Red Feet

    It's that time where the arse end of the night slams into the front end of the day. But gently, like. There's a black sky overhead, with a sliver of dying moon providing bugger-all light, but with a huge spread of stars all over the Milky Way.

   I can see well enough, and I know the layout of the track where I'm going, so it doesn't worry me too much. The shadows produced by the combined might of the moon and the stars are distinct enough to allow me to see any snakes on the road early enough to keep from stepping on them and picking a fight with them. It's a good thing to avoid.

   My feet feel out the surface of the road as I run along it, looking for the most enjoyable bits to run on. They pick through the gravel, rocks, stones and hard dried-edged mud of wheel ruts, and find the soft sand of drifts of bull dust, across the road and off to the sides.

   As the eastern sky starts to show signs of changing colour, with shreds of hard, bright orange leaking in from over the edge of the world, I run past a long, low-lying range of hills and red sandstone cliffs. Yuwijan, it's called, in the local language. It comes to a dramatic end in a steep-sided peak resembling a pyramid, and drops off sharply down towards savannah grassland leading away, in the distance and around the corner, to a collection of waterholes on its other side. There's water everywhere in this country, if you know where to look. Nevertheless, a few years ago some bloke came through here on a pushbike, with the lofty intent of undertaking a cycle trip of epic proportions, but with zero proper preparation. Not far into it he came alongside this particular bit of the bush here, and got a bit hot under the collar. He fell off his bike, wandered off randomly, laid down and died of thirst. He was never more than 2.5 km from deep, permanent water. Poor bugger.

   The birds are waking up now, and they come to keep me company. A group of five black cockatoos fly overhead, yarning among themselves, and not overly interested in me. They carry on along their merry way, and are followed by a lone black kite. This fella has got a keen interest in me. He soars over the open track stretching out behind me, scanning it for anything edible, and fixes his eye on me. He slows down a bit, and sticks on my tail for a spell, as I run on, just in case I was going to cark it, roll over and provide him with breakfast. Eventually, disappointed at my regrettable lack of any signs of giving up the ghost, he flies off into the dark distance, swearing and cursing under his breath at the lack of helpfulness on the part of humans. He might go and start a bushfire out of frustration. These birds have been known to pick up burning coals in their claws, fly off with them and drop them over bushland, just to set it on fire and flush out any game hidden in it, which they then swoop down on and pick off. This is well-documented fact. We are not the only animals to use tools, or fire, come to that.

   There was a late Wet Season storm last night, and areas that are normally red sand and dust have now turned into thick red mud, sticking to my feet, filling the gaps between my toes, and weighing them down a bit. They become noticeably heavier to lift up and shift. This is good exercise, no doubt.

   Nearing the end of my run, I turn back onto the road leading into the township, and slow down to a stroll, relaxing and breathing in deeply. On cue, two feral pigs come trotting out from a yard. They're a good size, light-brown coloured with big black patches all over them, a bit like a Jersey milk cow. Are they milk pigs? They are clearly tame, because they only give me a casual sideways glance, put their nose to the ground, and amble off to go root through piles of garbage by the side of the street in a wholly unconcerned manner. I check out their arse end and sure enough, they've both got two massive sets of knackers dangling down between their legs. If they had been anywhere near wild they would have been trying to alternatively fuck, fight or eat anything that came their way.

   I caught a wild piglet out bush one day. It ran out onto a track in front of our fourwheel drive, and we chased it through the grass. I kicked it underneath its gut so it flew up into the air, did a beautifully executed somersault, and landed flat on its face, with me right on top of it. We took it back, securely tied up in the back of the ute, and named him Brian, after our boss at work, who was a real pig. We got hours of amusement out of that, behind his back. I took it home, as a playmate for the kids. We made him a nice little house in the back of the yard, and he whiled away many a happy hour burrowing and ferreting around in the mud and generally turning our suburban backyard into a pigsty.

   As he grew up though and got bigger, he became more and more toey, and he started to try to mount my partner and our daughter whenever they came to feed him and play with him, rubbing himself up against them in a way that showed his intention and his desire very clearly. So one day I grabbed him and cut his knackers off. That calmed him right down, and put a holy terror into him whenever he saw me coming. He'd go put his head in a hole, close his eyes and fold his trotters over his face, and pretend he wasn't there until I'd gone. It was a big improvement over him trying to fuck my wife and daughter. The notion did occur to us that our boss Brian, the other pig, would also potentially be improved hugely if we cut his knackers off, but, try though we might, we just couldn't find a way of doing it and getting away with it.

   Eventually life with both Brians became too much of a pain in the arse, and I quit my job as a Parks and Wildlife Ranger. That took care of pig Brian in the office. Before I left the parks, however, we took the other pig Brian, the one without the knackers, and, in a last act of petty, pointless and petulant but immensely satisfying and enjoyable revenge, turned Little Pig Brian loose in the National Park managed by Big Pig Brian. That would give them both a run for their money, we thought, and we envisaged them spending blissful weeks and months chasing each other.

   Like a streak of greased shit a dog comes tearing out of one of the neighbouring yards, and, fangs bared and spit drooling from his muzzle, attacks the pigs, clearly intending to kill them and eat them. The pigs let out an ear-rending squeal of distress and bolt, straight through the yard of the nearest house. The dog, all growls and howls and barks and mad swivelling eyes, disappears after them in a cloud of dust, followed by every other dog within a hundred metres around, in a cacophony of barking that would have woken up anyone not awake yet or not dead. Clearly the dogs are more feral than the pigs. It's an interesting state of affairs.

   Gratified with an entertaining display of local idiosyncrasy, I sit down in the middle of the road and pull a piece of broken glass out of my left foot. The thick coat of dried red clay caking it hadn't been strong enough to keep it out.

   In front of me the sun rises hard red and orange over Never Never Country. The day begins.