THE BLACK PANTHER

July 1987
Harpertown is a small town roughly thirty kilometres from Glen Hartwell, in the Victorian countryside. Normally the police have only routine duties to perform in the sleepy little town. But that night Jim Kane found himself with one of the most unpleasant tasks he had had to perform during the five years that he had served as sergeant of police in Harpertown.
Standing near the entranceway to the great circus tent, Jim (a tall powerfully build brown-haired man) looked across to where his constable, Paul Bell (a tall, thin raven-haired man), stood on the opposite side of the tent. After a moment, he forced himself to look back toward the centre arena, where an enormously fat and grotesquely ugly man -- dressed in black shorts and a gaudy red singlet -- was holding up a live chicken by the neck for the crowd to see. As the audience leant forward in their seats, wide-eyed in awe, the circus geek stuffed the head of the terrified bird into his mouth and began to bite down with all his might. After a moment he spat the head of the chicken into a nearby plastic bucket and proudly held aloft the wildly gyrating corpse, which spurted blood from its severed neck.

As the geek reached toward a wooden crate where two more live chickens were caged, Jim Kane nodded toward Paul Bell and blowing their whistles, the two police officers converged upon the centre arena.
“All right, that’s enough!” Jim had to shout to make himself heard above the crowd, as he grabbed the geek’s right wrist to stop him reaching his intended next victim.
“Okay everybody!” shouted Paul, clapping his hands loudly to get their attention: “The show’s over. Come on, everybody out!”
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing!” demanded the ringmaster, storming across toward the two plain-clothed policemen.
“Police!” explained Jim, holding up his identification.
Taken aback, the ringmaster quickly changed his tack: “What’s the problem officer?” he asked.
“The problem is this bloody disgusting spectacle!” replied Jim angrily; pointing toward the chicken carcase that now lay on the sawdust covering the arena floor.
“But it’s only a show!” protested the ringmaster, shrugging as though unable to comprehend Jim’s attitude.
“Only a show?” asked Jim incredulous. He started to tell the ringmaster just what sort of show he thought it was, but before he got the chance, a rifle shot rang out from behind the circus tent.
At the sound of the shot all Hell broke loose as the large crowd panicked and fled for the nearest exits, preventing Jim and Paul from leaving the tent.
A second gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of frightened animals bellowing. Both policemen had the same thought, however, it was Paul Bell who said: “The ALA! It has to be the bloody ALA!”
The ALA was the Animal Liberation Agency, an Australia-wide organisation of hundreds of dedicated animal-welfare people. They had been trailing the Circus of the Grotesque ever since it had somehow been given clearance to start an eight-month tour of the Australian continent, three months earlier.
Like most people, Jim Kane usually regarded protest groups as loonies, but looking down at the plastic bucket containing the bloody chicken head, Jim couldn’t help sympathising with the animal-libbers. Specialising in abuses of all kinds against live animals, the French-based circus had been picketed right across Europe for years before a loophole in Australian law had allowed the circus into the country.

Around near the animal pens behind the large tent in Hauptman's Paddock (actually a hundred-hectare allotment) chaos reigned supreme. Circus staff wrestled with ALA members, trying to prevent them from freeing caged animals. While those that had already been freed ran hither and thither squawking, squealing, and lowing from a mixture of panic and relief at being released from their tiny prisons.
Sweating furiously despite the frigid night air, Andrew McTaggart raced across to a wooden cage to help two teenage girls free a haggard-looking ancient giraffe. A short, portly, middle-aged man, who looked every bit the Certified Practising Accountant that by day he was, after eight years Drew still had trouble believing that he was crazy enough to give up the comfort of his warm bed to take part in these late-night raids in the middle of the near-Antarctic Victorian winter.
Not that Drew felt the cold, burning up as he was with the heat of his exertions. Running a hand down his prominent belly, he thought: I’m not built for this kind of thing! I must be crazy! Why do I do it?
Then as the giraffe raced away, giving him an excuse to rest for a moment to catch his breath, he looked across to where a tall, lean, grey-haired woman his own age was struggling with the latch to a large, steel cage, and suddenly he remembered why he was doing it.

Unlike her husband, Livie McTaggart never doubted for a second the sanity of what they did with their evenings. Eight years earlier her life had seemed utterly pointless. She had been a bored society housewife, nothing but a shadow to her husband, a hostess for his business dinners. Then a friend in the Animal Liberation Agency had recruited them, and ever since she had felt that she was a worthwhile person, able to make an important contribution to the world.
Seeing her husband looking across toward her, Livie smiled a reassuring smile, realising that this was much harder for Drew than it was for her.
Hearing a rifle shot close behind her Livie started, then smiled at Drew again to show that she was all right. She knew from past experience that no one would actually be shot, the gunfire was only meant to scare away the animal-libbers.
As a second shot rang out, throwing up a puff of dirt only a metre away from her, Livie looked back over her left shoulder and shouted: “Do your worst, you bastard!” startling herself as much as the gunman.

Standing twenty metres or so behind the grey-haired woman, Gaston Anyos’s face flushed with rage at the insult. Head of the circus’ small security force (originally formed to protect the nightly takings from robbers, then later as the circus became increasingly controversial, to battle animal-welfare groups), Gaston was used to inspiring respect, even fear in the people he dealt with.
Lining up the back of the woman’s head in his rifle sight, Gaston half wondered whether he could get away with claiming an accidental shooting. In this light, the darkness broken only by a smattering of low-wattage, coloured bulbs hung around the tents, no one could ever prove otherwise. But then realising which cage the grey-haired woman was about to open, Gaston smirked with pleasure, thinking that she was about to do his job for him.

After using bolt-cutters to remove the lock, and after much struggling Livie pulled the iron bolt out of its bracket, before swinging the grill door open ... .
To find herself staring into two large, yellow eyes.
At first in the dark the yellow eyes seemed to be hovering in space, unattached to anybody. But then as Livie’s eyes adjusted better to the dark, she was able to make out the figure of the large, black panther that sat on its haunches, rearing to spring.
As it sprang she tried to slam the cage door shut. However, the panther thundered forward, head butting the grill door open as it leapt.
Screaming and covering her head with her hands, Livie fell over backwards, expecting to be savaged by the panther. Instead it leapt straight over top of her, pivoted and quickly reversed direction toward the back of Hauptman's Paddock, to race toward the dense forest a quarter of a kilometre away.

Gaston Anyos fired off shot after shot at the rapidly disappearing animal, all the while cursing the stupidity of the woman for opening the cage; cursing his own stupidity for letting her.
Jim and Paul reached the back of the big top at a run.
“All right, what the Hell is going on?” demanded Jim Kane, shouting to make himself heard above the rifle fire.
Without waiting for an answer, Paul Bell drew his police revolver from his holster, reversed it and brought the butt of the revolver down hard on the back of the Frenchman’s head, knocking him unconscious.

Later, during questioning, Gaston Anyos claimed that he had only been firing to scare away the animal-libbers, having decided that it would be unwise to mention the escaped panther. The Circus of the Grotesque would be moving on immediately and would be returning to France in a few months’ time.
Livie McTaggart wrestled with her conscience for hours, trying to decide whether or not to tell Jim Kane what had really happened. However, no one else in the Animal Liberation Agency had seen the black panther in the dark, so (having learnt the hard way that police rarely sided with organisations like the ALA) she reluctantly decided that it would be best to keep quiet.

October 1987
A large crowd had gathered on the lawns in front of St. Margaret’s Roman Catholic Church in Blackland Street, Glen Hartwell to cheer and throw rice as the young couple walked arm-in-arm out through the high-arched doorway.
Although the beautiful bride was dressed in a traditional flowing white gown, it was obvious to all present that she was very pregnant. A few people in the crowd raised eyebrows at this deviation from tradition -- thinking Rowena should have settled for a pink, or blue gown. However, none were game to speak out, since standing protectively around the young bride were her mother, Samantha Frankland, the groom’s mother, Victoria Singleton, and the matron of honour, Helen Horne (mother of the best man, Brian). three archetypal big-boned farmers’ wives who took rubbish from no one. Victoria tall and Celtically dark like her son, Ernie, the other two feisty redheads. There were few people in the area who would dare cross swords with the trio, and none who had attended the ceremony.
At the reception after the ceremony, the women crowded around Rowena, congratulating her: “You finally lassoed him,” joked Rowena’s cousin, Gloria Ulverstone, giving her a hug.
“Lassoed is right,” agreed Gloria’s younger sister Holly, nudging her aside gently to give her own hug.
The one that didn’t get away! thought Rowena, looking across to where her new husband Ernie was in turn being congratulated by his two closest friends, Brian Horne and Danny Bear Ross (so nicknamed because of his great height -- over two metres -- and barrel-shaped chest and bulging muscular arms and legs). Rowena’s courtship with Ernie had travelled some rocky ground over the last five years, with Ernie’s initial passion suddenly dimming after four or five months, only to renew itself a few months later, before starting to wane again. After a four-and-a-half year off-and-on relationship, Rowena had finally settled the matter by agreeing to move in with Ernie in early 1987. Within a few months of moving in, Rowena had become pregnant, so here they were, finally tying the knot with the baby due in another month’s time.
Yes, the one that didn’t get away! thought Rowena, blushing red with guilt at the thought, loving Ernie, yet hating herself for trapping him into marriage.
A few metres away from Rowena and her cousins Ernie, Bear, and Brian stood round talking, and admiring the three women. Three beautiful honey blondes, Rowena, Holly and Gloria looked enough alike to almost be mistaken for triplets (though Gloria was five years older than the other two). At times when Holly or Gloria was around Ernie would mistake them for Rowena; however, when the three women were together he could always pick the real Rowena.
Like Rowena, Ernie had mixed feelings about the marriage. Not that he had any doubts about his feelings for her; with Ernie it had been a case of love at first sight when he had been introduced to Rowena by her cousin Holly (whom he had dated for a few months in 1982). From their first meeting Ernie had loved Rowena and had only had to summon up the nerve to propose to her.
Looking across to where she was now being congratulated by Helen Horne and his mother Victoria, Ernie couldn’t help admiring how beautiful Rowena looked. Like many women, pregnancy suited Rowena, who seemed to almost glow with sensuality.
“Go on, get that into you,” offered Bear, handing Ernie a glass of cold Carlton Draught beer. Although champagne had been laid on at the reception, like most Australian men, they preferred to stick to their native brew.
“Go easy on that,” advised Brian: “He’s still got to consummate his vows tonight.”
Looking at Rowena’s rotund figure, Bear said: “By the looks of things, he’s already taken care of that particular responsibility.”

After consummating their marriage, Ernie and Rowena settled down to sleep in the main bedroom of Ernie's sheep station, which he had inherited from his father Gregory five years ago.
Although Ernie lay down beside Rowena, as though planning to sleep, as soon as he was certain that she was asleep, he carefully climbed out of bed, crept across to the window, which he had carefully left open earlier, and climbed naked out into the side yard.
Ignoring the barking of the dogs in their yard, Ernie started running naked across the farmhouse yard toward the metre-high chain link fence. As Ernie he leapt across the fence ... As the Black Wolf he landed on the other side. For the last four-and a half years Ernie had suffered from Lycanthia -- he was a werewolf.
As the Black Wolf he loped through the farm and out into the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest around Merridale and East Merridale. After an hour or so, he saw movement up ahead and carefully followed after the sound, until he came to a clearing and could see a huge boomer, a red kangaroo hopping slowly through the forest.
With no intention of hurting the roo, the Black Wolf loped forward until it caught up with the boomer, enjoying having company for a change as he raced through the forest. However, after a few minutes the big red decided that it had had enough of being showed. Stopping, the roo faced toward the wolf and started leaning back upon its giant tail. As a farmer from birth, Ernie knew this was the way kangaroos killed ... They would lean back on their powerful tails, then quickly kick up with both cricket-bat-sized feet, with the intention of kicking your stomach right off your body, to leave you dying, screaming in agony.
Doing a pin-point turn, the Black Wolf hurriedly accelerated, to put life-saving distance between itself and the angry kangaroo. For a moment the roo looked like it was going to chase after the wolf; then changing its mind, it turned and hopped off at great speed in a different direction.
For hours the Black Wolf raced through the forest to force the werewolf out of his system, until, certain he was ready to transform back to Ernie, he returned to the farmhouse. Started through the bedroom window as the Black Wolf and arrived into the bedroom as Ernie Singleton.

October 1990
It was Roberta Dempsey who first saw the black panther. It came out of nowhere and propped in the middle of the road, fifty metres or so in front of the rattly old Ford Fairlane station wagon. The panther seemed transfixed by the glare of the car’s headlights, its eyes shining almost supernaturally as the car rattled toward it.
“Look out, Garrick!” Roberta called to her husband.
“Don’t hit it dad!” pleaded young Stanlee from the back seat, leaning forward to peer out at the enormous black cat through the car’s front windscreen.
Garrick Dempsey strained to see what his eleven-year old son was pointing at. However, the panther blended into the dark of the moonless night, so that it was almost invisible against the black bitumen road. The car was nearly on top of the panther before Garrick finally spotted the animal and began frantically tugging upon the steering wheel, using all of his strength to force the car to veer to the left.
Held spellbound by the glare of the headlights, the creature began to move in the same direction as though intent upon diving straight under the wheels of the car. At the last instant, however, the panther put on an extra burst of speed, raced past the grill of the car and began loping away toward the forest, a hundred metres or so from the verge of the road.
By the time Garrick had brought the sliding vehicle back under his control, the panther had vanished from sight.

“A black panther?” asked Andrew 'Drew' Braidwood, staring up at the trio who stood before his desk in the small police station in Patrick Street, Merridale.
“That is correct, constable,” assured Roberta Dempsey, throwing out her voluminous chest like an opera singer about to burst into song: “It ran straight out in front of the car and just sat there ... right in the middle of the road.”
Drew looked slowly from the corpulent figure of Roberta Dempsey, to the diminutive figure of Garrick, who seemed almost dwarf-like beside the obesity of his wife, to the short, slender figure of young Stanlee. Finally he said: “Are you absolutely sure that it wasn’t the black wolf?”
“Of course we’re sure!” insisted Roberta, sounding offended by the suggestion.
“Maybe it was a kangaroo, or an emu?” suggested Sergeant Mel Forbes, standing near the desk before that the Dempseys were seated.
“No sir, it was definitely a black panther!” insisted Stanlee: “It sat on the road till we were almost on top of it, then took off into the bush as if it was jet-propelled.”
A jet-propelled panther? thought Drew Braidwood, starting to make a record of the report in his notebook.

“A black panther yet!” said Drew a few hours later as he and Mel stood by the side of the road, examining the skid marks made by the Dempsey’s car the night before.
“Well, what do you think it was?” asked Mel. Twenty-odd years older than his constable, the police sergeant had lived long enough not to be automatically sceptical of unusual reports.
“Surely you don’t believe them?” asked Drew, following the older man as he started toward the forest.
“Not necessarily,” agreed Mel: “But on the other hand, there have been reports of a large black cat around the LePage to Merridale area over the last two or three years.” He stooped to examine a large paw print on the forest floor and asked: “What do you make of that?”
Drew knelt to examine the print, and then looked ahead to where a trail of spoors continued into the forest: “Dog prints,” he suggested.
“Too large for dog tracks,” insisted Mel.
“Old Man Foster’s Great Danes, perhaps?”
“Even a Dane doesn’t leave prints this large.”
“A dingo then?” Although dingoes are rare outside Northern Australia, a few have been sighted in the Victorian countryside in recent years. A small pack was known to live somewhere outside Glen Hartwell, and on occasions its members had been sighted as far afield as LePage and Merridale.
“Too large even for a dingo,” insisted Mel. He followed the prints a short distance into the forest.
“All right then, the Black Wolf,” offered Drew. Although still not convinced that there was a large black wolf on the prowl around Merridale as many people believed, he found it easier to accept that a wolf could be loose in the area, than a black panther.
“No, these are no dog prints,” insisted Mel: “See the long claws,” pointing to deep indentations around the spoors.
“But they can’t be panther prints!” protested Drew, refusing to be convinced: “Panthers aren’t indigenous to the Australian continent!”
“Neither are camels, ostriches, or water buffalo, but you’ll find all of those in the Australian countryside,” pointed out Mel. When Drew failed to comment, Mel followed the spoors for a moment, and then said: “They’re certainly heading the way the Dempseys said. Toward the sheep stations outside Merridale.”
“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Drew, hoping his sergeant would say to file their report and forget it.
“File our report then forget it, I suppose,” said Mel to Drew’s relief, until he added: “At least for now.”

Emu or blind albino kangaroo?????????????


Awakening at cock’s crow, Rowena Singleton sat up, blinking against the blinding light that streamed in through the open bedroom window. Yawning, she stretched wide, then looked down and was startled to see a large black wolf lying on the bed beside her.
Stifling a scream she backed away and tried to climb out of bed, only to find her feet tangled in the blankets. Fighting back hysteria, she managed to untangle one foot, before falling out of bed in a heap on the floor, taking the blankets off the bed with her.
Climbing slowly back to her feet, she looked down at the bed in trepidation, only to see the naked figure of her husband, Ernie. His tall, lean body lay curled in the foetal position in the centre of the bed. For a moment she stood watching Ernie in wonder, before deciding that it had been a hallucination caused by the morning sunlight dazzling her.
After a moment’s hesitation, she leant across the bed to lightly shake Ernie awake, and then began hurriedly dressing, in readiness for the hectic breakfast rush that was about to start, with man and beasts alike all demanding to be fed.
In the kitchen she started Ernie’s breakfast cooking on a low flame, lifted the keys to their brown Range-Rover from their hook on the wall beside the back door, then set off to collect the morning newspaper.
As she opened the back door, she was almost bowled over by a couple of station dogs that had slipped their collars in the night and now demanded their breakfast.
Using one leg to edge the dogs away from the door, she started out onto the porch. Looking past the full-grown red Kelpie bitch to the already larger Barb-Kelpie pup, Blacky, Rowena remembered her hallucination in the bedroom earlier and said: “Blacky?” drawing furious tail-wagging from the dog at the mention of his name: “Yes, it could have been you, couldn’t it?” she said, wondering aloud whether it had been the Barb-Kelpie that she had seen lying on the bed between her and Ernie. Although the dogs were supposed to spend the night chained up in the dog-yard a hundred metres behind the farmhouse, using halved 200-litre drums for kennels, this was far from the first time that one or more of them had slipped their collars to be waiting on the back porch at breakfast time. Remembering the open window in their bedroom, Rowena decided that Blacky could have entered that way, then have raced out again while she was on the floor, tangled in the bedclothes and blinded by the morning sunlight.
She meted out a small helping of dog-pellets from a sack in the wash-house-cum-storeroom by the back door, and then started across the farmhouse yard toward the Range-Rover.
The Merridale Morning Mirror was produced by the owner of a small local print shop, who also delivered the paper to neighbouring sheep and cattle stations at dawn -- allowing the local families the luxury (by rural standards) of a newspaper with their breakfast.
The Singletons’ mail-paper box was a small metal drum, that Ernie had nailed head-high to the side of a large blue gum, a few metres off Donaldson’s Road, which ran past the sheep station, half a kilometre from the farmhouse yard.
Taking the newspaper from the box, Rowena closed the cover and headed back to finish preparing Ernie’s breakfast. As she went by the two dogs, still munching pellets on the back porch, she decided to raise with Ernie the matter of the Barb-Kelpie pup entering the house through the bedroom window.
However, at the sight of her husband, when he finally appeared, all thought of the station dogs vanished from her mind: “You look like a wreck!” said Rowena, leaning down to give him a peck on the cheek after he fell onto a kitchen chair.
“I feel like I’ve just done a sixty-Kay marathon,” agreed Ernie, stretching wide to relieve an ache in his shoulder blades.
Watching her husband slumped across the table, Rowena wondered how he would make it through the day? Farm work means a hard ten-hour day at the best of times, but in his present condition he would be lucky to finish by nightfall. Particularly since, to Rowena’s dismay, this turned out to be one of Ernie’s famine-days, as she called them. The countryside breeds hearty eaters, and Ernie was never any exception, however, two or three days a month his hunger was so intense that it was almost a famine. Sometimes keeping him at the breakfast table for ninety minutes.
Ernie, unfolding the newspaper and read the headlines:
“BLACK BEAST SIGHTED AGAIN!”
“Shining out of the darkness like twin coals!” that’s how the latest people to sight the Black Beast of Merridale have described their encounter with the mysterious creature that has stalked the bushland around Merridale for the last few years.
“There’s certainly something out there,” conceded Sergeant Melvin Forbes, after the police had investigated the reported sighting.
“And undoubtedly there is, as many local farmers can testify, ruing over the loss of cattle or sheep taken from their stations over the past few years.”

Watching Ernie as he sat hunched over his newspaper, reading intently, Rowena sighed from frustration, recalling that there had been a time, when they had first lived together, when she could have held his gaze that intently. Looking down at herself, she patted her protruding belly with one hand and thought: This time I’ll carry it to term! She remembered the loss and hurt they had both felt three years earlier when she had miscarried shortly after their marriage. Ernie, who had seemed so loving throughout the pregnancy, had suddenly become cold and distant, and Rowena suspected that he felt that she had cheated him. Getting pregnant so that he would marry him, then not keeping her side of the bargain. This time though, she thought, patting herself lightly on the belly again, this time will be different. This time I’ll deliver the goods, young Gregory Kirstin. (A name they had already decided on in expectation of a boy -- Gregory after Ernie’s father; Kirstin after Rowena’s paternal grandfather.)

The large black shape crept gracefully beside the boundary fence, still three hundred metres from its chosen prey. But even at that distance, the large flock of merino sheep started to become restless, more sensing the approaching death than actually seeing it.
The black panther stopped for a moment at the wooden fence, licking its lips in anticipation of the feast that it was about to partake in. After a moment it started forward slowly on its belly, scooting beneath the bottom rung of the fence, then inching its way across the slightly damp grass in a bid to halve the distance between itself and its prey before making its charge.
However, the panther was used to stalking prey in the wild and still was unaccustomed to stalking corralled animals. Unobligingly, instead of waiting to be pounced upon, the sheep began to bleat hysterically (setting barking the farm’s sheep dogs, kennelled in an adjoining paddock) and to bound to and fro, throwing themselves at each other and at the imprisoning fence like woolly Dodgem-cars on springs.
Sighing almost humanly in frustration at these strange antics, the black panther gave up all pretence of stealth and rocketed forward, intent upon grabbing the nearest woolly Dodgem. Missing its first mark, which bounced aside in the nick of time, the panther pivoted in mid step and managed to snatch up a second sheep in mid air as it foolishly bounded within reach of the panther’s jaws.

Inside the farmhouse twelve-year-old Vic Hart was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, yet too apprehensive about the approaching end of year break. Although it meant seven weeks away from school over Christmas and January, first he had to get through the rapidly approaching end of year grading. Even though he was two years away from his first exams and had always been top of his class in most subjects, Vic found final term testing and grading an agonising process. Unable to take his fears to his parents, both of whom had left school without ever reaching high school, and who therefore had no knowledge of what he was going through, he had no one to turn to and had to face his fears alone.
Despite his fear, however, young Vic had almost fallen asleep, when he heard bleating outside, followed by furious barking from the Kelpies in the small dog yard. He listened to the commotion for a few moments then jumped out of bed, popped on his slippers and dressing gown and stepped out into the corridor.
Vic reached the back door only moments before his father, Sam.
“What’s going on?” asked Georgina Hart, following her husband and son.
At first, peering out through the doorway, they could see nothing except the white forms of the leaping, bleating sheep. Then as their eyes adjusted to the darkness they could just make out the outline of the black shape chewing on a bloody carcase in the sheep pen.
“That bloody black wolf is in the sheep yard, that’s what’s going on!” replied Sam. Nudging aside his operatically large wife, he stormed back down the corridor to get his Winchester repeating rifle, which he kept above a wardrobe in the master bedroom.
“How do you know it’s the black wolf?” demanded Georgina as her husband returned; like many local residents preferring to give the wolf the benefit of the doubt.
“What the hell else could it be?” demanded Sam, glaring at her contemptuously as he squeezed between his wife and son to start outside after his long-time enemy. This time, he thought, almost licking his lips from anticipation: This time I’ll blow the bastard to kingdom come! He had already missed opportunities to kill the black wolf on previous occasions.
Without realising that they were even doing so, Georgina and Vic started out after Sam, hugging each other for support, although more from wide-eyed expectation, at the prospect of the death of the black wolf, than from fear.

The black panther chomped hungrily upon the carcase of the sheep that it had slaughtered, doing its best to ignore the antics of the stupid Merinos that still bounded hither and thither around the pen, occasionally landing within centimetres of the panther, as though tempting it to try for a second meal, before leaping away again. It already knew from past experience that the noisy dogs were harmless as long as they were chained up in their kennels.
So intent was the panther on its feed that it failed to notice as the Harts started across the back yard toward the sheep pen.
Sam Hart could hardly believe his luck as he lined the black beast up in his sights from only a hundred metres or so away. This time I can’t miss! he thought with glee as he slowly pulled back on the trigger.
It was sheer instinct that made the panther move slightly to one side as the Winchester fired, so that the bullet narrowly missed the panther, instead blowing a small chunk out of the sheep carcase.
“Damn! Missed!” cried Sam in disgust, hurriedly re-aiming.
However, the panther had no intention of standing round and allowing itself to be shot. So, to the incredulous gasps of Vic and Georgina, it picked up the partly devoured carcase in its jaws, pivoted toward the back of the sheep yard and took off at high speed, frightening and scattering the bleating sheep even further, and making Sam curse as his second shot narrowly missed one of the valuable Merinos.
Although tempted to fire off shot after shot at the retreating form in the hope of hitting it with a lucky shot, despite his growing rage at having missed another chance to nail the black wolf, Sam was still rational enough to realise that in the poor light he was only likely to hit some of his own livestock.
The Harts watched in amazement as the black panther leapt the two-metre tall fence without dropping the Merino carcase, then agilely landed and loped away toward the nearby forest to devour its kill in peace.

Next morning Mel Forbes and Drew Braidwood arrived bright and early at the Hart station, to hear Sam’s story in full -- having already heard a condensed version over the telephone.
“And you’re sure it was the black wolf?” demanded Mel, doing his best not to yawn, and failing.
“Course I’m sure,” snarled Hart contemptuously.
“Didn’t look like any wolf to me,” corrected young Victor Hart, ignoring or not seeing his mother gesturing for him to be quiet: “It looked like some kind of puma or something to me.”
“A puma?” asked Drew incredulous, thinking: Well, if everyone’s telling the truth we’ve got at least a black wolf, a panther, and a puma all roaming the local countryside ... It’s getting worse than Alby Mangels’ Wildlife Safaris parts one to a thousand ... And they’re bad enough!
“That’s right, sir,” agreed Vic.
“Nonsense!” snarled Sam, making Georgina instinctively back away: “It was the black wolf all right. Even at night I could see that ... Hell I couldn’t have been more than fifty or sixty metres from the bastard when I fired.”
“You got within fifty or sixty metres of it?” asked Drew.
“That’s right. I could see it as clear as day.”
“Then you killed it?” asked Mel.
“What?” asked Sam, caught off guard.
“Well, if you could see it as clear as day, surely you couldn’t have missed it from only fifty or sixty metres away? Not with that Winchester of yours.”
“Well, it might have been a little further ... More like a hundred metres.”
“But surely you at least nicked it?” goaded Mel, forcing Drew to turn away so that Hart wouldn’t see him smirking at his expense.
“Well, no ... but it was damned dark don’t forget ... Almost a moonless night. I couldn’t see anything too clearly ... And, of course, I’d already lost one sheep to the bastard and didn’t want to risk adding insult to injury by shooting any of them.”
Mel and Drew exchanged an amused look: “But you could see clearly enough to be able to tell that it was definitely the black wolf?” asked Mel.
“Of course,” insisted Sam, refusing to be talked around: “Maybe I couldn’t see well enough to take a good shot at it ... But I saw what it was all right.”
“Well, I guess we’d better have a look around,” said Mel without any enthusiasm.
In the sheep paddock, despite the chaotic mess of hoof prints left by the wildly scattering sheep, they were easily able to pick up a trail of blood left by the sheep carcase taken by the raider: “Looks like you were right,” said Drew Braidwood, wide-eyed with surprise as the trail of blood approached the fence and then appeared beyond it, with just one large blood spot on the top rung, showing that the carnivore had undoubtedly leapt the fence with the carcase still in its jaws.
From the sheep paddock they followed the blood trail to the neighbouring forest, from where they were easily able to pick out and follow a trail of fleeing paw prints, left in the thick carpet of pine needles and gum leaves that covered the forest floor.
They tracked the prints for almost a kilometre, until they suddenly converged on a great twisted ghost gum.
“Looks like it took its kill up a tree to feed,” suggested Drew.
“Don’t be stupid!” protested Sam: “Wolves can’t climb trees.”
“This one obviously could,” said Mel. He pointed up to where the bloody, half eaten carcase of a sheep was wedged tightly in a fork in a great bough, five or six metres off the ground.
“But wolves can’t climb trees!” said Sam for the second time.
“Then whatever raided your sheep station can’t have been the black wolf,” pointed out Drew Braidwood.
“But I saw it! It was a large black beast, powerful enough to lift up a Merino in its jaws and run off with it.”
“Fair enough,” conceded Drew: “But even in the unlikely event that a wolf could do that, it couldn’t climb a gum tree, so we’re stuck.”
“Not necessarily,” insisted Mel.
“Oh you’re not on about that panther again?” asked Drew getting a stern look from Mel, too late to prevent him from speaking in front of Hart.
“What panther?” asked Sam in disbelief.
“That’s what our killer most likely is,” explained Mel.
“But that’s ridiculous!”
“Maybe. But there’s more chance of a panther being on the loose around here, than there is a wolf climbing that tree,” pointed out Mel causing Sam to take another hard look at the bloody carcase in the tree above their heads.
“Yeah, all right,” agreed Sam reluctantly: “But how the Hell could a panther be on the loose in the Australian countryside? They’re not native to this country.”
“Neither are wolves,” countered Mel.
“But we’ve all see the black wolf!” insisted Hart.
Sighing from frustration, Mel said: “The fact that we know there’s a wolf on the loose around Merridale and Glen Hartwell, doesn’t mean there can’t be a panther as well. Neither wolves nor panthers are indigenous to the Australian continent, but then neither were rabbits till six pairs were introduced from England in 1858. But by the 1950s there were billions of them in Victoria alone. If myxomatosis hadn’t been such a roaring success when introduced here in the 1950s, the whole countryside would now be two metres deep in bloody rabbits.”
“Rabbits, all right,” agreed Drew: “but panthers are another thing entirely.”
“Of course,” agreed Mel: “But that doesn’t mean there can’t be one.”

Over the next month the attacks continued to occur on local sheep and cattle stations. Sometimes four or five nights running, other times once every two or three nights. After a couple of attacks in the Merridale/East Merridale area, as the month progressed the panther gradually started to hunt further afield, raiding properties in Pettiwood, Upton, Briarwood (heading toward Willamby), and LePage, Lenoak, and Glen Hartwell (in the opposite direction) as well as Leroy and Brooklyn (to the east of Glen Hartwell).
Although trying his best to convince himself that the black wolf could not be responsible for the attacks, as they continued Ernie became increasingly uncertain of himself, slowly becoming convinced that the black wolf was the culprit. Perhaps I really don’t remember everything I do as the black wolf!’ he thought. Or maybe I could remember, should remember, but my subconscious is blocking it out?
Rolling over onto his side, he looked across to where Rowena lay on her back sleeping. Nearly eight months pregnant, she was now too big to lie on her side. Ernie knew that she was self-conscious about her size, having always had a perfect figure, but like many men Ernie found himself sexually aroused by his wife’s pregnant shape. Nuzzling up to her, rubbing his face against her long, silky, blonde hair, he was tempted to wake her up to make love to her to prove to her how sexy she still was to him. But then he decided that it would be selfish -- better to let her sleep for now and try to be more loving to her during the day. But how do I show her how much I love her, when I’m still afraid to get too close to her?’ he wondered.
He sighed his frustration and nuzzled closer to her, only stopping when his sigh had turned midway into a whine and he realised that for the first time that month he had transformed into the black wolf.
Quickly scooting out from under the blankets, he dropped to the bedroom floor, grateful that since his transformations had started seven years ago he had taken the precaution of sleeping naked on all but the coldest nights, so that he wouldn’t have to struggle out of his pyjamas in wolf form. He was also grateful that the night was warm enough so that Rowena had offered no protest when he had left the bedroom window wide open.
Racing across the room, the black wolf leapt effortlessly through the window then loped across the farmhouse yard to easily leap the metre-high chain-link fence around the yard, then start off toward the nearby forest. Will it happen?’ he thought as he raced along, wondering whether there was some period as the black wolf when he lost all knowledge of his life as Ernie Singleton and became a mindless killer; wondering whether he would be aware of the change when -- if? -- it came, even if he couldn’t recall it later?
In the past he had often allowed himself to stray toward the edge of nearby sheep stations during his late-night runs. However, this time the black wolf determined that he would stay well clear of any populated areas and simply run out the transformation loping as deep into the forest as possible until tiring or till dawn began to break forcing him to head for home again.

Terry Blewett lay on his back in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, pondering how strange it felt to be back in his old room. Although it was the custom on many Australian farms for the eldest son to stay with his parents all his life to help work the farm, and then inherit it, Terry had broken with tradition to leave home in his teens to move to a small flat in Boothy Street Glen Hartwell. Yet here he was at thirty-two years of age back home at his parents’ farmhouse outside Merridale.
At seventeen, Terry had joined the Glen Hartwell Police Force as a junior constable, working under the watchful gaze of Sergeant Lawrie Grimes. Terry had risen to senior constable and had soon impressed Lawrie and the people of the Glen with his diligence and intelligence. So it had come as a great shock to everyone in Glen Hartwell when after the retirement of Lawrie Grimes in late 1982 Terry had been passed over for the position of sergeant, that had gone to Danny “Bear” Ross, promoted, then transferred from BeauLarkin sixty kilometres away from Glen Hartwell.
Like almost everyone else in the Glen, Terry had been ready to give Bear the cold shoulder when the big man had first arrived. And for a few years there had been great tension between the two men. However, Terry had not been able to keep up his resentment forever -- particularly since Bear made every effort to had made allowances for Terry’s original surliness, understanding his reasons.
So eventually Terry and Bear had become good friends, and Terry and Andrea had grown apart. Unlike Terry, his wife had never forgiven Bear for robbing her husband of his chance to be sergeant at Glen Hartwell and finally grew to resent her husband for what she saw as his weakness, unmanliness in accepting Bear as a friend. After years of squabbling they had finally separated, then divorced, with Andrea getting possession of their Lawson Street home, and Terry moving back into his old bedroom at his parents’ sheep station.
Terry’s ruminations were rudely interrupted suddenly by furious barking from the Kelpies in the dog yard. At first he tried to ignore the dogs and fall asleep. But after a moment he realised that the barking masked a sound of bleating from the station’s small flock of Angora goats.
Realising something was badly wrong he hurriedly dressed then headed for the back door, where he met his father Morrie.

The black wolf had set out that night with the intention of keeping as far away from neighbouring sheep stations as possible. However, after a short time he found himself heading toward the Blewett station in East Merridale.
At first he thought it was mere chance that he had headed in that general direction and attempted to veer away. However he discovered to his dismay that he was unable to change direction no matter how hard he tried. It was as though he were being drawn toward the Blewett property by some kind of strange “magnetic” force. Like an aeroplane guided along by a tractor-beam.
Although still uncertain what his werewolf gift (or curse?) entailed, realising that he was unable to break free from the unknown force, the black wolf quickly accepted that it was his own powers guiding him toward the Blewett station. So he settled down to a steady lope, allowing the force to lead him.

Terry and Morrie stood together in the doorway, looking out into the back yard, trying at first in vain to make out the cause of the disturbance in the goat pen, some three hundred metres or so from the farmhouse.
“There must be a dog after the goats,” Morrie guessed and father and son started across the back yard at a gallop. However, they stopped twenty metres short of the pen. Although the night was dark, the half moon lit up the yard well enough to show the two men the large, black panther that stood over the bloody carcase of one of their expensive goats.
Hearing their approach the panther looked up from its kill and fixed them with a hard look from its shiny yellow eyes.
One look at those eyes and a vague outline of the large feline body was enough to send the two men scurrying back toward the farmhouse, heading for the gun cabinet in the lounge room at the front of the house.

Reaching the boundary fence of the Blewett farm, still not knowing what was required of him by the mysterious force that had guided his progress, the black wolf effortlessly leapt the metre-high, wood-railing fence and started across the goat paddock toward the farmhouse at an easy lope.
He was still nearly half a kilometre from the farmhouse, when he heard the sound of a gunshot blast. Able to stop for the first time since the unknown force had started to guide him, the black wolf propped in the middle of the paddock and peered across toward the house. With his supernatural werewolf senses, the wolf was able to clearly see Morrie and Terry standing at the front of the paddock, aiming shotguns at something within the goat pen.
Thinking at first that they were firing at him, the black wolf panicked and turned to run from terror. But as he started to reverse direction, he realised that he was still too far away for the two men to be able to make out his black pelt in the darkness.
Forcing himself to get control over his fear of being shot, the wolf began to scrutinise the paddock in front of him, hoping to make out the figure of whatever Terry and Morrie were shooting at. At first he was unable to see anything except the shrilly-bleating Angora goats that were scattering every which way in terror. But by concentrating with all of his might he was able to blank out the sound of the goats and concentrated only on the steady patter of feet made by the retreating predator.
Still unable to actually see his quarry, the black wolf set off across the paddock, allowing himself to be guided only by the sound of fleeing paws.

Standing just outside the goat paddock, Morrie and Terry fired toward the fleeing panther one last time. However, like the black wolf they had trouble detecting the black beast as it thundered away in the darkness.
As the panther fled Terry climbed the wooden fence to try to examine the state of the hysterical goats. Apart from the one that the panther had carried away in its jaws, three others had died of fright.
“It could have been a lot worse,” said Morrie coming up behind his son.
Terry started to answer, then stopped as both men heard the sound of running feet, much closer than the fleeing panther.
“My God, there’s two of them!” cried Morrie swinging up his shotgun toward the vague outline of the second black form.

Although the buckshot fell well short of the black wolf, the shotgun blast was enough to make the black wolf put on an extra burst of speed as he headed back toward the boundary fence.
Still unable to see the black panther in the dark, the further he travelled from the hysterical, bleating goats, the easier it became for him to follow the panther by sound alone. His first sighting of his quarry was a trace of white in the distance, flickering between the giant pines and gum trees ahead of him, as he made out the form of the murdered goat that the panther carried in its jaws.
At first it seemed to the black wolf as though the goat was floating along in the air. But soon he caught up enough to be able to make out the shape of the fleeing panther.
The two beasts fled through the night for more than twenty kilometres. past Merridale, LePage, Lenoak, and then Wilhelmina. Until finally the black panther stopped on the outskirts of Glen Hartwell.
Then, to the black wolf’s surprise the panther selected a giant blue gum and effortlessly began to scale the trunk, without dropping the Angora goat. Half-a-dozen metres above the ground the panther deposited the carcase in the crook between the trunk and a great bough, climbed onto the bough beside its kill and began noisily crunching upon the bloody carcase; watched from below by the black wolf.
Impatiently the black wolf waited below as the panther’s feast seemed to go on forever. Although it probably was not as long as it seemed, the meal seemed to last for hours and the black wolf started to become anxious in case he was still waiting there at dawn when he would metamorphose back into human form.
From time to time the panther stopped eating to glance around itself, as though it were aware that someone was watching it. However, crouching strategically behind a large Mulga bush, the black wolf was confident that the panther couldn’t possibly see him.
Finally the panther was sated, and, leaving the remainder of the carcase up in the gum tree, the panther began to climb to the ground.
Instead of continuing on, however, to the black wolf’s alarm it started back the way it had come -- straight toward where he was cowering in the Mulga bush.
As the panther approached, its yellow eyes seemed to glow demonically and the black wolf began to whimper lightly from fear. The creature slowly advanced until it was less than a metre away, then suddenly sprang into flight leaping straight toward the thick bush where the black wolf cowered.
Thinking the panther intended to leap on top of him, the black wolf lunged away to one side. Only to realise that the panther had leapt two or three metres over the bush.
Landing half-a-dozen metres away the panther started on a path around the outer edge of Glen Hartwell.
Knowing that he had been duped, the black wolf spun around and desperately thundered through the night forest in a bid to keep sight of the black beast that was already nearly a hundred metres ahead of him.
For nearly fifteen minutes the black panther circled the perimeter of the Glen. Then, to the black wolf’s astonishment, it confidently stepped out of the forestland and into Robinson’s Drive -- despite its name nothing more than a narrow, cobbled lane running the length of Glen Hartwell, between Boothy and Blackland Streets.
The panther continued up the lane past Baltimore Avenue, almost as far as Lawson Street, while the black wolf stayed behind at the outer limits of the town. Although he knew that he had come too far to turn back now, the black wolf hesitated to enter the township in wolf form. So far only a handful of people had ever seen the black wolf up close. Most people still regarded him as only a local legend. So by journeying into the town, he would risk not only revealing himself to a large number of people, but also the danger of being killed -- since almost all country people in Australia own rifles or shotguns, even those living in the townships.
After a moment, however, the black wolf forced himself to step forward. At first tentatively, then more rapidly, in a bid to catch up with the panther that was already up to Gallipoli Parade, heading toward Dirk Hartog Place. Forcing himself to throw all caution to the wind the black wolf galloped full pace down the cobbled lane ever anxious about the coming of daylight, that he was aware could not be more than an hour and a half away. He reached Dirk Hartog Place, to stand behind the Glen Hartwell City Library, as the black panther turned left into Howard Street.
Panting from exhaustion the black wolf loped down to the corner of Robinson’s Drive and Howard Street, and looked up Howard only to discover that the black panther had disappeared.
He raced desperately up to the corner of Howard and Boothy Streets, furiously looking left and right for his quarry, whining softly from frustration, as it seemed as though the panther had simply vanished into thin air.
The black wolf had almost given up, when his acute hearing detected the sound of a latch opening. Quickly looking around, he just had time to see the hind quarters of the panther passing through the doorway, into the back of a two-storey weatherboard house on the corner of Howard and Boothy.
Without hesitation the black wolf ran across the road and leapt the metre-high picket fence and raced across the overgrown lawn toward the back of the house. He headed toward the small back door, took the handle into his mouth and attempted to open the door. Only to find that it was now securely latched.
After futilely pushing against the door for a while, making the door rattle yet refuse to budge, he went across to the nearest window in the hope that it would be open, or at least unlatched. Unable to make the window budge, despite standing precariously upon his back legs to push at the glass with his front paws, he dropped to all fours again and padded across the back yard then around the left side of the house to check each window in turn.
Once he had checked all the windows on the left hand side, he returned to the back of the house to try the other side -- not quite game to walk around the front of the house in Boothy Street (the main street of Glen Hartwell). However, as he passed the first window again, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle as though he were being watched and looking round he found himself face-to-face with a tall, beautiful, and completely naked black woman.
His first thought was to back away, for fear that she would be terrified and might scream attracting others -- possibly a husband or father with a shotgun. However, after a moment the black wolf realised that she seemed totally unalarmed by the sight of a large wolf in her back yard, content to stare out the window at him.
This gave him the opportunity in turn to examine her. His first thought had been that she was an Aborigine. Ernie Singleton’s recent encounter with the Great Rainbow Snake had brought him in close contact with the Aboriginal reservation just beyond Pettiwood, twenty-five kilometres or so past East Merridale. His close friend and former teacher at the Glen Hartwell Institute of Technology, Joseph Garbarla, had spent the last few years trying to improve the lot of the local Aborigines and had managed to coerce many of them to give up tribal life for employment in the Glen. And despite the original prejudice of many of the white locals, the Aborigines had eventually managed to become accepted as equals in the region and now were widely employed in the townships of Glen Hartwell, Merridale, LePage, Lenoak and Pettiwood. However, the woman’s features were lean and fine-boned, not at all the heavyset features of the Australian Aborigine.
Also in recent years there had been a large influx of American and English tourists (both black and white) to Australia, however, she did not look either English or American.
His next guess was that she might be West Indian. Thanks to the near-epic rivalry between the Australian and West Indian cricket teams, vying for the position of the world’s top test cricket team over the last decade or so, there had been a large migration of West Indians to Australia since the late 1970s. Originally as tourists following their home side, then later settling in Australia. However, although her high-cheeked, slim-boned face was similar to that of a West Indian, the black wolf finally decided that was not it either.
They stood face-to-face staring at each other from only centimetres away through the glass for a while longer, then finally, reluctantly, the black wolf was forced to turn tail and thunder down the back lane, then lope flat-out through the night forest in a desperate bid to return to the Singleton sheep station before dawn.
He arrived at the farm, panting furiously, his heart racing as dawn broke. Finding the window to his bedroom still open, he stretched up on his hind legs, pulled himself up with his front paws and transformed back into human form, emerging into the bedroom as Ernie Singleton.
Stark naked he tiptoed across to the double bed and eased in beside his pregnant wife. Snuggling his body up to her, he pulled her into his arms and settled down to sleep ... .
Only to be awakened twenty minutes later by Rowena shaking him and saying: “Wakey-wakey, you can’t sleep all day you know.”
“Oh God!” said Ernie nearly falling out of bed almost too tired to stand, and, as always after one of his late-night runs, overwhelmed by ravenous hunger.

By a little after 8:00 a.m., Bear Ross, Mel Forbes, Terry and Morrie Blewett, Drew Braidwood, Jim Kane, Paul Bell, Des Hutchinson, and Sam Hart had all gathered at the Blewett station after Morrie had phoned Mel an hour earlier.
Although the recent series of attacks had happened mainly in Mel Forbes’ area (around Merridale and East Merridale), Bear Ross had now formally taken charge of the investigations. Although only a sergeant like Jim Kane and Mel Forbes, Bear had authority over the other two because by Victorian law when two or more country towns in the same region are policed by officers of the same rank, the officer in charge of the largest town has authority over the others. So since Harpertown, Merridale, and East Merridale are all small country towns, while Glen Hartwell is a large country town, Bear had authority over Jim and Mel.
The nine men surveyed the carnage in the Angora goat yard behind the farmhouse. The three goats dead of fright, plus a trail of goat blood that led away in the direction that the panther had carried off the goat.
“It has to be the black wolf!” insisted Sam Hart.
“We don’t know that for sure!” protested Bear Ross. Unlike Hart who had a pathological hatred of the black wolf going back to the early 1980s when it had first appeared in the area, Bear had affectionate feelings for the large wolf. He fondly remembered the time that be had almost got close enough to pat the black wolf in early 1983, when they had come face to face while Bear had been helping to fight the Ash Wednesday bushfires that had devastated large areas of Victoria and South Australia. Fleeing the raging fire the wolf had run into a clearing where the fire fighters were taking a short rest. Although he had shied away from Bear refusing to allow him to touch him, the wolf had seemed friendly and had even wagged its tail doglike as it backed away from Bear’s outstretched band. So Bear could not go along with Hart’s contention that all wolves are born killers, and that the black wolf automatically had to be responsible for the current series of attacks on local stations.
“Of course we do!” countered Sam: “What else could it be except the black wolf?”
“Look I can’t say for certain what it was,” interrupted Terry Blewett, coming to the aid of his sergeant: “But whatever it was that attacked the station last night, there were two of them.”
“What?” demanded Bear, not quite believing his ears.
“That’s right,” agreed Morrie: “We were firing away at one of them -- the one that carried away the kill -- and only saw the second one after it took off in hot pursuit of the first one.”
“Two of them?” said Sam.
“That’s right.”

“Did you hit either of them?” asked Sam, horrified at the prospect of a breeding pair of wolves loose in the Victorian countryside. Since his first sighting of the black wolf half-a-dozen years earlier, Hart had regarded it as his sacred duty to wipe the vicious killer off the face of the Earth. For the last half dozen years he had devoted one or two nights a month to hunting the black wolf, using high-powered klieg lights mounted on the roof of his Land-Rover to light up the countryside as he hunted through the forest around Merridale and LePage. So far he had spent his nights hunting alone and had only twice managed to get off a single shot before the black wolf vanished into the forest again. Often in the past he had tried without success to interest others in his midnight hunts, thinking that a fully fledged hunting party might have more success than a man hunting alone. However, up until now he had never had any takers.
“No, it was a dark night and the porch light was too far away to light up the goat pen,” answered Morrie.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Sam said: “That means there’s a breeding pair of wolves on the loose. So that settles it. We’ve got no choice now but to organise a major wolf hunt to track them down and kill them. Before they get a chance to breed and the whole countryside is overrun with bloody wolves.”
“Just from one pair of wolves?” asked Bear.
“You never know!” insisted Sam.

Drew Braidwood looked across at his sergeant, remembering what Mel had told him the previous month about Australia being overrun by billions of rabbits after only a half dozen breeding pairs had been released into the Australian countryside. Of course wolves don’t breed like rabbits! thought Drew, almost saying it aloud. Then he wondered, Or do they?
Although they continued to argue for nearly an hour, in the end Hart won out, and it was agreed that the nine men, plus whomever else they could round up, would take part in a full scale wolf-hunt that night.

Running one hand through her long, honey-blonde hair, Rowena stood on the back porch, watching Ernie checking sheep in the paddock behind the farmhouse yard preparing them for delousing and sheering in another week to ten days -- with the help (or hindrance) of the young Barb-Kelpie pup, Blacky. Although only a pup Blacky was already larger than a full-grown terrier (Barb-Kelpies grow to slightly larger size than a Labrador).
Although it had always been Ernie’s claim that the station dogs were work dogs only, the Singleton sheep station was much too small to justify the thirty to fifty Kelpies, Barb-Kelpies, Border Collies, Queensland Heelers, and even Alsatians that it kennelled at any one time. Though Ernie supplemented their farm income by stocking most of the neighbouring sheep and cattle stations with dogs, the truth was that the dogs were mainly an expensive hobby to him.
Originally there had been a strict rule that none of the dogs would ever be allowed into the farmhouse. However, Ernie had relaxed the rule in the early 1980s with Gordo and Tanya, a pair of black Barb-Kelpies that he had house trained. After the death of the two dogs in 1983 he had returned to the old rule-of-thumb, until Rowena had befriended the pup when Blacky’s mother had died during delivery.
“Get out of it,” called Ernie, giving the pup a gentle nudge with one thick rubber-soled work boot. Only to have the pup grab on and shake its head furiously to the consternation of Ernie and the amusement of Rowena. In the evenings Ernie and Blacky would often play. Ernie would tap the pup gently with one boot and Blacky would “attack” the offending boot. Now, out in the work yard the pup hadn’t yet learnt that its role was a work dog, so it thought that they were still playing.
“Get out of it!” repeated Ernie: “We’re working now, not playing!” But Blacky refused to be put off the game.
Rowena sat on a wooden chair on the back porch, laughing heartily, when she was startled to see a tall, black woman dressed in what she took to be an Indian Sari, standing beside her. Looking down at her own balloon-like eight-month pregnant stomach, Rowena couldn’t help being a little jealous of the woman’s lithe figure.
Trying to keep her voice even, Rowena asked: “Can I do something for you?”
Without looking round the woman answered: “No, Mrs. Singleton, it’s your husband whom I must speak with.”
Rowena flushed from resentment at the brusque treatment and began to follow after the woman who had started across the back yard to where Ernie was working. However, the woman looked back, glared at Rowena and said: “My business is private between your husband and I, Mrs. Singleton.”
Blushing again Rowena started to frame a sharp reply, then thought better of it and turned to walk back to the porch.
Watching from the porch Rowena saw the woman start to speak to Ernie, who was clearly startled to see her.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Ernie looked around thinking that it was Rowena. He was startled by the sight of the beautiful black woman, whom he recognised as the naked woman that he had seen in the house in Boothy Street the previous night.
Seeing Ernie’s startled look the woman laughed: “I see you recognise me Mr. Singleton ... Even with my clothes on.” Ernie blushed from acute embarrassment as she continued: “My name is Yaisa, Mr. Singleton ... Or should I say, black wolf?”
Laughing again at Ernie’s obvious shock, she said: “You, of course, know me as the black panther.” She waited a moment to allow that to sink in, then asked: “I wonder Mr. Singleton if you know anything about the supernatural legends of the East?”
At first unable to speak through his dry throat, Ernie swallowed hard then croaked: “No. Nothing at all.”
“They are not so very different from the legends of the Western world. The largest difference being that in Western legends a werewolf would be a man or woman who can somehow change into a wolf (or other creature), whereas in Eastern legends it is the other way around. The were-beast is really an animal that can change itself into a man or woman. Usually a woman who then seduces a real man and bares his children before being discovered as a fox, wolf, or leopard to be driven away at gun-point by a disgusted husband.”
Realising Ernie still didn’t understand, she explained: “In short Mr. Singleton, whereas you are a man who can change into a wolf; I am a panther who can change into a woman ... I was born in the wilds of Kenya, where I lived quite happily as a panther, hunting through the grassy savannahs. Until one day I found my role reversed. I had become the hunted instead of the hunter.
“Panthers are not social creatures as a rule Mr. Singleton, preferring to hunt in groups of three to five. I hunted with my mother, Tasha, and two elder brothers, Demba and Omoro. One day we were creeping along on our bellies in the tall grass, ever so slowly inching toward a large herd of zebras, when suddenly the peace and quiet of the savannah was rudely shattered by the metallic rattle of four Land-Rovers that seemed to sprout from nowhere to plough amidst the zebras, sending them to flight. However, never one to give up prey without a fight, my mother immediately set off at full pelt after the four metallic monsters. After a moment’s hesitation my brothers and I started after her. In the backs of the Land-Rovers stood men holding long metal poles, from the ends of which protruded thick ropes that they used to lasso the zebras. The men had roped two of the striped beasts and had stopped their vehicles to tie up the zebras, ready for loading, when up raced Tasha who leapt straight at the nearest zebra and tore out its throat to the consternation of the poachers. Jesus!’ cursed one of the men, reaching for a holster on his belt.
“No! I’ve got a better idea,’ said a second man taking a strange looking rifle from the back of his vehicle. This will compensate us for the loss of the zebra.’ So saying he put what looked like a small dart into the rifle and fired at our mother who let out a shriek, dropped off the dead zebra and took off at a run. She got about a hundred and fifty metres away, and then fell to the ground.
“Thinking she was dead, my brothers and I screeched to a halt and hurriedly reversed direction. From behind me I heard the second man say, More of the bastards!’ and heard the rifle fire again. Demba let out a shriek of anger more than pain and soon dropped to the ground, leaving Omoro and I to run for our lives.
“Hearing the rumble of metal behind us, I looked back and saw that two of the metallic monsters had started after us, leaving the other two behind so their occupants could tie up the remaining zebra (and as I was to discover later Demba and Tasha as well). We ran with all of our might, however, the poachers had us trapped in open savannah, with no trees to hide behind, or to slow the Land-Rovers that despite being seemingly unable to avoid the potholes that Omoro and I easily skirted or leapt over, were soon overtaking us. I heard Omoro shriek his rage as he was shot and he soon dropped to the ground, leaving me to race on alone. But not for long before I felt a sharp sting in my behind and shrieked my own pain and anger at being shot and soon fell to the ground. As the world went black for me I thought that I had been killed. However, I awakened hours later feeling sick and giddy, to find myself in a heavy wooden crate, covered with a thick tarpaulin upon a racing Land-Rover and realised that the poachers had only drugged me. For many weeks after that I lived in the cramped cage in the hold of a ship -- on my way to Europe to be sold to the already infamous Circus of the Grotesque.
“As I was exhibited across the length and breadth of Europe and the USSR, carried in a tiny iron-barred cage, with barely room enough to turn around, surrounded every night by gawking crowds of spectators, I often found myself wishing that I had been killed by the poacher’s bullet. I had come to accept the fact that for the rest of my life I would be nothing but an exhibit in the circus. Until, after four or five years, after the Circus of the Grotesque had been banned in its home country, France, as well as England, most of Europe, and parts of Asia, they started to look further afield for audiences. The American and Canadian governments were quick to react to pressure from animal-welfare groups and both slapped bans on the circus before it had even set foot on the North American continent. However, despite the protests of most of the people here, the circus somehow managed to get permission to enter Australia for an eight-month national tour. But after a late-night raid by an animal-welfare group on the circus one night, I was freed and left to fend for myself in the countryside around Glen Hartwell. Where I have managed to survive the last few years ... .”
Thinking of the relatively easy life that he’d always had, both as a human and as the black wolf, Ernie felt heartsick after hearing what Yaisa had gone through over the last seven or eight years and tried to put his feelings to words: “I ... I don’t know quite what to say. I’m sorry to hear ... .”
Yaisa stopped him with a contemptuous glare: “I did not come here for sympathy, Mr. Singleton. To tell the truth over the last couple of years I have lived a life of relative luxury in the Victorian countryside. Unlike my home country, Kenya, which has only one season, summer, the Victorian weather is both pleasant and variable. Also I have been able to have my fill of the wildlife -- emus, kangaroos, wallabies and various lesser game, with no competition from other predators. Apart from the occasional dingo, but they always run away whimpering, with their tails between their legs at the first sight of the black panther.” Unable to resist a sly joke, she added: “Yellow dogs by colour, yellow dogs by nature.
“And, of course, in my homeland I had been forced to risk my life to run down game in the wild. Whereas in Australia the game is conveniently corralled for me in enclosed sheep or cattle paddocks. So I need only pick off one beast every second night, devour one half of the carcase up the nearest appropriate tree -- a trick I learnt from my mother in Kenya to allow me to eat in peace without being harassed by hyænas or other land-bound predators -- then leave the remaining portion to be eaten the next night. With no danger at all ... .”
“Except from stray buckshot, fired by station owners,” interjected Ernie.
“I have learnt to avoid that particular danger, Mr. Black Wolf,” replied Yaisa: “I don’t need any help, or advice from you on that matter.”
“Then why did you come here at all?” asked Ernie.
“To tell you to get out of my life!” retorted Yaisa: “I have had a good life here in Australia. Hunting at nights in the forest; living by day in the back half of a vacant house in Glen Hartwell.”
“Until the owners return.”
“They won’t be returning. They’re both dead!” hissed Yaisa. Then hearing Ernie’s quick intake of breath, she hurried to explain: “Not killed by me; killed in a motorcar accident. They had no close relatives and no one else has come forward to claim the house in Boothy Street. Until they do, or until it is sold in probate, I shall continue to hide there during the day.”
“And when you finally have to move?”
“Then I shall move. But that’s no concern of yours. My only reason for coming here to see you; was to tell you not to follow me again as the black wolf. In a one-on-one fight between us in our respective animal forms, you just might have the strength to overpower me -- might! But you don’t have the animal cunning that I possess, because you’re really only human. I’ve had experience fighting for my survival in the wilds of Africa. And besides ... I know your great weakness!”
When Ernie looked perplexed, she explained: “You cannot control your metamorphosis. You can only change to the black wolf two or three nights each month, at the whim of whatever god you believe in. Whereas I, on the other hand, can change back and forth between panther and woman at will ... So beware black wolf, I can make a very formidable enemy, if you choose to harass me. So just leave me alone!”

Standing by the back porch, Rowena was unable to catch any of the conversation between her husband and his beautiful visitor, until she raised her voice and said: “Just leave me alone!”
Looking down at her swollen, pregnant belly again, then across at the beautiful black woman, Rowena wondered what her relationship was with Ernie. Although aware that it was probably foolish, she found herself wondering whether they were lovers. No, that’s stupid, Ernie wouldn’t cheat on me!’ she thought. But she couldn’t help wondering whether since her pregnancy he had started to look around for sex from more attractive women.

“But I can’t just leave you running loose in the forest around Glen Hartwell!” protested Ernie.
“Why not?” demanded Yaisa: “Like you, Mr. Black Wolf, I am not a man-eater. Even in the wilds of Kenya, where game is a lot more difficult to come by, panthers are not man-eaters. In the three years that I have been free in this country, I have had my fill of emus, kangaroos, echidnas, wombats, Merino sheep, and sundry breeds of cattle, but have never felt the compunction to attack or devour human beings ... .”
She paused for a moment to allow the statement to sink in, before adding: “However, I am perfectly capable of killing in self-defence, if you continue to harass me!”
Before Ernie could think up a suitable response Yaisa turned and stormed away across the sheep paddock. Slinking along like a large cat, she moved across the farm yard at a steady pace and was soon lost from sight in the nearby forest.

That evening, after a hard day’s work, Ernie was dismayed to find himself getting the cold shoulder from Rowena. She fussed around the kitchen, getting him his dinner, then cleared the plates away and did the washing (with Ernie drying), all without saying a single word to him.
“Come on baby, what’s wrong?” asked Ernie, snuggling against Rowena from behind as she tidied up the sink. At first she tried to struggle out of his grip, but finding that he was too strong for her, she changed her tactics and rounded on him, demanding: “Who was that woman who came to see you today?”
Thinking fast, Ernie replied: “Her name is Yaisa; she’s from Kenya. She recently bought a sheep station in the neighbourhood and she came over to ask about stocking it with Kelpies. Apparently someone told her that we stock most of the local stations with dogs.”
Rowena considered that for a moment, before asking: “Who recommended us to her?”
“She didn’t say.”
Rowena glared at Ernie, starting to think his answers sounded a little too pat. Just whom do you think you’re fooling?’ she thought. Aloud she said: “I didn’t know that any of the stations were up for sale around here.”
“I don’t think it is around here,” lied Ernie: “I think she said it was somewhere around Perry township.”
“That’s a long way to come to buy sheep dogs, isn’t it? Surely it would be much easier for her to buy them from Tom Gulliver in Harpertown?”
Ernie shrugged: “Maybe Tom has none available at the moment, or none that she liked. Or maybe she hasn’t heard that he breeds and sells dogs.”
Clearly unsatisfied, Rowena continued to give Ernie the cold shoulder for the rest of that evening. However, when they went to bed Rowena insisted upon making love, although Ernie was concerned that it might not be safe so late in the pregnancy. However, not wanting to upset her any further he decided it was best to oblique.
After half an hour of love-making Rowena fell asleep, cradled in Ernie’s arms and was soon tossing and turning, obviously in the grip of bad dreams. To the distress of Ernie who realised that he was the cause of her anxiety, thinking: Oh baby, how could I tell you who she really is, what she really is, when I’ve never had the guts to tell you what I am? If only you knew how much I love you!
He stroked her long blonde hair to comfort her and leant down to kiss her on the forehead, thinking how beautiful she looked. Then as he started to feel faint, and knew that his change to the black wolf was starting, he hurriedly climbed out of bed and started across to the bedroom window.
He just managed to get the window open before transforming. Then, without looking back he leapt out through the window and started across the farmhouse yard.

It was a little after 10:00 p.m. when the hunters gathered at Sam Hart’s sheep station just outside Merridale. To keep things simple (and minimise the chance of the hunters shooting each other), they were setting out in only two Land-Rovers, with the tarpaulin tops removed. Each Rover had a powerful spotlight mounted on the roof of the cabin, which could be operated by one man, while three or four others stood up in the back shooting. The first Rover would be driven by Morrie Blewett, with his son Terry directing the spotlight, with Bear Ross, Sam Hart, Des Hutchinson, and Drew Braidwood in the back. The second Rover was driven by Mel Forbes, with Paul Bell working the spotlight, and Jim Kane, Bob Montgomery (owner of the general store in Harpertown) and Brian Horne and his retarded brother Warren doing the shooting. (Although Brian allowed Warren to carry a shotgun so that he didn’t feel left out, he was not allowed any cartridges.)
That first night turned out to be a disappointment for both the hunters and the black wolf:
Sam Hart had appointed himself leader of the hunt and chose to ignore Bear Ross’ suggestion to track the creature by day. However, the hunters did follow the Glen Hartwell Police Chief’s suggestion to start at the Blewett sheep-and-goat station, where the spoors were still relatively fresh.
During the day, despite Sam’s insistence that spot-shooting was best, Bear Ross and Terry Blewett had spent a few hours sorting out the footprints of the black panther from those of the frightened Angora goats and had managed to track the panther’s spoors a kilometre or so into the forest.
“By the three great She Oaks near Miller’s Hollow,” directed Bear, referring to local landmarks, receiving a resentful look from Sam Hart, who disliked having his authority usurped.
“I guess that’s as good a starting place as any,” said Sam as they set off.
After driving to Miller’s Hollow (aptly named, the “Hollow” was a great basin, half the size of a football field, whose sides sloped sharply down to the bottom, ten metres below the main level of the forest floor), they quickly located the three giant She Oaks. (Commonly known as the Three Sisters, the great trees grew so closely together that their trunks had virtually merged together to form one gigantic growth.)
After scouring round with the spotlights for a few minutes, they managed to locate the panther spoors, that everyone had to concede looked totally unlike the prints of the black wolf, that many of them had seen on past occasions. Everyone that is except Sam Hart, who was so blinded by his long-time hatred of the black wolf that his brain refused to believe what his eyes told him.
“This way then,” directed Sam, guiding the “command vehicle” slowly after the prints with a wave of one arm, making Bear half expect him to cry “Forward Ho!”
They progressed at a crawl, careful to keep the spoors in the beam of the spotlight. But even so they were forced to halt from time to time to climb down from the Rovers to hunt around on foot to locate the tracks again after losing them.
By slow cautious progress, they managed to track the prints right across the forest from Merridale, past LePage, Lenoak, and Wilhelmina, to the very outskirts of Glen Hartwell. Where finally, a quarter of an hour or so before dawn, they were forced to concede that they had lost the spoors.

The black wolf was just as unsuccessful as the hunters. After the previous night when his sixth sense had guided him toward the Blewett station where the panther had been, the wolf had assumed that he could locate her again the same way tonight. However, possibly because he was trying too hard, he had no success.
At one stage the black wolf had almost run into the hunters. Stepping out of the bushes into a clearing, he heard movement to his right, and looking round saw the two Land-Rovers parked twenty-five to thirty metres in front of him, while Bear Ross, Jim Kane, and Sam Hart scoured round on foot looking for the panther spoors that they had lost momentarily.
Hurriedly backing up until he was safely hidden from sight within a thick Mulga bush, the wolf had watched the three men, until Bear said: “Over here!” pointing to where the panther tracks could dimly be made out, and they remounted the vehicle and took off again slowly.
After that near disaster the black wolf had reluctantly decided to give up the hunt for the night. The next night, however, he would be out again.

When the next evening came round Rowena was still snubbing Ernie, still not believing his story that Yaisa had wanted to buy some sheep dogs from them.
Ernie had been nervous all evening, wondering whether or not he would metamorphose into the black wolf at all. The change only occurred two or three times each month, and in each of the past two months he had transformed three times, so the odds were against him changing that night, since it would be the third time for that month also.

Sensing how nervous Ernie was all evening and not knowing the reason; Rowena assumed that he planned to sneak out that night after she was asleep to visit his lover (as she was now firmly convinced the mysterious black woman was). On previous nights Rowena had awakened to find Ernie missing, but had always fallen asleep again before his return. When questioned about it later, he had always insisted he had simply gone for a walk in the night air to clear his head. Although his nightly disappearances had often occurred in winter, on rainy nights when he would return soaked to the skin to the amazement of Rowena. Until now.
Now she was certain that she had the answer. You wouldn’t risk getting soaked to the skin in the middle of winter just to get some air!’ she thought. But you might take the risk to spend an hour or two in your lover’s arms!
Determined to catch them at last, Rowena decided to stay awake that night feigning sleep until Ernie left, then she would follow and catch him with his lover. Then they’ll have some explaining to do!’ she thought, almost glad at the thought of catching them together. Almost! However, she was more tired than she realised, and the moment her head touched the pillow she fell sound asleep.

Ernie got into bed naked beside Rowena and lay awake fretting in case he didn’t shape-change to the black wolf. He started to whine lightly, and knew that the transformation had occurred. Leaping out of bed, he raced across to the window (that this time he had been wise enough to open earlier) and bounded out into the farm yard.
Unlike the previous night, tonight he knew exactly where he was going, having already decided that whatever sense allowed him to hone-in on the black panther at the Blewett station just was not strong enough, or reliable enough for him to be able to pick up Yaisa at will in the vast forest. Therefore he had decided that his best option was to head for the house in Boothy Street and hope to locate her before she left and follow her out of Glen Hartwell.

Unbeknown to the black wolf, however, Bear Ross and Mel Forbes had come to the same conclusion. After the hunting party had trailed the panther spoors to the outskirts of Glen Hartwell the night before, the two policemen had held a lengthy conference with Jim Kane, Murray Senkans, and other policemen from the surrounding towns and had come to the reluctant decision that the black panther (or black wolf as Sam Hart still insisted) must be hiding somewhere in the heart of the Glen itself.
“Are you kidding?” demanded Murray Senkans, sergeant of police in BeauLarkin. (Bear Ross’ old sergeant before Bear had been promoted and transferred from BeauLarkin, Senkans had always resented Bear becoming his equal and never missed an opportunity to show up the big man.)
“There’s no other possible answer,” insisted Bear, hoping that they were not going to end up wasting the whole day arguing over old grudges.
However, Sam Hart was quick to come to Bear’s aid, pointing out: “It has to be hiding in the Glen. There’s no other explanation for the way those tracks headed straight into town last night but never came out again.”
They argued for a while longer, but in the end it was settled. The men from the previous night’s unsuccessful hunt spent the remainder of the day mobilising over a third of the men from Glen Hartwell, Daley, Bromby, Lenoak, and LePage to patrol the Glen that night, armed to the teeth with rifles, shotguns and (in the case of the police) handguns.
So by the time that the black wolf reached Glen Hartwell and started padding down Robinson’s Drive that night, without knowing it, he was heading into a battle zone.
He entered the Drive without noticing anything amiss. However, he had only gone up as far as Lawson Street before being spotted by Jim Kane sitting in a police Land-Rover parked by the kerb.
Controlling his natural urge to lean out the window and take a pot-shot at the large black wolf, Jim allowed the wolf to get a little way ahead of him, and then risked using the Rover’s mike to report in to where Bear Ross, Sam Hart and a few others were waiting in the police station in Mitchell Street Glen Hartwell.
Interrupting as Bear started to speak, Sam Hart shouted into the mike: “Is it the black wolf? Or Mel’s panther?”
“Definitely the black wolf,” replied Jim.
“Ha! Told you so!” said Sam, triumphantly turning round to smirk at Mel Forbes -- who, like Bear, had chosen to stay at the command centre since he had no animosity toward the black wolf and didn’t really approve of what he called the “war games being played” in the township of Glen Hartwell over the death of a few sheep.
“It might be best to park the Rover and trail him on foot,” Bear advised Jim: “He’ll hear the Rover a kilometre away.”
“Fair enough,” agreed Jim.
“Come on,” said Bear, waving for Mel and Sam to follow him: “If we’re quick about it we can get to the other end of Robinson’s Drive and cut him off.” (Mitchell Street is half a kilometre deeper into the Glen than Lawson Street.)
“My God he’ll be trapped between Jim and us! It’ll be a bloody slaughter!” cried Sam. He chuckled from sadistic glee at the prospect of the black wolf caught in a crossfire with nowhere to run. At last I’ll get the bastard! thought Sam.

Although the black wolf didn’t see Jim Kane in the parked Land-Rover, or hear him when the policeman started down the alley after him, his werewolf senses soon began to tingle, warning him of danger, possibly even death lurking nearby. As his unease gradually built up, the wolf became hesitant. He slowed his pace and began to carefully measure his tread as he continued up past Gallipoli, then Henderson Street.

Unknown to both the black wolf and Jim Kane, while they were travelling up Robinson’s Drive toward Howard Street, the black panther had entered the Drive from the other end, only a few streets away from where Bear, Mel, and the others were entering the alley from Mitchell Street.

At the corner of Mitchell Street and Robinson’s Drive, Bear’s team met up with Des Hutchinson, Brian Horne and his retarded brother “Weird” Warren (as the local school kids had named him).
“Black wolf! Black wolf! Black wolf!” chanted Warren happily, waving his shotgun high in the air as they started into the alleyway.
“Can’t you shut that bloody freak up!” grumbled Sam Hart.
“You’re all heart, Sam,” said Bear, making Sam scowl and the others snicker.
“Besides, he’s not doing any harm,” insisted Des.
“Only making enough racket to be heard eight blocks away!” insisted Sam.
“Not likely,” disagreed Des, hiking the collar up on his coat to combat the biting cold: “Not with this wind blowing up the alley into our faces.”
“Well, just keep him away from me!” demanded Sam, refusing to be mollified.
“That’s okay, Warren can walk with me,” offered Bear. A compassionate man by nature, Bear was unhappy about the wolf hunt and only took part at all to try to stop Sam Hart and some of the others from going completely gun-crazy, shooting at everything that moved -- including each other.
“Black wolf! Black wolf!” chanted Warren again, waving his shotgun high in the air, not caring that he was not allowed to have any cartridges.
Giving the retarded man a hard look, Sam said: “Anyway let’s get on with it.” He started to walk down the alley at a smart pace, without looking back to see if the others were even following.

As the four groups continued up the alley toward each other, it was the black wolf and the black panther who first met. Although in truth the wolf saw the panther first as she stopped at the corner of Matthew Flinders Road and looked up the road both ways before quickly padding across.
As the panther looked away momentarily, the black wolf backed up to the nearest driveway fronting the alley, that he had just passed, then tried his best to blend in with the dark deal-wood fence, hoping the panther wouldn’t look to her right and notice him as she went past.
To the black wolf’s relief the black panther hurried past without stopping or glancing round. He stayed hidden in the dark for another thirty seconds or so to let her get well out of hearing range, then stepped out of his hiding place.

As they crossed Matthew Flinders Road, Bear and his team were starting to fear that somehow they had lost the black wolf.
“Black wolf! Black wolf!” chanted Weird Warren once more.
“Look, will you shut that bloody ... ” began Sam Hart. Then he realised Warren was pointing toward a wooden lamppost twenty-five metres ahead of them. Clearly outlined beneath the light of the lamppost was a large black wolf staring so intently back down the alley that it hadn’t heard Warren’s cry.
I don’t believe it! thought Sam starting to swing up his Winchester toward the enormous wolf. I can’t miss at this range!’ He was already easing back on the trigger of the repeating rifle, when Weird Warren ran toward the lamppost, aiming his shotgun at the wolf as he ran.
When he was only a few metres away, Warren pressed both triggers, allowing the hammers to click-click onto their empty chambers, and shouted: “Bang! Bang!” at the top of his lungs.
The black wolf jumped a metre straight into the air from fright, ensuring that Sam’s rifle fired harmlessly under the wolf, tearing a great chunk out of the wooden lamppost, but otherwise doing no damage.
Before Sam had time to re-aim the wolf returned to earth and took off like a rocket down Robinson’s Drive toward the outskirts of Glen Hartwell.
Des Hutchinson and two other men had time to fire off shots before the fleeing beast had disappeared from sight; however, the only damage they did was to the lamppost and the deal-wood fence behind it.
“You bloody retard!” shouted Sam Hart rounding on Warren.
“Leave him alone!” warned Des Hutchinson. Although upset himself at the missed opportunity to “bag” the black wolf, Des had always tried to help look after the retarded man and managed to put his upset behind him.
Ignoring the warning, Sam continued to storm across the alley toward the cringing figure of Warren Horne, until Des fired a warning shot from his pump-action shotgun. The shot missed Sam by only centimetres, blasting a great hole through the grey wood of the deal fence.
Jumping backward in shock, Sam swung up his Winchester toward Des. The dispute might have ended in bloodshed if the two police sergeants, Mel Forbes and Bear Ross, hadn’t quickly stepped between the two men to keep them apart.
“We’re wasting valuable time!” insisted Mel: “The longer we stand here bickering, the less chance we have of catching up with the bastard!”
“Jim will get him at the other end of the alley, anyway,” said Bear with a touch of sadness, not really wanting to see the animal shot.
“Then come on,” insisted Sam Hart starting down the alley at a trot. Like Bear, Sam didn’t want Jim Kane to shoot the black wolf, but only because he wanted the pleasure of personally firing the shot that killed the wolf.

The black panther and Jim Kane’s team of four or five hunters had just come within sight of each other near the corner of Henderson Street and Robinson’s Drive, when Sam Hart opened fire at the black wolf.
Already raising his handgun to fire toward the panther as the rifle shot resounded from the opposite end of the lane, Jim instinctively jerked up and the gun blast went centimetres over the head of the panther.
At the sound of the blast the black panther sprang round and leapt toward the two-metre tall grey-wood fence, scaling it effortlessly.
As the panther leapt the fence, Murray Senkans took aim with his shotgun and fired: “I got him!” shouted Senkans in delight, still thinking that it was the black wolf.
“What?” demanded Sam Hart, when told the news over Mel Forbes’ handset: “Are you sure you got him?”
“Of course I’m sure!” replied Senkans indignantly: “I don’t miss at this distance!”
Yet when they scaled the deal fence -- with a lot more difficulty than the panther -- to Murray Senkans’ embarrassment there was no sign of a carcase.
“But I know I hit the bastard!” he insisted.
“That’s right,” said Sam, when they arrived at the scene, delighted that Senkans hadn’t beaten him to the opportunity to kill the black wolf: “you don’t miss at this distance!”
“Look Hart! I’m not in the mood to take any crap from you!” snarled Senkans, rounding on the short, weasel-faced man, who was notorious locally for his love of a good fight.
“Is that right!” demanded Sam, refusing to back down to the policeman, who had a reputation for being a coward, despite his love of acting tough.
Once more Mel and Bear had to step forward to break up a potentially dangerous situation. However, before any fight could break out, there was the sound of rifle fire from the north-western end of town, then Mel’s handset began to crackle.
“Are you there, Mel?” came the voice of Con Rodriguez, a constable from nearby LePage.
“Yeah, go ahead, Con.”
“We just missed the black wolf as he sped into the forest.”
“Another miss!” cursed Murray Senkans: “The bastard must have a charmed life or something!”
“I’m starting to think you might be right,” agreed Con.

“Well, where is he?” demanded Sam Hart when the others finally met up with Con Rodriguez near the edge of the forest, heading toward Wilhelmina and Merridale.
“I told you, we missed him,” reminded Con.
“Then the bastard will be long gone!” complained Sam.
“Not necessarily,” said Con. He pointed to where the black wolf had rocketed into the surrounding forest, throwing up a clear trail in his wake through the thick carpet of pine needles and gum leaves that covered the forest floor. Leading them across to a nearby Land-Rover with a floodlight above the cabin, Con added: “All we have to do is follow along behind at a steady pace until he starts to tire ... Then we’ve got him!”

Back at Robinson’s Drive, the black panther had been alarmed to see Jim Kane and Murray Senkans and their team, armed to the teeth waiting for her. As she leapt toward the deal fence, she thought she had escaped. Until Senkans’ shotgun blared and she was overwhelmed by a flood of pain that coursed through her right flank and she knew that she had been shot.
Although she was able to race across the empty lot, heading toward the forest half a kilometre away, she could not entirely ignore the burning fire in her flank and realised that she was badly hurt.
She was running down Henderson Street (unaware that she was no longer being chased) between Wentworth Street and Baltimore Drive, when the agony of her injuries became too great and she collapsed to the concrete footpath.
Lying in a pool of her own blood, she tried to pull herself to her feet but was too weak.
The sound of the panther’s death whining attracted the residents of a nearby house, who had already been awakened by the sound of rifle fire. As they approached, not wanting to be trapped the black panther used the last skerrick of her strength to metamorphose into human form ... Then died.

Not for the first time the black wolf found himself thundering through the forest around Glen Hartwell, with hunters in hot pursuit. Vividly he remembered the reports of the rifles behind him, remembered the thud-thud of great chunks of wood being ripped away from the wooden lamppost only centimetres behind him. Recalling the bloody sight of a brutal kangaroo hunt that he had reluctantly taken part in a decade earlier in human form, the black wolf realised that the bullets or buckshot would rip away far greater chunks from his torso.
After his close encounter with death the wolf raced through the forest, weaving his way between the trees, almost miraculously avoiding high-speed collisions with the wattles, pines, and grey-barked ghost gums, until his heart pounded from exertion and the pads of his feet ached.
Spurred on by his fear of the rifle fire, fear of the boom-boom-boom that rang out from his own chest, fear of the crunching pine needles beneath his feet, that had him imagining that the hunters were running along just behind him, the wolf tore through the forest for nearly an hour.
The black wolf might have kept running until collapsing from fatigue, if he had not found himself suddenly at the edge of a clearing, looking out at a small weatherboard farmhouse. Although the small white house offered little real protection against attack, the building seemed like a fortress to the wolf, offering shelter from the terrors of the forest by night.
Weary after the mad rush through the forest, the wolf stood near the perimeter of the clearing for a few minutes, to allow his breathing to return to normal. Then, dropping to his belly, he began to crawl out into the open, inching his way toward the metre-high, chain-link fence that ringed the farmhouse, extending all the way down to the dog yard a hundred metres away from the house, where thirty or so Kelpies, Barb-Kelpies, Border Collies and other farm dogs were chained up for the night.
Stealthily the wolf crept along the short grass until lying against the base of the wire-mesh fence, confident that he had gone unnoticed. Until a low, rumbling growl made him look round to his left, and he found himself looking straight into the black face of a Barb-Kelpie. Although separated by a hundred metres of yard, the wolf seemed to be looking eyeball-to-eyeball at the Australian Sheep Dog through the links of the mesh fence.
For almost a minute the black wolf lay beside the fence looking across at the Barb-Kelpie. Then, not wanting to be trapped outside the farm yard when the dog yard erupted into a chorus of furious barking, the wolf rose up to his full height, stretched out his front paws to pull himself up onto the top of the fence, then kicked off with his powerful hind legs.

“Black wolf! Black wolf! Black wolf!” chanted Warren Horne happily as they drove slowly through the night forest, carefully keeping the spotlight beam aimed at the trail of leaves and pine needles thrown up in the wake of the fleeing wolf.
“For God’s sake shut that freak up!” shouted Sam Hart, furious that despite his protests Warren was one of the men (along with Des Hutchinson, Murray Senkans, Brian Horne, Bear Ross, Mel Forbes, and Terry Blewett) who had climbed aboard the back of the Land-Rover as Jim Kane and Con Rodriguez climbed into the cabin.
“Warren’s all right,” said Bear.
“Yeah, leave him alone,” ordered Des, one of the handful of men in the region capable of cowering the usually fearless Hart.
They had driven around the townships of Wilhelmina, Lenoak, and LePage, and were approaching Merridale, when the spoors they were following began to circle round the town, indicating that the black wolf’s home site was nearby.
“My God, mum’s all alone!” cried Terry Blewett, fearing that the black wolf was heading for the Blewett station again. However, before much longer they became aware that the wolf was cutting round toward the Singleton sheep station.
“He’s heading for Ernie’s!” exclaimed Bear Ross, looking across toward Brian Horne, knowing Brian would share his concern for their close friend.
“Maybe it's just passing by Ernie’s?” suggested Brian hopefully. However, as they pulled up a hundred metres or so from the chain-link fence around the farmhouse yard, the powerful spotlight operated by Terry Blewett caught the black wolf in its beam for an instant as the wolf effortlessly leapt the metre-high fence.

Hurtling into space the wolf rocketed across the small yard toward the farmhouse, expecting to be greeted any second by an angry ululation from the dog yard. However, one look at the large, black shape leaping the metal fence had been enough to silence the growling in the throat of the Barb-Kelpie and send it whimpering backwards into the upended halved 200-litre drum that acted as its kennel.
The wolf halted against one side of the house and waited for a moment, still half expecting to hear barking from the dog yard. After a moment he summoned up enough courage to start round the back of the farm house, looking for a way inside.
Unaware that the hunters were so close behind him, the black wolf waited for a moment at the back patio, to allow his racing heart to return to something like normal, before heading around the opposite side of the house. Where Ernie had left the bedroom window open before leaving the farmhouse hours earlier.

As the black wolf sat on its haunches by the back porch, recovering its breath, the hunters climbed down from the back of the Land-Rover as quietly as possible. Creeping up to the chain-link fence, Sam Hart, Des Hutchinson and Murray Senkans all lined up the wolf in their sights, their rifles propped along the top of the mesh fence.
Just before they could fire, however, the black wolf padded around to the opposite side of the farmhouse.
“Damn!” hissed Sam, removing his finger from the trigger of his Winchester, just grateful that no one had fired a shot that would have set the wolf to flight again.
“Come on,” said Murray Senkans starting to scale the fence as quietly as possible. Although despite his best efforts the wire-mesh squeaked beneath him.
“For God’s sake keep it quiet!” hissed Sam, starting after Senkans.
Bear Ross and Brian Horne started forward also, not so concerned about killing the wolf as seeing it didn’t attack Rowena or Ernie.
Seeing his brother start into the yard of the farmhouse where they often came in the evenings to visit, Weird Warren bounded eagerly over the fence crying: “Black wolf! Black wolf!” as he went, to the annoyance of Sam Hart and Murray Senkans.
“Look, keep that freak back there!” hissed Sam. However, Warren had already skipped past him and now was at the head of the procession.

When he finally crept around the side of the farmhouse, the black wolf was surprised to find his bedroom window firmly shut. Leaping up onto his back feet, he pulled himself up along the outside wall, until he was able to peer in through the window. Seeing Rowena sprawled on her back in the middle of their bed, he did his best not to wake her, as he began to scrape at the window, trying to force it to slide upwards. However, although the window was not latched, the wolf’s clawed paws were not designed for gripping smooth surfaces, so try as he might he could not push the window up.
Desperately he tried to shape-shift back to human form right where he was. But, despite him having achieved the transformation outside on rare occasions in the past, he knew from experience that he usually had to enter the house before he could return to human form. As he expected the change failed to take place.
Hearing excited barking coming from the dog yard out back, he looked round and pricked up his ears in the hope of hearing whatever had set the dogs off. However, after a few moments he gave up the effort and turned back toward the bedroom window ... .
Where he saw the face of his wife Rowena staring out at him.

Rowena Singleton stood by the end of the bed staring out in horror at the large black shape that stood on its hind legs peering in at her through the window. As she watched the black wolf began frantically leaping up off the ground, scratching and pushing at the window pane with its front paws.
Let me in! Let me in!’ the black wolf tried to call out to his wife. However, in wolf form his vocal cords were not designed for human speech. So all Rowena heard was a series of throaty snarls as the wolf threw itself repeatedly against the window, making the glass rattle alarmingly in its frame.
“Ernie! Ernie!” called Rowena, backing deeper into the bedroom, not daring to take her eyes off the leaping wolf, not wanting to be caught alone in the room with the creature: “Ernie, where are you?” she pleaded, uncertain in her terror whether she had voiced the words aloud or merely thought them.

The black wolf heard Rowena calling his name, even as he heard the hunters around the back of the house. At first he thought that somehow she had recognised him as her husband. Then seeing her look of abject terror, he realised that she was calling to his two-legged self Ernie Singleton, to rescue her from his four-legged self the black wolf.
Not wanting to frighten Rowena any more than she already was, the black wolf turned away and started toward the chain-link fence a dozen metres away from the farmhouse. But catching sight of Weird Warren leading the procession of hunters around the side of the house, the wolf stopped in his tracks. He looked toward the empty paddock beyond the fence, wondering whether he could make it across it to the start of the forest a quarter kilometre away before the hunters gunned him down.
Eyes shining with fear the black wolf turned to face Warren again, then looked back toward the farmhouse. After a second’s hesitation he sprinted forward and, using his powerful hind legs like springs, leapt straight through the bedroom window.
The window shattered with a report like a gunshot, showering the double bed with shards of glass and causing Rowena to shriek and faint.
“Get out of the way you bloody freak!” growled Sam Hart, trying to force his way past Warren Horne.
Des Hutchinson and Murray Senkans followed Sam past Warren and the three men arrived at the bedroom window together.
Instead of the black wolf, however, they found the naked figure of Ernie Singleton kneeling over the prostrate form of Rowena, who lay unconscious on the bedroom floor.
“What happened here?” asked Des.
“She fainted when she saw the black wolf,” replied Ernie truthfully: “Luckily I was here to frighten him away.”
“Well, where did the bastard go?” demanded Sam Hart.
“Back out through the window,” answered Ernie, pointing back behind them.
The three hunters looked around surprised. They had expected to corner the wolf inside the farmhouse. However, the few seconds it had taken to force their way past Weird Warren could have given the wolf just enough time to reverse out through the window again without being seen by any of them.
“Here we go again!” said Sam Hart. He started to lead the procession off again, allowing Bear Ross to run back round the house to notify Jim Kane of the latest development, so that he could cut around the back of the house in the Land-Rover.
They crossed the chain-link fence and were almost at the start of the forest, before realising that they had lost all trace of the wolf’s spoors.

As the hunters slowly disappeared from sight, with Warren Horne happily chanting: “Black wolf! Black wolf!” Ernie Singleton stood by the broken window, ignoring the broken glass that cut into his bare feet. His heart raced from fear as he watched the retreating men, wondering whether they would give up the hunt when they failed tonight? Or whether they would be out again tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that, until finally his luck ran out. Sooner or later they’ll get me for sure!’ he thought going back to tend to his unconscious wife.

“Where the hell could it have got to?” hissed Sam Hart: “It’s as though the bastard just vanished into thin air after it left Ernie’s place!”
Although weary from their all-night vigil, the hunters parted at dawn promising to continue the hunt again that night and every night until the black wolf was finally killed. However, Bear Ross put paid to that idea, when he arrived back at Glen Hartwell in the early hours of the morning, only to be told the tally of that night’s hunt. A black Labrador shot dead in Howard Street, three black Barb Kelpies killed (in Wentworth, Lawson, and Boothy Streets), and the naked corpse of a mysterious black woman ... who was never identified.
THE END
© Copyright 2024 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia