Bone Talk

by Candy Gourlay

  I knew I was dreaming because leaping about around me in a silent dance were men, women and children made of shadows.

  I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. My feet kicked and my arms waved as I threaded in and out of the dancing shadow figures. I could not stop. It seemed as if I was cursed.

  Suddenly, a gusting wind. It pushed under my outstretched arms, lifting me up, up, up in the air. Higher and higher so that down below, the shadows shrank to black smudges round the fire’s red flower. The trees that had towered over me on the ground dwindled into green buds and clumps.

  I rose fast and high.

  Far below, the rice terraces were green glinting tiers. The forest wrapped its wet dark skirts around the mountain’s waist.

  I rose swiftly.

  Up and up. Now I was in the clouds, which were great white mountains, high cliffs, white forests, white slopes of floating scree.

  Beyond, there was a blue ceiling. I couldn’t tell if I was rising towards it or if it was dropping down. I closed my eyes. Bit my teeth together. Waited for the splintering when I crashed through it. It didn’t splinter. It was elastic, like the pig’s bladders we filled with water on butchering day to throw around.

  The wind pushed under me and the sky pushed down. Such a funny sensation, pressing one’s head against the sky. Then, pop! The sky split and my shoulders squeezed through the small opening. I burst out on the other side, laughing.

  But my exhilaration swiftly turned to fear.

  Because beyond the sky’s blue skin was a world not meant for the living. This was the home of the Uninvited. I fought the wind. I wanted to get out, go home. But the wind wouldn’t have it. It blew harder, spinning me over and over and on and on.

  There was no sun. Below me were rows of black-barked trees with writhing black branches and fluttering black canopies. They formed the edges of great black paddy fields where hundreds of shadowy figures waded, waist-deep in black, waving grain. The figures looked human … but instead of heads, dark flames guttered from their necks. They burned with a strange fire, that became darker the higher the flames roared.

  The wind made a loud gusting noise. The heads of black flame lifted. In each burning face the mouths were deeper, blacker smudges that opened and closed. They were calling. But I heard nothing.

  The wind suddenly turned and began to press me down. The black fields rose to meet me.

  No! I tried to stop my fall by flapping my arms like a bird. To no avail.

  The eyeless creatures below swivelled as one, somehow following my descent. As one, they raised their arms towards me. I could see them clearly now. Not just their flame heads but their bodies … bodies of dead men and women in various states of ruin – slashed, broken, torn, peeling skin, broken bones. These were people who had met their deaths through war and murder.

  Down, down, down. My feet touched the ground and the Uninvited began to move, the silent black shadow-mouths constantly moving, arms still outstretched. The black waters of their rice paddies made every movement slow and laboured.

  But then I heard a swift thud-thud-thud. Running feet. One of the creatures had suddenly darted out of a paddy onto an embankment. He was racing towards me.

  Not for him the achingly ponderous movements of the others. I could see that this spectre’s body was young, lithe and undamaged.

  Just before he raised his axe, I recognized the tattoos across his chest. Geckos.

  The shadow mouth howled silently in the head of flames.

  I begged Tambul to stop.

  But it was too late because he was hard upon me, his blade swinging. As it cleaved my neck open, a scream was freed from my throat.

  25

  ‘Samkad! Samkad!’ Luki sounded frantic. ‘Samkad, wake up!’

  But I couldn’t. There was an invisible boulder pressing down on my chest, crushing the cage of my bones, squeezing the air from my lungs, pinning my wriggling heart to my spine.

  ‘Sam!’ I realized that Luki was not the only one shouting. I could hear Chuka barking and the bellowing of men and ancients.

  ‘Come on, Sam! Wake up!’

  I willed my hand to move, but my hand would not obey. I felt the cold trickle of sweat down my nose. Father had told me about this. How spirits could immobilize you. And if you couldn’t rouse yourself, you could die, right in the middle of your dream.

  ‘WAKE UP!’

  The boulder rolled off me at last and air rushed into my chest. My heart, unpinned, began to beat again, and I hastily propped myself up on one elbow.

  ‘There!’ Luki pointed down the path to the mossy forest.

  I rubbed my eyes. Tambul still sat, stoic and headless, in front of the gate. The morning was not yet fully ripe. The sun was nowhere to be seen even though the sky was already warming to a vague light. Around us, men and ancients pointed and stared down the mountain.

  Wading through deep pools of mist, three strange creatures ascended towards us.

  They had great, waggling heads and legs like tree trunks. The mist billowed and gathered around them like a ghostly river and a scent, ripe and beasty, wafted on the breeze.

  ‘What are they?’ Luki whispered, huddling against me. I was still in the grip of my dreaming and it took me a while to tell myself what the creatures were. Were they the souls of long dead beasts come to visit us? Or were they perhaps boulders from a neighbouring mountain that had come to seek somewhere else to lie?

  Horses. That’s what they were.

  I’d only ever seen a horse once, when I was still small, when one wandered into the village, trotting between the houses. I remember thinking what a strange animal it was. I remember everyone shouting and running. Several men blocked its way. They tried to throw a rope round its neck. But it swung round and galloped down the mountain and we never saw it again.

  It was only when the horses clop-clopped up onto level ground, snorting and making shrill noises in their throats, that I looked at the men sitting astride them. I could tell they were tall, and not just because they sat high above us. They were dressed like Mister William, except the fabric that wrapped round their limbs was coloured blue. Bands of black hide crossed over their chests and round their waists. Their legs were sheathed to the knee in dirt-coloured wrappings, their feet encased in even more black hide. Hats shielded their faces.

  The ancients behind us muttered to each other. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, apart from one word. Americans.

  I pressed my lips together to stop my jaw dropping open. Until yesterday, I had never met anyone from outside our village, never even heard of Americans. And now …

  Father was suddenly there. He had a spear in one hand and he stood it firmly in the ground at his side, his feet apart, shoulders square, his other hand on the axe hanging at his waist. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded, his voice hard.

  One of the riders lifted the hat from his face and I felt the same shock from the other day when I saw Mister William for the first time. This American had the same pale skin, the same strange blue eyes. On top of his lip, he had a fat roll of moustache that curved down the flanks of his jaw.

  The American’s voice began to roll out of his chest, deeper than any male voice I’d heard before. He spoke many words, a long stream of incomprehensible sounds, and the corners of Father’s mouth drooped in disappointment.

  The American looked impatient and said something else, his voice louder this time.

  ‘The idiot American thinks he only has to raise his voice to be understood,’ Salluyud snorted.

  ‘With respect, old one,’ Father said in a low voice, ‘we must try not to offend them.’

  ‘Pah! He can’t understand a word I say, can he?’

  ‘We need the boy, Kinyo, to speak for us,’ Father said. ‘Someone must fetch him from the cave.’

  Salluyud signalled one of the younger warriors to go. As the man hurried off, he called, ‘Bring the other American too.’

  The American with the moustache bent over his horse’s
head, fixing his blue gaze on Salluyud.

  To my surprise the ancient bowed his head and ceased to speak.

  Just then the two Americans who, until now, had been sitting silently on either side of the moustache, cried out. They swung their long legs over their horses and dismounted, chattering excitedly as they pushed past Father.

  ‘They want to look at Tambul,’ Luki whispered.

  The moustache hopped off his horse and hurried to join them as they approached Tambul’s seated corpse.

  ‘Disrespect!’ Dugas cried.

  But, of course, the Americans didn’t understand. They just glanced at Dugas and bared their huge white teeth. One of them turned and lifted up the spirit blanket to examine the gash where his head had been.

  I heard sharp intakes of breath behind me and I glanced worriedly at the younger warriors. They were Tambul’s friends. Were they going to draw their axes and fall upon the Americans? Their eyes darted about, following the Americans as they moved slowly around the death chair, exclaiming to each other. But they did not move.

  Dugas sighed. ‘Samkad,’ he called to Father in a low voice. ‘Are these Americans here because of you? Do you think they followed you here from the lowlands?’

  Father shook his head. ‘I do not think anyone followed us, old one. I cannot know why these Americans are here until Kinyo arrives to ask them.’

  Muddo, who was Tambul’s closest friend, turned to the others. ‘There are only a few of them! What are we waiting for? With our numbers we can overpower them.’

  ‘Muddo.’ Father spoke quietly even though there was no chance the Americans would understand. ‘We kill one American today and there will be a hundred more wanting their vengeance.’

  A hundred more! My mouth went dry.

  Muddo clamped his lips together and frowned at his toes.

  Now the American with the moustache ran back to his horse and fetched a bag from a pack slung over the creature’s rump. He took it back to the death chair and from out of it he produced several rods that he assembled into a tall stand. He pulled out a small black box and fixed this to the top of the stand.

  The strangers positioned themselves on either side of Tambul’s chair. The moustache threw himself on the ground in front, leaning on one elbow with one leg stretched out and the other bent. He looked like he was relaxing under a tree.

  The moustache hurried back to the box and examined it. Then they rearranged themselves around the death chair again. This time, the moustache remained standing and the other two lay down in front of the chair.

  The ancients exchange baffled looks.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Dugas demanded. But of course, none of us could explain. Was it a ritual of some sort? What was in the box? Why were they striking different poses around Tambul’s corpse?

  We could do nothing but watch.

  It felt like forever before Kinyo appeared on the path from the rice valley. He was running, hair slicked to his skull with sweat. Mister William followed close behind.

  The Americans were astonished to see Mister William, though they seemed happy enough, reaching to clap him on the shoulder and shake his hand the way Kinyo had shaken ours the day before.

  When they had first arrived, I had thought they all looked alike, apart from the moustache. But now I realized that they looked nothing alike: not their eyes, not their lips, not the widths of their shoulders.

  Kinyo said the one with the moustache was called Corporal Quinlan. The other two were called Private Smith and Private Henry.

  I wanted to say the names aloud – try the sound of them on my tongue. But now Salluyud was barking, ‘Kinyo, ask them what they are doing with that box!’

  Corporal Quinlan laughed as if Kinyo had made a joke.

  ‘He says they are doing a kodak,’ Kinyo translated.

  ‘A kodak?’ Blind Maklan muttered. ‘What is a kodak?’

  The American was holding up the box.

  ‘That is a kodak,’ Kinyo said. ‘It is for making pictures. He says they are making pictures to show people in America.’

  ‘But what is a picture?’ Luki said.

  Kinyo’s lashes fluttered as he considered her question. He did not translate it for the Americans but answered it himself. ‘That book Mister William tried to give the ancients. It had pictures in it. The kodak can see. It makes a likeness of what it sees so that anybody can see it.’

  The kodak could see? A likeness that you could look at again? It didn’t make sense.

  Dugas made an exhaling noise, like a water buffalo surfacing in the mud. ‘Look at that one – what is he doing?’

  The one called Private Smith was leaning over Tambul, slipping the ceremonial necklace off the corpse’s shoulders. He put it in his pocket. Then he grabbed the dead man’s arm and began to twist the boar’s tooth armband off.

  ‘Stop him!’ I cried. ‘He’s stealing Tambul’s things!’

  But nobody – not the warriors, not Father, not the ancients, not even Muddo who had wanted to fight them – made a move.

  The American put the armband in his pocket and reached for the one on Tambul’s other arm.

  I didn’t think. I just found myself there, slapping Private Smith’s hand away from my friend’s corpse and snatching the armband from his hand.

  ‘THIEF!’ I heard myself shout. ‘Give that back!’

  26

  Private Smith’s eyes held mine. They were not as brilliant a blue as Mister William’s, but cloudier and stained with brown, like the Chico River after a big rain. The dog-hair bristles stood hard and proud on his top lip. There was a violent rushing in my ears, like water boiling on river rapids. I could vaguely hear the ancients scolding in the distance, and the deeper murmur of Mister William’s voice. He sounded furious, as if he was chastising the other Americans. ‘Samkad, get away!’ I heard someone say. But I didn’t – couldn’t – move. An angry spirit had taken over my body. My arms and legs were not mine.

  ‘Sam!’ I heard Father call. ‘Don’t upset him, Sam.’

  But the angry spirit inside me didn’t care. ‘THIEF!’ The word burst out of my throat again.

  I heard Chuka growling. ‘Luki, hold that dog!’ Father called.

  Suddenly the tip of a long metal cylinder was pressed against my forehead, hard and cold. Weh. So this was a gun? This was how the Americans brought death to their enemies? But my angry spirit felt no fear and my chin raised itself so that my forehead pressed harder against the gun.

  Now Kinyo was squeaking behind me in a pleading voice. Hearing Kinyo beg in the thief’s tongue made the spirit inside me burn hot. My mouth worked up a big gob of saliva. I spat on the American’s foot, the spittle dribbling all over his hide-covered toes.

  ‘NO!’ I felt Father’s hand on my shoulder now, yanking me back. His other hand snatched at Tambul’s armband. ‘Kinyo, tell the Americans he is just a child. Tell them they can have whatever they like!’

  Now Mister William put his broad body between me and Private Smith, talking in a soothing, reasoning voice.

  Private Smith sneered at Mister William, and replied in a jeering voice. He whipped the gun away from my forehead and waved it in the air. A hand appeared behind him and tried to snatch it away.

  It was Corporal Quinlan. Private Smith held on but Corporal Quinlan twisted the the gun barrel up and up and up so that the other American ended up wriggling from its handle like a fish on a spear.

  There was an explosion and the water buffalo skull atop the fern tree pillar shattered into a shower of bone.

  A smell of burning filled the air. I found myself cowering, both hands clamped over my deafened ears. It felt like the explosion had happened deep inside my head.

  Private Smith allowed Corporal Quinlan to take the gun.

  I swallowed and my hearing returned. I could hear Corporal Quinlan speaking in a soft explaining voice as Private Smith looked on with a surly expression on his face.

  Kinyo translated. ‘Corporal Quinlan says he is sorry.’r />
  Sorry? The invader was apologising?

  Kinyo frowned, concentrating, as Corporal Quinlan held his hand out and the thief handed back the necklace he had taken from Tambul. ‘He says they have no quarrel with us. They want to become our friends. We can have the trinkets back.’

  He held the necklace out at me.

  I snatched it from him and quickly slipped under his outstretched arm to lay the necklace back on Tambul’s headless shoulders.

  Corporal Quinlan continued to speak and my brother translated breathlessly. ‘He says, did you appreciate what the gun could do? Do you appreciate what a powerful gift this is?’

  A gift?

  The American held the stinking thing out to Father.

  ‘They want us to have it,’ Kinyo whispered. ‘They want us to have the gun.’

  27

  The Americans nodded smugly to each other as they watched the men of Bontok surge forward. Even the ancients jostled to get near the gun. It shocked me to see the grins on their faces, the haste with which they snatched the gun from Father’s hands, the way their eyes gleamed as they passed it around, the way they licked their lips as they stroked the long black tube, as if just touching it made their mouths run dry.

  Father folded his arms across his chest, his lips compressed as the younger men badgered Kinyo to translate questions for the Americans.

  ‘Ask him if it should be kept dry.’

  ‘Ask him how it works.’

  ‘Ask him for the missiles that go inside.’

  The ancients were even worse. Their withered faces split into gummy smiles and they reached for the gun with their gnarled arms, like babies reaching for their mothers.

  They all wanted it.

  A gun, Samkad, a gun! I told myself. Why aren’t you excited? Did you not see what it could do? Don’t you want it too? A better weapon than a spear, better than an axe. But I felt no enthusiasm.

  The gun was passed from hand to hand and the Americans smiled. They had demonstrated its power and now they were handing that power over to us. But what for? What did they want in exchange?