Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Going any other way meant a long journey round the back. Coon-Coon continued to scoff a bit: ‘Spone you fright’ that Old Snake, boy, you can go round behind . . . we see you next week . . . or you can go back and shit yo’self long o’ Tipperary.’

  Jinbul said quietly, ‘I no-more fright’, Boss. You know I no-more fright’ nutching. I no-more trust him young-feller, da’s all.’

  ‘What’s he goin’ ’o do?’ Coon-Coon asked it with a grin at the Young Feller himself, who was listening intently.

  ‘Might-be he pull him off’n horse.’

  Cahoon chuckled, ‘A bloke that size!’ Then he asked Prindy, ‘You thinkin’ o’ tryin’ ’o pull your ol’ Daddy-o into the drink?’

  Prindy smiled back at him. Daddy-o stared at him with the slits for a while, then said, grinning broader, ‘Well, there’s nothin’ like makin’ certain, is there.’ He turned to Jinbul. ‘Right . . . get out another length of chain and cuffs . . . and we’ll hook him up between us.’

  There was much less mist this morning; at least hereabouts, where the atmosphere was warmer. Down towards the Rainbow Pool it was well enough blanketed. Here it was only in rags, ripped out of pockets by the racing water, touched by the rising Sun into shreds of rainbow that went swirling away, no doubt to build the solid rainbow of the Pool. Jinbul, dismounting to do his master’s bidding, looked away towards the Pool, warily, it seemed. Not that there was anything sinister about the scene. The sound of the water was like laughter, in which was faintly mingled music, which was the carolling of butcher birds somewhere back amidst the limestone masses.

  Getting the things from his saddle-bag, Jinbul locked the length of chain to Prindy’s collar, to do so hauling the boy’s head down quite urgently, and locked a handcuff to the other end. He was about to lock the other cuff onto his slim black wrist, when Cahoon snapped, ‘Onto your ankle . . . and round the stirrup, too.’ He leered at Prindy, adding: ‘See’f he’s smart enough Snake Man to pull a horse over.’ Prindy smiled back at him.

  Jinbul did as told when he was mounted again, cuffing his skinny right shin to the stirrup-leather. The horse objected to begin with, because the length of sawtooth ratchet left over was raking its flank like a spur. Jinbul had to pull it round so that it raked his moleskin-clad leg.

  ‘Right!’ said Coon-Coon when all was set. He rode ahead, with Prindy behind him, Jinbul behind again, each separated by the regulation length of chain, which would be about a dozen feet, or two fathoms, as chain-measurement is properly designated and which was appropriate since they were embarking on what might be called an acquatic venture. The spare horse, carrying the little gear they’d brought along, came last, on a lead lashed to Jinbul’s saddle.

  They went splashing in to make the crossing. It was never deeper than to the horses’ knees and mostly not much more than hock-deep, even though the strangely iridescent limey water swept over the ledge with the same smooth strength everywhere. Here was practically no rough, the rock mass having been worn smooth as a weir by the wash of ages. No trees at all on the crossing. There were biggish trees upstream a bit, but down only the permanently dwarfed and hump-backed things, just now but shivery islands of foliage. Immediately over the ledge the water was not so deep, as could be seen by the swirling weeds there and whiskery masses of moss. The deep was over another ledge.

  It was out about the middle that the Pookarakka, that time while crossing slung broken-legged on a pole, had tried to do his famous disappearing trick again. Here the water was knee-deep. They reached it. Was it the fact that the horse Prindy now was riding had taken part in that event which caused it to play up now? Whatever it was, the beast’s rearing jerked Coon-Coon’s manacled hand and startled his horse, causing him to yell above the watery din, ‘Hey . . . what’s goin’ on?’ He swung round, to see Prindy sliding out of his saddle on the off-side, that is the downstream side, the right. He wheeled his horse round, to the left, the only way he could. That slacked the chain. Prindy took a flying leap over the ledge. He probably wouldn’t have heard Coon-Coon yell, ‘You treacherous little bastard!’ With both chains tautening, what began as a dive ended with a gutser. He went down. But almost on the instant, Coon-Coon, taking a grip on his end of the chain, jerked him up again, this time so that he floated on his back.

  ‘Haul him in!’ Cahoon bawled at Jinbul.

  Jinbul had to lean well over to reach his chain. As he did so, Prindy grabbed his end of the chain, jerked. Jinbul, already almost overbalanced, came flying out of the saddle. His startled horse reared, slipped, could not recover its footing, since shackled to its rider, fell on its side, with helpless Jinbul half under it.

  Cahoon, fairly screaming now, moved back to lend a hand. ‘You bloody little bastard . . . I’ll belt Christ out of you for this!’

  The Little Bastard was only a small yellow face with wide grey staring eyes.

  What with the pouring water and the dragging weight downstream, the fallen horse hadn’t a hope of rising, especially with the led-horse performing behind.

  Cahoon went first to the led-horse, slipped the clip of the lead-rope, then swung back, yelling at Jinbul, who was lying on his back, flapping the water to keep his head up, ‘Pull your foot out, mungus, and slip the stirrup-leather off the catch-bar.’

  The stirrup-leather was only semi-attached, for the very purpose of easy release of a rider pinned by his fallen horse. However, it meant being able to bend sufficiently to slip a hand under the saddle. Jinbul, looking strangely grey of dusky face, only kept beating the water with his hands, calling back to his master, ‘Break him my artch-bone, I stink, Boss . . .’

  He had to say it a couple of times before Coon-Coon heard, when he howled, ‘Jesus bloody Christ!’ and this without any of that breast-striking.

  Coon-Coon dismounted, leapt off the ledge, braving the fallen beast’s thrashing hoofs, flung himself on its belly, tore up the saddle-flap, snatched at the girth-buckles. The horse went mad again with release of the pressure of the girth, tried to rise. Coon-Coon stilled it with a boot in the guts. He had yet to free the surcingle. He was a bit slower with this, bawling curses over the strap. Then the surcingle gave. Pressure of water against the upraised flap and the pull of Jinbul beyond, tore the saddle away. Jinbul went with it, and Prindy ahead of it, all with a jerk that pulled Coon-Coon over the horse’s slippery wet body and after them all.

  It was all so swift. There in a moment were they all, out in smooth shining water, riding the long swell of it, past the hunchback trees that bobbed to them as if in deference, while they looked back in astonishment at the distance-dwarfing horses that stared as astonished at them.

  Strangely quiet out there, the only sound a sort of continuous hissing, but beyond it somewhere a growing roar. Perhaps it was this that roused Coon-Coon from what appeared to be a stupor of unbelief. He yelled at his Man Friday, ‘Get the chain round a tree!’ Several biggish ones were coming up. He himself struck out across the current, to make sure of their being caught. But Jinbul, the grey-faced, accepting the inevitable, had sunken eyes only for what lay further ahead, a dark line, like a thin lip, and instead of striking oppositely, went drifting after. So they missed the tree, all of the trees. Cursing, Coon-Coon saw the staring, not only of the black eyes but the grey, and turned to look. Plainly it was a lip, quivering as if with suppressed laughter over the presumption of little men who thought they themselves so powerful, over the retribution always the due of traitors. But blind as he must ever be to the realities of the Unknowable, he saw it as a rock, and screamed ‘A rock, a rock . . . let’s get to each side of it . . . swim, man, swim!’

  No need to swim. As the lip opened to reveal the maw, those on the extremities of the chain were swept around as if sucked from both slides, leaving the chosen one, the mid-link of this magic chain, to fetch up against what for a fact was a shelf of rock even if serving as a laughing lip.

  Prindy, slammed up against the lip, looking over it, saw it all. So near were they, the wanted ones, me
asured by man’s reckoning, a couple of fathoms, plus a half for that outstretched three-striped arm and a bit more for the leg with its whipping saddle attached — and yet as far as Eternity, as could be seen by the agony of death in those eyes, blue and black, gazing up at him in the long, long, little moment it took for their engulfment.

  No, they were not gone clean away. There were their Shades hovering. The maw was like the throat of a flower, shining with light, to trap unwary creatures — like Gwangu, the Fly-catcher. The Shades hovered down inside like insects digesting in the false nectar that had trapped them.

  The Sun rose up and up.

  The water was falling.

  Bits of the sugary marble peeped.

  The sky was vivid blue, with white clouds sailing.

  A straw-necked ibis came sailing along from where the flooded billabongs would be, saw, croaked with alarm, turned and went flapping back. A flight of white cockies, heading down from the Sandstone glimpsed, shrieked, wheeled and went screaming away eastward towards Catfish.

  The Sun climbed up. The water fell.

  Suddenly the chain on the right hand slackened. That meant being jerked sideways, dragged along the slippery rock a little way to the left, till the taut chain jammed in a crevice. It could be seen, silvery in the green whiskers. Now there was only one ghost below.

  It was a long while before Prindy dared to haul in to see which it was had left him. It would have been that of the late Tracker Jinbul, because the handcuff was fairly wide open and a rag of moleskin hung on the saw-tooth projection like bait on a hook from which a fish has broken free.

  How long would Daddy-o Cahoon’s Shade be in taking itself off? Where would it go to? He might be right with his Old Jesus, but what about Old Tchamala, and Old God, who it seemed was a Jew — and Coon-Coon called Jews Sheeny Bastards?

  What were the thoughts of the small executioner, as he lay against the marble lip, with hair now flying golden in the breeze, while he was chained by the neck to a dead man who probably had loved him?

  Then Daddy-o went with suddenness that caused the chain to jerk out of the cleft. Prindy wasted no time in pulling in this time, because it was getting hot there with the Sun directly overhead and the water steaming and beginning to stink. But he stopped dead when a waxen hand appeared, outstretched as if in waving farewell, giving a blessing, or Heiling Hitler. He stared at it for a long while before he dared again. First the handcuff, well back on the black-haired wrist. Then the buttoned cuff of a khaki sleeve. Then the sleeve with the three chevrons of the sergeant who might have become an inspector. Then rags of cloth and flesh.

  Who could trust the hand of Coon-Coon close enough to grab, even if it had no more than a torn-off arm behind it? Prindy could only keep it at a distance, and stare.

  The problem was suddenly solved by a rush of wings. Prindy looked up, to see a brown white-breasted osprey diving to grab what he mistook for a fish. The buggers would often snatch one off your line. The long black talons seized it, raised it to the limit of the chain, which snatched it back, so that it came hurtling down and struck the hard rock — Crack! It was the cuff that struck. The lock was sprung. The manacle opened. The arm pulled by the waiting Shade drew the hand out of it, down into the maw. It was gone so quickly, that the osprey, hovering for another strike, whistled in protest. Prindy looked up to meet its angry yellow eye.

  Now the ledge that was the crossing could be plainly seen as a dark ridge. The crippled trees were straightening up as best they could. The horses could be seen in the higher country to eastward, moving about amongst the timber there, with the angry restlessness of their kind when hungry but unable to crop properly with bitted mouths. From staring around, Prindy looked back at the maw. It was gone. All that lay before him was flat water, bound on the other side by a slab not dissimilar to that he was on, water that in its running round the rocks seemed to be laughing, perhaps over his having been tricked out of seeing how the magic had been wrought.

  Bottom could be seen now. He gathered his chains together, slid down from the rock, began to work his way from shallow to shallow towards the horses, but looking back often whence he had come, as if expecting to see something odd. There was nothing. The falling water reflected the blue and white and silver of the sky.

  Catching the horses was a simple matter. They wanted to be rid of those bits. Then, surely, they knew that this diminutive one, who kept popping up in the most extraordinary circumstances, was no ordinary pesky human. Apart from these conditions, there was that of his being a Delacy, the best horse-handlers the country ever knew. He behaved as if he owned the beasts, despite their Government brands, unsaddled them, hobbled them out. Then he settled down to help himself to what was in the tucker-bag. All of it he did without his usual caution in avoiding betrayal of his doings, as if presuming he had no further need for it, having done for good with others’ interference in his business.

  Having stuffed himself with canned food, he settled down to sleep, doubtless tired out by the ordeal of days. Yet, despite the appearance of sleeping heavily and that evidence of self-assurance, after only an hour or so he woke suddenly — to sit up listening, while still the horses, quick enough creatures to catch a sound, continued with their cropping. That it was not imagining was obvious from the intensity of his staring away southeastward, of the movement of the stare as with the moving of a sound. He was up and grabbing a bridle, before the horses, from taking a look to see what he was up to, turned prick-eared to listen as he had. He caught the horse he had ridden before, a good ambler, saddled up, set off at an amble — not in flight from what he’d heard, but in pursuit of it.

  The Sun already was well down behind him, along with the breeze spinning his hair to gold that caught the attention of the birds busy with their final forraging. The Sun was almost down when he came into sight of the Corella Bore, with its windmill golden as a sunflower and the corellas, at their evening squabbling for roosts, like golden bees about it. He was interested in neither bore nor birds, but made straight for the road, which even at distance could be seen to have been used recently by a motor vehicle with skid-chains. The fling of the mud showed that it headed towards Catfish Station. That was the way he went, too, after stopping at the bore only long enough to water himself and horse. Again he took it at an easy amble.

  It was quite dark when he reached the first gate. From the second he could see the glow of the homestead. That was about a mile off. He dismounted here, slipped the horse’s bit and tied him with the lead-rope to a fence-post. Then he slipped through to continue on foot. But although this showed caution, he boldly walked the muddy road. It was not till close to the homestead that he became truly wary, skirting it now so as to approach upwind, to avoid betrayal of his presence to sharp noses.

  Thus he came to the Big House, stole into the garden. There was light above and below. Clancy was down in the latticed lounge-room, stretched out in a canvas chair, apparently listening to popular music on the radio, but by his set staring at the ceiling, preoccupied with thought that only bored him, the way he yawned from time to time. There was light also in the kitchen, from which came sounds indicating preparation of bread for baking next day. The wind brought the beat of minga-minga sticks and chanting from the blacks’ camp. Prindy took up a position on the concrete base of one of the radio masts, from which he could see into the lounge. However, it was not so much to mount a vigil as to have a dry spot for dozing in, as shown by his carefully setting down his bundle of chains and dropping head to knees, the head a faint pale blur in the reflected light. He woke wide when he heard the radio switched off. Clancy was up and yawning deeply. Prindy watched him mount the stairs. Then he rose and slipped across to the door of the lounge and waited there in shadow.

  For a while footsteps clomped about up top. The gaslight began to fade. Soon there was only the starlight. Prindy entered the lounge, went softly up the stairs, and round the verandah to Clancy’s bed.

  Clancy should have seen the form against
the starlight, even through his net. However, Prindy had to attract his attention: ‘Pst!’

  Clancy growled, ‘Who’s that?’

  Prindy murmured, ‘Uncle Clancy.’

  Twang of bed-springs. ‘Eh . . . who’s that?’

  A fumbling. Then the glare of a flashlight through the net. A gasp at the sight revealed. The light-beam wavered, to show the net’s being pulled. Again it struck Prindy, causing him now to shield his eyes with dangling chains. Clancy demanded breathlessly, ‘What the bloody hell’re you doing here?’

  ‘I come find out Rifkah.’

  ‘She’s not here. But what ’a’ you been up to?’ The flashlight was approaching.

  Prindy muttered, ‘Where she?’

  ‘She’s all right. What’re you doing in those chains?’

  ‘Policeman put him.’

  ‘Where’s the policeman?’

  ‘Been lose him.’

  Clancy lowered the light, and Prindy his hands.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ demanded Clancy. ‘You did a bunk?’

  ‘Policeman get drowned.’

  ‘For chrissake!’

  ‘Tell me where Rifkah.’

  ‘I’ll tell you bloody nothing! You tell me what’s happened.’

  Prindy swallowed, ‘Spone you don’t tell me where Rifkah . . . I go tell policeman.’

  ‘You’re going to tell policeman, all right. Where’d the policeman get drowned? Who was he?’

  ‘What I going to tell policeman is you been take away Rifkah.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You been take her away on trolley. Where she now?’

  ‘I told you she’s all right. I can’t tell you where she is.’