George Granger shook his head, watching Mel Lawrence leading his packhorses with the woman now in one of his wagons and holding her own chain. He knew Bradley was angry about her loss, but no one had made him gamble her away. He’d lost a terrific amount of money, but no one had forced him to keep playing. He suspected that Mel Lawrence had somehow cheated the man, but there was no proof since Bradley had also won several hands.
* * * * *
Alinta watched the big, white man, wondering about him as the wagon lurched and dipped along on the track. He held onto a long line of those odd animals that had packs tied to them. Occasionally, he looked at Alinta, saw her watching him, and smiled while nodding to her. Later, he handed off the rope to someone else to lead the animals and went to help with the odd baaing animals that were creating so much dust.
Her mother had once explained that there were Creators that brought all people into being and that the elders kept the sacred stories for them. She also explained that the first time a mother felt a baby move in her womb, the animal she saw first would be its totem and be part of its life forever; its personality intertwined in the animal’s spirit. Alinta wondered what her totem spirit was. She hadn’t received her totem in the tribe and been told special stories that would help her become the woman she was meant to be. She wondered if her baby would be affected by this. She knew she had seen a hawk the day her baby moved, and she was convinced that he or she would have excellent, far-reaching eyesight and would be fierce. She wondered often if her own lack of a totem would affect her child’s totem and make it weaker. Today, she felt her baby moving again after she had been gazing at the big white man. She attributed something to that but didn’t fully understand it yet. Something about this new man, this Mel, was part of her child’s destiny. She fervently wished she had an elder to ask.
CHAPTER SIX
At the next town, Mel inquired where they might find a blacksmith to remove the chains from the younger woman. Several people looked at this man disapprovingly, but as he wasn’t holding the chains, they shrugged, and someone finally gave him the information he was asking for. Word spread that a large flock of Merino sheep was being held outside of town along with some of the most beautiful horses anyone had ever seen. Some people hiked to see the sight. Seeing such fine sheep and horses being taken into the Outback would provide gossip for many years to come. The name Twin Station meant nothing to any of them, but now, they had a name when they talked about it.
Alinta didn’t understand that the man was going to remove the collar or ankle chain, and Mel had to hold her down as the man used brute strength to pound out the pins holding them together. Only when Mel let her go and opened the collar around her neck did she understand that her new man was having it removed. The wool that had been wadded under the iron to keep her from chaffing fell to the ground. She rubbed where it had been, wondering if Mel would have another put on. She immediately felt the loss of weight from the heavy iron around her neck, which despite the wool, had chaffed her skin. Then Mel had the chains around her ankles removed. She watched as Mel talked with the very strong but dirty man who had pounded out the white man’s stone, and they appeared to work out a deal with Mel leaving the collar and chains behind. Alinta didn’t know it, but the iron could be melted down and used again, and the blacksmith valued it.
Mel watched the woman, wondering if she understood she was free. She followed Mel unquestioningly, but then, she didn’t speak the language. Mel went into a store, and Alinta was immediately intimidated by all the unfamiliar sights and smells. Everything reeked of the white man. She had no comprehension of any of it, and she stood as close to Mel as she could. She could see others looking at her, frowning at her, and she didn’t understand that either. She didn’t understand what she had done wrong that they would frown at her so.
Alinta stood still as Mel held the white man’s clothing up against her body, wondering what he was doing. Mel purchased ready-made shirts as well as miner’s pants and underwear. Alinta smiled for the first time when Mel tried hats on her head, looking up at them in wonder, her eyes almost rolling back as she tried to see them since they covered her eyes at first. One by one, Mel tried hats on the smaller woman’s head until she found one that fit. It was Carmen who found it and handed it to the man to try it on the Aborigine. Alinta wasn’t aware it was a child’s stockman’s hat, but she liked it and was pleased when Mel smiled at the fit and left it on her head. Carmen smiled too, seeing the woman’s delight over the small hat. After paying for his purchases, Mel gestured, and Alinta followed him out of the store. As they headed back to the camp outside of town, Alinta had to trot to keep up with the taller man’s long strides. Her legs felt very different without the weight of the chains on them and slowing her down.
Mel allowed Alinta other freedoms as well. Her gathering stick had been lost when she was captured, and Alinta searched among the deadfalls for another that she could fashion using stones to smooth it. Mel watched, wishing she could ask the Aborigine what she was doing. Still, the word game, as he termed it, was coming along, and Alinta had a phenomenal memory. Mel was pleased when Carmen and her children joined in on the game, teaching the aboriginal woman many words he hadn’t thought to teach her. Alinta remembered all the words she had acquired, only having to repeat them two or three times before they were hers. Mel was surprised that the woman had no words for dog or horse in her language. Apparently, they didn’t have these animals where the Aborigine came from. The closest she came to dog was dingo, and that seemed universal. The wild dogs were usually heard at night as they trailed their large flock for a time, but the combination of man’s scent and dogs seemed to be a deterrent. However, they were traveling and coming into other territories where more of the wild dogs existed, and these new dogs tried their patience by attempting to make a meal of their sheep.
Alinta took an interest in their cooking under Mel’s tutelage. She was amazed at the bounty in their wagons. The rice and peas were a favorite of hers, but she didn’t really like the fat from the mutton, preferring the meat to be nearly raw rather than well done. Salt pork was a taste that left her in awe, and beef was her favorite meat. She searched for and found seeds and other things off the trail as Mel allowed her to roam. She watched as Mel cooked meat for the dogs nightly, and when Mel offered to show her how to do this chore, she learned quickly, helping with this messy and disagreeable job when she realized Mel wanted her to.
“She’ll have to go eventually, won’t she?” Carmen asked as they rode their horses at the front of the column, the dust that the sheep kicked up on the track too much to ride drag too often.
“I hope she will be happy to be returned to her family,” Mel said, watching the Aborigine effortlessly club a lizard and put it into the bag she had given her. Alinta had been amazed at the fine bag. It was much finer than any she could have woven from spinifex. She had turned it over and over after Mel gave it to her, examining it closely.
“You think they will want her back?” Carmen knowingly asked.
“I have no idea. That’s one thing I hope to ask her as she learns English.” Mel did worry. The woman, more a girl, seemed cheerful, well-meaning, and bright. Did she want to go back to her family? There were many things Mel wanted to ask her, but the language barrier was only a part of their problem. The woman didn’t seem to have what Mel would have termed common sense. She didn’t seem to understand that things could be broken, that not everything was made of iron, and Alinta had cringed in terror when she accidentally broke a bottle and their cook, one of Carmen’s men, had started yelling at her in consternation over the broken glass. The pretty phrases in Spanish had sounded musical, but the cook’s tone had frightened the wild woman.
“Easy there, easy. It can be replaced, right, Jose?” Mel asked as he came running up, and Alinta cowered, expecting a blow to fall. He pulled the girl up into his arms, towering over her by at least a foot, and his heart went out to the terrified girl.
“Si, si,” he s
aid contritely, having sworn because he was upset over the mess of glass in his carefully prepared food. He began shoveling it into the fire. After all, no one could eat food that had glass in it. “I am sorry, Alinta,” he said, trying to touch her on the arm, but she cringed away. His face told how sorry he was as he watched her.
Alinta might not understand the words, but the tone told a lot more, and his body language gave away a lot more than he intended. She looked at him wonderingly, understanding him as little clues gave her ideas about what was being said. She realized that Mel was holding her but not so hard that she couldn’t get away if she wanted. She looked up at the big man in as much wonder as she had looked at Jose. Realizing no one was angry at her, and no one was going to strike her, she relaxed. The concern she heard in Mel’s voice towards the man named Jose helped her begin to fit these things together in her mind. Things had changed a lot for this primitive woman, and she was trying to figure out these new white people.
Alinta could see that Mel and Carmen were vastly different white people, and although the Hispanic people were dark too—and getting darker from the hot Australian sun—they were still a lot lighter than her own people. She didn’t think of them as Hispanic because that hadn’t been explained to her, but at the same time, she wouldn’t have understood it yet. Mel was obviously one of those white men but was nothing like the white men who had captured her. His kindness alone intrigued the aboriginal woman.
“Did Alinta do something bad?” Rachel, Carmen’s young daughter, asked worriedly as she came running up.
“No, it was an accident,” Mel explained to the little girl, his voice softening.
Alinta was fascinated by Carmen’s children, not having seen white children up close before. The white children she had seen in the towns they had gone through never came near the wild woman. The offer of friendship between the town’s children and Carmen’s children was temporary, for an evening if they were near enough to a town or station that happened to have children, but it was immediately accepted, and Alinta watched avidly as they played together. Remembering her own childhood that seemed so long ago, she wondered at the child growing inside of her. She was aware of it now, even if her belly had only a slight bulge.
Alinta left the safety of Mel’s arms to help Jose. He was at first surprised by her attempts to help him clean up, then she cut herself on the glass, not understanding that it was sharp, and the shards were dangerous.
“She’s bleeding! Alinta’s bleeding!” Rachel announced on seeing the blood.
Alinta put her thumb wonderingly in her mouth. She tasted the food, the dirt, and the blood on it, then immediately spit it out.
Mel gently pulled the thumb out of her mouth and handed her a handkerchief, showing her how to wrap it around the bleeding appendage. The red color of the material seemed to fascinate the woman, and she stared at it. Mel applied pressure, amused at the primitive woman’s fascination and wondering what would happen to her when they parted ways. He too had noticed the rounding belly and knew it wasn’t just from their good food. At first, he had wondered if it was from starvation, but then common sense had told him that Bradley must have impregnated the poor woman. He felt almost paternal towards the young woman, but at the same time, he knew he cared for her and worried what would happen when they found more aboriginal people and she went with them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They continued traveling. Alinta had been surprised when Mel asked rather than telling her to ride in the wagon, but it had also confused her. She had perfectly good legs, and for the most part, she preferred to walk, so she could gather things. She had never considered riding in anything before, mostly because she had never seen a wagon, a cart, or a horse before she’d been captured.
As they made their way west, Alinta noticed that the weather was getting hotter and hotter. Watching the others, she could see they weren’t used to the heat. It didn’t bother her in the least, but occasionally, she wished to take off the shirt Mel had provided her with. She had several now, all carefully rolled away in the bedroll Mel had given her to use. Alinta didn’t understand the concept of ownership and didn’t consider that any of these things belonged to her. In her mind, they were simply things that Mel had asked her to use or transport. She diligently rolled them up daily as they got underway, and she changed the shirt every few days as Mel had explained to her. She didn’t understand about washing out the soiled or dirty clothes until Mel showed her. She really liked her hat because it helped to fan away the pesky flies that were so prevalent in the Outback. She liked how the shadows played as she wore the hat on her head. She saw that everyone had a hat, even the children, and she wore hers proudly.
They returned to one of the towns Alinta had passed through with the other group of men. The ferry was there again, something Alinta didn’t understand the first time, and she had been terrified when the wagon had been pushed onto the floating platform with her on it. The water under it unnerved her. She would have preferred to try to cross under her own legs, but could see it was deep enough, dirty enough, and wide enough that she might have had difficulty. She thought she heard them refer to this place as Menindee, and then Mel confirmed that, pointing at the town and repeating the word until Alinta tried it hesitantly. Her knowledge of their words was increasing. She listened at night, not understanding most of the stories they told but catching a familiar word here and there. She wasn’t confident enough to ask Mel what some words meant, but she continued to listen and observe, her dark eyes darting about all the time in wonderment.
The furry animals, sheep Mel called them, went across the wooden platform to the other side of the river first, then the platform came back and they rolled on the wagons and carts. It took many trips to get them across as there were so many sheep. Alinta overheard Mel talking to Carmen.
“Someday, they will have steel rails to towns such as this,” Mel commented, looking back as the town receded across the river.
“I hope it doesn’t ruin the land,” Carmen agreed as she imagined it.
Alinta wondered what steel rails meant. She knew that the collar she had worn was iron since Mel had given her that word, but she also used the word steel for the white man’s stone sometimes. It was very confusing.
Alinta liked the days when they stopped to let the sheep graze, every three days or so. It gave her time to scavenge and collect seeds and fruits that the white people didn’t seem to understand. She shared them with Mel when he was willing, but the bugs, grubs, lizards, and snakes were of no interest to anyone but Alinta. This bounty was not only delicious to the woman but added to the white man’s food, which was helping her put on weight that her baby desperately needed.
Alinta became depressed as they approached the areas where she had last seen her parents and brother. She had hoped to find some sign of them. She was certain she had found their last camping spot, but it had been too long, and the weather had erased any signs of them being there. They continued down the endless track west, and she was far from her tribes’ hunting grounds. Even if she could find her way there, she knew she could never go back. She knew they wouldn’t welcome her.
Alinta watched Mel, who treated her differently than the men from before. Mel was so nice to her. She knew all she could do was learn his ways and hope he would want to keep her. She was also beginning to realize that Mel was maybe not what he seemed. In fact, she was certain that Mel wasn’t a man at all. Her tribe, in fact, all tribes, had revered people like this, who had a spirit living inside them of the opposite sex. She understood this, and it didn’t bother her. She didn’t discuss it with Mel, but only because Mel didn’t say anything about it. There was also the language barrier, and while she was with Bradley, she hadn’t bothered to learn any words in their language. With Mel, who not only encouraged her but helped her to learn the words, she was feeling the need to communicate with the white man.
Alinta watched as Carmen’s children rode horses. These animals were fascinating to her. She found th
em beautiful but was afraid to approach too closely, even when Mel asked if she wanted to ride. She preferred to be far from them in the back of the wagon when she did ride, but the next wagon was right behind her and was also being pulled by horses or oxen, another word she had trouble trying to pronounce. The children seemed unafraid of these horses, relishing the opportunity to ride them at every opportunity. She could see very clearly that these were not some weird aberration of horse-child or horse-man as her family had all thought when they first saw them long ago.
Mel tried to convince Alinta to wear boots or shoes, trying several different sizes on her small feet, even shoes the children wore, but the Aborigine didn’t understand the concept. Mel finally realized the soles of the woman’s feet were as hard as any leather she could put on them to protect them, but when Alinta got a thorn in her foot one day, she made her ride in the wagon for a few days after it was extracted. Alinta was soon back to walking beside the long column, collecting her seeds, fruits, and various bugs that Mel found unappealing. The wild fruits, vegetables, and seeds had been a delicious addition to the rice and peas they ate with the mutton that was so readily available. One of the men pointed out that the natural fruits were a good way to ward off scurvy, but at first, Alinta didn’t understand when Mel and several others encouraged her to find more fruits for the entire party. Once it was clear that she was being asked to find more of these fruits, she was delighted she could help. Mel smiled to see her in the long shirt, proudly wearing her child-sized stockmen’s hat and collecting fruit in the sack Mel had provided. Her needs, wants, and desires were simple.
Outback Born Page 6
