‘Mummuk?’
‘Farewell . . . in intertribal lingo hereabouts . . . and used by most whites, for that matter. Means simply: I go. Better add to it yawarra, seeing we’ll soon be meeting again . . . means till return. Mummuk, yawarra, young fellow.’
‘Mummuk, yawarra . . . Mullaka. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?’
Jeremy chuckled again: ‘Means Old Man . . . but with respect and affection.’
‘Well, that’s what I feel for you.’
Jeremy grinned, waved a big hand, went into the shed.
IV
Jeremy turned out at first light, to find Bobwirridirridi awaiting him, clad in khaki again, a scarecrow figure against the luminescent milky East. The topknot merely nodded to Jeremy’s greeting. However, there was a flash of tongue and a cackle for the bottle of brandy he carried. The old man fell in behind as Jeremy headed for the kitchen. The place was ablaze with acetylene light and clamorous with activity.
Bread-baking was in progress, the bakers Willy Ah Loy and Prindy. Both greeted Jeremy’s appearance with evident pleasure, then with very different expressions that of the scarecrow suddenly on the stairs outside. Jeremy said, ‘I’m off home. How’s the pot?’ Then noting the changed faces, the one with Mongoloid eyes hooded and lips compressed to a crack, the other with Caucasian eyes that looked even odder in the Australoid setting, wide as with wonder, he added, ‘I’m taking the Pookarakka with me. Can you give him a bite . . . bread and milk?’
Prindy gave the answer by leaping to cut a loaf. Jeremy got a couple of pannikins, set them on the table, sat down. Willy cast a glance after Prindy that might have signalled disapproval, but only said, ‘I mek tea . . . fresh brea’n’butter, eh?’
As Prindy was about to dart out with the filled quart-pot, Jeremy grabbed at him: ‘Here, sonny.’ He added brandy. Prindy sniffed it, smiled with pleasure, then ran out.
Willy, coming to share the drink with Jeremy, looking out after the boy, who with his companion had vanished, muttered, ‘Wha’s matter he wan’ him dat old bugger?’ Meeting Jeremy’s questioning glance, he added: ‘He been get up dark-time go out look him.’ He paused: ‘Might-be dat old bastard sing him.’
Jeremy took it with a blink, said, ‘Well, I’ll be taking him away. I don’t think he’ll be coming back this way.’
Looking out into the milkiness, Ah Loy drew a deep breath, exhaled as he rose: ‘I don’ know.’ Whether intentionally or not, his eyes sought the rifle slung on the wall, a heavy Winchester, used for killing the kitchen beef. He got tea and bread and goat’s butter. They talked races till Jeremy left. Prindy did not return.
As they came out of the kitchen they saw the odd pair down in the woodyard.
‘Look-him!’ growled Willy.
Jeremy called, ‘You right, Pookarakka . . . me two-feller go now.’
The pair rose from squatting, came up together, the old man laden with his weapons and other gear. Jeremy waited at the bottom of the steps, while Willy stood staring from above. The pair had eyes only for Jeremy, fixing him as they came up. He said, ‘You two-feller mate, eh?’
‘Belong me mekullikulli,’ came the cackle.
‘Wha’ name . . . my boy, eh?’
Prindy answered, ‘I call him Granny.’
‘Ah, yes? Well . . . I’m taking your Granny to Lily Lagoons. You see him Race Time. All right, Pookarakka.’ Jeremy turned to wave to Willy, set off back to the motor shed. Again Bobwirridirridi fell in behind, but this time with his mekullikulli at his side.
The old man was just as withdrawn in the matter of travelling, declining to get in the front with Jeremy. He was placed on sacks, with death’s head sticking out from a loosened corner of the dust cover. Jeremy got in, glanced back through the peep-window in the canvas hood, to see the pair taking leave in the manner of Aborigines of close relationship, smoothing each other’s arms. He started up. Driving away, he waved to Prindy, and got a short wave in return. The waving that continued evidently was intended for his passenger. He muttered to himself, ‘An odd association . . . but a couple of odd ones, eh?’
The East was gilding as they passed through the home-paddock gate. Jeremy had to get out and open it. Evidently the Pookarakka was not that civilised as to know it was a boong’s job. A short distance from the gate they turned southward, trailing a golden dust cloud. Thus till the Sun, the Earth Mother, came fairly popping from the plain, lighting the grass it seemed, the fire rushing to engulf them, but dying away just short. Soon afterwards they turned westward, came to the creek, dry but for a small waterhole dammed by the concreted causeway. A group of cattle were to be seen racing up the shadow-purpled sandy bed beyond. Far beyond was a heliotrope line, already wobbly in mirage. The wall of the Northern Plateau.
Ahead the bleached plain rolled like a sea as the sunlight swept it, white crests above long blue troughs. The trees were few enough to count, and really stunted, but magnified by isolation and the tricks of early light so as to stand as little giants. Here and there specks rose like fragments of bursting puff balls, to become kites and crows disturbed in feasting on swollen little humps of red or roan — the calves that had died when their mothers had dried up.
After a while there was to be seen what at first looked like another plateau wall ahead. Out of it rose a purple globe. Then the globe turned silver, and was seen to be a windmill. The wall proved to be cattle stringing along the horizon.
Although there was as yet no wind, the mill was turning. Then the force that was turning it became visible. A flock of birds, wheeling around it, settling on its sails, only to be started into flight again by gravitation. Some of the birds swept out in darting flight to meet the car with its high-flying tail of silver dust. They were corellas, pinkish white cockies with flashes of crimson under wings — cousins to the galahs, not so ruddy, because they hadn’t been swallowed by Tchamala in the Dream Time, as legend had it, and not game to live anywhere but out on plains, lest Tchamala, who haunted the creeks and rivers he made, might deal with them as with their gully-gully relatives.
Cattle raised heads from the water-troughs. Some tossed their heads and bolted. The so-called tank, the reservoir, was a hollow mound of earth scooped up about it, vivid green in contrast with the barrenness about, because fenced off. Within the fence stood the mill, with a shed fitted out to shelter stockmen in wet weather, open in the middle, with sapling table and lean-to fireplace, enclosed at each end as sleeping quarters separately for whites and blacks. Escorted by the screaming cockies, Jeremy did a turn in the car about the troughs, inspecting the cattle. No evidence of sickness here. He stopped to lean out and ask his passenger how he did. Bobwirridirridi’s death’s head, grey with dust, split in a grin.
Here they left the main track, which swung away southward, to continue on westward by a track much less used. Again there was a wall on the horizon, but of more substance than the last, as eventually revealed. Trees and rocks. Here was limestone country. Soon they were amongst huge outcrops of rock, like the grey tenements of city slums, only that they were thickly grown about with greenery. The road went tortuously here, with ruts and bumps to cause everything in the back to bounce. Jeremy drove slowly. At length, when they came to a creek where water flowed through limey ropes, he pulled up, got out and said, ‘Too rough ridin’ in the back there, Pookarakka . . . more-better you come in front, eh?’
The scarecrow rose up from the canopy, then bent and hauled out spears and other gear. Jeremy said, ‘Leave him.’
The red eyes fixed him, then turned to measure the distance to the ground. Like a grey spider Bobwirridirridi clambered down, reached up and got his equipment.
‘What you goin’ to do, old-man?’ asked Jeremy.
‘Me go look-about.’
‘What about you come station . . . I give you tucker.’
‘By’n’by.’
‘I want a yarn with you.’
The topknot nodded, while the eyes searched the iridescent water.
‘You go
look-about Snake Cave, eh?’
With eyes still on the water, Bobwirridirridi went a few paces along the low bank, to a clear spot, where, looking like a crouching spider, he bent and drank deeply.
Rising again, he belched, then looked at Jeremy with a grin, cackling, ‘Proper-lee . . . numberr-one!’
‘Rainbow water, eh? Good for Snake Man.’
Another belch.
‘What you goin’ to do about soft tucker.’
‘Me find him.’
‘Spone you come station, I give you swag tucker, bring you back.’
Bobwirridirridi came back, bent to pick up his belongings.
‘All right, I’ll get along then, Pookarakka.’ Jeremy thrust out his hand. The red coals met the grey eyes. ‘Mummuk, yawarra.’
Bobwirridirridi took the hand lightly, grinned: ‘Mummuk, yawarra, Mullaka.’ He began to load himself. Jeremy got back into the car, started up. When he looked out again — nothing. For a moment he stared, then with a shake of his head, slipped into gear, drove off.
He came to a place where the ground was paved with great slabs of limestone, all encrusted with dried greenish stuff that would be the roped growth in water. Twisted trees grew from interstices, showing that here a great volume of water flowed in wet season. No water now. The slabs gave out a hollow sound to the running of the utility. He crossed slowly by a fairly level line of slabs heaved up somewhat from the rest to form a sort of bar.
Then the limestone masses and thick scrub thinned out, giving glimpses of open country ahead. Here was quite different terrain, the soil yellowish volcanic stuff, sparkling with quartz and mica. From here the red wall of the Plateau could be seen plainly to the right. Intervening was a long low range, towards which the track was leading. Then ahead there was to be seen water, just silver glimpses among emerald seeming solid masses of reed at first. The track ran to skirt the water on the northern side, that is along the foot of the low red range. Miles of water there were soon seen to be, stretching away westward, water blue with the sky and electric heliotrope with masses of floating lilies. A few birds rose and wheeled. But that did not mean the birds were few. They were in masses on the water like the lilies, black birds, black and white, white, red, blue: geese and duck and ibis and jabiru and egret and crane.
The long low hill came slanting in, revealing itself as bare not so much by nature as by the hand of man, civilised man. The deep cuts in its slope, the heaps of rock on its summit, were much too rectilinear. Then was to be seen on the flat, stretching right from the foot of the hill into the water, an expanse of rubble, obviously the detritus of considerable mining. Further on, heaps of the rock of the hill that were bright orange in contrast with the dull brick-red showed that mining was still in progress. However, there was no such litter as must have been formerly, the washing of spoil evidently being done on top, to which a heavy pipe ran from the water. Here the slope was much more gradual, with a track running up a ridge. At the foot were several sheds, back some fifty yards from the water, and also, amongst a clump of small tea-trees and bottle-brushes, a group of native humpies. Jeremy swung in here.
Movement in the camp. Under a bark shelter, beside an ashy fire barely smoking, squatted a couple of skinny dusky figures, legs tucked under buttocks in blackfellow style. One was an old man, white-haired, white-whiskered, deeply cicatrised, completely naked. The other was an oldish woman, grey, with flaps of breasts, also naked, but with a black and white goose wing hiding her pudendum. Jeremy drew up, leaned out, called, ‘Goooday, Jallyeri?’
The man answered, ‘Goottay, Mullaka.’ The woman raised a slim dark chocolate hand to half-hide her face.
Jeremy glanced at one of the bark gunyahs, with entrance just big enough to admit someone crawling. In the shadowy inside could be seen another dusky figure, prone. A glitter of watching eyes. Jeremy asked, ‘Ol’Goomun all right?’
‘Him all right, Mullaka.’
‘You don’t want to come back yet?’
‘No more yet.’
‘Race Time, eh?’
‘Yu.’
‘Tobacco?’
The dark hand that held the goose wing let go to rise and extend in a graceful gesture, pink palm up. Jeremy turned to get several sticks of the trade tobacco called niki-niki from a box on the shelf above the seat. The man rose with a spidery movement and came to get it. Handing it over, Jeremy said, ‘You savvy that old Pookarakka, Bobwirridirridi.’
The eyes in their deep sockets glinted like water in a well.
Jeremy jerked his head backwards: ‘Him there long o’ limestone.’
The eyes blinked. The comment was made in indrawn breath: ‘Eh, look out!’
‘He no-more come this-a-way yet, I reckon. I think he go paint him Snake Cave.’ A slight nod.
‘Oh, well . . . you all right, eh? I’ll get along. Mummuk, yawarra.’ Jeremy slipped into gear, swung back to the main track, ran on beside the blazing blue water.
Hills and billabongs gave way to thickly timbered sandstone country, red sandy soil with a scatter of dark rocks. Deep ruts a short distance away showed where heavy traffic had gone through, many years ago, judging by the size of the trees that had reclaimed the right of way. Here the escarpment of the Plateau was no more than a mile away, to be glimpsed through the trees as splashes of crimson, orange, purple, where it angled to the sun. A well-beaten track branched off towards the wall. He did not take it, but kept on, with a southward turning. After a mile or so he came into yellow-soiled open forest, when he disturbed an emu with a yellow striped family at heel. A goanna raced him down the middle of the road at a good twenty-five, then gave up with a mighty spring to a stringybark.
The forest ended abruptly, to reveal a steel gate in a long barbed wire fence. A broad paddock lay ahead. He stopped to open the gate, drove on. Bovine stock in no great number, but of a variety of breeds, European and Asiatic, were scattered about, looking up to watch his progress rolling a golden ball behind him. At distance beyond the paddock, a couple of miles perhaps, timber in a wobbly blue line marked the horizon. Another gate, this six feet high in a high netting fence. He let himself through.
In here the grass was green, irrigated, as to be seen from busy sprinklers. Here were no bovines, but beasts of many other species: horses, a few donkeys, kangaroos and wallabies, stalking birds, brolgas, bustards, an old emu that limped badly as it ran. The horses were mostly out in the middle, lined up at what was soon seen to be the railings of a race track. A couple of horses with riders were galloping within. When the horses outside became aware of the approaching vehicle, they turned to stare. Then a number came trotting to meet it at the gate.
As Jeremy drew up at the gate, the horses shoved in snuffling and whinnying. He put out a hand. Two of the beasts held back the others with snapping and lashing, gave noses to his touch, then turned teeth on each other, one a tubby bay mare, the other a rangy black stallion. He talked to them as to human beings: ‘Never stop squabbling, do you. Time you grew up, you old buggers . . . eh, eh, don’t bite me!’
Meantime the riders had come up. One, a shiny young blackboy, opened the gate from his saddle, the other, a crossbred young man with peculiar tan colouring, was having difficulty with his horse, a big roan. Jeremy drove through, while the blackboy pushed back the other horses. He pulled up again. The big roan sniffed, extended his neck, came a few steps, then stopped. Jeremy held out his hand again. The horse snuffled, but would approach no nearer. Jeremy asked the rider, ‘Giving you trouble, Darcy?’
Playin’ up a bit, Mullaka. You like to quiet him?’ The young man had the grey Delacy eyes. One side of his face was badly scarred, evidently from burning.
Jeremy answered, ‘Want a bit of breakfast first. Put him out with the others, and get another team and have a race. That’ll punish the bugger, to be out of it.’
Darcy giggled. Jeremy started off again, across the course. Beyond the far railings the homestead bulked, green and white. As he approached the other gate, movement was to be
seen behind the rails. Then small figures popped up on the rails to either side. The gate was opened for him. He increased speed, came tootling the horn, while massed black and brindle faces split to show gleaming teeth with bright eyes. As he went through, waving and laughing back, the children yelled, ‘Mullaka . . . Mullaka!’ He kept on.
To the left were small stockyards, to the right a big fenced garden plot, one half of it a lucerne patch under sprinklers, the rest orchard and kitchen garden, stretching away to the bush timber. High concrete tanks and a windmill stood in the garden. He passed the yards. Now on the left were a group of neat cottages, shaded by big exotic trees of many types, to the right several sheds, ahead a grove of huge old mangoes. Black and brindle adults waved from the cottages. He tooted, ran on and through the grove.
He came into full view of the Big House, the rear of it. The front gate could be seen to the left, in a high netting fence, beyond bright patches of flower-garden. The house was truly big and well constructed, with two floors, the bottom glassed in, the top, under the big low-eaved bungalow roof, enclosed with wooden louvres. Down below was further sheltered with out-jutting trellis thickly grown with vines of several varieties, fruiting and flowering: granadillo, monsterio deliciosa, passion-fruit.
He did not keep going to the house, but swung to the right towards a very different building, this one low and long, in modern style, of asbestos and rippled glass. He ran the utility into a port attached to the place. In the comparative silence falling with the cutting of the motor suddenly there were the sounds of the place itself: the bird-calls from grove and orchard, distant calling of children and what could almost be felt, like a heartbeat, the beat of the life force here.
Coming from the car, carrying his dunnage, which largely consisted of metal boxes of instruments and medicines, heading for a long back verandah, Jeremy cocked eye and ear towards the source of the beat, as if measuring its strength — Home, Home, home, a-home, home, home, a-home, home, home! The little power-house was plain to see beneath its array of heavy feeder cables, just off the verandah and just inside the garden, the fence of which ran parallel to this annexe.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 11
