Something vitally important. But what?
As he wrestled with his uncooperative memory, Neal watched the men groom one another around the campfire, using sharp stones to trim their hair. While the women and girls allowed their hair to grow below the shoulders, the men kept their curly hair cropped in a cloud around their heads. They also spent hours painting themselves, taking great care with the dots and lines that they applied in white pigment to their own and others' bodies.
Another night of fitful sleep as the importance of the elusive memory grew in Neal's mind. He was certain now that there was something very important he was supposed to remember. But what? Lying awake in the night, while his rescuers slept and snored, Neal kept going back to the days before the sandstorm, to see what it was he was supposed to remember. Had he promised to do something? Had he a specific task to carry out? Was he carrying a message to someone? If only he could remember!
He finally drifted off only to awake suddenly and feel something warm and soft at his side. With a start, he sat up and saw Jallara lying there, fast asleep beneath his fur blanket. Neal was so shocked he couldn't speak. She lay on her side, facing away from him, her eyes closed, her shoulder rising and falling in gentle respiration. Neal scanned the camp. Everyone slept, including the dingoes. But what was going to happen come dawn? When daybreak shed light on him and this girl, was Thumimburee going to vent his fury, for surely some sort of taboo had been breached?
He looked at her more closely. Jallara slept with her hands folded beneath her head. In the moonlight he saw that her face and torso paint was not smudged. Lifting the blanket, he saw with relief that her grass skirt was in place. In fact, nothing about her looked out of place, nothing untoward had happened while he slept, and it occurred to him that she had merely crawled in to keep him warm, for the night was bitterly cold, or perhaps she had heard him cry out in nightmares and came to bring him solace.
Strangely, she had that very effect on him because, as he lay back down, Neal felt comforted by her warm presence. It took him a while to cast off the disquieting after-effects of a bad dream, but he eventually drifted into dreamless slumber.
When he awoke, Jallara was offering him a possum-skin of water and warm seedcakes. As he looked into her black eyes and recalled how she had felt next to him during the night, Neal was suddenly gripped with the desire to repay these people for saving his life. While he was still unclear on the details of the sandstorm and its aftermath, he did know that if it weren't for Jallara and her family, he would be dead.
The solution came to him as he hobbled around the camp on weak legs, and paused at one point to support himself against a grass shelter. And the whole thing came tumbling down. An embarrassed Neal apologized profusely as two men helped him up, but they only laughed. The hut was reconstructed within minutes, and Neal realized he had found a way to repay Jallara and her people for saving his life.
This primitive clan that wore no clothes, owned no possessions, had no concept of money or wealth, did not read or write, hunted with sticks and lived in shelters that easily collapsed, were like Adam and Eve before the temptation in the Garden. Neal looked at their flimsy shelters and wondered why they didn't construct sturdier ones. And then he thought: They don't know how. As they didn't have hammers and nails, chisels and saws, it was no wonder. And why had they never invented the bow and arrow? Neal decided that he would show them. It would vastly improve their hunting, and with their hunting improved, their lifestyle would therefore improve. Neal would show them how to build stronger shelters and also how to plant seeds so that they could control their own crops all year round, instead of relying on scavenging.
Pleased with himself, he began his search for materials from which he could fashion a bow and arrow. And when his strength was restored, he would ask Jallara for her people's help in finding what was left of Sir Reginald and the expedition.
But how soon would that be? He was eager to get to work searching for survivors. Neal could walk on his own now, however it was with a slow and limping gait, and he had to take care not to exert himself. His only clothing was the kangaroo pelt around his waist—and his shoes, thank goodness—and so he had to take care of his pale skin beneath the sun. He knew, therefore, that he was a long way from making an arduous trek across this wasteland. With that in mind, that he must build himself up, Neal made sure to eat every mouthful of food offered to him, and found that, after a while, he was acquiring a taste for it.
Jallara and the other females spent their day digging up thick, tuberous roots that grew around the water hole, which they called a billabong. When pounded into a mash, the tubers made a starchy food that tasted faintly like bitter potatoes. Saltbush, a green shrub that grew as a bush or a tree, and so-called because it could grow in saline conditions, produced tiny red flattened fruits that could be shaken off the bush and eaten. Spinifex grass produced seeds that were collected and ground to make seedcakes. The women of the clan made bread from scavenged grains, roots and legumes. And the flavor of witchetty grubs, once Neal got past the idea of what they were, was almond-like.
The men of the clan left each morning to hunt and returned each afternoon with birds and small game brought down by boomerangs and spears. When Neal noticed that they did not skin game first before cooking it, which a white man would have done, but rather roasted an animal in its hide, Neal asked Jallara if it was because of yet another sacred rule or taboo, and she replied with a grin, "Keep skin, keep good juice and fat."
To make the bow and arrow, he gathered reeds that grew along the billabong. The tall bamboo-like stems were highly prized for spears, and were also cut into short lengths to make necklaces, or to stick through the septum of the nose as an ornament. The leaves were used to make bags and baskets. And now they would be put to yet another use as Neal incorporated them into a newer sophisticated hunting weapon that he knew Thumimburee and the other men would welcome with gratitude.
As Neal searched the gum trees for young limbs that would make a good bow, he watched Jallara with the other girls and young women and wondered about her. What was her parentage? One of her parents was not an Aborigine. Which one? And did she know both her parents, or was her story similar to his own, that she had no idea where she came from? Was she orphaned and perhaps left as a foundling like himself?
As she walked with him, Jallara asked, "You far from home, Thulan?" Her bare breasts continued to unsettle him. He tried to keep his eyes on the distant landscape of sand dunes, hills and spinifex clumps. How to explain that he came from a culture that considered the sight of a lady's ankle shocking?
"Yes, I am far from home."
"You have wife?"
He thought of Hannah. "No, I do not have a wife."
"You far from your Dreaming, Thulan. Far from your spirit-powers. Who take care of the sacred places? Who dance for the spirit-powers to bring rain and possum and honey?"
"My father is taking care of things," he said.
She nodded in understanding as she dug into the earth and pulled out a fat, moist tuber. "When you leave?"
"When I have my strength back."
"No, Thulan. Whitefellah. When whitefellah leave?"
He stared at her. Was she serious? "You want to know when the white men are going to leave? All white men?"
She smiled and nodded. "Been here plenty long time now. Go home soon, yes?"
My God, he thought. You think all those white people filling up the towns and cities, spreading out with their farms and sheep stations and vineyards, their factories and mining operations—you think they are just visiting? "I do not know, Jallara," he said, suddenly filled with sadness.
The next morning, Neal awoke to discover an embarrassing infestation of fleas in his kangaroo skin loincloth, biting him and giving him misery. Jallara gestured to him to give her the fur. He had expected her to laugh, but she didn't and gave him a curious belt to wear temporarily, going around his waist with a large clump of dried grass to cover his manhood. He watched i
n perplexity as she draped the kangaroo pelt over a very busy anthill. Jallara smiled and said, "We wait."
By afternoon, Neal was astounded to find that the ants had swarmed the pelt and devoured all the fleas. Jallara brushed the ants off, gave the pelt a few firm shakes, and handed it back.
Neal had made the acquaintance of more clan members now. Allunga, a small nut-brown woman with a head of white hair whom Neal deduced was Jallara's grandmother. Burnu, a smiling youth of around eighteen who was forever staring at Neal, curious about the white stranger in their midst. Daku, Burnu's brother, and Jiwarli, their father who had a withered leg and walked with the aid of a forked stick. Their sister, Kiah, was a shy, giggly girl who seemed to be Jallara's best friend. And Yukulta, a young mother who was the clan's keeper of the dingoes. She suckled the puppies at her own breast, and slept with the dogs at night.
With each new dawn, Neal woke with two thoughts dominating his mind: the elusive memory, that seemed very important, and Hannah. "I should have stayed in Adelaide," he murmured into the wind as he searched the gum trees for a sapling. "I should have stayed with Hannah. There will always be expeditions, but there is only one Hannah. If I had stayed with her, kept her close, married her, settled down with her—if I had stayed with Hannah I would not have been caught in a lethal sandstorm and then—"
He frowned. He was standing beneath a ghost gum, speckled sunlight dusting his sunburned shoulders. The girls and women were spread out on the plain, poking away with their digging sticks, rooting in spinifex clumps, chasing down rodents and lizards for dinner.
Neal repeated: "I would not have been caught in a lethal sandstorm and then . . . My God," he whispered into the dry wind that never stopped blowing. "My God."
The elusive memory had come back.
Neal reached for the white-trunked tree to steady himself. The wilderness seemed to expand and contract before his eyes. The drone of flies grew louder. The sun sent piercing light through the overhead branches. Neal held his breath as the full force of the memory—and its meaning—washed over him.
I was caught in a lethal sandstorm and was left for dead.
All fog and haze vanished in an instant and his mind snapped back into full recollection and crystal clarity. He remembered it all now: calling out in the night but finding no voice, deciding to stay beneath the protective tarpaulin to wait until dawn before searching for the others, waking at daybreak to find that they had moved on. They had not searched for him. He knew this because he had not gotten far when the sand cloud hit. The men would have all scattered but would have been in visual and shouting range afterward. Yet, when the dust settled and the sun came up, there had not been a scrap of tent, not a campfire ember left.
Sir Reginald had purposely abandoned Neal in the desert.
Because I caught him in a lie, Neal thought grimly. And if Sir Reginald never lived among the Seminoles, how fraudulent are the rest of his adventures? Enough for him to resort to murder to keep his secret safe.
23
I
T WAS TIME TO LEAVE THE BILLABONG.
As accurately as Neal could reckon, taking in his days with Jallara's people, his spell of unconsciousness prior to that, and the wandering after the sandstorm, it had been over two weeks since Sir Reginald had left him for dead in the desert.
Neal had no idea where the billabong was located. Without a map or a sextant, or even just his pocket watch, Neal had no way of determining the longitude or latitude of his location. All he knew for sure was that while he remained here, stationery with the clan, Sir Reginald and the expedition continued their westward trek, getting farther away.
And Neal had revenge in his heart.
"Can you take me south, to the coast?" he had asked Jallara the day before. Neal was no longer focused on making bows and arrows for the clan, or building sturdier shelters, teaching them the alphabet. He was now driven by something more primal. "The ocean? Big water in the south." Neal knew that if he could get to the Indian Ocean he could follow Edward Eyre's trail westward at least as far as Esperence, and from there strike north in the hopes of crossing Sir Reginald's path. Neal recalled Galagandra, circled in red on the map. He asked Jallara if she knew of it. She did not.
"Can you take me?" he had asked again, and through gestures and using basic words, he had finally gotten his point across. Jallara had had a private counsel with Thumimburee while Neal had watched anxiously. For the past few days, since his memory finally came back, Neal had been consumed with only one thought: to find Sir Reginald. To his relief, he had seen Thumimburee smile and nod agreement.
When Jallara came back and said, "We go," Neal had said, "When?"
Again she had frowned. So he put his hands together on the side of his head and closed his eyes to mimic sleep, followed by a hand sign imitating the rising of the sun. Jallara's face cleared and she held up her thumb, which he knew indicated the number one. "One day?" he said. "We leave tomorrow?"
"Yes, tomorrow, Thulan!"
Now it was dawn, today they were leaving the billabong. As Neal helped them take down their shelters and bundle the sticks to be carried on their backs, he vowed that once he made it to Perth, he would see to it that food, clothing and medicines were brought back to Jallara and her people in a gesture of gratitude for saving his life.
Finally they were ready, thirty-three men, women and children, their shelters reduced to bundles of sticks, the campfires doused, all sign of human habitation erased. Neal felt a little guilty for making them leave such a nice home. He had only asked for two guides to take him south, but Thumimburee seemed to think the whole clan had to go.
The clever-man held out his arms and, turning in a slow circle, chanted prayers. Jallara told Neal that Thumimburee was thanking the spirits of the billabong for giving them a good life there. He was also asking forgiveness from the spirits of the animals they had killed and eaten, and from the plants as well. It had something to do with balance, but which Neal did not quite understand.
But when Thumimburee and his clan started to walk northward, Neal said, "Wait, I said south."
"Come, Thulan!" Jallara called merrily. "Thumimburee say you friend, you come."
Neal stared at her. And then he realized that he had misunderstood. Jallara had not said they would take him wherever he wanted to go, but that he was welcome to go with them.
"But I have to go south!" he said, as the others continued walking, following Thumimburee who had spears, woomeras and boomerangs tied to his back. "I have to find my expedition!"
Jallara stopped and turned and said, "We go this way."
"But why? I mean, what difference does it make where you go? There are no towns, no villages, no homes to visit. It seems to me your people can go anywhere they like."
"We follow songlines, Thulan."
He frowned. What were songlines? He saw no lines etched into the ground, no distinguishable landmarks.
He watched Thumimburee, tall and proud as he marched with a firm stride over the arid plain, leaving the billabong behind, children and dingoes running after him, with the hunters and women faithfully following. Then Neal squinted southward across a bleak and hostile expanse, wondering briefly if he could make it to the coast on his own. Knowing that he could not, Neal realized he had no choice but to go with them. He fell into step beside Jallara, thinking with dread that they were headed north, deeper into the unknown heart of the continent, farther from Hannah and civilization, in the opposite direction of Sir Reginald and the expedition.
24
H
OW DO YOU FEEL, MR. O'BRIEN?"
Jamie squinted up at Hannah as she sat silhouetted against the pale sun. They were riding in the back of the wagon, among the bags and barrels and crates of supplies, the wheels creaking in the late afternoon stillness. She had stayed by his side in the ten days since she had fixed his leg, from morning to night, watching him, caring for him. It was a nice feeling, Jamie thought. Unfortunately, she also would not let him step down from th
e wagon and help his mates search for opals, because that's why he had come out here. Jamie O'Brien was not a man to stay put. He was cursed with too much energy and the need for action. But Miss Conroy had not only elected to be his doctor, but his jailer as well.
A pretty jailer though, he thought. Miss Conroy wore a gray gown with a matching gray bonnet, and her eyes were gray. Jamie had heard a word once, "nacreous," and he had never really understood it until now. It was a word invented just for Hannah Conroy, he decided, because she was not the gray of fog or colorlessness, but the gray of Irish mists and ancient castle keeps. And that black, black hair that beckoned to a man, Come and explore.
"I feel great," he replied with a grin.
"And how is your leg?"
"Which one?" The grin grew cheeky.
Hannah knew that his attitude was meant to deflect his fear. It had been four days since he had felt any pain, any sensation at all at the site of the wound. She studied Jamie O'Brien's face, shaded from the sun by the wide brim of his hat. He was not yet feverish, there was no excessive perspiration. But they both knew that the lack of pain was a serious sign. It meant that, beneath the bandage that had by now become grimy and covered in dust, gangrene was eating away at nerves and flesh, numbing the place where bone had broken through the skin. And gangrene was a certain death sentence from which not even amputation was a reprieve.
The bandage was to come off this evening and Hannah, like the others in Jamie's group, was tense with worry.
As the wagons creaked and groaned through the eerie afternoon stillness, with the only sound coming from the billy cans clanking on the pack horses, the sun slowly moved up the great china-blue sky, bleaching everything on the earth, taking away all the shade so that not even the occasional clumps of spinifex grass cast shadows. The terrain was other-worldly: a stony, treeless desert of salt pans and sandstone flats, with bizarre cliffs and rock formations in the distance. A wasteland where, Hannah knew, nothing beyond stunted scrub would ever grow.
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