HUNTED
A short story of 2500 words
© David Lowe, June 1993
Klaus Feldheim snored softly. The wrinkles of his face were thrown into sharp relief by light reflected from the flickering images on the wall. The decrepit projector whirred. In black and white, a caged beast wheeled and paced, wheeled and paced again, stared contemptuously at the camera and into the future; a bold animal, full of pride, if not hope. The last of the last, according to some. A Tasmanian tiger. Marsupial wolf. Thylacine. Klaus, who had been searching for the animals for most of his life, used none of those names. He simply called the creatures his 'enigmas', and discussed them much as other men talked about their grandchildren.
The film came to an end. One spool flapped as white light filled the wall. Klaus' wife Eileen entered the room and switched off the projector as she had done many times before. With a sad smile, she looked down at the man with whom she'd spent the last thirty years.
'Klaus,' she nudged his shoulder gently.
The old man opened his eyes and smiled at her.
'Time to come to bed,' said Eileen.
The little town on the edge of the old convict harbour slept.
Dawn revealed the road to the Feldheim's stone house lined with autumn trees ablaze with colour. Most of the puddles were frozen over, and an icy wind whipped up small waves on the harbour. Eileen woke early. Dressed against the cold, she rode her rusty bicycle past Klaus' old Land Rover and down the muddy road into town.
Her husband was having a shower when she returned with the newspaper. Eileen set eggs and bacon frying and skimmed the news. Her heart fell as she reached the item on page six. There had been another sighting. Perhaps he wouldn't notice it.
Klaus came into the kitchen in a dressing gown, rubbing his grey hair dry and standing near the stove to get warm. His body was still lean and hard, even if his face looked older than sixty-two years. After hesitating for a moment, Eileen handed over the paper.
They sat down to eat. After several minutes Klaus suddenly stopped chewing. He had reached page six. Eileen watched his eyes flickering back and forth across the lines. Klaus looked up as his wife glanced away, choking back a knot in her throat.
'Don't,' she pleaded quietly. 'Not again. Not this time.'
Klaus' blue eyes searched her face, but he could not reply.
He'd been born in Vienna, by the forests of the Wiener Wald. His parents had emigrated to Tasmania when Klaus was a baby, afraid of what might be to come. After escaping the Third Reich, his father had drowned at sea, while working on a fishing trawler. His mother struggled on for a few more years, then succumbed to homesickness and loneliness. The doctors called it cancer.
Klaus remained. He met Eileen and they eventually settled in the little town by the edge of the harbour. It was certainly a long way from the Danube, but Klaus remembered nothing from those times anyway. His only memory from early childhood was neither a picture or a sound. It was a smell.
As a small baby, Klaus had been taken to a zoo in Hobart. According to his parents, the price had been outrageous. This was because one of the zoo's exhibits had recently been transformed from vermin to living treasure: it was the last Tasmanian tiger in captivity. Klaus remembered only the smell; a mixture of fear and acrid urine, warm fur and an indescribable something that he had never known before, or since. His adult life had been a continual search to rediscover that something.
Klaus won a scholarship and went to university. He studied zoology, held academic posts in Tasmania and on the mainland, but in every spare moment he was back in the bush; chasing up thylacine sightings, setting traps, checking remote controlled cameras.
At first there had been money for the tiger search; bursaries, grants and sponsorships. But as nothing conclusive was found, year after year, the money dried up. Klaus's followers and supporters deserted him. Still he pursued his dream. Klaus was sacked from the university. His name no longer attracted anything but sniggers from the scientific establishment. Still he kept going. For a while the Feldheims ran a tourist animal park to fund further expeditions. The park had eventually gone bankrupt. Klaus sank slowly into a decline, with only the old films and photographs to keep him going.
And now this. Once more, his enigmas were calling.
'I must go, Eileen,' said Klaus. 'I have no choice.'
On the other side of the state a middle-aged man named John Neilson had also seen the item in the newspaper. He was a burly man, with a reddish-blonde moustache and hair cropped short. Again he checked the detail.
The stripes were accurately described. A female, by the sound of things. Seen in a rugged part of the country, near the west coast. That area had hardly been explored, let alone settled. A place of cliffs and caves, rivers and wind. Soon it would be snowing there. He had three weeks, a month at most, before the conditions became impossible.
Neilson drove to his sports shop, halfway down the hill in the centre of town. The smoking pulp mill and mountains of mine tailings blocked the view of the sea from the main street. As he got out of his car a hunched, deformed man went past, leaning on a stick. Neilson avoided looking at the man. His own daughter had been born with Down's Syndrome. He hadn't seen her, or her mother, for six years.
The big man entered his shop, but left the CLOSED sign in place on the door. Trophy heads and pelts of animals from all the continents of the world lined the walls. Neilson had picked up most of them in antique shops and from auctions, but he didn't tell his customers that. There was only one gap left on his wall. Neilson had been trying to fill that gap for twenty-four years, ever since he'd bought his first rifle. The label was already printed and nailed in place: 'Tasmanian Tiger. Thylacinus cynocephalus.'
His grandfather had shot hundreds, but never thought to keep the heads. Back then they'd used thylacine meat to feed their dogs.
Neilson began gathering camping equipment and survival gear together. Hunting rifles went into waterproof cases. Ammunition was stored separately. Three hours later, Neilson left his shop and began driving west in his Landcruiser, with a fully-laden trailer behind him and an aluminium boat on the roof.
Klaus Feldheim bumped down the switchback dirt road, through dark green jungle, to the tiny village of Black River. It was the middle of the day, but ice still lay in the shadows of the road.
As he'd hoped, the village was deserted. Most of the people chasing the news-paper story would be coming in from the north. Light rain started falling as Klaus pulled up his old Land Rover near a ramshackle jetty. There were a few goldrush-era shacks here and there. It looked like people were still living in them. Smoke wound out of the chimney of one house, with a hand-painted sign saying 'Boat for charter' propped outside. Klaus knocked on the door.
A female voice shouted from inside. 'Leave us alone.'
'I only wanted to hire a boat,' explained Klaus.
A pregnant young woman opened the door and stared at him. 'Why?'
'To go down the river. Doing a bit of fishing.'
The girl looked sceptically past Klaus to his battered Land Rover. No fishing rods.
'I'll get my husband.' The door closed again. From inside, Klaus heard another shout. 'Denny!'
Denny was bearded and intense-looking. Rain dripped off his hat as Klaus explained what he wanted. Denny wasn't the type to ask questions. When Klaus paid up front, in cash, he agreed to take the old man as close as they could safely get to the entrance of the river, and come back in four weeks to pick him up again.
The boat had been modified for carrying tourists, but it didn't look like it had carried anything for quite a while. It was called the Maybelline. The floor was under half a foot of water. Denny set the bilge pump going while Klaus loaded his pack and camera gear on board. The engine started with a bang. It was too noisy to talk, which was probably just as well. Denny cast the boat off and steered downstream.
They soon left the damaged-looking mining country behind them and entered virgin forest. The banks grew steeper. Straggly Huon pines dangled out over the deep, sluggish river. Rain came and went and came again as they passed small waterfalls. The rusty ribs of a wrecked boat protruded from one bank. Then there was a great gash cut through the forest where a mighty sassafras had fallen. Another river joined theirs; the current swirled and grew faster. When the Maybelline passed through a tight pinch of rock the echoes from the engine thundered off the walls. After an hour the river straightened. Klaus could see bubbling white surf in the distance. Denny gestured for him to come closer.
'I can't go much further,' he shouted over the roar of the engine. 'Too dangerous.'
Klaus pointed to a steep rocky bank on the right. Denny nodded.
It was tricky getting off. Denny turned the boat and gunned the engine to keep level with the bank. There was nothing to tie off to. Klaus jumped and slipped before regaining his footing. Was he still up to this? There was no time to think about it now.
Denny threw him his pack. 'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' he shouted.
Klaus put on a smile. 'Four weeks!' he yelled over the engine, holding up four fingers. Denny nodded. The Maybelline stuttered and stammered away up the river. Gently falling rain and rushing water replaced the noise of the boat. The surf was a distant rumble.
This area was new to Klaus. For a moment he wondered what the hell he was doing, then he tightened the hood of his jacket and began to walk.
John Neilson arrived in Black River early the next morning, after driving all night. The village slept as he got his boat down and unloaded it by foggy moonlight. The Landcruiser was soon hidden in the scrub. Fog swirled after Neilson as he fired up the motor and accelerated downriver.
When he reached the entrance of the river, great logs were bumping up and down in treacherous surf. Skilfully, Neilson navigated through the dangerous part and reached the open sea. He turned the boat north. After half an hour he rode through the surf to reach a sheltered beach he had found nine years ago on an earlier search. Neilson grunted with effort as he dragged his boat out of reach of the waves.
He made camp and consulted his maps.
The area of the sighting was bounded by two rivers. With a bit of luck, the thylacine - if that's what it was - would still be inside the semi-triangle of rivers and sea. From this side he would have a break on anyone coming the other way.
Two weeks later, he had found nothing.
No thylacine shit. Not even a paw print. Neilson was not dissuaded. Something felt different this time. He knew he would not return empty-handed.
Meanwhile Klaus Feldheim was near exhaustion, wan beneath a grizzled beard. He'd been weakened by a week and a half of severe diarrhoea, and was terribly conscious that he was not as fit as he had once been. The rain had scarcely let up. Despite these problems, he had scoured many likely lairs in the area of the sighting.
Nothing.
In a few days he would have to return to Black River.
That night, Klaus could not get warm in his sleeping bag, despite three pairs of Eileen's hand-knitted socks. At least the rain had stopped. The full moon shone brightly through the trees. It was clear and very cold. Wearing all his clothes, Klaus lay down and tried to sleep. He thought about his wife, worrying about him at home. He thought about his parents; his father lost at sea, his mother buried in a foreign land. He thought about his own connection with this place; the strange way you could never pin it down, the way that it could kick you in the teeth just as you grew to love it. In his mind's eye, he saw the zoo film running, over and over again. Eventually Klaus fell asleep.
When he woke the moon was directly overhead. There was something in the air. A certain smell. Zoo smell. Klaus' pulse began to race. The old man breathed deeply. As jumbled dreams receded, the odour remained hanging in the air like a ghost, taking him back almost sixty years. A thylacine had been nearby. He was sure of it. But how long ago? Quietly, Klaus unzipped the swag. The moon was so bright he didn't need his torch. Like a bloodhound he sniffed the air again. That way. He was sure of it.
In a few minutes he had reached the edge of a ravine. Below rushed a swollen river. The zoo smell tantalised him and grew weaker. Had it all been in his imagination?
And then he saw them.
The thylacine was frozen on the other side of the ravine, big eyes almost glowing in the moonlight. At her feet was a little pup, not quite as still. Their fur was rich and alive-looking, quite unlike the pelts he'd seen in museums. The dark stripes of the mother rippled with tense muscle. Now Klaus could see where they'd got across the river: a fallen log, too narrow to support a man.
He had no camera. He had no trap. But they lived. They actually lived! Klaus had to restrain himself from shouting out with joy.
The moment stretched.
And then a blinding flash - from somewhere nearby - further down Klaus' side of the bank. Only then did Klaus register the explosion of gunpowder.
Again the rifle cracked.
No!!
The mother's jaws gaped wide in anger. Then she leapt into the air like a kangaroo and disappeared. The young one was nowhere to be seen.
Klaus Feldheim ran through the undergrowth to where he'd seen the flash. It was all like a dream. He didn't feel the prickly branches scratching his face. He didn't notice the rocks bruising his knees.
Cursing his aim, John Neilson raised his rifle as he heard something approach. Could it be the male? And then a demon shot out of the bush and knocked him down. The gun went off like a camera flash as the two men struggled for their lives. Klaus held the younger man around the throat and slammed his skull against the ground. Then Neilson managed to flip Klaus over and knee him in the groin.
But Feldheim was no longer a man at all. He was a ball of rage.
Over and over they rolled, gripping each other like mating monsters, covered in blood. Locked together, they rolled over the cliff and fell into the fast-rushing torrent below.
For a moment there was a struggle, and then all was as it had been before.
Moonlight glinted off the water. From beyond the ravine, there came a mournful coughing bark.© David Lowe, June 1993