Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  ‘And you, Trevor, strong Trevor, they never looked at you. You were a beast of burden.’ William waved his hand in the air. ‘Like an ox.’

  ‘Miss Kathryn taught you to read and write. Play pianer even.’

  ‘Lady Josephina demanded it. Kathryn hated me. And you. Wasn’t it Kathryn’s suggestion you go fight for all that is so good in England?’

  Trevor didn’t like the words. ‘You hate ’em, but you care for Emily?’

  William looked away. ‘She is my star. A pretty blue forget me not, who has—’ William’s voice dropped and he sat down ‘—forsaken me.’

  Trevor looked back to the home paddock. John brought a lasso neatly down on a big bay’s neck. He tied the rope to the fence and threw another lasso, hauling it at an angle to the first rope until the horse was unbalanced. He shoved his shoulder against the horse’s shoulder. The horse fell, he pushed his knee into its neck and forced a bit into its mouth.

  William bent over his rifle peering into the middle of the lawn as if he was watching an event unfolding there. ‘That blackfella, he forced himself on her.’ He ran his hands over the wood of the rifle butt. ‘He chased her. She fought him. Now she is scared.’ He lifted the rifle and pulled back the loading mechanism, checking it. ‘She ran. I couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t tell her that I forgive her.’

  Trevor looked away. A bush pheasant, small and brown with large feet and a stunted tail of few feathers walked across the lawn in a stilted fashion. The bird stopped, holding one foot in the air, as his head moved quickly this way and that, looking for insects in the lawn. William pointed his rifle at it, but coughed suddenly, took a sharp shallow breath and let the rifle fall back in to his lap. A drop of sweat formed on his forehead and he wiped his face.

  ‘Bring her back. Otherwise we lose everything.’

  The horse John rode was lathered in layers of white foam, yet he rode at a gallop in circles with no pause in the crack of his whip. Trevor jumped from the veranda. He swung a rope, flicking it so it strapped hard across John’s back. John jumped from the horse and ran towards Trevor, his fists folded and ready to punch.

  Trevor waited until he was close. ‘We ride in the morning.’

  John stepped back with a smile on his face and glanced at William’s rifle. ‘Trade your .22 for his Enfield, eh? It’s yours anyway, eh? Might need more than one shot in a row.’

  ‘They two women,’ replied Trevor.

  ‘’Course, cobber. I meant for the blackfellas. Plenty of them out there.’

  At first light, Trevor packed their swags, billies, dried beef, sugar and tea onto a third horse. He watched as William talked with John on the veranda, their heads close together. John sauntered to the horses and they mounted. William stood on the veranda, leaning on his upright rifle. When he could no longer see Trevor and John he sat with his rifle resting on his knees. He tried to remember some things his mother had told him long ago but he could not. All that came were torn pieces of poetry that had been dreamt of in the sweetness of the morning sun as he and Emily had lain among the meadow flowers.

  Emily woke. She wondered where she was, it was a dream, the caves were a dream, Cicada Springs station was a dream, no birth, no death, and she and William were still sailing to Australia, standing on the deck hand in hand, marvelling at the ocean and the blueness that went on forever, imagining the world of the sea and discussing whether there really were mermaids who played harps and fish that flew on fins shaped like wings.

  She felt the soreness of her body. The sparkling ocean disintegrated and she tried to catch it, make it come back, but it didn’t. A patch of leaf litter rustled. A reptile with a triangular head and black beady eyes stared at her. Emily stayed very still. Its mouth opened and a blue tongue snaked out and back again. It took a step towards her. Emily edged back. The leaves fell from its body and showed his fat belly and tiny dark legs. Emily smiled a little, for surely he was a portly old man trying to be ferocious. There was a brief whoosh sound, a spear went through his back and pinned him to the ground. Wirritjil scrambled down from the lip of the rock. She carried branches, some with fresh green leaves. A small goanna swung from her belt. She crouched down near the fire and stirred it to flames.

  ‘Marnem.’

  ‘Fire.’

  ‘Fire,’ said Wirritjil.

  Emily moved closer to the comfort of the flame.

  Wirritjil held out a palm full of hard black berries. ‘Piriyalji.’

  Emily shook her head. Wirritjil ate one and extended her hand again. Emily felt the hollowness in her stomach. She took one and bit at the black flesh. It was moist and sharp with a sweet aftertaste. Wirritjil eased bark under the fire and took some coals close to Emily and covered the smoking embers with the green leaves. The smoke circled, thick and peppery. Emily rose and sat a distance away with her back turned.

  Wirritjil picked up the smoking fire and followed Emily. Emily moved away again and sat next to the stream in the shadow of the rock wall.

  Wirritjil waited but when Emily did not turn around she turned to the bigger fire and seared the lizards through the coals, laying them on rocks in the centre of the flames. Fat sizzled in bubbles through their skins. She poked at the lizards, turned them, then gutted their bellies with her flint and flicked the entrails into the fire. She picked up the goanna, peeled the skin away with her teeth and ate. It was almost raw and the blood ran down her hands.

  Emily winced and refused to look to the fire. She peered into the water and saw herself reflected in its stillness, her hair in knots, her face thin and pale. She touched the surface. Silver shimmered through the dark blue and black, like the hail of English sleet in the twilight against the windowpane of her playroom. The walls of her playroom were painted with tiny flowers of pink and blue. Sometimes she had felt as if it were a prison, a pretty prison. She played badly on the grand white piano. Mozart’s simplified ditties bored her. Her mother came in and spoke in the lilt of her violin voice and led her to William’s room.

  ‘Come see what I have found.’

  He was asleep in a bed of frothy white pillows. The sun shone on him and his skin was so pale it was almost translucent and his lips were blue. He opened his eyes and coughed a deep gurgling cough. He did not seem to see them and closed his eyes and slept again. She was captivated by the newcomer and took to sitting by his bed, reading him stories she thought might be good for his dreams, for his healing. There were stories of sunshine, of fairies and elves, of giants overcome by small boys, of dragons slayed and villages rejoicing.

  ‘I pushed his bed, Wirritjil,’ she said without turning around, ‘so that it was always in the sun.’

  Wirritjil stared straight into the fire; the goanna was discarded by her side and her hands were together with the palms upwards and full of sand. There was a visitor. A seagull had alighted and flown away quickly. She knew it was a juarriny, the spirit of the dead man. He had stopped in his travel to the spirit world. He must want his love. In the fire she saw wisps of blue flame growing and coiling along the wood and she called out to her old man husband, asking him to use his maban power to make the dead man go back to his journey. She lifted her hands and let the sand fall into the fire, but the fire didn’t diminish and the blue flame licked along the wood, gathering in strength.

  Emily lay on the mess of her leaf and grass bed in a fitful sleep. Outside on the plain, the dingo stopped and sniffed the air. A black snake slid slowly around a rock and a quail trilled in fright, his wings in a muffled beat as he rose in front of the flickering tongue.

  Emily stirred and the southern English sleet came back, drumming softly on the window. She played the three notes around middle C with gloved hands. William sat next to her. His thin white fingers touched the keys lightly, following in a higher octave then taking over and changing the exercise into a melody that entranced. His fingers tripped, he stopped playing. A discordant chant screamed into the night.

  ‘Yur yurl ayahhh ayahhh yurl yur.’

  Emi
ly jumped to her feet and buckled with pain. She gripped her belly with her hands and raised her head slowly, afraid of what she might see.

  Wirritjil sat cross-legged by the coals, her lips hardly moving as she called out. She had a jagged rock in her hand and hit her head repeatedly. Blood streamed down her face. Emily took hesitant steps towards her. Wirritjil’s eyes were fixed on the light of the coals that pulsed with a blue flame in the slightest of breezes.

  Emily grabbed at Wirritjil’s hands. The Aboriginal woman was too strong and continued to hit her head. Emily threw herself at her. They fell in a jumble close to the fire. Wirritjil untangled herself and jumped to the edge of the firelight halfcrouching to stare at the flames. Emily pulled herself back, shaking. They faced each other through the fire. Emily threw a stick onto the simmering coals and a flame leapt high, blue with a thin edge of red. Wirritjil jumped, took her spear in her hand and pointed it at Emily. Emily’s heart thumped. In a quick move she seized a stick from the fire and lunged towards Wirritjil. Wirritjil spun and in a breath was gone.

  The night was silent. Not a sound. Emily slid to the ground and drove her fingers into the dirt. The tears were hard behind her eyes but they did not come.

  She rose slowly and walked to where the stars reached the water’s edge, where her dreams of William had been. She stepped in. The water was waist-deep and her nightdress billowed around her. She sank down and let her hair flow against her face. Her dress floated from her and she felt the coldness of the water against every part of her skin. She wanted to stay in this moment. She was not afraid to be alone. There was nothing to be afraid of. Death after all could not be much different.

  She returned shivering to the fire and sat, listening as the sounds of the night came back. Somewhere an owl made a slow hoot behind the chirrup of rock geckos and there was the deep bell sound of fat green frogs talking in the night. She threw wood on the fire and lay in an arc around its warmth. The sand was grainy against her skin, her face became hot and her back was cold but she did not move.

  The tuneful notes of the magpie lark woke her in the morning. For a moment she thought she was back in her room at the homestead, the doors to the veranda open, and William at the end of her bed holding a tea tray and letters from home. The bird sang again and the square of the ceiling became bright blue sky. There was a slight breeze and the silver-grey leaves of the gums waved like water and became still again. The horses stood together against the rock wall in the speckled shade of the trees. Emily put her clothes on. The bloodstains were big and smudged.

  She didn’t know what to do. She was so weary. The finches with masked faces and long tails bounced and chattered on a twig close by. A black butcherbird came swooping in and chased the magpie lark away. It picked at Wirritjil’s discarded goanna, pulling at it, trying to fly with it. It stopped suddenly and took off in a blur of ruffled feathers.

  Emily gathered dry leaves in her skirt. She held the leaves high and dropped them one by one onto the coals of the last night’s fire. The leaves smouldered red at the edges.

  A hand on her arm, black and smeared in white lines, stopped her.

  ‘Miss. No.’

  A single leaf burst into flame.

  ‘They come.’

  Emily let the rest of the leaves and twigs fall away. Wirritjil stood in front of her, naked except that her skin was covered in daubs and lines of white clay. The clay was through her hair as if she had tried to cover her head completely. Pink oozed through it from the gashes on her head.

  Wirritjil tore a strip of bark from a gum tree and wrapped the remaining lizard in it, tied it with a stringy piece of grass and tucked the parcel into her belt. She saw Emily reach for the spear and stepped quickly to snatch it. She lanced the spear through her hair, angling it so that the shaft was close to her spine and the barb above her head. Emily edged towards the horses. She whistled softly and the brumby lifted his head. Wirritjil came between them. Emily spoke with as much authority as she could muster, but her voice was thin.

  ‘Wirritjil. You stay here. I will ride back and get help, telegraph my father and Kathryn—my sister.’

  Wirritjil pointed to the other end of the arena. There was a dark slit in the rock, a thin chasm. ‘Dat way. Kardiya ’im bin shoot gun.’

  Emily stared, her legs felt weak. Wirritjil took a step towards her. Her eyes were wide; the black pupils surrounded by white, a thin rim of black skin then the stark paint of her mask. Emily’s heart beat hard. She tried to brush past her to get to the horses. In a few steps Wirritjil was in front of her. She took the rope from the horses’ legs and looped it around their noses and pulled them towards the opening in the rock.

  Emily turned and headed back towards the cavern. She began to run, talking as she went. ‘I need to telegraph Kathryn; I need her, and my father’s help. He could come from England. I must speak to William.’

  The labyrinth was dark after the bright light of the sun. She tripped, grasping at the walls, trying to remember the way. Another courtyard put light into the darkness and Emily could see the stream narrowed to a thin deep channel then flowed into two branching pathways. Was this where they had stepped over the water? She followed the distant fork. She could not remember coming through such darkness and strained to see the light of the opening in the hillside. She stopped. The stream eddied into a round pool and disappeared into the wall. It was a dead end, nowhere to go.

  In the dimness she saw a movement. The glint of an eye. Her vision steadied. High on a ledge she saw the outline of an immense snake, coiled in part and shining in the low light with a body that seemed to go forever. She froze.

  A whisper came from far behind. ‘Miss.’

  She backed along the smooth rock to the ghostly form of the painted Aboriginal maid. Wirritjil was already moving along the stream to the entrance of the cave system. Outside, she crawled up the hill, over the sharp stones and around the clumps of spinifex that pricked at her naked skin. Emily followed, her knees scraped and beginning to bleed. A whistling kite made his way in a great circle low in the sky, his pale-feathered tail angling like a rudder behind his widespread wings. In the distance, across the plain, a dust ball hurtled towards them.

  Wirritjil held up three fingers.

  Three horses. Emily shadowed her eyes with her hand.

  A figure separated, skittling off to the side and back again. Wirritjil frowned. She leant down and cut spinifex with her flint, held a bunch in front of her and made her way in a squat crab-like fashion back down the slope.

  ‘A dog? John?’ Emily squinted. ‘I should go meet them. They have come to help me.’

  Wirritjil disappeared over the fold at the base of the hill.

  One rider took his horse to the side and lifted his rifle high. Emily could see the outline of his figure. A shot. Recoil. His shoulder went back. A kangaroo bounded from stillness into panicked flight.

  Emily looked around for something to wave, a branch with drying leaves. There was nothing. She stood up. She saw the rider lift his rifle again. A shot cracked out and the circle of the whistling kite was broken as it plummeted to the ground. She watched the riders speeding towards her, past the downed kite, just a smudge of brown in the red expanse. The rider lifted his rifle once more. Emily dropped to the ground. She grasped her knees and pulled herself as small as she could.

  ‘The whistling kite flew across the moon. He called to us.’ She scrambled down the slope. The stones cut at her knees and the palms of her hands and the points of the spinifex jabbed at her shoulders and face. She didn’t feel the pain. She needed to think, if only she could think clearly.

  Wirritjil was waiting inside the cave. Emily followed the white form, trying to keep her in sight as she slipped through the darkness of the cave. At the clearing the horses stood against the opposite wall. They were unsettled and their ropes trailed across the grass. Emily picked up Wirritjil’s sacking dress and handed it to her.

  ‘Dress. Jurulu’s horse should go first.’

&nbs
p; Emily bit her lip as she said his name and Wirritjil turned away. She tucked the dress in to her belt and waited. Emily led the brumby into the narrow chasm and the mare followed. The rock and trees met overhead and soon all was dark. Emily let the brumby find the way. The iron shoes of the horses clinked on the granite. Water dripped from the surface of the rock and there were flutters of bats and the scratches of small animals moving. The mare’s hoofs slipped, scrabbling on the rock. The brumby stopped and waited and they started again in cautious steps. Grey shadows appeared, a bend, a shaft of light and they emerged between rocks in a fall of boulders on the western side of a hill.

  Outside, Wirritjil ran and with a squatting jump bounded onto the mare’s back, grabbing a fistful of mane and letting loose a torrent of loud words in her language. The mare reared and bucked and Wirritjil’s body bounced high but she hung on and the mare settled to a prance, pulling at the rope that was attached to the brumby. The brumby drew back and held his ground. Wirritjil stretched flat along the mare’s back, one hand tight on the horse’s mane and the other searching for the flint in her pouch.

  Emily leant against the brumby. ‘Where are we going?’ she muttered.

  Wirritjil sawed through the rope that held the two horses together with quick slices of her flint. The brumby did not move. Emily tried to pull herself onto his back. She slid down, sat on the ground for a moment and tried again. She put her foot against his knee and managed to pull herself so her shoulders were across his back. Tears stung in the abrasions on her face.

  The rope separated. The mare galloped away but slowed as she realised the brumby was left behind. Emily eased herself to sit and the brumby walked then stretched into a slow canter.

  They reached the bottom of the hill and made their way along the base of the range, southwards. The terrain was hard-baked sand with islands of grass and spinifex, but where the gorges spilt down the ground was stony with fist-sized rocks and they had no choice but to walk and pick their way.