hated dogs so much that if he had been dictator of Australia, he would probably have had all the dogs executed. There was no rule forbidding cats in the caravan park, and so Red Cat very much liked it there. Red Cat was the boss of all the cats in Dampier.

He was a ginger tom, big, muscly and mean. He had green eyes and tatty ears, he had a slantways scar on his nose, he had a white bib on his chest, and a tail that was barred in lighter and darker shades. He had great big paws, and when he stretched them out, the claws would spring from their sheaths like curved swords. When he sat on your lap and purred, you could feel the vibration shaking the bones in your head. When you dangled a string in front of him to make him play, you made very sure that your fingers were out of his reach. When he caught a rat, you could hear the crunch of its bones as Red Cat munched it up. When he yowled and wauled at night to attract the lady cats who were the mothers of his kittens, it sounded as though a baby was being tortured to death. When he ate his dinner, he could, if he chose, wolf it almost as fast as Red Dog. Red Cat had never lost a fight.

If Red Cat saw a dog, his policy was to jump on its back, dig his claws in, and ride it around the caravan park until it was too tired and terrified to run any more. Then Red Cat would jump off and swipe it across the nose, leaving four parallel scratches that trickled with blood. Then, when the dog rolled over and surrendered with its paws in the air, Red Cat would parade proudly away, the tip of his tale waving with self-satisfaction. More often than not, the dog would not come back to risk this treatment again.

Red Dog liked chasing cats, and had plenty of rake-marks on his snout to prove it. He was a cleverer dog than most, but like most dogs he had never really managed to learn that a dog always loses a fight with a cat, because eventually the cat will turn round and lash out. Red Dog was an optimist, and he sincerely believed that just because a cat runs away to begin with, then he must already be the winner. Anyway, it was such fun doing the chasing that, as far as he was concerned, it was worth getting scratched for it later.

When Red Dog explored the caravan park for the first time, he walked around the back of Nancy's allotment, and came face to face with Red Cat. Red Dog was overcome with excitement, and leaped forward to give chase.

He stopped a fraction of a second later, however, because Red Cat did not turn and run. He sat quite still, and opened his mouth and hissed. Red Dog was impressed by the pink tongue and the two rows of s.h.i.+ny white teeth.

He pounced again, but still Red Cat did not run. This time he flattened his ears and hissed again, even louder. Red Dog began to have doubts, but he couldn't resist having another try. Red Cat stood up, arched his back, flattened his ears and hissed, even more loudly. Red Dog sat back on his haunches, puzzled by this unusually valiant cat, but something made him have another try. Red Cat bushed up his tail, made the fur stand up on his back, flattened his ears, hissed, and hit out so quickly that Red Dog didn't even know what had happened until his nose began to sting and drip with blood.

Just as Red Cat wasn't going to be frightened by Red Dog, neither was Red Dog going to be frightened by Red Cat. He bared his teeth and growled. Red Cat bared his teeth and hissed. Red Dog barked in anger. Red Cat spat.

Red Cat tried to spring onto Red Dog's back, so that he could ride him around with his claws well stuck in, but Red Dog dodged out of the way just in time. Snout to snout, growling and hissing, neither animal would give ground. Red Cat scratched Red Dog again. Red Dog tried to bite, but missed. Then Nancy came round the corner and interrupted the whole confrontation.

There was now a new vet in Roebourne, which was much closer than Port Hedland, and the new clinic wasn't even properly completed yet. The young vet looked at the deep slashes in Red Dog's nose, and tutted as he cleaned and st.i.tched them. 'It's funny,' he said, 'but I saw a dog just like this last week. Had a thorn in his paw. Different owner, though. And the week before, somebody else brought in a dog just like this for immunisation. It's weird. Hard to believe there's so many dogs that all look the same.'

Nancy smiled to herself. Red Dog was everybody's dog now, and anyone would take him to the vet if there were need of it. People were taking bets to see how long it would be before the vet realised that all the different Red Dogs that looked the same were in fact the same Red Dog. So far he had been to the clinic five times, and the vet had still not put two and two together.

When Red Dog returned to the caravan park he sniffed around until he found the freshest trail that Red Cat had left behind. There was something about that cat that interested him. He eventually tracked it to a patch of silver saltbush, where it was lying in wait for rabbits, and for just a short time they put on a repeat performance of the hissing and growling.

Eventually it all seemed too much bother, however, and people were surprised to see them sitting side by side watching the evening coming down, listening to the kangaroos thumping out in the wilderness, just like two old folk on a bungalow verandah.

They were unlikely friends, but friends is what they certainly became. Red Cat still hated dogs, but for Red Dog he made an exception. When Red Dog turned up at the caravan site, Red Cat would come bounding up, b.u.mp him under the chin with the top of his head, and wind in and out of his legs, tracing figures of eight, whilst he just stood there looking embarra.s.sed. Red Dog still chased cats, but he made an exception for Red Cat. If anyone threatened his friend, it was Red Dog who ran up growling to defend him. He and Red Cat made quite a few dogs and foxes regret that they had ever ventured into their domain.

One evening Nancy took a picture of Red Dog fast asleep under the bougainvillea with Red Cat sleeping on top of him. She had two copies printed, sent one of them to a magazine, and had the other framed so that she could put it up on the wall.

Red Dog had travelled for about five years after John's death before he got to know the men at the Dampier Salt Company, and this only happened because of an accident.

He had hitched a lift with Peeto from Port Hedland back to Dampier, and had begun the journey safely enough, sitting in the front seat of the Ford Falcon, with his head out of the window as usual. The trouble was that he had eaten three sausages, a lamb chop, the remains of a steak and kidney pie, some baked beans and a bowl of cabbage with gravy at a hotel where he had befriended the cook. The consequence, of course, was another of his famous attacks of evil-smelling wind, and so Peeto had transferred him to the small trailer that he was towing behind his car.

This trailer was heaped with swags and other camping gear, because Peeto had been on a fis.h.i.+ng trip in the crocodile-infested mangrove swamps of Broome, and so Red Dog had been obliged to sit on top of that swaying mound, trying not to get flung off every time that the vehicle braked or went around a corner. When they reached the junction where they were to turn off towards Dampier, however, Peeto tried to get out in a hurry so that he wouldn't have to wait for an approaching car. Red Dog was unprepared, as at that precise moment he was daydreaming about rabbits, and quite suddenly he went flying into the road, landing heavily and painfully, and twisting one of his hind legs. The car disappeared into the distance, the driver unaware that his famous pa.s.senger had parted company with him, and Red Dog hopped on three legs back to the side of the road.

Red Dog was quite used to falling off trailers, and out of the trays of utes, as these were common mishaps for Western Australian dogs, and he knew that he would feel better before long. If necessary, three legs would be quite sufficient for walking on for the time being.