By Warrigal Mirriyuula

The Runt was awake before sunrise and he and Owain had had some sport with the rabbits that infested the rough ground between the cypresses. Owain had been a little nonplussed by the notion of eating the rabbits they’d killed, but his hunger was sharper than his uncertainty about the furry food. Watching the Runt devour a kitten he soon caught on and they’d both eaten their fill. There were several limp bloodied carcasses for the other dogs.

As the morning sun split the eastern horizon the big dogs breakfasted on the rabbits, then the pack went off to find a drink.

A short while later the dogs were gathered around a pool of muddy water lying in a rocky depression in an outcrop that erupted from the sparse soil over the spine of the ridge. The sun was now blazing over the eastern horizon and a stiff breeze was blowing from the west. The dogs slopped up all the water they could. It was going to be a hot day.

As soon as the pack was watered Mongrel gave a commanding bark and set off to pick up the spore again. The other dogs set off after him, falling into battle order as they chased after Mongrel. Loccy, Ronnie and Chester out on the left flank behind, Mongrel and The Runt running centre on the main spore while King and Owain held a tight right flank ahead.

This arrangement of forces served them well as they pursued their quarry. The spread allowed them to identify a number of spores that seemed to be weaving together as the Molong pack followed the scent through the scrub. The main spore was strong and recent and Mongrel kept his nose to the dirt all of the morning and into the afternoon.

During that long hot day the Molong pack had traversed a wide circle on the trail of the weaving ribbons of scent and their pursuit had brought them back to the paddock below their bivouac on the ridge above Paddy Noonan’s place. As the late afternoon sun beat down Mongrel sensed the spore strengthening and he knew their quarry couldn’t be far away.

The Runt was out in front scouting the scent when he stopped dead in his tracks, his one good ear pricked and his little nose twitching. Through the sparse scrub along the fence line the Runt had finally sighted their quarry, a pack of feral dogs, little more than thirty yards away, resting in the shade of a copse of manna gums. They were more numerous than the Molong pack but they didn’t carry the weight at the top end. A few of the smaller members were scrapping amongst themselves, honing their fighting skills. It appeared that there were only three big dogs plus their leader. A really big tan coloured hound.

The Runt made his way back to Mongrel and the Molong pack and passed the message that they had at last come upon their target, the focus of their peripatetic peregrinations over the last two days. Here at last was the source of the scent that Mongrel had first smelled weeks ago when a grazier from out this way had come into town with dead sheep in the back of his ute. Mongrel had smelled it again a few days later when another bloke turned up in town with some dead lambs.

It was the smell of a foreign dog pack; a wild smell, a deadly smell, and the men of Molong became deeply concerned over the matter. There’d been a meeting in the town hall, a lot of shouting and waving of fists. The town was alarmed and uncertainty contaminated the usually equable tenor of the people.

Mongrel by now had felt his blood rising. This was his town too, these upset farmers were his people, his pack and these interlopers could not to be tolerated.

His resolve to get rid of these strange dogs had not wavered since the town hall meeting, and now here they were come upon the enemy at last.

The ferals’ copse was adjacent to the bottom fence of a large elongated paddock that ran between two high ridges of limestone. At the upper end of the paddock about fifty sheep were grazing peacefully. The ferals had obviously chosen the flock for tonight’s menu. Also at the top end of the paddock the Molong pack had drawn up in the low scrub just inside the paddock fence line a few hundred yards from the feral pack.

At a command from the big tan hound the ferals began to move stealthily up the fence towards to the top of the paddock and the sheep. The Molong pack crawled forward to the edge of the scrub and lurked in the long grass waiting on the feral advance. It was important that the sheep be gotten away from any fight that may ensue so Owain and his wingman King crawled out to the very edge of the cover, both twitching at the prospect of the imminent clash and their respective roles. The rest of the Molong pack divided into two units; Mongel and Loccy in one, Ronnie and Chester the other. As lookout The Runt had made his way to a rock a little higher up the ridge and was belly down looking over the edge as the two forces inched closer to one another. The ferals were still completely unaware of the presence of the Molong pack.

The ferals, now only fifty or so yards from the sheep and still able to maintain good cover until they’d have been almost amongst their grazing prey, foolishly chose that moment to begin their charge.

There was simply no more time for further organisation. The Molong pack sprang into action.

Owain burst from the scrub with King on his wing. Both dogs were now between the sheep and the attacking ferals. The corgi made straight for the sheep while King ran protection between Owain and the sheep and the feral pack. The ferals had obviously planned to drive the sheep further into the corner of the paddock where they could contain them and pick them off as they chose. It was a good plan as far as feral dogs were concerned. It had one major flaw. The ferals would be exposed as soon as they began the drive across the open paddock. The sheep would scatter and the dogs would have had to chase down the sheep one by one, but now having exposed themselves the ferals were completely committed to the attack and found themselves out in the open paddock confused by the sudden appearance of these other two dogs

While Owain pushed, then turned the sheep from their corner of the paddock and drove them down the fence line King turned to confront the ferals. The ferals made their first mistake in assuming that it was just the little dog and the shepherd.

Then almost immediately they made their next mistake in assuming that their numbers would take the day. There were about a dozen dogs in the feral pack, all lean and hungry mongrels, yellow eyed curs the lot of them, ranging in size from a couple of small to medium terrier crosses to the alpha, a mighty Ridgeback cross with a huge scarred head and a broken upper right canine. The alpha pulled up short and looked at King, growling ominously. King stood his ground and responded in kind. His blood was up and he was fit for the fight.

The rest of the ferals stopped too, the sheep for the moment forgotten. Owain had them half way down the paddock anyway and was driving the tight mob like the consummate little professional he was. This was Owain’s thing. His reason for being; and the little corgi felt like he was at home again, driving his welsh black sheep across the craggy redoubts of his old mountain home

The ferals turned and tightened into a narrow fan behind the alpha. Snarling and barking at King they began to move in to back up their boss. Their hackles were up, their heads were down, these dogs meant business. King would be an easy mark for the whole pack. A soft town dog not accustomed to fighting for his life.

It was the last mistake some of the feral pack would make.

In the frenzied blur of the first few seconds of the feral attack King took a serious licking. It was almost enough to do for him but he gave almost as good as he got, snapping the neck of one mongrel, tearing the ear off another, crunching the paw of a third; and in those few seconds the rest of the Molong pack exploded from the high grass and woody weeds along the fence line. They joined the fray in a classic pincer movement, attacking the ferals from behind.

It was Loccy’s moment to shine. Like some demented dog crane the powerful wolfhound just tore dogs out of the tight snarling, roiling mass of dog flesh piled on top of King and tossed them aside with a mighty shake and flip, breaking the neck of another small feral, and seriously discouraging others of greater size. Mongrel had a collie cross by the throat while Ronnie and Chester took to the alpha and had him by a leg and the neck, but this big dog hadn’t survived this long without buckets of courage and wiles that had made him a feral alpha. He tore a chunk out of the flap of skin at Chester’s elbow and the cattle dog yelped and dropped off the alpha’s leg. Ronnie tightened his grip on the alpha’s neck but now the alpha’s legs were free he swung his bulk under Ronnie and toppled the Rottie off to the side.

Ronnie rolled and recovered, turning immediately to rejoin the melee. Now Mongrel had the big alpha by the cheek and the alpha, enraged, was trying to get free without tearing half his face off; but then, while Loccy bounded down a lesser member of the feral pack and did the dog prodigious damage, Ronnie, Chester and even King, now a little recovered and ready to have at it again, had the big alpha fixed in their combined sights.

While the rest of the Molong pack fought their way through the few remaining feral dogs to support Mongrel and get at the boss feral, Mongrel and the alpha turned in a tense, terrible, bloody dance to the grizzly accompaniment of their mutually ferocious growling.

With the Chester and Ronnie making short work of the other ferals and Loccy bounding back up the paddock to take another victim, the alpha knew it was now or never. With a howl that echoed of the rocks of the ridge the alpha, pumped to bursting with adrenalin, tore away from Mongrel, his face streaming with blood.

Mongrel, unanchored, tumbled over and the alpha had just enough time to turn and run before he would have been taken again by the reorganising Molong pack. He was a powerful dog with a long stride and despite his many injuries he soon outran Chester and Ronnie who had given committed chase.

Mongrel, his snout covered in gore, barked exultantly then howled at the rising moon, a righteous celebration of their combined success. Chester and Ronnie drew up their pursuit and turned to rejoin Mongrel, howling too as they trotted triumphant across the now darkening field. Owain even joined in from the far end of the paddock.

Deserting the sheep, which had come quite happily under his expert guidance to the safest corner of the paddock, far away from the fury of the dog fight, the little corgi ran as fast as he could, barking all the way to join in the pack song with Mongrel. King and Loccy were there too, Loccy contributing his own unusual howl to the canine chorale, while the weakened King mustered a croaky bark now and then.

The Molong pack rampant was something to behold and when the Runt finally joined the rejoicing pack from the deepening moon shadows in the direction the alpha had just escaped, their circle was complete.

The magnificent seven from Molong howled and barked until it was full dark

With the Molong pack celebrating between them and their retreating leader, the broken mongrels of the feral pack slunk away into the shadows to lick their wounds. Defeated and leaderless they were worse than useless. Of the eight feral survivors of the pack fight, all were injured in some way, a few mortally. Their bodies would rot where they dropped in some defile, some deathly retreat, and the world would neither know nor care. As for the survivors, again no one would care? They might make it alone, they might join a new pack, or they might just disappear into the great bush of western New South Wales; a perennial pest, out of place and out of time, just waiting on the graziers gun.

With the moon now riding high in the night sky the Molong pack wearily climbed back up to their bivouac on top of the ridge. The fight had cost them too and they had their own wounds to lick.

That night they all slept up close, a tight pack of dogs having been welded to one another by mutual adversity. The only real difference between them and the surviving ferals now dispersing through the moonlit bush was Molong, the town and its people, which even now that the job was done was calling them back with a song of home and hearth.

At first light the dogs awoke to find Mongrel and Loccy had gone. The Runt ran a quick scout and determined that the two dogs had gone after the escaping ridgeback. The Runt was in two minds as to whether to follow and ran along the scent for a few yards and back again, but he could have had no role if Loccy and Mongrel finally caught up with the alpha feral. He was too small.

Besides the other dogs weren’t as familiar as he was with this country to the southwest of town and King needed company as he convalesced.

Reluctantly the Runt went back to the other dogs and organised them for the slow trip home.

All that hot day Mongrel and Loccy pursued the big ridgeback across the paddocks, around hills and over dry creek lines. They lost the spore at one point and circled aimlessly in long grass until they picked it up again. The ridgeback was injured and the dropped blood had made him initially easy to follow but as the day wore on and they still hadn’t spotted the alpha feral the blood had stopped and the dogs were left to pick up the dissipating complex molecules of dogscent the ridgeback left in the grass and at every foot fall. It was hard work concentrating on that one scent to the exclusion of the distractions of all the others and Loccy and Mongrel, now many miles from Molong and still following the alpha south, had almost given up when at last they sighted him taking a drink from a drying pool in an intermittent creek bed. Mongrel and Loccy had been scrupulously careful to remain downwind of the spore all day and now it had paid off. There was their quarry. The breeze blew his scent to them strong and definite.

As the ridgeback turned from the pool to rest in the shade of a nearby gully Mongrel and Loccy could clearly see he was limping. That had been Chester’s work. Leave alone the gammy leg, the feral leader was in a bad way. He was dog tired and his head was a gruesome mess of dried black flyblown blood and his neck, body and legs were covered in deep lacerations, having paid the price yet again for the wild life he’d led.

Mongrel and Loccy went down on their bellies and began to inch forward towards the drop off into the gully in which the ridgeback was resting. Mongrel was an old hand at this manoeuvre, having won many a tasty titbit from the amused drunks outside Jimmy’s with just this trick. It was astonishing how small a profile Loccy could fit for a dog that stood nearly four feet high and weighed nearly ten stone; though given his long spindly legs, his crawl was somewhat more awkward than Mongrel’s.

They maintained cover downwind until they were almost on top of the ridgeback. Stopping in the long grass the two Molong dogs exchanged a complex semaphore of facial expressions and body and tail postures. They briefly, gently licked one another’s snouts for courage, just to let each other know they were in this together. It was death or glory.

The two dogs slid and tumbled into the open mouth of the gully cutting of the ridgebacks escape to open ground. They took up aggressive postures, growling and snarling at the ridgeback, ready for the final attack.

The ridgeback was almost all in. His left rear pastern was crushed and matted with blood, he was covered in cuts and lacerations and his head was a horror of gelatinous scabbing and exposed flesh. During the heat of the day’s pursuit flies had done their work and the injury was alive with hatching maggots. The ridgeback had the stench of death on him.

The once proud leader didn’t respond to the Molong dogs’ snarling. He whimpered a little and tried to retreat further into the wall of the gully. He was dribbling from the pizzle and entirely submissive.

Without an aggressive response Loccy and Mongrel didn’t quite know what to do. Mongrel barked at the ridgeback but he only whimpered back. He was a broken dog.

Mongrel and Loccy sauntered off to take a drink from the pool where they’d first sighted the ridgeback. This was odd. Not what they’d been prepared for and once again it was Loccy that resolved the situation. He finished his drink and went and sat down near the ridgeback, giving the feral dog a good deep growl just to be sure he didn’t get the wrong idea.

Mongrel joined Loccy and the quiet presence of the two other dogs seemed to calm the feral. He continued licking his wounds as best he could but his head injury was slowly sapping what little vitality he had left. He was dying. It was just a matter of time.

Loccy and Mongrel took to licking their own wounds, sleeping fitfully from time to time.

The sun went down and the moon rose through the trees to begin its nightly journey across the sky. The big ridgeback was now unconscious and his breathing was shallow.

Some time later Mongrel and Loccy noticed that the big dog had gone quiet. They got up and gave his stiff cooling carcase a sniff. He was gone. Loccy gave the body a shove with his snout. No response.

It was over. The job was done. They left the dead ridgeback in the gully and the two weary dogs turned for home. It was going to be a long walk through the night.

By the time the two bone tired dogs arrived back at the rectory it had gone past two in the morning. The waning moon was high in the night sky and the dogs sat together on the moonlit verandah for a while. If they had been men they might have fallen into desultory conversation about their exploits and those of their fellows, as weary heroes will. But they were dogs and all they were feeling was a strong bond between them and the sense of security that being home elicited in every tired fibre of their being. For dogs aren’t philosophers. They’re practical pragmatic beings of enormous empathy. All it takes for them to be happy is for those around them to be happy.

Mongrel and Loccy were simply happy to be home.

In time Loccy got up and gave Mongrel a lick on the head. Mongrel yawned and got up too. Loccy went over to the door and standing up on his hind legs rang the doorbell. Mongrel joined him by the darkened doorway. Presently the verandah light went on and the sleepy eyed gardening father opened the door in his night shirt. He did a double take, thinking at first that there was no one there, then seeing the dogs.

Half asleep he opened the flyscreen door and allowed the tall hound in.

“Loccy….”, half statement, half question, was all he managed, yawning at the same time. He began to close the door. Mongrel barked and Loccy stopped in the hall and barked back. The father closed the door and turned out the verandah light.

“Quieten down Loccy. You’ll have the whole house up.” The father looked at Loccy in the hallway light. The dog was a mess. His wiry coat was full of grass seeds and burrs, bits of him were covered in matted mud and was that blood all over his side? “Where have you been these last few nights anyway?” Loccy just nuzzled the father. “And who was that other dog I saw you with? You’ve certainly got some explaining to do mister.” the father all the while stroking Loccy’s head as they made their way through the darkened rectory. The place hadn’t been the same without Loccy.

Mongrel was alone now, making his way back to the house in Shields Lane. He was dog tired and had some healing to do but he began to trot and then the trot turned to a run and then Mongrel spent the last of himself getting home as quickly as he could.

The sound of Mongrels claws scratching the bitumen and kicking away the gravel as he bolted down the last bit of Shields Lane awakened the Runt who was asleep on the blankets on the verandah. The little dog ran to meet his mate and they greeted one another like it had been weeks rather than just a day. The Runt was jumping up and nipping Mongrel and licking him but all Mongrel wanted was a quick drink and then the oblivion of the blankets.

The dogs lay down together, the Runt snuggled under Mongrel’s back leg as was their custom, and soon they were asleep.

When the sun came up again it would be Christmas Eve but the dogs had already given the town their gift.