Читать книгу Boomerang Hunter - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

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A half hour before the first gray streak of morning cracked the night sky's smooth black shell, Balulu awoke and sat up. For a moment he listened to the moaning of the wild dingoes out in the scrub. Then he added fresh wood to his fire and watched the tongues of yellow flame lick greedily at the fresh fuel.

There was a rustle, a half-sensed clicking of padded paws, and Warrigal was at his side. The dingo had never been fawning in his relationship, and recent events had created a widening chasm between Warrigal and all humans except Balulu. The bond between the two had steadily strengthened. When they hunted, Warrigal did not hesitate to strike off on his own and range as far as he chose, and to rejoin Balulu when he thought best. But in camp, or even in the presence of another human, he was usually at Balulu's side.

It seemed to Balulu as though Warrigal understood this time of desperation and knew what it was doing to humans and beasts alike. Whether or not his brother dingo actually had such thoughts, the mere fact that he seemed to have them gave Balulu heart.

Patiently he waited for daylight; with the wild dingoes in the scrub, it would be too dangerous to venture out before that time. There would be no morning meal for Warrigal and himself, but there had been so many mornings, even days, without food that one more could easily be faced. So could the fact that they would be hungrier when the day ended than they already were before it started, if they failed in this day's hunt.

Presently Rono left his sleeping hollow and came toward Balulu's fire. Warrigal bristled, and his lips curled in a silent snarl. Balulu put a restraining hand on his neck. Until recently the big dingo had been friendly toward Rono; there must be something behind this sudden dislike. Balulu suspected that Rono, a hunter of vast experience, knew some secret means—perhaps a scent, or a plant or shrub—that stirred dingoes to resentment.

Balulu also knew there was a very good reason why Rono preferred hostility between Warrigal and himself. Rono was leader, therefore he was supreme. But his rule was entirely dependent on his ability to sustain it. Any tribesman who felt equal to so doing was entitled to challenge him, and the challenger automatically became chief if he won.

Balulu's skill with both boomerang and spear were well known throughout the Desert People. He suspected that Rono thought it wise to temper authority with judgment, lest Balulu challenge him. And he might well do so, if Rono ordered Warrigal surrendered for eating. But if the leader or anyone else were attacked by the dingo, not even Balulu could hold them responsible for defending themselves or blame them for killing Warrigal.

As Rono approached, Warrigal dropped to a half crouch and flexed his muscles for leaping. Balulu wrapped his fingers about a fistful of hair and clung tightly. If Rono had indeed set out to earn Warrigal's dislike, he had succeeded. Without Balulu to restrain his brother, the dingo would perhaps be at Rono's throat even now.

Naked except for the belt hanging about his middle, Rono came up to Balulu's fire. The flames reflecting from his body painted it a gleaming bronze-black, highlighted by the ceremonial totem scars on his chest and arms.

Warrigal snarled again, but, as though he did not hear, Rono made no move to indicate that he was even thinking of the big dingo. Balulu could not help a grudging admiration. Rono knew that Warrigal was aching to attack, and the very fact that he could stand without flinching spoke well for his courage. Balulu decided that Rono did not want an attack at this time, when there were no witnesses to testify that he had killed Warrigal justly, and was depending on Balulu to control the aroused dingo.

"You do not cook at your fire," Rono observed.

"You speak with the tongue of Old Man Who Has Lost His Wits," Balulu growled. "If I had meat, would not the tribe know it? Did I not share the lizard I left at Loorola's Rock of the Four Winds? Who else brought in meat?"

"I do not talk of such meat," Rono said. "Of the many hunters who were abroad yesterday, only Balulu made a kill. That is true. I talk of the meat that lies beside you, and that even now would wish to have its jaws tearing my throat."

For a short time, Balulu did not answer, but considered the meaning behind the leader's words. Evidently Rono had decided that Warrigal must be eaten. However, he had given not an order but a suggestion, carefully presented as such. So Balulu might disagree without flouting Rono's authority.

"There is wisdom in your words," Balulu said gravely. "Though I may not taste his flesh, my brother will indeed stay the hunger of those who are not of the Dingo Totem. I will give Warrigal to the cooking fires on one condition."

"Say the condition."

"Warrigal shall be spared until after the next emu is captured. The emu shall be brought in and made ready for eating. Rono himself shall have the first portion."

Suddenly raging, Rono snarled, "Your words are spear points! Have you forgotten that I am of the Emu Totem? How else dare you say such words?"

"The words sprang from your tongue to mine!" Balulu retorted. "When you proposed that I willingly surrender Warrigal to the cooking fires, had you forgotten that I am of the Dingo Totem?"

There was a brief silence during which Rono pondered the trap he had set for Balulu and the way it had been turned on himself. Who violated his pledges to his own totem was always despised by the tribe. But who caused another to betray his totem flouted the most sacred laws. His punishment, always decided by the Council of Elders, was invariably death.

"I meant no harm," Rono said shortly. "Good hunting."

"And to you," Balulu replied. "May fat and unwary game cross your path."

Rono turned on his heel and walked away. Relieved but uneasy, Balulu watched him go. Warrigal had now come to represent more than just food; in addition he symbolized Balulu's defiance of his leader. Rono would certainly try again.

The gathering day had become almost light enough for him to leave the safety of the night fires and set out on the hunt. Balulu forgot Rono and devoted himself to a ritual which he had observed every day since his father had placed the first toy weapons in his hand, and would continue to practice until the day of his death. He inspected his weapons and gear.

The entire collection was carefully arranged within easy reach but a safe distance from the fire. Representing all the earthly possessions he had ever had, ever wanted, or would ever need, all together weighed less than twenty pounds. It was not only enough, but any roving hunter would have been overburdened with more. There was a pouch made from a tanned kangaroo skin; fire sticks and bark tinder; two boomerangs; a length of cord spun from possum hair, that he usually carried wound around his head; his flint-headed stabbing stick that could be used for killing or skinning game; two long, slender spears with stone heads lashed to their tips; and a womera, or throwing stick.

Balulu looked first to his boomerangs, his favorite weapon. About two feet from curved tip to curved tip and tapered at both ends, both were heavy war weapons that would not return to the thrower's hand. There was a certain disadvantage in that since, once thrown, they were useless until recovered. For that reason, some hunters chose to carry one war boomerang and one of the lighter weapons that would fly back to the thrower.

Balulu preferred two heavy weapons because of their greater range and deadlier effect. The lighter ones would usually kill small game instantly and sometimes cripple big game, even the great red kangaroo, so that it could be run down and killed, but they were most practical for hunting small game only. War boomerangs could be used on game of any size with devastating effect. The more skilled marksmen, using a war boomerang in good light, could pinpoint their targets at considerable distances. Balulu was expert enough to knock a kea from its perch at a hundred yards.

The boomerangs in need of no attention, he laid them aside and took up his spears.

There was a general pattern for all weapons among the tribe's hunters, but one man's were never exactly like another's simply because everyone was his own craftsman. Spears, like everything else, were influenced by personal preference, skill, and the maker's ambition. Balulu had fashioned his spears with such painstaking care that Rono himself did not have finer weapons. They had served him well, and were apparently in need of no repairs. Balulu laid them near the boomerangs and took up his womera.

Made of wood, and laboriously fashioned to his personal taste, the spear thrower was about two feet over all. The grip was shaped to conform perfectly to the shape of Balulu's clenched fist. At the tip end was a spear rest, a cavity made with a burning brand and sand-polished to a glassy smoothness. When in use, the butt end of the spear rested in the cavity, and the womera's effect was to double the length of a spearsman's arm and permit a corresponding increase in the force and effective range of the thrown spear.

His major weapons in satisfactory condition, Balulu turned to his other equipment. He examined the hide lashing on the flint point of his stabbing stick, checked his fire sticks, his supply of bark tinder, and the other contents of his pouch. All seemed to be in order. His clothing was a matter of no concern whatever, for he wore nothing but a hanging belt.

This inspection completed, with no repairs necessary, and the light grown strong enough for distance visibility, Balulu and Warrigal left camp. A few of the other tribesmen were up and about, but nobody else had as yet started out to hunt. Even Rono seemed to share the general gloomy mood that there was no game to be found and was sitting cross-legged, staring morosely at the Rock of the Four Winds.

The camp behind him, Balulu turned to see how many wild dingoes had fallen in on his trail. He saw five grizzled adults that were following just beyond the effective range of his boomerang. With no more thought for the wild dingoes, since their presence on his trail every time he left camp had long been taken for granted, Balulu started into the parched desert.

With no clear idea of any direction that might lead him to quarry, he guided himself by his long-standing rules of hunting. He moved against the wind so that whatever lay ahead could not scent him; he kept to the heights so that he would not overlook anything hidden in the gullies and washes, and he was constantly sensitive to Warrigal and what the big dingo was doing. There was always a possibility that Warrigal would be the first to detect anything.

There was no valid reason to travel in any particular direction with the thought that game would be found; these days luck alone brought the hunter to his quarry. But even though the chances for success were so slim, Balulu could not rid himself of a feeling that he was right and the discouraged hunters who chose to idle in camp were wrong. Even when game had been most abundant, it had been necessary to go hunt for it; wild animals had never been known to come seek the hunter. With their situation more desperate than it had ever before been, it seemed to Balulu that all hunters should be working harder than ever.

With the sun four hours high, Balulu had seen nothing except parched desert and the wild dingoes that followed him. Although he had no reason to expect there would be anything in this dry, dead world, as long as daylight lasted he intended to hunt.

After another empty hour, Balulu slipped beneath the rim of a steep ridge up which he had been traveling and squatted beside a huge boulder. Warrigal came to sit near him. Balulu glanced across the narrow gully beneath him and began to study the opposite slope.

A twin of the ridge he had been climbing, the opposite slope was heavy with tough brush and scrub that was either immune to drought or was tapping some sub-surface water. Curious, his eyes missing nothing, Balulu squatted on his haunches and carefully scanned the opposite rise.

He did not really expect to see anything because he had glimpsed nothing all day. He continued to study the scrub-grown slope only because there might be game in such a place. When he finally caught a flicker of motion in the scrub, he was not at once able to tell whether or not anything had actually moved. More than once eager hope had seen game where the senses found none.

Balulu riveted his eyes on the place where there might have been motion. Presently he gave an involuntary start. His eyes were not playing him tricks. An animal had indeed moved, but it was a creature which the most stout-hearted hunter would ordinarily avoid.

When it moved from the concealing scrub and halted in a tiny clearing, Balulu saw clearly a thylacine, or marsupial tiger. There was no mistaking the dark brown stripes running across the rear half of its back. About the size of Warrigal's, the lean body was a perfect frame for its owner's ferocious temperament. Flesh-eating thylacines were dreaded for their willingness to fight anything, anywhere, at any time, and when attacked they were truly ferocious. Who challenged a thylacine must kill or be killed. Still, beneath its striped coat the thylacine was flesh, and flesh could be eaten. This was no time to shrink from danger.

Balulu made his decision and threw his boomerang in the same split second. The spinning weapon sailed across the gully, made its loop, and struck precisely where it had been aimed. Its skull cracked, the thylacine dropped in its tracks.

From out in the scrub came a hoarse, gutteral bark, and was answered by another. The marsupial tigers almost never ran in packs but there had been three in this one—four, Balulu realized with a sinking heart, for still another thylacine now raised its coughlike bark. Then the wind carried Balulu's scent to them and they started down the opposite slope, straight toward him.

Balulu shifted his second boomerang to his right hand and clutched his spears in his left as he and Warrigal braced themselves.