Seizing the Man

I was in the tower when I saw him, standing seventeen feet below on the black sand beside a white Toyota. “Hello!” I called to him.

“Hello!” he said in a strange accent, maybe eastern European. “I am wondering if I can camp here? Not too close to your place of course?”

“It can be uncomfortable down there on the ground,” I said. “Would you like to stay with me in the tower?”

He shrugged and looked uneasy. “Perhaps not,” he said. “I will be away before dawn. I would like to sleep under the stars …” he looked around towards the copse of paperbark trees and seemed to make a decision. “Over there.”

“Suit yourself.” I was not miffed. Mine was not an inappropriate proposition but I was a little worried now. People often arrive here on personal odysseys or orchid hunts but they tend to be better prepared than this stranger. “Perhaps you could light a fire. I can get you some wood.”

“No, no, I don’t need a fire. I have a camp cooker.”

At dusk I went for a walk along the inlet shore, past his camp. The stranger had laid out his swag on the ground and he was nowhere to be seen. His shining coffee percolator sat atop a brand new camp stove. A price tag flicked from the swag. He’d obviously flown into the country and driven straight to the inlet. Nobody has told him. The ravens rustled their feathers, waiting for scraps. I went up the path lined with smooth white stones and grey succulents to the tower and, once inside, bolted the doors and windows.

He could have seen the stars from my tower window. There are no eaves and the largest window faces out to Orion’s Belt at this time of year. Anyway, the clouds gathered and I wondered if I had been clear enough with this first-time camper and his foolish independence.

I could have told him that in the hour before dawn the monster dogs would come to circle. I heard them snorting and growling. Quartz, the youngest dog, looks terrifying with his leonine form and slobbering jowls. But he is the gentlest, a bit stupid, and his growling indicate respiratory problems rather than aggression. It is the other two, the black Great Danes Onyx and Tektite, who employ Quartz for their deeds and work as a team for prey.

I watched from my tower window as the monster dogs loped through the gloom towards the copse of pale, fleshy paperbark trees, and the dark huddle of the man who slept there. A clatter in the night, as the percolator fell to the ground. The sound of canvas tearing.