Quite suddenly the girl looked up: looked up straight into his eyes: into his staring, admiring eyes.
She backed away. In terror. Her hands, sliding along the bank of the pool, clutched at a loosened fragment of rock. She pulled the rock free; grasped it firmly.
The bush boy came walking down to the billabong. But at the water’s edge he stopped: stopped in amazement. For the lubra was snarling at him; was snarling like a cornered dingo, her nose wrinkled, her lips curled back, her eyes filled with terror. He took a hesitant step forward, saw the stone in the lubra’s hand and stopped again. Hatred was something alien to the bush boy; but he couldn’t fail to recognize the look in the lubra’s eyes. He knew, in that moment, that his body would never get its burial platform.
He felt suddenly weaker: much weaker. Things were happening that he didn’t understand: didn’t want to understand. He looked at the lubra’s frightened eyes and snarling mouth, and was appalled. The will to live drained irrevocably away.
Slowly he turned. He walked a few paces back into the desert; then he lay down in the shade of a mugga-wood wood tree.* The branches hung limply over him; the great puce-coloured flowers wept their tears of blood.
* The mugga-wood, to the Aboriginals, is the tree of sorrow, symbol of the broken heart; for its appearance is sad and drooping, and its flowers are perpetually wet with a crimson fluid, seeping out like blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE yacca wood burned quickly, and Peter had I a full-time job replenishing the fire. He couldn’t think what was keeping the others; but he hoped they’d come soon – before he ran out of firewood.
At last he saw his sister scrambling down the outcrop of rock. Even from a distance he sensed that something was wrong; and when she came slowly up to the fire and held out her hands to the blaze, he noticed about her an unnatural calm, an air of too carefully imposed restraint. For a while neither spoke; then the girl picked up a branch and started to draw ash over the flames.
‘Hey!’ Peter was indignant. ‘You’ll put it out.’
She nodded. ‘We don’t need it.’
‘Course we need it. How we going to cook for breakfast?’
‘There’s no breakfast.’
She followed the point up.
‘Listen, Peter,’ she moved closer to him. ‘There’s no food here. It’s no use staying. Let’s push off.’
He eyed her suspiciously.
‘What’s the rush? The darkie’ll get food.’
‘Listen, Pete’ – she was pleading now – ‘Let’s go by ourselves. Just you an’ me. We’ll be O.K.’
His mouth started to droop.
‘I don’t wanna leave the darkie.’
‘He doesn’t want to come, Pete. I know he doesn’t. I asked him.’
‘You sure? Cross your heart.’
‘Real sure. Cross my heart.’
He eyed her doubtfully: unconvinced.
‘How d’you ask him? You can’t talk darkie talk!’
She went on raking over the ash.
‘I tell you,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t want to come. I know.’
A week ago he’d have accepted her word; have fallen in with her plans. But not now.
‘I’m goin’ ask him myself.’ He strode off purposefully, heading for the outcrop of rock.
The girl made as if to run after him, to pull him back. Then she stopped; that, she realized, would do no good. She sat down, beside the dead fire. Her fingers plucked at the hem of her skirt.
After about ten minutes Peter came running back; out of breath.
‘Say, Mary!’ his voice was frightened. ‘The darkie’s ill. Real ill. He’s lying under a bush. An’ he won’t move.’
‘P’raps he’s asleep.’
Peter looked at her in disgust.
‘Course he’s not asleep. He’s ill. You come an’ look.’
‘No!’
The girl drew back.
‘No!’ she whispered. ‘I won’t go near him.’
They spent a miserable, frustrating day. Peter wouldn’t leave the bush boy; Mary wouldn’t go near him; and they had no food.
A little before noon the white boy went wandering off upstream, and his sister followed.
‘Where you going, Pete?’
‘I’m gonna look for fish.’
She came with him eagerly, hoping this was the first step in breaking away, in going off on their own. But Peter wouldn’t go far: after less than an hour he turned back, insisted on retracing their steps. They found no fish.
Peter spent most of the afternoon carrying palmfuls of water up from the billabong to where the bush boy lay motionless in the shade of the mugga-wood. At first the Aboriginal wouldn’t drink, but eventually he accepted a little – though Peter noticed he seemed to have difficulty in swallowing.
A couple of hours before sundown the white children went on another food hunt. This time downstream. And, more by luck than judgement, they found a cluster of the yams-with-foliage-under-the-ground. They rooted up three apiece and carried them back to the camp. After a good deal of difficulty they rekindled the fire, and covered the yams with, ash. An hour later they were eating them, while the sunset wind rustled the boxwoods, and flying phalangers zoomed from tree to tree.
Peter took one of the yams to the bush boy; but he wouldn’t eat.
He seemed to be much weaker; to have lost all interest in what was happening around him. Yet his cold was certainly no worse, and all trace of fever had vanished. He simply lay there, his dark eyes Becoming slowly more clouded, his body temperature gradually falling, and his pulse growing imperceptibly weaker. Resigned to the inevitable, he was willing himself to death.
For a long while that evening Peter sat beside him, holding his hand. There had always been a bond between the two boys – a mutual liking and understanding – and it was because of this that Peter now realized the bush boy was dying. He held his hand more tightly. After a while he noticed the bush boy’s lips; they were moving. He bent closer.
‘Arkooloolal’ The whisper was unmistakable.
Peter ran down to the billabong, cupped his hands, and brought back water. But the bush boy pushed it aside; he shook his head; with an effort he raised himself up.
‘Arkooloola.’ He pointed at Peter.
‘Me ?’ The little boy was astonished. ‘I don’t wanna drink.’
‘Arkooloola,’ the bush boy insisted. ‘Yeemara.’ He pointed first at Peter then at the hills.
It was some time before the white boy cottoned on; only when the Aboriginal scooped together a ridge in the sand to represent the hills, and traced a trail from one side to the other, did he get the gist of the message. Then he nodded. Gratefully.
‘Sure, darkie. I get you. Over the hills there’s food an’ water, Arkooloola an’ yeemara. That’s fine. Now you lie down.’
The bush boy’s eyes clouded over. He rolled on to his side, drew up his knees, and lay very still.
Peter took his hand; squeezed it reassuringly. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he got up and walked across to his sister.
She was sitting beside the fire – about two hundred yards from the mugga-wood – drawing patterns in the sand with a pointed branch. She looked up as Peter approached.
‘How is he?’
Peter was very matter of fact.
‘I guess he’ll soon be dead.’
‘Oh, no! No. No. No.’
She started to sway backward and forward, her hands over her face.
Her brother eyed her critically. Then he remembered what he’d come to ask.
‘Say, Mary! You reckon he’ll go to heaven?’
‘I don’t believe you.’ The girl’s voice was muffled. ‘He’s only got a cold.’
‘I reckon he won’t go to heaven. ’Cause he’s a little heathen. He’s not baptized.’
The girl got up: quickly. She started to pace up and down.
‘You sure he’s real ill, Pete?’
‘Course I’m sure. You come an’ see.�
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For a long time the girl was silent. Then she said slowly:
‘Yes. I’ll come.’
They walked across to the mugga-wood: to where the bush boy lay in a pool of shadow. Beside him, the girl dropped hesitantly to her knees. She looked into his face: closely: and saw that what her brother had told her was true.
She sat down. Stunned. Then very gently she eased the bush boy’s head on to her lap; very softly she began to run her fingers over and across his forehead.
The bush boy’s eyes flickered open; for a moment they were puzzled; then they smiled.
It was the smile that broke Mary’s heart: that last forgiving smile. Before, she had seen as through a glass darkly, but now she saw face to face. And in that moment of truth all her inbred fears and inhibitions were sponged away, and she saw that the world which she had thought was split in two was one.
He died in the false dawn: peacefully and without struggle: in the hour when the desert is specially still and the light is specially clear.
The girl didn’t know when he died. For she had fallen asleep. Her head had drooped, until her cheek rested on his, and her long golden hair lay tumbled about his face.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THEY buried him close to the billabong. The little boy was surprisingly matter-of-fact and practical; he insisted on the Aboriginal being christened at the same time as he was buried – ‘otherwise he mightn’t get to heaven’. Mary said nothing. She had a vague idea that it was too late for christening now; but that was something her brother need never know.
It was noon before they had finished – for the desert sand was hard to dig with boxwood branches and sharp-edged stones – and the children were tired and hungry. They had two yams left over from the night before, and these they ate: raw. Then they sat in the shade of the boxwoods and looked at each other.
It was Peter who took command. After a while he got to his feet.
‘Come on, Mary’, he said. ‘Kurura!’
‘Where to?’
‘Over the hills, of course.’
The girl looked doubtful.
‘You sure that’s the way, Pete?’
‘Sure I’m sure. The darkie told me. Over the hills there’s food an’ water.’
‘All right’, she said. ‘Let’s go.’
They started to follow the stream: the dear pellucid stream that tumbled down from the hills in alternate rapids, waterfalls and pools. All afternoon they kept close to its banks. And the ghost of the bush boy was with them in every passing plant and stone. For both children had fallen into his ways. They walked now with the bush boy’s easy, distance-eating lope; their eyes – like his – were ever questing ahead, studying the terrain, picking out the most promising leads; and every now and then – as he had done – they plucked and ate the pea-sized water-containing pods that dangled from the straggling belts of bush violet: nature’s thirst quenchers. It was the same that evening, when, an hour before sundown, they made camp. His ghost was in the yacca wood they picked for their fire; in the sun-warmed desert stones they chose for their hearth; in the roots of the wondilla grass and stalks of sugar cane they ate for supper. They lived as he had lived. Like his shadows. Adaptable as adults could never be, they made the desert their home.
They hadn’t mentioned the bush boy during the day; but now, with the flames a-flicker and the stars aglow, they missed him more; missed him with an added poignancy. Peter looked at the Southern Cross, aflame like the jewelled hilt of a sword.
‘Mary,’ he whispered. ‘Is heaven way up there? Way up beyond the stars?’
‘That’s right, Peter.’
‘You reckon the darkie’s there?’
‘Yes, Pete. I reckon he is.’
She said it automatically: to comfort her brother. But in the same moment that she said it, suddenly and unexpectedly, she believed it. More than believed it Knew it. Knew that heaven, like earth, was one.
When the children woke next morning they were hungry – they had had no meat in the last thirty-six hours, nothing more solid than vegetables and nuts. Mary woke first. She stirred the fire, tossed on a fresh supply of yacca wood, then went wandering down to the stream in search of fish.
A little above their camp, the stream widened out to form a shallow, mud-banked pool. It looked a likely place for fishing, and the girl approached it warily. A few yards short of the bank she stopped: listened. The sound of splashing was unmistakable: loud and playful. She crept forward and peered cautiously through the rushes.
In the centre of the pool three of the strangest creatures were playfully gambolling over the water. The girl looked at them in amazement – they might have come from another world – then she ran noiselessly back to fetch her brother.
Soon the two children were watching the platypus at play.
There were three of them: mother, father, and half-grown child. The adults were about twenty inches long; four-footed, fur-covered, and with enormous duck-like beaks. They were aquatic mammals – a link with the prehistoric past – web-footed egglayers; teat-less milk producers – the lactic fluid being exuded through the female’s skin pores; poison-fanged amphibians, with fangs in the hollow of the male’s hind feet. No wonder the children stared in amazement!
Normally the platypus were timid creatures, inordinately shy; but now, confident that they were unobserved, they dived, leap-frogged, and darted about with gay agility. Then quite suddenly, quicker than sight, they vanished; for Peter, edging forward to improve his view, had trodden on and snapped a twig. It was a very small snap – the children never even heard it – but in a flash the platypus dived: dived deep: went snaking through underwater entrances to their burrow beneath the bank. There, in the maze of their smooth, highly-polished tunnels, they were safe.
The little boy looked at his sister.
‘Reckon they’re O.K. to eat?’
‘Oh, Pete! I couldn’t! Besides, we’d never catch them.’
They agreed to forgo breakfast in favour of a swim.
Peter jumped feet-first into the pool. After a while he started to mimic the platypus. He pursed out his lips, quacked and bobbed and splashed, showering his sister with spray, driving her laughing on to the bank. His miming became more hilarious, more abandoned – shades of the bush boy and lyre bird – until at last the girl joined in. Together they squawked and splashed to exhaustion; then they lay on the bank side by side in the drying warmth of the sun.
But they couldn’t, Peter knew, stay by the pool for ever. And soon they were on their way, following the course of the stream, climbing the gently-rising valley.
At first the valley was well-shaded and softly-coloured: aglow with the gold of casuarinas, the creamy white of bamberas and the pink of gums and eucalyptus. But as the children climbed higher, the vegetation gradually became more stunted and the colours harsher, cruder. By midday they were traversing a rocky barren terrain, its only trees the drooping mugga-woods, its only flowers the everlasting daisies: the flowers that never die; that live on, even after their petals, leaves, stalks, and roots have crumbled and withered away. The children grew hotter, tireder, and hungrier. It was lucky that Mary had had the foresight to gather a cache of bauble nuts, and these they ate, soon after midday, in the shade of a slab of rock that overhung the stream.
The stream had become a good deal smaller by now; and looking up-valley the children could guess at its source, in a shallow cwm about two hundred feet above them. Mary looked at the hills, shading her eyes against the glare of the sun.
‘Sure you know the way, Pete?’
‘Course I’m sure. The darkie told me. Over the hills.’
The girl said nothing. The hills, she knew, were higher than they looked. And they’d soon be losing the stream. She wished they had something in which to carry water.
They rested for a couple of hours, then pushed on.
The valley became barer, bleaker, progressively less inviting. Yet even here, in its upper reaches, it had a certain beauty; not its
former beauty of woods and shades and gentle colours; but a bold, bizarre beauty; a kaleidoscope of strange pigments and exciting, unexpected contrasts. Soon the valley slopes fanned out, exposing new vistas: wider horizons: the whole range of the hills, startlingly detailed in the clear, hazeless air. Dead ahead there swelled up a smooth, symmetrical hummock, its slopes, flecked with mica, reflecting the sun like a massed array of heliographs. To the left rose a rugged mound of granite, smooth and scalloped as a magnified Dartmoor tor. While to the right towered a fantastic pyramid of wine-veined quartz: alternate layers of crimson, grey, and black.
The children moved slowly forward; dwarfed by the immensity of the hills.
A couple of hours before sundown they came to the cwm; and here, in the saucer-shaped depression between the slopes of mica and quartz, they made camp. It wasn’t a very inviting camp-site, being boggy and devoid of shade, but at least they were close to water – of a kind. They had hoped the source of the stream would be a cool, refreshing trickle filtering out of the rock; instead it turned out to be a brackish, stagnant pool, its surface filmed by the oil of decomposing leaves. For a long time the children regarded it with silent disgust. Then the ghost of the bush boy came to their aid.
‘Say, Pete,’ the girl had a sudden thought. ‘Remember that pool way back in the salt-pan. Remember how the darkie sucked up water with a reed. We can do that.’
They searched for and found a couple of hollow reeds: reeds of the watermat grass. Mary remembered to plug one end with moss (as a filter); then they plunged the reeds deeply into the pool, and sucked. The water they drew up was clean and cool.
Their thirst was slaked. Their hunger remained.
It was Peter who, purely by luck, solved the food problem. He was idly stirring the pool with his water-mat reed – and dragging all sorts of leaf-mould and water plant to the surface – when he noticed a queer little prawn-like creature clambering out of the stirred-up water.
Walkabout Page 7
