Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  Perez undressed and measured ten slow drops of water from his flask onto his kerchief and wiped his whole body down. There was little moisture left and the rag was dark brown with dirt. He lay naked, savouring the brief coolness. He heard the long hoot of an owl that was the same every night, as though it was travelling with them and reminding them to sleep and of something else that he could not quite fathom. The horses stamped once or twice and a small breeze swirled into a sighing whisper. He lifted his pannikin and let a few drops fall into his mouth. He wished he had his gramophone so he could make the Spanish lady come to him, beckoning to him amid the sad, sweet sound of the violin. Make him cool. He wouldn’t turn away, he would sit with her on the snow, leaves falling around them and he would hold her hands, soft white adorned with rubies, heart-red rubies.

  Perez dressed and lay down again. He forced himself to think of high seas and the glory of the full-sailed armada. He made stories of the battles, of the victories. This usually helped him sleep, but this time he could smell the fire and the singe of wallaby’s fur. He saw in his mind the Aboriginal men eating with their hands, the goannas hardly cooked and the fat and flesh dripping. He saw John Calhoon, his trousers around his ankles and his chest with the torn scarlet hole. The restless thoughts came and went, the sailing armada eclipsed by savages chewing on bloodied animals.

  Sergeant Perez stood. He undid the tent flap and in a sure and controlled manner took the whip from the side of his saddle. In his other hand he steadied his handgun.

  He walked over to Ned, pulled him up from his folded sleeping position and pushed the muzzle of the gun into his back. The man woke wild-eyed. Perez jabbed the gun against Ned’s spine again and again. He felt the hot wetness of sweat on his face and his heart was racing, pounding as though he was the captive. He marched Ned to a tree which had a trunk thick and strong enough to tie him to. He saw Ferdinand rise and he pointed the gun at him, warning him.

  Perez whipped the full-blood. The strikes tore through the skin, crisscrossing old scars with new cuts. He hit until the man’s back was a mass of red and the flesh fell in frayed pieces. He kept going until his arms ached. Ned slumped on the tree as the sky lightened. Ferdinand sat with his back to the bloody ordeal, his eyes were closed. He was on a seashore with his family and they were dancing in a trance, changing into the clouds or becoming the terns that ran along the shore or the fish in the shallows, hiding from white men.

  Perez felt the presence of someone else. He turned. The constable stood dressed and staring. Perez’s hand went to his collar. It was undone. His shirt was askew, his trousers and boots flecked with blood. He dropped the whip and walked away. In his tent he washed, using all the remaining water, scrubbing his body hard with a wetted kerchief. He fought against the desire to go out and whip again. He emerged from his tent clean and his uniform was neat.

  The constable had untied Ned. He had used strips of cloth to hold moist tea leaves from the billy against Ned’s broken skin. Perez took a chain from his saddlebag. He tied the policeman and Ned together.

  ‘We have no water—take him and find some. Ferdinand and I will go forwards.’

  Perez and the tracker moved across the plain towards the low-lying range. Ferdinand was slow and Perez threatened to beat him. The horses stumbled, thirsty and hungry. By sundown they had moved only a few miles, but the ridge was close. The chained pair returned, with Ned sitting down every few steps and the constable waiting for him to rise. They had one billy full and a gallon bag half full of tepid water. Perez allowed Ned a small ration of food and half a cup of water.

  ‘You understand now?’

  Perez tied Ned to a tree using tight coils of rope around the man’s torso so that he had to sit upright, his back against the bark.

  The men slept fitfully unable to suppress their thirst. It was an early grey dawn when Perez saw Ned was gone. The ropes had been cut with a knife.

  Wirritjil sat with her legs folded under her, watching the rolling clouds crowd the western sky. Lightning shot from the darkening swell, sparking fires on the plains. It gathered in ferocity and speared the land repeatedly, and in between, the thunder hardly drew breath. Smoke spiralled from the plain as if there were dozens of camps. The land was dry, empty. It waited with all the power of life under it. All it needed was water.

  Emily’s tongue was swollen and dry, her skin like paper. She thought about death. She thought of all the teachings she had learnt in church. She did not want to go to heaven. Jurulu would not be there. Joseph would not be there. Wirritjil couldn’t come there. They were all sinners. She knew they were sinners because they were born black. The devil took black people from hell and put them on earth. To tempt us to hell. I want to be with them. I want to die and go to hell.

  Emily said aloud, ‘She is tricking me.’

  Wirritjil came close to Emily. ‘He come soon.’

  ‘Jurulu?’

  ‘Rain.’

  Emily pulled at her hair as though that would stop the thoughts. ‘What is hell like?’

  Wirritjil concentrated, listening.

  ‘Hell.’ Emily’s voice was raspy. ‘Where you come from: hell.’

  ‘’Ell?’ Wirritjil put her hand on her belly.

  ‘You know Jesus?’

  ‘Jesus. Moola Bulla tell ’em. That fella Jesus. He good fella.’

  A breeze came into the cave. Emily straightened. It brought with it a sweet smell of wet soil, of rain. Wirritjil went to the back of the cave where orange dust and pieces of white clay were heaped against the wall. She sucked her finger and painted stripes of light brown on the front of her thighs and down her breasts. She put white stripes next to the brown and added orange alongside. She walked past Emily out to the sky. Emily peered from behind her. A grey curtain unfolded from the clouds and came galloping towards them like a herd of horses.

  Wirritjil began to chant, shaking her legs, moving back and forth in springy steps, her arms beckoning the rain. It came in big fat drops, streaming over her body, the ochre and sandstone dust sliding in streams down her shining skin.

  Emily crawled out from the shelter. She felt the drops caress, massage then pummel her skin. She opened her mouth and the rain ran over her dry tongue, across her parched throat. She sucked and sucked at the water. Her mind cleared in the coolness and wetness. She took Wirritjil’s arm and mimicked her shaky leg dance and they let the rain rule over them.

  The lightning streaked across the land and lit by its brilliance were two women with their arms waving high in some kind of wild prayer to the sky.

  Perez rode out front, ahead of the tracker, they could see the boulders of the range and where it was cut with gorges and tumbles of rock. He called back to the tracker, ‘They must be close.’

  Ferdinand didn’t answer, didn’t make any effort to speak, nor did he look for the telltale signs of the women’s movements.

  They wound through patches of high grass and stretches of bare ground in which boab trees stood as if in some serious secret meeting. The trees became fewer, just occasional low paperbarks, and they walked on caked soil lined with tendrils of dried water plants. The clouds were so low and dark it seemed at times that they would be engulfed.

  Perez dismounted and walked alongside Ferdinand. ‘I had to beat him; he wouldn’t understand otherwise.’

  Ferdinand turned away, pretending to look for tracks.

  Perez saw the rain coming from the west and smiled. He would be glad to be wet and to drink.

  The rain didn’t come gently, but loud and strong. At first, Perez was buoyed with energy by the boundless water, the spectre of thirst banished. He let the rain drench him and the small party continued. The range was close. The women were close. The tracks would be gone but there would be other clues.

  The rain eased a little and Perez could see more detail, the dark mouth of a cave, a shadow line of an overhang not far away, a few hours at the most. He searched for the smoke of a single campfire, a straight lone smoke from steaming ashes.
>
  Yes. He was sure. A thin line of smoke. It came above the range, perhaps from a shelter on the other side.

  The dried vegetation tore easily and the fine black soil underneath turned quickly to mud. The horses’ hoofs sank and lifted with sucking squelches. Each step required more effort. A cold wind followed the first onslaught of the rain, coming hard across the open plain, sweeping from the north-west. No-one spoke and the horses put their heads down, trying to turn so their rumps faced the wind. The two policemen whipped them on. The rain began again, so thick they could only see a few yards ahead.

  Ferdinand pointed to a rocky rise. Perez had to accept the tracker’s advice. They watched the countryside around them turn into a lake. Perez struggled with his tent, fighting against the rain and the wind, until at last he was inside, yet it was damp and all he could do was watch the drips form inside and fall mercilessly. The wind stopped and the rain eased, the heat came back with insects that burrowed under their clothes and bit continually. Steam rose from the plain and the night was black and the stars and the moon were hidden.

  South of the Fitzroy River the massive storm bringing the mukurruny, the first real rains of the wet season, rolled into the desert. Juwurru Charcoal had taken the karrpakji from his bark pouches and was clapping and singing in a low voice, sitting cross-legged and facing north-west.

  Trevor and Janarra were in the hole that was already four feet deep. Trevor licked the salty sweat from his lips and wished he hadn’t as it stung on his dry tongue.

  Above, the clouds were racing, falling across each other in steep black billows, the sun striking through in places with white swords as if raging for battle. The red dunes and ridges were iridescent in the starkness of the lightning, mottled with the premature green of early birth.

  The clouds clashed in growling thunder and Janarra climbed from the hole, jumping and laughing at the sky. Trevor felt moisture at the bottom of the dig and he sucked the tips of his fingers.

  He stood to see if water would pool in the soak, and as he did clouds crossed the last shaft of the sun, thunder cracked above them as though it would split the earth and the rain came roaring from the north-west in a wall of water that hit and soaked them in seconds. The lightning flashed in a sheet that lit the streaming silvery tumult of the desert. Trevor saw Janarra’s grin and his shining skin, and Charcoal’s eyes white and staring. He looked up and as the lightning came again he saw the Wandjina in the clouds flying, mouthless and haloed.

  William lay on the stones of the kitchen floor. His body itched and he was sure he was covered in scorpions. He screamed. The snakes in the ceiling came writhing down to strike at him time and time again. He called out for Trevor to bring his gun. His mother appeared, emaciated and drunk. He shouted at her, ‘Kill it! Kill the snake!’

  Outside there was a war. Not a war. He could smell it. Rain. He rolled onto his belly and crawled, brushing the stinging scorpions from his eyes. He pulled himself to the door and lay across the threshold. The rain fell on his face and into his mouth. He was swimming, drowning. He dug his hands into the softening earth. Snakes were slithering all around. He threshed his arms, trying to push them away. They reared their heads, threatening to bite. A coolness came and the snakes began to back away, to fade. William felt his breath slowing, becoming even. The icy cold and the burning heat melded into nothing. No roughness of stones, no smell of wet trees, no sound of war. The rain had stopped. William wondered if he had died. He lifted himself in the mud.

  The snakes and scorpions had gone.

  ‘The knife,’ he whispered. ‘I must cut this thing out.’

  William cut through the flesh. It didn’t bleed, but oozed a blackish foul liquid. He picked at the wood. It was rotting. He pulled at the splinters, digging them out with bits of dead tissue. He fell back exhausted, took a deep breath and worked as fast as he could before the demons came back.

  He pulled himself across the floor to the billy that held the drying bleach mixture. He steadied himself and poured it into the wound. He gritted his teeth but was relieved to feel some pain in the numbness of his dying leg. He shredded cotton flour bags and bandaged the limb. He wiped his brow and rested, then massaged his thigh, trying to push the fresh blood down to his foot.

  The calf was bloated and mottled different hues of blue, his foot was black and shrivelled. He looked at the knife again. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t cut right through his leg. The bone, he would never get through the bone. He sluiced water over his head and let it run down his chest. He needed to think. To gather courage.

  He took his rifle and rose to a hop, grasping at the wall, sliding, falling and pulling himself along like a crippled dog for a few feet. He shuffled into the room that had once been his and Emily’s bedroom and opened the curtains. Moonlight lit the room in cloud-broken shadows.

  ‘I am blessed,’ he said. ‘I am a prince. A prince of this land and—’ he stopped and gritted his teeth ‘—my name.’

  He pushed the muzzle of his rifle high into the upper shelf of the wardrobe. He thrust blindly and grunted, for he could not lift himself high enough to see.

  He felt it and with great effort swept the barrel of the rifle sideways across the shelf. A box covered in black velvet tumbled down.

  He sat on the floor with his back against the bed and opened the box. Inside was a silver revolver, small, shining, intricate. He took it out and kissed it. He cocked it and checked it for its one silver bullet.

  The creeks were rising. Linklater hoped the rain would ease enough to let them return quickly. He wondered if it was raining this hard further north; he knew how quickly the Fitzroy and the Mary rivers would fill, impassable for weeks.

  The rain had made the day dark grey and as they approached the homestead it was the flash of a campfire that made Linklater look to the side. He took the horses off the road, the red mud flecking their legs. With a start he saw a boy, maybe seven years old, standing naked on a rock. He was a skinny child with a pot belly. He held a frog in his hands. Linklater slowed, the boy picked up a small rock and, using a sharp point, sliced open the frog’s belly. He held the frog to his mouth and sucked.

  Linklater stopped. ‘Where’s your camp?’

  The boy stared at him, the frog limp in his hands.

  ‘Camp?’ repeated Linklater.

  The boy jumped from the rock and Linklater followed.

  The camp was on a rise near the creek. Families sat under bowers or in the rain whittling at their spears and digging sticks. There was a pile of coals steaming in the open, and small fires hissing under the dripping shelters.

  The people rose quickly when Linklater appeared, wrapping firesticks and gathering the children. Two Aboriginal men remained.

  Linklater dismounted. ‘We are looking for Boss William. Whitefella boss.’

  There was silence and the rain was a constant beat, coursing in small waterfalls from the policemen’s eyebrows, the end of their noses and upper lips. The Aboriginal men were straight and naked in the rain with their spears sharp and tall beside them.

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Finish.’

  Linklater considered this. He glanced to the ground where rivulets were forming around his feet. He looked up again in the same breath but the men had disappeared. He scanned the camp and peered into the bush; he sensed their presence but couldn’t see them. There was just the curtain of water, and the smell of the earth and eucalypts strong in the rain.

  They headed back to the road. The rain eased as the sun set. Linklater surveyed the homestead. There was a slight glow from one window which might well have been an aberration from the light of the shifting clouds. They circled the buildings and saw the abandoned camps, the workers’ quarters with the doors wide open. They found higher ground and chose a cluster of trees with thick foliage and camped in the dampness.

  In the morning the clouds were broken strands of violet and grey and rain came in gauzy swirls easily blown by the wind.

/>   Linklater readied his rifle as he and Timmins walked across the cleared ground towards the house. The homestead and the yards were silent.

  They opened the kitchen door. The stench of rotting meat and smoke was overpowering. The stone floor was dotted with dark stains, in one corner thick and confluent next to a mass of splinters and a piece of buffed wood that looked to be part of an implement of some kind. A large dented tin can with wire handles had fallen on its side nearby and canvas water bags lay haphazardly against the wall as if thrown there. On the table were empty cans crusted with dried remnants of food and a billy with a white film inside. Flies were everywhere. Some buzzed lethargically, but most were dead and littered across the floor and on every surface as if poisoned.

  The rain began again, falling lightly on the iron roof. Linklater kept his finger on the trigger of his rifle. The policemen moved through the kitchen to the hall. They stopped and peered into a room with an open door. Light came in even lines through the half-closed shutters. The bed was dishevelled, an empty enamel bowl sat on the dresser and the door was ajar on a thin tall wardrobe in the corner of the room. Whitewash was peeling from the wall, pulling the grainy render with it. Timmins looked at a pale rectangle where a painting had sat for some time but was now gone. A large number of geckos bunched together in the corners of the ceiling were silent while outside the patter of the rain on the iron roof increased like new hands joining in a drumming.

  Linklater looked under the bed. There was nothing there but a small dilly bag with a sweet peppermint smell, full of leaves that were dry and crumbling.

  They moved slowly around a corner in the hall. Candlelight glowed from under a closed door. They heard a voice mumbling, rasping, rising and falling, like that of an actor practising lines but caught by a weakness that made some words fall apart.