Dash and Dingo by Catt Ford, Sean Kennedy Page A

at seeing him put in his place.
    “Henry, dear,” Helen said.
    “Yes?” both Henry and Hank replied.
    “Oh, sorry, I was talking to my husband,” Helen said, and Henry colored. Now it was Dingo’s turn to laugh. It turned out that Hank was called Henry only, and they meant only, by his wife. “Henry, do you want to show the boys through to your study, and I’ll prepare the meat for dinner?”
    “Sure, love,” Hank said warmly. “Lead the way, son.”
    Dingo nodded, and he gestured to Henry to follow him. They made their way down a dark hall that led outside to a bright, overgrown backyard.
    Henry followed Dingo, maneuvering around a large pit with a tin cover over it, wondering briefly what it could be.
    Hank’s study was actually a weatherboard shed that leaned slightly to the left. Henry was amused, standing back and admiring the architecture as Hank fiddled with the lock that hung from the latch on the door.
    Hank pushed the door open. “Come into the office, Dash.”
    Henry sighed mentally; it seemed that Dingo’s nickname for him was contagious. Maybe he would just have to accept it, as it would certainly make life easier if he spent any amount of time with the Chambers family. He stepped into the shed, which was dim despite the large window. The window was encrusted with dirt and looked as if it hadn’t seen a clean in decades.
    Hank noticed where he was looking and said gruffly, “To keep people from spying.”
    Henry was about to ask what on earth could possibly be so secretive that people had to be discouraged from peeping through the window when Hank swatted at the bare hanging bulb above his shoulder, and Henry found himself face-to-face with a thylacine!
    He jumped back before his brain told his body it was obviously an excellent example of taxidermy, but his heart still pounded. Breathing deeply to try and calm his pulse, he circled around the tiger as Hank and Dingo watched him with interest. Henry reached out and rubbed the pelt, which felt exactly the same way as his specimen back at the college did; but this one was
    56 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

    draped artfully over a wire frame and mimicked the true shape of the animal.
    He marveled at the way the back sloped down to the stiff tail, which looked exactly as they did in the photographs he pored over, unlike the flattened piece of fur that he unrolled from its nest of protective paper in the archives section.
    Finally looking up, still trying to imagine the thylacine alive and how it would move, the sounds it would make, how the eyes would glisten with life rather than dully stare past him because they were made of glass, Henry could see that the walls were covered with photographs and newspaper clippings.
    Many of the photos were ones he hadn’t seen before, and he immediately coveted them for his own collection, hoping that he would be able to obtain copies before he left Australia for good.
    Quite a few photos showed the same handsome man over and over
    again, and in some of them a young boy also appeared. The man was obviously a hunter, and his prey lay supine at his feet. A lifeless thylacine, spread out and looking like the pelt Henry knew so well back in England.
    While the man looked proud and confident, the young boy scowled and looked as if he would rather be anywhere but there.
    “That’s you,” Henry said to Hank, pointing out the boy in the
    photograph.
    Hank nodded. “You got me.”
    Henry turned to Dingo. “So that must be your grandfather.”
    Dingo nodded. “That’s the old bastard, all right.”
    Henry knew from his tone of voice that there was no affection
    contained within “old bastard” like there was with “old lady” or “old man.”
    “Jack!” Hank said sharply, and Dingo jumped at the sound of his father using his real name. Hank softened when he saw the look on his son’s face and said softly, “He may have been an old bastard, but he’s still your granddad.”
    “How often did you go on the…