Dash and Dingo by Catt Ford, Sean Kennedy Page B

hunt?” Henry asked hesitantly.
    Hank closed his eyes momentarily and then opened them again. “Too many times.”
    “What were the tigers like?”
    Hank smiled. “They’re miracles, Dash. This land is full of the strangest creatures, and every one of them is extraordinary. There are no other animals like them on the face of the earth, as far as we know. That’s why it’s a crime that the Tassie government tried to wipe them out.”
    Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 57

    “Tell him about what it was like when you were a kid,” Dingo prodded him. His eyes shone with excitement and eagerness to hear the tale again himself, even though Henry knew he had probably heard it countless times before.
    “Yes,” Henry breathed. “Please do.”
    His hand trailing gently along the flank of the stuffed thylacine, Hank’s mouth grew bitter. “They were always shy, but they got used to us enough that pretty soon at night they would come around. I used to leave them food sometimes, when there was food enough to be left. You could see their eyes glint in the night, and the snuffling noise they made as they ate. If I took a lamp, sometimes I could see their caramel fur move against the brush, their stripes standing out as clear as day. They would cry out to each other—”
    Forgetting his usual sense of decorum, Henry interrupted excitedly.
    “What did they sound like?”
    Hank threw back his head and barked a short series of noises— yip yip yip —that made Dingo smile affectionately and fascinated Henry.
    “I thought they would have sounded more fierce,” Henry said in wonder.
    “That’s the tragedy of the tiger,” Dingo told him. “They weren’t fierce at all. They were scapegoats for the common dog, brought over by the shipful by the British, and many of them becoming wild.”
    “They had trouble competing against the feral dogs for food. The dogs are far more aggressive,” Hank said.
    “Tell Dash about that farm near you where the family had a thylacine as a pet,” Dingo urged.
    “The Digbys, when my father was a boy. He said they kept a thylacine as a watchdog. It would play with the kids and slept in the house. If you caught one young, as a cub, you could tame them,” Hank said sadly.
    “How fascinating!” Henry exclaimed. “I never heard that. And despite witnessing that, your father still had no qualms about trapping them?”
    “The bounty offered for a thylacine, alive or dead, was too much for him to resist. Especially seeing that our farm failed miserably year after year,”
    Hank said, emotion straining his voice. “I helped my father massacre the tigers in our area. I may not have lifted a gun to do so, but it was my years of making them feel safe on our land that made them so easy for my father to find.”
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    “You were just a kid, Dad,” Dingo said comfortingly. “There was nothing you could have done.”
    Hank shrugged. “Over the years the numbers of them dwindled,” he continued, for Henry’s benefit. “I moved off the farm as soon as I was old enough. Helen and I married, had our kids.”
    “When did you move to Melbourne?” Henry asked.
    “When I was six,” Dingo said.
    “Did your grandfather ever take you on a hunt?” Henry asked, dreading the answer. He knew if it was in the affirmative, he shouldn’t hold it against Dingo, who would have only been a child. But he didn’t want it to mar the respect he was developing for him.
    Dingo shook his head. “There was little to hunt by then. The thylacines grew too wary of humans and made sure to stay far away. By then, to kill them, you had to truly hunt them.”
    “I wouldn’t have let any of the boys go anyway,” Hank said firmly.
    “Our farm failed as well,” Dingo said. “That’s why we moved.”
    Henry looked at Hank with awe. “But your obsession survived.”
    “The same obsession you obviously have.” Hank nodded. “It was
    Gordon who told me about you in the