Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  Cold Can kneeled beside the Doc and unbuttoned his suit coat. It was covered in dirt and blackberry thorns. He stood up and put the coat on. His frail body almost vanished inside it.

  ‘Any of you fellas want to say some words?’ Tex asked the others.

  To everyone’s surprise Big Tiny stepped forward. He stood at the Doc’s feet and looked down at him. ‘You was an arse-hole sometimes, old Doc. But at the same time, you was one of us.’

  Tex patted Tiny on the shoulder, kneeled on the ground and dug both hands into the earth. He smeared the Doc’s face with dried yellow clay and patted his cheeks. ‘See ya when I join ya, old boy. That’s all I have to tell ya for now.’

  He looked across the water and studied the flow of the current. ‘We gonna need to get him out there near the middle. The Doc will go nowhere if we can’t get him moving.’

  Tex ordered the others to lift the body again. The four men waded into the water until they were waist deep. Big Tiny slipped and almost went under. He got to his feet and stood his ground. They moved slowly forward until the water lapped at Tex’s chest. Poor Cold Can was about to vanish when Tex ordered the men to ‘send him off’.

  They released the body and the Doc drifted towards the centre of the river where he was collected by a faster channel of water. It carried him away. The men, Ren and Sonny, all of them watched until the Doc slipped below the surface of the dark water. They kept their eyes on the spot he’d gone under for some time.

  Tex waded out of the water and sat down in the middle of the track. ‘I’m buggered.’

  Sonny couldn’t take his eyes off the water.

  ‘Tex,’ Ren asked, ‘won’t they find him anyway? The Doc’s body? And take him away and bury him with the paupers anyhow?’

  ‘Could do. But not if the river takes good care of him. The water holds the body down so them yabbies and eels can do a proper job. Eat the flesh clean off the bone, between them. Then the bones will fall to pieces and rest in the earth. The way it should be. If all goes right for old Doc, the ghost river, she’ll care for him.’

  ‘The ghost river? What’s that?’

  ‘Haven’t told that one?’

  Ren looked over at Sonny. He shrugged. ‘Nah. You haven’t told us.’

  ‘I been teaching you about this place and I still haven’t told you bout the ghost river?’ Tex smiled to himself and wiped a hand across his face. ‘Well, the time has come, now you seen the Doc on his way. Help me to my feet, Tallboy.’

  Tallboy pulled Tex up and propped a dead tree limb under his arm for Tex to rest his body on. Tex beat an open hand on his thigh and stomped the ground. The stomping got faster, then slowed and stopped. He looked to the water, up at the sky and put his open hand on his chest and beat it several times.

  ‘This is a story from the other time when this river she did not end where she is today. There weren’t no boats for travel back then. And there weren’t no bay at the end of the river. The land was full and the river was a giant. Then one time more water come and stayed. Years and years of rain. The land filled up and there was the bay that come, drowning the old river.’

  He stomped the ground again. ‘But she’s still there, under this one. The old ghost river.’ He poked the stick into the ground and drew a swirling snake. ‘This is her. And when a body dies on the river, it goes on down, down, to the ghost river. Waiting. If the spirit of the dead one is true, the ghost river, she holds the body to her heart. If the spirit is no good, or weak, she spews it back. Body come up. Simple as that.’

  Ren couldn’t imagine that the Doc possessed a good spirit but knew it would be disrespectful to say so.

  Tex was too clever for him and knew what he was thinking. ‘Let me tell you one thing, boy. This one not to be forgotten. The Doc could be a bad old boy. Can’t be lying about that. But never as bad as them that turns a man out in the street and leaves him for dead. And the poor woman too, with her young. I seen that nightmare with my own eyes. Starving kiddies crying at the feet of them that have no heart. The fucken money boys. You measure them with the Doc, he comes out a true saint next to them demons.’

  Tex threw the stick to the ground in disgust. ‘You boys best get on your way. You say nothing about this, to no one. I tell you that for your own good, and the Doc’s.’

  Sonny and Ren didn’t speak until they were almost home. Ren could hardly believe what he’d witnessed. In the days and weeks afterwards he would sometimes convince himself that it had been a dream.

  Sonny walked a couple of paces behind Ren. ‘That was good for him,’ he said. ‘I reckon the Doc was lucky.’

  ‘Can’t see what was lucky about what happened to him.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for the others he’d have no one to speak for him. Say he’d died some other place, like Tex was saying, he’d be buried with the paupers and nobody would know where he’d got to.’

  ‘S’pose so,’ Ren said.

  ‘When they’re all gone,’ Sonny went on, ‘they’ll be forgotten. There’ll be no one left. No family or relations. They won’t have no sign stuck to a bit of rock, like the diver has, talking about all that they’d done. It’s not right, someone living so long and they die and it’s like they were never round in the first place.’

  ‘We won’t forget them.’

  ‘Until we’re dead. They’ll be forgot then. It’ll be my turn after that. If I died right now, on this spot, my mum would never find out about it, and my old man don’t remember what’s gone on from one day to the next. It’s alright for you, Ren. Someone will remember you. But not me, they won’t.’

  ‘You’re making no sense, Sonny. My mother and Archie are a lot older than me and will be dead before me, unless I get some disease or have an accident. They won’t be round to remember me either. The truth is, all of us will be forgotten one day. Unless we do something special.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you just said. The diver. Something brave other people won’t ever forget about. Even people that weren’t around when it happened.’

  ‘I’ll come up with something then, that people will remember me by.’

  ‘And what would that be, Sonny?’

  ‘Not sure yet. I have to think of something.’

  ‘Maybe you could become the cigarette rolling champion of Australia.’ Ren laughed. ‘I don’t know much else that you’re good at.’

  ‘Get fucked. And it don’t have to be something good. More people are remembered for the bad they done.’

  ‘Now you’re talking, Sonny. Shouldn’t be too hard then.’

  Sitting at the kitchen table that night, Ren couldn’t get the image of the Doc, laying dead in the dirt, out of his head. Later on, he sat up in bed drawing in his sketch book, a portrait of the eagle on the back of his bedroom door. When he finished he got out of bed and held the sketch next to the photograph. It was a good likeness and he was happy with his work. He signed the drawing the way a proper artist would. During the night he woke to the sound of thunder in the distance, the roar of a changing wind, followed by the steady beat of rain on the roof. The long summer had drawn its last breath.

  CHAPTER 7

  By the end of a full summer on the river Sonny had come to know it well, but his knowledge was restricted to the swimming holes and bridges within reach of home. In the months that followed, Ren introduced him to other stretches and bends in the river that he had not seen before. The boys trekked downriver, to where factories battled for space along the riverbanks. The skinning sheds oozed their own rivers – of blood and animal fats – into the water, while wrecking yards bled dirty oil and spent fuel. The industrial drainpipes were large enough for Sonny to ride his bike through the pitch-black rancid air, chasing an eye of light ahead. Each time the boys entered the drains they ventured further into the darkness, always on the lookout for rats and feral cats that used the drains to move beneath the streets of
the city.

  Heading upriver couldn’t have been a more different experience. They picked up the dirt trail beyond the falls and headed north, aiming to reach the distant hills, a feat they never accomplished. After an hour or more hiking they crossed to the other side of the river, by way of an irrigation pipeline fifty feet above the water and no more than a foot wide. As the grime of the city fell away the river widened into billabongs, the home to thousands of birds. Ren could sit on the bank watching them for hours and not speak a word. And he wouldn’t have, except that an impatient Sonny was always pestering him.

  Walking home from their excursions upriver Ren would feel a little different. He couldn’t make sense of it. He knew it was a feeling he craved, but one in danger of slipping away from him. Even Sonny would be calmer. He would look up at the sky as if he was trying to unravel a mystery. They’d arrive back at the falls around sundown, having been tracked all the way by the glowing eyes of waking foxes. If they spotted the campfire under the bridge they’d call in and visit the river men. Back home, Ren would draw more pictures of birds, count the money he’d saved and dream of a day he might return to the billabong with a camera.

  Another attraction of the winter river was the treasure it gave up. The boys came across many decent finds, some of which earned them money. Soft drink bottles that somehow made it to the water without smashing were cashed in at the bottle yard. They also found lots of balls. Tennis balls. Soccer balls. One or two basketballs. But never a football. Not one.

  ‘Why do you reckon that is?’ Sonny asked Ren while he was laying on his stomach fetching a lemonade bottle from a drain grate. ‘We never come across a footy.’

  ‘Because a kid would risk his life to get a footy back. One time I saw Michael Evans from school, when he was captain of the team. He kicked his footy down a drain, and him and his little brother, Allie, went home, come back with a crowbar, lifted off the grill and got down in the shit and mess to get it back.’

  ‘You don’t reckon he’d have done the same for a cricket ball?’

  ‘Why would he? Easy to knock a new one off.’

  It was another type of ball that Sonny decided could make him and Ren some money over the winter. He put the plan to him on a wet Sunday afternoon when they’d run out of ideas to get them through a slow day.

  ‘You seen them players at the golf course when it’s been raining and the ground is wet?’

  ‘Nah. Haven’t spent a lot of time watching golf. Didn’t think you had either.’

  ‘Well, I watched enough when we’ve been walking by. And when it’s wet they hit the ball all over the place, into the bushes, skid them across the grass. I bet if we hunted around the course we could find plenty of golf balls and sell them back to the players.’

  ‘That’s your plan to make extra money? Sniffing around in the bushes for golf balls? You’d make more in tips with the newspapers.’

  ‘Maybe. But we got nothing better to do. You can come or not. It’s up to you.’

  They crossed the iron bridge, walked around the golf course and hunted through the bushes, under the low tea-trees and along the road next to the fairway. Ren was surprised that Sonny’s plan was a success, at least the hunting part of it. Within an hour they’d turned up six golf balls. One of them looked like a fox had been gnawing on it and Sonny threw it away. Most of the others looked as if they’d never been hit.

  Sonny saw a lone golfer up on the fifth green. ‘Come on, we’ll try this fella.’

  The golfer missed a short putt. He looked down at the ball like he wanted to stomp on it. Sonny walked onto the green holding the golf balls in both hands. ‘Mister, you want to buy any of these? They’re almost new. Twenty-five cents each. Or for a dollar you can have five.’

  The golfer looked at the balls, took one out of Sonny’s hand, held it to the light and studied it, as if it was a rough-cut diamond. ‘This one might as well have my name on it. You look close and you can see a nick in it, where I hit it wide off the tee on the second hole.’

  ‘It could be,’ Sonny said, ‘but you don’t know that for sure. And it don’t make any difference.’

  ‘Why not? If it’s my golf ball why should I have to buy it back off some kid?’

  ‘Say it is your ball, but we never found it for you. You’d have to go and buy yourself a new ball anyway. This one is like new but you get it much cheaper. And the other ones. Five for a dollar.’

  The golfer threw the ball in the air and caught it.

  ‘Fair enough.’ He offered Sonny a dollar note out of his wallet. ‘I’ll take all five.’ The man smiled. A gold tooth sat in the middle of his mouth. ‘You two from the other side of the river?’

  ‘Yep.’ Ren nodded.

  He looked across the river valley and on to the factory rooftops. ‘I come from over there myself, a long time ago now, before I come good with my cleaning business. Look at me these days. A fat-arsed prick getting about like a poof in a pink shirt and check pants.’

  The man reached into his wallet, brought out another dollar note and handed it to Ren. ‘A buck each. I’ve got boys of my own older than you two. Couldn’t turn a dollar if their lives depended on it. My fault for softening them, I suppose. You two, you’ll never go hungry.’ He winked and turned his attention to the golf ball laying two feet off the hole.

  Their good luck continued. On the way home from the golf course they found a new pair of rubber boots tied together with string, with the price tag still on them, hanging from a bush like a Christmas decoration. The boots were too big for either of them, so they walked to the camp and offered them to Tex. He’d been getting around in a pair of old leather sandals and his feet had been cut up bad and were freezing with the cold weather. Tex tried the boots on, smiling and humming to himself. He looked down at them and whistled long and low. The others around the fire were as excited as Tex was himself.

  ‘Give us a bit of toe, tap and heel,’ Tallboy called to him.

  ‘They look handy for an old jig,’ Tiny added.

  Tex tried getting himself moving but his body wasn’t up for it.

  ‘What do you think, Tex?’ Ren asked. ‘You happy with them?’

  ‘Oh, these is good. Real good. Thank you, boys.’ He smiled. ‘I never been so happy.’

  The next time they visited the camp Tex was sitting by the fire warming his bare feet on the coals and the boots were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Where’s them boots?’ Sonny asked, looking down at Tex’s feet.

  Tex stared at the scabs and cuts and scratched his head like he didn’t know any better than they did where the boots had got to. ‘Knocked off while I been sleeping is my belief. Be Big Tiny. The cunning bastard.’

  Tex really had no idea where the boots had gone. The metho was digging a deep hole in his brain and twisting his body into knots. He’d slowed to a bare shuffle, could hardly sing a note and was finding it difficult to see. When he spied someone heading for the camp he’d drop his head to the side and squint until he was sure it was a friend visiting.

  Life got even tougher for the river men that winter, after a storm tore through the valley and it rained for a week. When the rain was over the boys sat at the falls watching the damage being washed downstream. The water carried uprooted trees, wooden barrels and rubbish of every kind. Sonny pointed out a fisherman’s tinny being thrown around by the current. It raced to the edge of the falls, tipped on its end as it went over and crashed against the rocks before careering on.

  Ren looked towards the iron bridge, where the water continued to rise. ‘We should check on them,’ he shouted above the roar, ‘see how they’re getting by in this.’

  The river track was under water, so they were forced to wade through the weeds and long grass. As they neared the bridge Ren saw that the humpy had been washed away. The river men were nowhere to be seen and all that was left of the camp was the 44 barrel stove.
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  ‘Where could they have got to, Sonny?’

  ‘Maybe they knew the storm was coming and took off for the street.’

  Ren turned and spotted Tallboy in the distance, coming out of the wheelhouse, wrapped in a soggy blanket. He looked dazed and staggered towards the river’s edge. Sonny ran after him and grabbed hold of him before he fell into the water.

  ‘Tallboy,’ Ren asked, ‘where’s the others?’

  Tallboy eased his body to the ground and wiped bile from his beard with the back of his hand. ‘Two nights back, I heard a mighty scream in the dark. Crash. Another one. The tin off the roof was on me chest. I could see up in the sky and the old tarp was gone off the roof and made herself a kite and flew away.’ He gestured with his hand, the motion of a bird in flight. ‘I was stuck there under the tin weighing me down and called the others. Lucky for Tallboy they was woke up and saved me.’ He coughed and sneezed a couple of times. ‘We stayed there under one blanket that was left. All of us, together, till the morning come. It was a bad business. Texas said he would have no chance to hunt down all we lost and put the house back together. We had a meeting and picked up what was left and made our shelter there,’ he said, pointing towards the wheelhouse.

  ‘You slept in there?’ Ren asked Tallboy in disbelief.

  ‘Sure did. Only spot we was able to keep dry.’

  ‘I bet it’s creepy in there,’ Sonny said.

  Tallboy looked up and smiled, a little more like his old self. ‘Nothing special bout that place, except old Doc dropped dead guarding the door. The whole world is creepy at times, boy.’

  He tried getting to his feet but couldn’t manage it. ‘Some of the rooms in there is wet through, but not all of them. The storehouse ain’t bad. Got spare blankets and all, in there from the old days.’

  ‘Where’s the others?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Oh, they’re keeping themselves warm. Sent me for a drink, but I don’t reckon I can make it. Haven’t been this long off the grog since I was a young fella. Wouldn’t say it to the others, but it’s not a bad feeling. Not as I would have expected. We got to get up the street for a decent feed. You boys, help me to my feet and I can go and fetch them.’