Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  So now Alan was off on his own. A policemen from each locality was coming with him, to help interpret the clues. First stop was Birdsville, where his chartered plane would land. He would be collected there by the local policeman, Fred Howard, who would come with him, as they worked their way east, following the directions to the place named for Elfin.

  They could have come another way but Alan wanted to retrace the journey which Mark described he made from Birdsville to this place. Mark had noted in small writing, alongside the diagram he had drawn.

  I followed the directions of the old miner from Coober Pedy, the way he knew from thirty years earlier. He came from Birdsville so I came first from Birdsville. His directions were good.

  So they began as Mark had begun those years before, taking the road through Betoota towards Quilpie. Before they reached the junction for the next main road they looked for a sign to Four Mile Tank. Three miles along that they took a track that brought them north along the edge of the Beale Range. From there the roads were little more than goat tracks, but they still existed as roads used by miners and stations.

  Eventually, after another tortuous half day of driving, with several dead ends they had to backtrack from, they came to a collection of old mine sites spread out across some broken and rocky low ranges. The station owners had fenced these off to keep cattle from falling down mine shafts.

  They knew this must be it; there was a river channel below that fitted with the river Mark described. It was not flowing now though the ground was lush with dense grass, still with green shoots from last summer’s rain.

  They searched through the knee high grass, seeking the rocks Mark had carried to make the shape of a boat. The river bank was a mud channel with rocks mostly absent. They found the occasional one amongst the grass.

  For two hours they searched as the followed along the contour of the river bank, having only found the odd solitary rock. The sun was getting low. They had spent a long day driving and now searching. They both had cold beer on their minds and agreed to stop when they got to the next bend in the river. The rest could wait until tomorrow.

  Then Freddie who was working the down slope while Alan covered the upslope called out, “Two rocks together, make that three. Bloody Hell, I think this is it.” They cleared away the long grass. It was it, the place sought, quite unmistakable, boulders the size of footballs that Mark had brought from the hillside, making a boat shape ten feet long by five feet wide.

  They gazed in awe at the effort it must have cost for a single and solitary man to dig a hole this size, place a boat and a body in it and then fill it again and carry these big stones to make this rocky memorial.

  Mark had simply said in his diary, “I dug a hole by the river, big enough to take the boat. I carried her cold body in my arms down from the mine above.

  “I placed her into the boat with the opals she had found. Perhaps they will pay the ferryman to bring her to a happy place. After I filled the hole I carried rocks from the hill to mark the place in the shape of the boat.

  “God I miss my Elfin Queen.”

  Next day a team arrived from Brisbane in a helicopter, with a pathologist to complete the excavation. To Alan’s surprise Sandy stepped out of the helicopter, along with her Queensland colleague. She had been determined not to argue with Alan. But once she knew the find had been made she had caught the night jet to Brisbane and, with her powers of persuasion, she was here for it too.

  They dug down, each spade full of dirt checked as they went. Two feet down the spade struck metal, the top edge of the boat’s side. It was exactly as Mark had described, the tin boat, a backpack, the opals and crushed body wrapped in a blanket, pelvis fractured in the rock fall. They lifted the bones out with all the care they could, mindful of the loving way she had been once placed there.

  Next day they moved to the next site. It was only five miles away, further up the same rocky ridge. Mark had linked them in his drawings, saying the easiest way to find the place of Amanda is to go to the place of the boat, then follow the track north five miles along the side of the ridge.

  There you will find the site of the mine which I worked on in the days before she died. It is not as rich as Elin’s mine but there is still much of value left there, I have not worked it further. I feel it belongs to her and one day it should be her inheritance, as she sat there, at first patiently, while I dug it out meaning for her to have it all. If she had only waited a little longer and not made me so angry I would have given its proceeds to her.

  So finding the mine was easy, it was exactly where his drawing showed. Finding her grave was not so easy. There was no diagram for it. Instead Mark described the way he had walked. It was vague, as if only half remembered, perhaps he was no longer quite sure when he told of it. What he wrote was,

  I hit her hard. I knew I had killed her; I could have softened it but did not. I left her until my anger passed. Then I picked her up in my arms. She acted like a tigress but was only a cub, easy to carry. I walked with her, her pack on my back, taking two sticks of gelignite and a rope.

  I went northeast, until my arms grew tired, perhaps a mile. I rested near an old mine shaft. I lay her down and put on her best dress, that of the first night, sweet of memories. I took her to the shaft bottom, where I left her, then set off the gelignite. It covered her grave so none will disturb her. I should be sad but am not, it is better the end was kind.

  For an hour I talked to an eagle in the sky, asking him to keep watch over her spirit until it crossed safely over. As I talked I walked. Part way back, in an empty shaft, I dropped her pack. I covered it using the second bang stick.

  I am glad she lies near my Elfin Queen. They are both free spirits and perhaps will dance together, both beautiful together in the sunlight.

  It sounded more caring than the way he had told Susan and in the diary. The way he told it sounded like none was meant to find her. And find her none could. They searched but nothing matched what he said. They found plenty of abandoned mine shafts, but they were empty. None was collapsed, as if from explosive.

  Her pack was easier, a bare half kilometer from the mine site. Still it took a week of searching. But eventually they found this place, her pack in a deep shaft tied to a coil of rope. In the pack were the rubies he had given her, a few clothes, a notebook, a computer tablet and twenty thousand dollars. All were almost undamaged despite the years in the ground.

  So that was it, they had found the one and knew, almost, the resting place of the other. Amanda’s things could be returned to her family.

  Alan returned to Darwin for a week of completing paperwork. While these cases were now for the Queensland Police and coroner to deal with, he still had to do his reports, based on what he had found.

  After this he was ready to head on. This time his site was in the Tanami Desert south of the VRD, down towards Lajamanu, otherwise known as Hooker Creek. This time Sandy was clearly part of the team, she was the assigned NT pathologist for the recovery of this body. This time suggestions that the others were not welcome were quickly put to bed.

  Vic announced he was travelling down in his big heavy lift helicopter, capable of taking a dozen people, and that Jane would travel with him. Vic knew the location so Alan could hardly stop this flight. And as he had read Mark’s directions it was hardly feasible to exclude him from the search. Also Alan knew that for this search a helicopter would be useful.

  So it was decided they would all travel together. Alan offered for the government to pay for the helicopter.

  Vic said, “Don’t be silly, I am doing it for my friend, the way he wanted and it is his money that is paying to make something right.”

  The first day they ferried to VRD. Alan, Sandy, Anne, David, Cathy, Jacob and of course Jane, were all onboard. They stayed the night there with Buck and Julie, each having their own bunk beds, boys and girls sleeping separate in the stockmen’s quarters.

  As they sat over dinner, Jane’s first new memory came.

  She t
urned to Buck, “I remember Firefly, not just being told his name but riding on him. It was like a magic carpet, the way his body flowed. Another thing I remember the helicopter dance in the Wickham Gorge. And I also remember sitting here over dinner and Mark telling stories. I was falling asleep so I went to my bunk bed. That it is all I remember, but it is something.

  “Tell me, have I remembered true, Buck?”

  Buck winked at her and said, “It is true. Now tell me, do you remember a day when you sat in that cell and I came to see you. I apologized for not bringing Firefly to see you. Then you laughed and I laughed until we were out of breath and our sides ached.”

  Jane thought for a minute and then said, “Yes I remember that too. But what I most remember from that day was you told me that Vic was missing, vanished with his helicopter, and I thought my heart was broken in two. But he is here now so that part cannot have been true.”

  Next morning they left early, Buck flew in the station fixed wing plane to Lajamanu where he was to meet the local policeman. They would drive from there to the site of Mark’s map. This place was easy to find.

  It was on a road which turned off the Kalkaringi to Lajamanu road. It ran east for thirty kilometers, until it came to a small rocky ridge in the desert. At its base was a pool or water and behind the ridge to the east were sand hills where, after rains, wild flowers grew. It was such a season now.

  Both Buck and Vic knew this place, it had been shown them by Mark, a place he had found and loved to visit when he had worked at Lajamanu.

  Mark’s instruction was to walk to walk to the back of the sand hills, about five kilometers into the desert. There they would find a place where the sand met a small rocky outcrop. That was the place of her grave. He had carved her name, Josie, in the stone above, so the desert held her memory.

  They landed the helicopter at the end of the road, next to the rock pool where the police vehicle waited. Everyone was let off except for Alan, Sandy and the Lajamanu policeman.

  Vic flew to the east, keeping low. Now all four looked for this place that Mark had described, thinking it should be easy to find. After ten minutes of detailed searching it was not found. Vic found a clear place on a clay pan and set down on the ground.

  He said, “This must be about where, but where is a lot of there.”

  So they each took a quarter to search from the ground, agreeing to walk out two hundred steps and search back from there.

  Half way back Vic saw a place where the flowers grew thicker in front of a small grove of desert trees. As he came up close the rocky place stood up, hidden from above by the trees but easy to see in side profile. It was only his head height above the ground.

  Vic shouted out. The others came over. On the rock face was chiseled,

  HERE LIES JOSIE

  My lost KID SISTER

  Vic went and ferried the others across before they started digging.

  It was as Mark had told, the body of a teenage girl, small bones, wrapped in a soft mohair blanket, no other clothes. A small round hole in the base of her skull told of the killing. As they lifted her out and carried this blanket wrapped package to the helicopter they all felt unutterably sad.

  Her death seemed so senseless, a testament to evil.

  David said, “Do you think we could just leave her here. I think it is what both she and Mark would both have wanted. He buried her with love in a place of desert beauty. I think here she would be most happy.”

  But it could not be so, at least not for now. They brought the body to Hooker Creek airport, from where the policeman would arrange the carriage to Darwin. It was so official procedures could be done. Buck stayed with the policeman to help with his paperwork before returning to VRD.

  The others flew on to Halls Creek to stop for the night before the last leg of the journey. Dinner in the Halls Creek Hotel was a somber occasion.

  Alan could see Cathy and Jacob chatting to David, Anne and Sandy. Vic sat with him while Jane was on the phone, checking on her family.

  Alan said to Vic, “I could have sworn you knew the way today. You seemed to walk almost straight there once you landed the chopper.”

  Vic said, “When you spent as long with Mark as I did you start to think the way he does and look through his eyes. When I saw that little sheltered place half under the copse of tree I knew it was the sort of place he would choose. It was alive with flowers. I think they caught my eye in the air.

  “So, as we walked away, I chose that side, it seemed most right. I forced myself to walk all the way out before I looked there, not wanting to miss something else. But, as I walked back, I could feel that place calling to me. As I looked towards it the brightness of the flowers struck me. I later realized it was because a huge pile of flowers was once there before. All those seeds had germinated as the flowers broke down, year after year.

  “I could picture it as he left it that day, not a bouquet or two but armfuls on armfuls of flowers. Mark was never one to do things by half. The flowers would have been piled as high as himself before he left.”

  David joined their conversation saying, “I felt today that it was a place of peace, where Josie was happy. I could see she was buried with love. It felt like a sacrilege to disturb her grave. I thought we should leave her there. What was it about her death that moved Mark so; brought out a kindness for her in her death that he could not find for her in her life?”

  Vic replied, “I think Mark knew, on that day he killed her, he had done a truly terrible thing and there was no going back. The killings before then were done through desperation or need, or to stop evil people.

  “On that day Mark chose to kill his kid sister for no good reason except that she took something of his that he cared about. So, after it was done, his only reparation was to bury her with all the love and kindness he could find. It is as if, once it was done, her spirit felt his goodness and forgave what he did, happy to know his love. But, for himself, he could find no forgiveness for what he did that day.

  “That day he lost the biggest part of his human soul. Amanda was but a consequence of that day, the hatred of himself became hatred of the part of her that was like him, the person where self interest came first. So his killing Josie made Mark despise himself and then killing Amanda was like killing that part of himself he despised, something to take pleasure from.

  “When he asked Amanda to come with him he did it as a challenge, his diary clearly says that. But when she came he never really gave her a chance, he tested her to meet a standard he knew she could not meet. So he set her up to fail and cared not.

  “He knew that leaving her sitting in a God forsaken place, with nothing to do, day after day, when she was used to getting her way, would drive her crazy. Yet he forced her to hold to the bargain she had made unknowing. Even as he watched what this boredom did to her, he offered no relief. He could have made a trip, visited a station, gone somewhere nice, just for a day. He could have done something, anything, to break the monotony.

  “Instead he kept on digging, collecting more stones for no good purpose. He neither needed them nor the money they would bring. Yet he kept her waiting until, in the end, she broke. He knew she was like him but without his strength to fight him, the tigress who was really a cub.

  “When she pulled the knife he could have stepped aside, taken it from her. This man, who was a mercenary and who stared down charging bulls, was not afraid of a slip of a girl with a kitchen knife. So he did not need to kill her, he was not frightened, it was not self-defense. He chose to hit her hard enough to kill her when a slap would have sufficed.

  “It would have cost him nothing to leave a day or two earlier, nothing but kindness and for her he had none. That was because she was like him and he had no kindness left for himself.

  “If Belle had asked him to take her somewhere he would have driven her a thousand miles without seeking a reason. But, when Belle died, he lost his hope in goodness. Then when he killed Josie he lost his soul. So, for him, it was as if Amanda wa
s a test of himself, proof he was a being without a soul, someone who deserved his own fate of always killing what he loved.

  “When it was done he felt more relief than remorse, glad to have put her aside. Only after her death could he feel enough tenderness to wish kindness to her in another life.

  “Even though he tried to find a part of his humanity again with Cathy and Susan, from then on there was always a devil on his shoulder, waiting to bring him down. I think, after that day with Josie, his guilt was so great he almost wished for it to happen. The flowers were his way of saying sorry, giving something he knew she loved to try and take away his guilt. She felt his love but he could not accept her forgiveness. So nothing could undo that day.

  “I think, if I had talked to him on the day he died, and asked if there was one thing from his life he would have chosen to have undone it would have been that shot that brought Josie down.”

  Vic paused for a breath, having exhausted his words. He had never spoken as much before as he did now, as his mind had grasped for reasons to make sense of his friend. He expected to see just Alan and David sitting there. Instead, as he looked up he saw he was ringed by a circle of all of his friends. They were all listening and nodding. Cathy sat beside him and took his hand.

  “Thank you Vic. In him I saw a good man tormented by his past. For years, since I left him, I have myself those questions you answered. With each new discovery I have asked them, again and again.

  “I have asked myself, time and again, Why? Why? Why? Why could not the past stay in the past? Why could he not let his life move on? For a night or two he tried when I loved him, but the devil was always there.