Blacky Blasts Back by Barry Jonsberg Page A

sausages and a particularly incinerated steak in my jacket pocket. Knowing Blacky, he’d send it back and ask for a refund on his bill.
    Stuff him.
    After we’d cleared up, we gathered around the camp fire. Although it was freezing, cooking had kept us warm. Now we made a circle around the fire. Phil had brewed a huge billy of tea. Jimmy produced marshmallows and some long skewers. We sat and drank tea and stuffed scorched marshmallows into our faces. It was great. There were only a couple of worries.
    One was Mr Crannitch. We hadn’t seen him all day, though he’d joined us for dinner. I think he was still sick. From the way he clutched his head, I guess he must have had a headache. He kept sipping from a small metal flask. Painkiller, probably. From time to time he sang a little song to himself. And groaned.
    The other worry was John Oakman. He sat opposite me. Whenever I caught his eye, it was clear he wasn’t thinking of signing up as the first member of the Marcus Hill fan club. I remembered his ambition of becoming an executioner. John kept looking at my neck. His hands moved as if practising the tying of complicated knots. The marshmallow tasted like ashes in my mouth. Then I realised it was ashes. I’d cooked it too long.
    â€˜Enjoy it weel ye can,’ shouted Jimmy. ‘Ah dinnae ken when youse’ll get the like agin.’
    Maybe I was getting used to him. I understood almost all of that.
    â€˜Jimmy. Phil,’ I said. ‘Do you guys think the Tassie tiger still exists?’
    This was a good opportunity to do research. Blacky knew a lot, but these guys lived here in Tassie. It seemed sensible to tap into local knowledge.
    Jimmy gazed at me over the fire. The flames highlighted the crags in his skin and threw the bulges in his head into relief. His face writhed in shadow and light.
    â€˜Ah’m no the expert oan that,’ he bellowed. ‘Phul’s yir man, there, so he is.’
    I turned to Phil. He had his head down. Thinking. Finally, he looked up.
    â€˜I know they’re out there, mate,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve seen one.’
    He told his story. It had happened a couple of years ago. He was hiking alone in the forest, about five kilometres from where we were now. He’d turned a corner of the trail and seen it, not ten metres away. The peculiar stiff-legged walk, the strange way the tail stuck out, the stripes. And then it was gone, a blur into the bush. He saw it for less than five seconds. But there was no doubt in his mind what he had seen. A tiger.
    â€˜Aye, an’ then yir arse fell oaf,’ said Jimmy. ‘It were a dog, ya dunderheid.’
    Phil smiled sadly.
    â€˜Jimmy’s never believed it, but I know what I saw.’ He drained the remains of his tea. ‘And it’s funny you should mention it, because there’s been another sighting recently. Not too far from here. Have you not read about it in the newspapers?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜Someone took a photograph, though it was blurred. What you can see is something that might be a Tasmanian tiger. Or, as Jimmy would have it, a dog. But everyone’s excited. Amateur tiger hunters have come out of the woodwork. Hordes of the buggers, with fancy cameras and night-vision goggles and motion detectors and whatnot. No scientists. They’re convinced the tiger has gone. But the romantics are desperate to prove them wrong.’
    â€˜What, they’re around here?’ I asked.
    â€˜Mate, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one. They’re camped about ten kilometres away, which is where the photograph was taken.’
    Jimmy snorted.
    â€˜Buncha mad rocket mental numpties,’ he snarled. ‘Ah tell ye, ah hope that critta is extinct. ’Cause if them muppets gitta haud of it, it’ll be the worse thing that ever happened tae it, so it will.’
    I didn’t feel qualified to argue with him. Partly because I only understood