In the second it was in the air, the moon came out and I saw its fierce cannonball head clearly, the whites of its wide-spaced eyes, the open jaws, the spiky teeth, the tongue.
Then the animal was on me.
Our heads collided. Blackness, pain.
I went over backwards, fierce pain in my left shoulder now, the dog’s teeth in me, both my hands on its broad collar, trying to pull it away.
We were under water, its weight on my chest.
Something said: Don’t push. Pull.
Stay down.
I pulled the dog to me, felt its jaws moving in my flesh, intense pain in my whole shoulder, up my neck.
Stay down.
I needed to breathe. I hadn’t prepared myself, hadn’t drawn a deep breath.
Hold on.
The animal’s body was thrashing, paws scrambling against me, trying to get purchase. I could feel its strength, totally out of proportion to its size. My grip on its collar was weakening, I had to let go, get my head out of water. Breathe.
Stay down.
I felt the teeth come out of me. It did nothing for the pain. The dog’s head was pulling backwards, astonishing strength in the neck. I couldn’t hold it.
Hold on. Just hold on.
No, I couldn’t.
I felt the dog’s strength go, I felt it as intimately as if it were my own.
It stopped thrashing, the neck was not fighting me.
I rose to the surface, breathed in the cold night air, smelling of stagnant water and mud. The dog was on my chest. I let it go, it floated away.
Baying from the shore. The huge white dog was a few metres away, looking at me, the hayfork teeth.
Christ, this would never be over.
I backed away, across the dam, it wasn’t wide, ten metres perhaps. It was deep in the middle, I turned, swam the five or six strokes needed, started to walk out, mud holding my shoes, looked back.
The big dog was gone.
It was coming around the dam. How long would that take? From which side? I couldn’t see the end of the dam, it tapered at both ends, that was all I could see.
I could hear shouting, then a whistle, not a human whistle. A beam of light touched the top of the vegetation across the dam.
Chokka and Jimbo were on their way.
On the bank, I stood in complete exhaustion, nowhere to go, I couldn’t run anymore. I touched my shoulder, looked at my hand. It was black with my blood.
I turned and walked a few paces, kicked something, almost fell over. It was an old truck door lying on the mud. I stood and looked down at it in a stupid, fuddled way, shook myself, looked up.
The white dog was twenty metres away, in full stride, all legs off the ground, coming for me, silent, huge, powerful, head the size of a giant marrow.
Fuck you.
I bent and grasped the ancient door by its top, pulled it up, heard the glup sound as I broke the bond between metal and mud, it wasn’t heavy, just a sheet of rusted tin.
The dog was two cars’ length away, the awful teeth biting air.
I turned like a hammerthrower, turned to my right, arms at full stretch, swinging the door parallel to the ground, reversed direction, came back with the door, released it, threw it at the dog, he was about to spring, melon head up.
The door’s rusted bottom edge severed the massive Baskerville head. The head went up, the torso kept coming, ran into me, hit me like a motorbike, knocked me flat, lay on me, covered me.
Hot blood in my mouth, in my eyes, up my nose, I breathed in the blood, felt the warm weight of the headless creature on me, its final jerks.
The whistle, three or four blasts, sharp, imperious. The light coming around the other side of the dam.
Chokka and Jimbo. No more dogs.
Just me and the boys left.
41
I was filled with a maniacal joy, a fifty short-blacks hit, anything was possible, I didn’t much care about anything. I got out from under the dog, spat the blood, walked the way it had come, walked, to fucking hell with running, I’d done the running.
Jesus, Chokka would shoot me. He was always going to shoot me when the dogs had finished.
Run.
Still able to run, my legs moved, how amazing, no, not amazing, running on terror-produced chemicals flooding through me, why doesn’t matter, just run.
I ran, clockwise, around the dam, crawled up a bank, away from the flashlight, away from the boys, I had a start. There was a passage through the scrub here, once a path perhaps, running again, this wasn’t bad, settle down to a pace, I could keep going like this…
‘Freeze fucker!’
Light in my eyes, close up.
Jimbo.
I kept going, dived at the light, didn’t care, heard the crack, felt something brush my face, hot, I had him by the hair, long hair, he fell backwards, I went with him, on top of him, got him by the throat, squeezed, sat on him, bashed his head against the ground. He offered almost no fight.
After a while, too tired to go on, I stopped, reached for the torch, found the rifle, bolt action. I worked the bolt, pressed the muzzle against his throat.
Jimbo lay with his eyes closed, playing dead.
I got up, stood back. ‘Get up,’ I said, ‘or I’ll shoot you.’
I wanted to shoot him but he got up instantly.
‘Run, you bastard,’ I said.
He ran.
I ran the other way, switching off the torch, carrying it in my left hand, the rifle in the other. Where was I going? Go back to the mine, open ground, it would be light soon, surely? I could find a position, see them coming.
The overgrown path ended at a wider track. My sense of direction was gone. I turned right, tried to run, couldn’t. Never mind, I had the rifle. I walked in the right-hand wheel furrow. The moon seemed to be down but the sky was lightening, just a shade. The track went uphill then down. If I was going towards the mine, the creek I’d crossed would be down there.
Would they go directly back to the mine? They’d know the quickest way, they’d be there before me.
Panic. I started to run again, got my legs moving, it wasn’t too bad, it was downhill. My left shoulder was now a steady ache. Tetanus. I needed an injection. The least of my worries. Water. I was in water, the creek, I was going the right way. No, only the right way if Chokka wasn’t there first.
Uphill from the creek. How far had it been? Not far. A minute or two of petrified running. I stopped, walked fifty or sixty metres, the track was steep, the rifle heavier with every step.
A building against the sky ahead, to the right. I kept going. The track intersected with another one running towards the mine. This was the way we’d driven in. I turned right, walked beside the track.
The old truck and the Valiant came into sight. I crossed the track, put the truck between me and the
