They came to another gubbindah wiyan just before noon, and went below to pay their respects to the keeper and drink their fill. Here was the beginning of the end of the region of flaggy rock. A short way off it ended suddenly, to become a red plain, timbered with the dwarf tough stuff of deserts, the gidjia, wilga, mulga, with here and there a bottle-tree looking over the tops of the others with tiny branches making them appear rather like old-men kangaroos taking stock of things. This was the proper Frog Country, George said. Soon they would see the petrified Frog Men. They went on. The earth they trod now was not merely red, but a mixture of reds of every hue, not merely mixed, but in streaks and patches, comprised of tiny polished granules that glistened so that every one might be an opal or an agate, heaped up, some of it, in large purplish mounds that were the nest of meat-ants, the only ground creatures, apparently, to inhabit the waste.
Then suddenly there were the Frog Men peeping, blue humps in the distance: one, two, three. George named them: Karra Beral, the Boss, Barra Beral, Binga Beral. Then a whole horde peeping. Prindy, by his nodding head, was silently counting them, in the way of the kuttabah: around thirty. How would the kuttabah in his cleverness account for thirty large chunks of rock standing in the midst of a terrain where nothing else in stone was larger than a grain of rice?
The rocks reddened as approached, and took on very much the shape of squatting frogs, with heads all turned in the same direction: northwest. George said they were facing that way in expectation of the rain that at last would come to break their long long limbo. The rocks occupied an area of about half a mile square, the vegetation of which, although similar to that of the rest of the plain, was of much denser and bigger growth. There were numerous bottle-trees, all carved with Aboriginal symbols, and kapok trees galore on the pods of which hordes of green lorikeets, hanging upside down and looking like half-ripe fruit themselves, were feasting. The lorries saw them and rose up in alarm, but settled down when it appeared that the intruders were not interested in them. George said they would bag what they wanted when good and ready. The birds would have to home to water, he said, a long way from here, on one of the heads of the Queen Victoria. He jerked his jaw west-north-westward. They would stop eating and sit preening a while before they took off in a flock. While eating they were watchful, like all other creatures. Preening they would be preoccupied, only waiting for the leader’s signal. That would be the time to get them, each to find a bunch perched together, and simultaneously to put boomerangs into them. Meantime they would make camp under one of the bigger rocks, would get water from a bottle-tree, and collect pituri, which grew under the rocks, and which George had not had a whiff of in too long.
They chose Binga Beral whose belly was painted with many designs, but none concerned with the Snake. George got his pituri and made a cigarette of it and smoked happily, till he had to put it down, saying it made him drunk. He soon recovered. Then they went to get water. The trees were all bored, with plugs in the holes. It was like drinking from a tap, only something much more refreshing than water, slightly sweet yet tart to taste. ‘Goot-feller, eh?’ asked George. He often asked sudden questions like that, as if to catch the novice, but had not done so yet. Prindy smiled his appreciation.
They made a fire and gathered kapok pods knocked down by the lorikeets and put them on to roast. Then they sneaked out for the kill, came back with a round dozen of the lovely creatures, their emerald plumage crimsoned with their blood. The rest fled shrieking for their far-off home on water.
About the same time, those enemies of whose pursuing George had divined and yet forgotten, reached the bottom of that seeming purple wall and with the nose of Mungus found the secret waterholes and drank from them without incurring the wrath of Tchamala, even though watched by the geckos, and warned by the thunder below. They had moved fast, believed they were right on the heels of those they sought, but were intimidated by the red wilderness ahead in the red evening, and gave up.
There as the light faded from the sky was to be seen the newborn Igulgul, just hanging above the heads of those seeming ever-watchful old-men kangaroos. Queeny said, ‘New Moon for luck. You wish for sumpin. Den I turn over my money, for mek more. Go on . . . wha’ nam’ you wish?’
Nell murmured: ‘I wish I find my boy tomorro’, and all dis no-goot bijnitch finish.’
‘I wish all-same, on’y I wan’ ’o gi’ dat bloody black bastard hidin’ so he go ’way die . . . pug him! Den I wan’ go Beatrice River Races . . . and you’n me mek pie and sell him and mek plenty money.’ She took the sweaty roll of notes from her drawers, and staring at the ghostly sliver of silver, solemnly turned it over, muttering, ‘For Jesus Crise sake, hay-men!’
George, squatting with Prindy under the painted red belly of Binga Beral, watching young Igulgul vanish with what looked like a sly wink hinting of lively Wrong Side things to watch for during his coming season, remarked to Prindy that the trouble he felt convinced was imminent might come from blackfellows away over where those lorikeets had gone. These would know that the birds had been disturbed, perhaps find a couple wounded amongst them, and think strangers were about and lay ambush for themselves, if they didn’t do something about it. He reckoned that it would be a good idea to put up a smoke signal tomorrow, three smokes to show that they were coming in peace. They would gather up fuel first thing in the morning.
But Igulgul was in this, apparently, with his power over the Winds and his perversity. Starting with the dawn, they had three nice piles of smoke-producing stuff laid out about half a mile apart and all ready for the match, when the morning breeze that could be expected with the rising of the Sun, began to bluster, surely at the instigation of the invisible sly one just then taking to the eastern sky. It would have been useless to light the fires for the purpose designated, because the smoke would simply have poured as one stream and scarcely above the level of the ground. George said they would wait for the lull that might be expected at midday, and meantime would look around, do a bit of carving on the bottle-trees, and gather a quantity of pituri as a gift to those they were going to and have some in hand for the Pookarakka when he came along, he being very partial to it.
It was getting close to noon, and the wind dropping as expected, and George and Prindy back in the screened shade of Binga Beral, George singing softly, while Prindy gently clicked two boomerangs — when Prindy’s hands stopped suddenly, his head cocked. George breathed, ‘Wha’ nam’?’ The answer came from outside, scuffling, snuffling. Both grabbed for weapons: but before they could rise, they were overwhelmed by Mungus, flopping all over them, yapping his delight: Kai-kai-kai-kai-kai-kai-kai!
George flung the dog off, leapt up, ran crouching to the northern corner where Mungus had entered, stopped to peer through the screening bushes. Some fifty yards away, plain to see amidst the sparce vegetation, Nell stood, with her bundles, staring at the rock. He looked quickly elsewhere. No sign of anyone else. Nell dropped her load, but carrying a length of wood, began to approach. George breathed to Prindy at his elbow, ‘Ngah pooropooro.’ Prindy fell back.
George fixed a spear to his womera, stepped outside. Nell stopped at sight of him. He gave another swift glance round, then looking at her, demanded, ‘Wha’ you want?’
She called hoarsely, ‘Where my boy?’
‘He all right. Wha’ you doin’ here? Dis place tjungara. Who been come long o’ you?’
‘Nutching. I wan’ my boy.’
‘By’n’by you get him. Now you git.
She started towards him again. He raised the spear: ‘I tell him you dis place tjungara. I let you have him spear you come more close-up.’
She shrieked, ‘I wan’ my boy . . . I wan’ my boy . . . Boy, boy, where you, boy?’
Prindy, inside, clicked his tongue. George ignored him, aiming the spear as if to hurl it, yelling, ‘No more gammon . . . I kill-him-you-die, woman, spone you come more close-up!’
She stopped again. It wasn’t on account of his mother that Prindy had given th
e signal. There within ten yards, to the left, was Queeny, emerged from behind a bottle-tree, taking aim at George with a length of wood in shape somewhat like a boomerang. Prindy clicked urgently. But it was Mungus who drew George’s attention to the danger, by shooting out with a delighted yap to greet another old friend, one from whom probably he’d been forcibly parted not so long ago in order to effect just this strategy.
George looked just too late. As he swung the spear, the rough weapon came whirling towards him. He raised the spear to ward it off. But it was too heavy and the force behind it too great. It snapped the spear, and in doing so, veered up and struck him fair in the face, where otherwise it might have hit him in the belly.
George staggered, fell in a heap with his other spears. Yelling at the top of her powerful contralto, Queeny came in with her crutch: ‘You bloody puggin black muddrin bastard, I got you now!’ Whack, whack! The heavy crutch-leg smote his head. George rolled over, was taking it on the back of the head, when Mungus, yapping protest against this falling out of his friends, leapt into it, took the most savage of the blows, howled and rolled over kicking. It gave George time to grab his big shovel spear, to roll into a sitting posture, and from there to drive it past the crutch rising again to deal with him, into the fat belly behind it. Queeny screamed, lost balance, fell on her back.
But there was Nell now charging in with her lump of wood, shrieking inarticulate in fearful rage, but to swing away as George snatched up another spear. George raised the spear without womera to aim, shouting, ‘No-goot bloody halfcaste woman . . . you break him tjungara . . . you die finish . . .’
Prindy leapt out, crying his first utterance in days, a croaked, ‘Oh . . . no-more like o’ dat!’
But the spear was on its way. Nell, now with back turned, took it between the shoulder blades. She screamed, flung up her arms, staggered a few steps, then fell flat on her face, with hands and feet beating the red earth, the upright spear-haft swinging like a pendulum in reverse. Prindy staring great-eyed, glanced at a movement from goggling gasping Queeny, to see her pull the spear from her belly and a gout of blood follow it. George also turned, and as she struggled to her knees, gasping at him, ‘Black bastard you die now!’ bent to get another spear. But too late again. She caught him in the left side, driving the head of the spear out of sight up under his ribs. He coughed, fell sideways with blood gushing from his mouth. He looked at Prindy, raised his hand as if to make some peremptory sign — then fell on his back, mouth and eyes wide.
Queeny got her crutch, heaved herself up with it, stood over George, gasping, ‘You daid, all right, old-man . . . now we square.’ She turned to look at Nell, stared a moment, then swung towards her, reached her in a few long swinging strides, while clutching with a hand at her own bleeding belly. She bent over her, saw one eye glaring, bloody tongue fallen in the dust, and stood erect and howled like a dingo: ‘Oh, oh, ow, ai-ee!’ Then with her bloodied hand she tore at her own hair, tearing strands out of it, crying, ‘Oh, my tchister, my lil tchister . . . daid, daid . . . she be daid . . . Oh, Jesus save my lil tchister . . . oh, oh, ah, ai-ee! I no-more been do it, tchister . . . I didn’ done it.’ She smote her own head hard.
She turned to look at Prindy, who was staring open-mouthed from one to other of those who had died so swiftly, as if he didn’t believe it. Mungus was dead, with bloody tongue also in the dust and red meat-ants already at work on it. Prindy looked at Queeny, at the bloody mess below her waist. She gasped at him: ‘You got him water?’ He nodded. She licked her lips, adding, ‘I thirsty too much. Gi’ me drink.’ He went in under the rock, came out with the billy that had been filled at a bottle-tree. She drank greedily. She muttered, ‘I too hot. Wan’ ’o sit . . . wan’ ’o sit shade.’
She swung towards the rock. He looked alarmed, raised his hand in a sign of stop. ‘Wha’s matter you no-more talk?’ she asked, and when he put his hand to his nose in the sign that he was bound to silence, she snorted, ‘Blackfeller rubbitch. You talk my boy . . . you talk me!’ She went into the shade, while he stared wide-eyed at her temerity. She let herself down slowly, moaning with pain, back to the rock, staring out upon the fearful scene. ‘Muddrin bijnitch,’ she muttered. ‘I been dream dat, ain’t it . . . dream about black flyin’ fox. Gi’ me more water, my boy. Oh, my tchister, poor daid feller . . . I didn’t done it, my tchister . . . oh, ai-eeee!’
When she had drunk, she said, ‘You’n me got ’o go p’lice.’
When he looked his opposition, she added querulously, ‘Got ’o go gitchim p’liceman. Muddrin bijnitch no-goot. Dis ’Preme Court bijnitch. We got ’o go back Alice Station . . . oh, ah!’ She fainted.
Prindy stood staring still: at his mother over there with the ants swarming over her dark side-turned face: at George with ants at his eyes, and the caked mass of blood about his side: at Mungus, so thick with them that they seemed to be moving him away.
Queeny recovered, croaked, ‘Water . . . water . . . I thirsty too much.’ She finished the can.
Prindy looked around again, then went off, past the rock, to a big bottle-tree, where he pulled a plug and let the fluid trickle in. There was his fresh cut in the bulbous trunk, a design dictated by George as a memento of his novitiate, so many marks for each moon of his Road Following, and only one so far. He took a long swig himself. Then when the billy was filled he returned with it, but slowly, with evident reluctance.
The scene was the same. He looked at it as if he’d been wishing it to be different. Queeny, in a weak voice, scolded him for being away so long, and hogged the water. She said they couldn’t leave his mother like that; they must try to drag her in here and cover her up. He shook his head, and when she waxed querulous about blackfeller bijnitch, went off with his tommy-axe and cut branches from bushes, and gingerly went to his mother, and covered her. Then he went to do the same to George, and persisted with it, even while Queeny scolded, ‘Let dem ant eat dat bloody puggin old bastard . . . Satan goin’ ’o get him, burn, him long o’ down-below.’ She went on, rambling somewhat: ‘Jesus goin’ ’o look out my tchister . . . you mumma . . . Jesus love me, yest I know . . . de Bible tell me so . . .’
Streams of ants were coming from everywhere, and to such activity that the leaves of the shrouding branches could be heard rustling to it. Queeny complained of feeling sleepy, and lay down. Prindy had to get more water for her, and hold up her head to help her drink it. She murmured that she would be all right after she’d had a sleep. She told him how she had crawled to the station homestead that time with broken legs and busted belly. ‘Nobody can kill me daid,’ she said. ‘Cos Jesus love me . . .’
Prindy went off to get kapok pods, having to climb for them today, since no lorikeets came back to drop them. Then he made a fire and cooked them, and tried to get Queeny to eat. She had little to say now. Mostly she slept. If she woke and he were there, she would look at him and smile and whisper, ‘Lil Lord Jesus.’
The Sun went down on the other side of the rock. Igulgul went down, without being able to see how things were, but no doubt knowing all about it. Night parrots flew over, and came back to take a look, perhaps to report in the morning to their gekko on what had happened to those two intruders who’d made bold to drink the waters of the elect. Tchamala always got ’em, one way or another.
As night fell and Queeny complained of cold and that was the windy eastern side, she asked to be helped in under the rock, but didn’t abuse him when he made no move to do so. She and Nell had brought their sacking with them. He covered her with the lot. Then he got into the cavity himself and dug into the sand.
Often Queeny woke him, calling for water. He went to her. Then a last time, but this time the call was to Jesus, whom she showed to him on the horizon: ‘All dress’ white . . . look-it . . . sweet Jesus . . .’ It was the Pleiades, the Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun’s form of nights, probably the first appearance of the Constellation for the season, because the dawn was near, as witness the passing clouds of parrots. Then she got her religions mixe
d and babbled of Jesus and the Ol’Goomun as the one. ‘Ol’Goomun Jesus,’ she sighed. ‘You look-out we. We foller him you. Ail-away we foller him you . . . Mumma-Ol’Goomun-Jesus . . .’ Then she fell silent.
Prindy, sitting near, watched the Ol’Goomun, who indeed seemed to be beckoning as she climbed the sky. She didn’t get far before that part of her universal self faded with the dawning of that other self, the Sun. Prindy didn’t have to wait for the Sun to come up to find that he was the sole survivor of whatever bit of devilry had led to the massacre. The ants, not out of the holes yet, hadn’t started on Queeny; but there was no doubt about her being what he would call warriji jeega, completely dead. He took one long look at her, then went and got his things together, his own things only. These he took a little way off, then returning, with his brush-tail, he circumscribed the scene with a wide band of erasion that would be designed to prevent the Shades of the dead following him and making a nuisance of themselves, as the newly dead had a tendency to do. Then he set off, southwestward, as he had been going with George, and after covering only fifty yards or so, began to whimper and beat his head with a boomerang, muttering, ‘I no-more been do it, daid-feller . . . no-more me . . . no-more me . . .’ For just a little while. Then quite quickly he sniffed back his tears, and in doing so, began to swing more southward, more and more, till he was travelling due South, heading for just such a purple wall as the day before yesterday he and George had left behind them. In mid-morning he reached the foot of it, and went on over the slabs, before long to come to one of those white patches and go down to see the gecko and get a drink. It was cool in there. Perhaps it was a dangerous place to tarry. But he’d had little sleep the night before, and who knew how much emotional stress. He fell asleep.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 80
