Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by Mittelbach Margaret

Author:Mittelbach, Margaret [Mittelbach, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780812967692
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 7097575
Publisher: Villard
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

After what seemed like hours of silence (but was actually exactly twenty-three minutes), a voice suddenly rose from the darkness.

“I wasn't really into those beets on the sandwiches,” Chris said. “That's one thing I'm not going to do when I get home.”

“Beets are actually really good for salads,” Dorothy responded.

“I know. They're just a little sweet on a sandwich.”

We found ourselves unable to resist weighing in. “Yeah, maybe they should try sprouts now and then. And what's with the butter?”

Oh, well. Silence is to New Yorkers as roadkill is to Tasmanian devils. It has to be dragged away and devoured.

We heard the sound of a coughing bark behind us, but it was just Alexis clearing his throat. He began using his flashlight to scan the landscape for wildlife. Nothing.

After a while, Chris decided to head back to camp. His light slowly slalomed down the hill until it disappeared.

We took turns illuminating the buttongrass plains, hoping to catch some sort of animal on the prowl. But it was like a ghost prairie. No predators. No prey. No owls. No night birds. Not the slightest sight of life. The only sound was a rinky orchestra of dung beetles, creaking away in the background.

As we clicked the flashlights on and off, lighting up a barren rock, a dry tussock of grass, a lone twisted tree, we thought about the phenomenon of tiger sightings.

About one official tiger sighting is lodged every month with the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. They even have a special form—and we had gotten ourselves a blank copy. At the top, it stated, “Every observation, no matter how trivial it may seem, might prove to be important in the search for the thylacine. All information will be received in strict confidence.”

We pulled the sighting report form out of one of our notebooks and started to fill it out—just in case.

But when we came to the question “activity at time of sighting,” we had to stop. What exactly were we doing? We thought about it for a second and then wrote, “sitting on a dark hilltop, listening for the Tasmanian tiger with our pot-smoking artist friend.”

It didn't sound good. Even if we saw one, no one would believe us.

It was only midnight when we finally cracked.

“I think the marsupial party is elsewhere tonight,” said Alexis.

“Yeah, let's go down.” We clicked off our flashlights.

From far below us—at the start of the trail? on a highway?—we saw a series of flashing lights.

“What's that light?” Alexis whispered. It flashed again. “What the fuck is that?”

“Do you think it's Chris?” we suggested.

“It can't be. He's nowhere near there.”

We weren't sure where Chris was. Probably back at the camp, drinking wine, and clinking glasses with Mangy. But our bearings were screwed up and Alexis's paranoia jangled our nerves.

At night the trail seemed different, complicated and winding. As we illuminated the small space in front of our feet, we drifted into the realm of fantasy. Back in New York, we had imagined countless scenarios in which we encountered the tiger.

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