"Have you ever looked into the eyes of an animal and wondered if it is capable of evil, like actual evil? Or is evil exclusive to the human being; or is it just something we made up?" Donald asked his classroom. Veterinary Technicians and others in similar career paths chose to take his class. It was a night class, the syllabus called it Introduction To Animal Ethics.

This question was to be their final paper in the class. They only had to write two papers. The first one was simply 'why I love animals' and several of them had read theirs aloud to the rest of the class.

They shuffled out and as they left the building a kind of surreal silence began. Donald could actually hear the silence here. The building was soundproofed for planes going overhead. The whole campus was soundproofed, but at night when he was alone at his desk, silence.

It was in moments like this one that Donald, or Professor Fergus, had too much time to contemplate his own answer to that question.

Years ago he himself had written papers and attended lectures and classes. He had planned to become a veterinarian. One day he had participated in a kind of shadow field expedition with Professor Jamison and his assistant Cornwale and the animal surgeon Doctor Vare. Donald had no real hopes that Doctor Vare found him as fancy as he did the other, it was a gay man's hopeless crush on a straight man.

It was this unrequited infatuation that had kept Donald from finishing his own degree. He didn't want his time with Doctor Vare to end. He could have graduated already but instead he had done everything to prolong his time with Doctor Vare.

As he thought about Doctor Vare, Donald felt warm tears on his cool cheeks. They were so sudden and so sincere that they actually burned a little, leaving a white salty residue in two streaks down his face. He took a small mirror from his bag and before he cleaned himself he flashed back to that field expedition. Hardly a routine one.

A man with ostriches had called them. Some wild bird had come out of the bush and attacked two of his male ostriches. One of them had died the next morning. The other had received limited medical attention, but it would need surgery or it would die.

As they drove along the coast they soon entered the Illawara region. The city of Wollogong was nearby. Donald distracted himself with a memory of visiting the Buddhist Temple there when he was younger. He had wanted to become a Buddhist back then. It was before he had realized or understood that he was gay. Afterwards he wasn't really worried about becoming a Buddhist anymore, he felt secure enough in his own skin finally, and without spiritual assistance.

It was the face of Jarajara with the two white streaks across his midnight skin. Donald had no fear of the bushmen and their spears. He had only found their ways peculiar, but not threatening. It was at the base of Mount Keira that Jarajara had presented himself.

They were very close to the ranch where the attack had occurred. Jarajara had come from there, to guide them or warn them. It wasn't clear what the man wanted, but he volunteered to come with them, walking alongside the vehicle as they got close to the ranch.

"Thank you gentlemen for coming. Thank you Jara' for showin' them here. It is the tracker that wanted Jara' to meet you and he agreed. He said that you would be there when he was and he was right. Jara' is right about most things, I would sell." Theodore had all he wanted to say to them out in one breath after they had met him in his front yard.

Two small boys played in the dirt with some Avengers action figures. A dish collected signals for on demand television. Theodore wore brand new sunglasses.

Everything else looked antiquated and rustic. Everything had dirt and rust on it and bits of cloth tied around everything to mend it. The whole place looked like it was a hundred years old. The toys, satellite dish and sunglasses looked shiny and clean and out-of-place in such an environment.

Beyond the ranch was a stretch of unused property and beyond that was wilderness. The tracker was camped out there and it would be Jarajara that would show them to the tracker if they agreed to help identify the creature responsible for the attack. Theodore had hoped that after the surgery they might do that.

Doctor Vare led his entourage to the injured bird. The ostrich had broken ribs and surgery was required to keep it alive. Doctor Vare went to work and Professor Jamison and Cornwale helped him. Afterward the tracker had come back from his camp.

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"This is Peter Coin." Theodore introduced the man.

"Right I am he, I wanted to say I've got a plaster cast ready to show you." Peter told the men. He led them to his truck and removed the footprint of the bird.

"Cassowary." Doctor Vare identified it in just a few seconds.

"That could mean it is from Junder's place. He got himself a few birds like that." Theodore told them.

"I would like to go and see him." Doctor Vare surprised everyone when he said this. There was a moment where the others made it obvious they were ready to go home. Except Donald. Where Vare went, so he followed.

Professor Jamison and Cornwale decided to stay behind. Theodore told his boys that they had to stay in the house while he was gone. He had looked around at the bush surrounding his property as he said this, worried that the bird might return while he was gone.

They rode with Theodore, Peter Coin and Jarajara in the truck over to the nearest neighbor. Theodore said:

"Junder can be a bit chinny. Let me go up to him first so he doesn't get that way with you gentlemen."

"That is fine." Doctor Vare said with some sort of absent tone. He anticipated some gruesome discovery and said nothing of his thoughts. Donald knew Doctor Vare was concerned about the animal he had identified.

They reached the property of Junder, but there was no welcome, a chinny one or otherwise. The front door was wide open.

Theodore came back outside where the other men were standing near the truck.

"He is dead." Theodore said conclusively. "Something was in there, place is turned over. His body is just lying there with his face contorted in agony. Looked like his ribs got crushed somehow."

"The kick of the Cassowary could have done that." Doctor Vare said.

"Let's go see about his birds then." Theodore had a revolver on his belt that was now in his hand. Peter had obtained a rifle from his truck and Jarajara had a kind of wooden warclub called a boomerang. So armed the three of them led the way and Doctor Vare had followed up last behind Donald.

The pen was empty. It looked like just one bird had served time in the fence. It had gotten out somehow. Its name was on the wooden gate, carved and burnt into the wood:

Kimbra.

"Well we should find this Kimbra and put the mean bastard down. Killed Junder. Our duty to even the score." Peter Coin proposed.

The men split up and searched the property for any more clues, agreeing to meet back at the truck in half an hour. It would be dark by then.

Doctor Vare, Theodore and Donald formed one search party and Jarajara and Peter the other. As they searched, Donald noticed how Doctor Vare's eyes glimmered in the sunset.

A rifle crack followed by two more indicated that there was trouble. The other search party had spotted Kimbra and shot at it. Theodore turned in that direction with his revolver ready. Kimbra intended to fight them, running in a great circle at high speeds around them, closing in as the gloom after sunset made it hard to visually track the bird.

The bird came running at the three men and Donald turned and saw it from the other direction. Its eyes, Kimbra's eyes, they also glowed in the sunset, radiating furious bloodthirst. This bird was a killer and quite mad.

"Lookout!" Doctor Vare shoved Donald out of the bird's path. He had placed himself where the other man had stood. Kimbra leaped at him, accepting the substitute victim.

There was a loud thud as the bird drove its foot into Doctor Vare's torso. It looked like a martial arts attack and had a devastating effect. The cassowary used its wings for a second with no part of it on the packed earth below.

Its feet hit the ground afterward and Doctor Vare fell over. The shock from the blow had knocked the wind out of him and cracked ribs. At Kimbra's feet he met the fatal claws. In one ruthless swipe the claws tore out the man's throat and he began to bleed to death on the ground.

Kimbra looked at Donald, satanic glee in its avian gaze. A mad bird, a killer bird. The revolver clicked without firing, the first chamber empty. Theodore then fired two shots at the bird at close range, somehow missing it both times. The gunshots didn't frighten or startle the animal, this was battle and it thrived on the violent noises.

The bird jumped into the air and attacked Theodore next, knocking him over. The gun went off as his arm whipped the ground and the back of his hand struck down. The stray bullet actually hit something and Peter yelled as his cheek and ear erupted in gushing blood. His rifle clattered.

The bird now looked again at Donald. Twice it had done this and then attacked another. Now it was Donald's turn to feel its wrath. Its eyes were filled with hatred, with anger, with pure natural evil. This animal had gone bad and now it wanted the blood of men. With a squawk of combat readiness the bird then dashed at Donald.

"This is it, oh God!" Donald heard a strange air-chopping whistling sound over his own words.

As the bird was about to take him its head snapped sideways and it fell into a fragile heap at his feet. It was dead, its neck broken. Its eyes still stared up at him with unfathomable loathing. What manner of godless beast was this thing? The boomerang had landed nearby, spinning away wildly after the kill.

"Jarajara" Donald said the man's name in gratitude.

"Is it, is it dead?" Theodore had sat up, stunned and bruised but not seriously injured.

A gurgle arose from Doctor Vare as he died, his throat torn out and his blood pooled around his head. Donald went to him, realizing he would never see him again.

Donald said to him bitterly: "I loved you."