Bone Talk

by Candy Gourlay

  I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes Kinyo was standing in front of me.

  My brother was staring down at me with a strange look on his face.

  ‘Look away if you can only shame me with your stare,’ I mumbled, closing my eyes to shut the sight of him away.

  ‘Samkad, wake up.’

  ‘I am awake.’ I opened one eye. And then both eyes. There was something wrong. Kinyo’s eyes were red. His hands were trembling.

  I sat up straight. ‘Are you all right? Have the dead made you sad too?’

  He shook his head.

  I peered at him. He seemed paler. Like he had just been visited by a newly dead corpse.

  He let out a deep sigh and clenched his fists.

  ‘I hate them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Americans.’

  ‘I thought they were your friends.’

  ‘Mister William is my friend. But these Americans …’ He shook his head. ‘Down in the lowlands, in our village, they made us do this too, you know.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Bury the dead. They marched us to a field where there had been a battle. Men, women, children, they didn’t care how old we were. The bodies had been there for a few days and were bloated – arms and legs poked up, rigid. When I close my eyes, I still see their dead eyes. And do you know what was worse? Wherever the dead had lain, the grass had died too.’ He shuddered. ‘Afterwards, the field was covered with brown patches shaped like their bodies.’

  ‘Did they give you guns?’

  He looked away. ‘We were lowlanders – the enemy. It was a punishment, not a job. Besides, they knew we’d been helping the soldiers of their enemy. Feeding them. Hiding them. That was why they burned our village.’ He scowled. ‘I hate them.’

  ‘I stared at him. ‘But you … you ate all those sweets!’

  Kinyo almost smiled. ‘Well, I do love sweets!’

  ‘Why are you here? Don’t they need you anymore?’

  The almost-smile faded. ‘They are asleep. Well Private Henry and Private Smith are asleep. Corporal Quinlan is standing watch.’ He pointed.

  The two Americans were lying with their hats over their faces on the far end of the rocky space. A huge boulder cast a long, cool shadow over them. But the boulder blocked their view of the men at work. Corporal Quinlan sat on the other side of the boulder, keeping watch over the digging men. The horses were still cropping grass by the two fingers of rock. I could just see the tiny figure of Juan, crouched behind them, holding his hands over his head, to shade himself from the sun.

  ‘Samkad.’ There was something in the way my brother called my name that made the hairs rise on my arms. ‘Sam, I have to tell you something.’

  ‘What?’

  Kinyo took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes, the Americans forget I understand them.’

  Private Henry had asked Corporal Quinlan sulkily if they really had to travel all the way back to the village. The American had laughed in response, as if the other man had made the funniest joke in the world.

  ‘Corporal Quinlan called him an idiot,’ Kinyo whispered.

  ‘Once the job is done, we’re going home, he said. Why should we go back to that village, he said. Private, have you forgotten, he said, that we didn’t killed the Mangili?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I gasped, panic rising in my throat. ‘How can that be? If that is true then we left the village unprotected!’

  Kinyo just looked at me with gaunt eyes.

  The Americans had been lying to us all along.

  35

  I threw myself down the mountain. I had to tell Father. We had to go back. The village was in danger.

  ‘Sam!’ Kinyo cried. ‘Wait!’

  But there was no time to lose – what horrors had already happened while we were calmly meandering from mountain to mountain? You are too late. The thought slipped into my brain. No! I groaned. Let it not be so! But the words drummed in my head like the beat of a gangsa. Too late. Too late. Too late.

  How the Mangili must have laughed from their hiding place when they saw us leaping to do the Americans’ bidding.

  The path levelled off a little bit and I raced on, half shutting my eyes to blur the sight of bodies lying in stacks, like logs. Overhead I noticed, for the first time, carrion birds, circling. The hum of the blowflies deepened as if they were pleased I had come and would I like to have a peek at a corpse or two?

  Over by the boulder, Corporal Quinlan was watching me.

  I slowed my feet, walked as if nothing urgent had propelled me down the mountain. As if I was just a boy wandering down to have a word with his father.

  There were piles of gravel and dirt everywhere. The ditch was already knee high.

  ‘Looking for your father, Samkad?’ One of the men called. ‘He’s over there.’

  Father was standing right in the middle of grave, stabbing the ground with his stick. I jumped in and, keeping my voice low, told him the awful truth about the Mangili.

  ‘Father,’ I whispered. ‘We should go back.’

  But the eyes that met mine were round with horror. Father looked … terrified.

  He exhaled. ‘It’s all right. They will let us go when we finish work.’

  How could he say that? ‘Father!’ I insisted. ‘We should go right away! What if—’

  Father’s digging stick clattered in the dirt. He stared at it. ‘They – they will kill us, Sam,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t get away.’

  ‘There are twenty Bontok here and only three Americans!’ Even as I said it I remembered Tambul’s friend, Muddo, proposing exactly the same thing when the Americans had first arrived. And we should have, I thought, as Father shook his head. We should have defeated them then. ‘Don’t you care, Father? Don’t you care that the Mangili will take the village?’

  Father’s chin sank into his chest. ‘It’s too late. Too late …’

  ‘Samkad!’ somebody above us hissed. ‘Look at what your boy Kinyo is doing!’

  Somehow Kinyo had obtained an axe and was dragging it towards the horses, the blade cutting a stripe in the dirt behind him. Corporal Quinlan was on his feet, shouting something in American.

  But Kinyo ignored him, calling to Juan in the lowlander’s tongue. When the prisoner held out his shackled wrists, Corporal Quinlan bolted into a run.

  But there was a digging stick suddenly in the way and the American pitched forward into the dirt.

  When Corporal Quinlan turned to yell at the owner of the digging stick, there was nobody there. The men watched innocently from a safe distance.

  By now Kinyo had succeeded in severing the shackles that bound Juan’s wrist’s together and was trying to help the lowlander mount the nearest horse, which happened to be Corporal Quinlan’s. Juan pulled himself up only to slip down the horse’s other side. He grabbed the horse’s mane with both hands, dragging himself back up to sprawl across its back like an ungainly monkey.

  Kinyo, meanwhile, was slapping the beast’s flanks and clicking his tongue. But the beast seemed unimpressed, taking a few dainty steps before coming to a stop and leaning down to nibble on a tuft of grass.

  Corporal Quinlan drew his gun and aimed. There was a sharp report – but the bullet found no target. A stone had flown out of nowhere and struck the American’s elbow, spoiling his aim.

  And it was too late because Kinyo, waving and slapping the horse, had succeeded in herding the beast with the lowlander astride it through the two stone fingers to freedom.

  Corporal Quinlan was roaring like an injured animal. He lifted his gun and pointed it at my brother.

  But before he could fire, he crumpled, moaning to the ground. He tried to get back on his feet, muttering angrily under his breath.

  And I swung Father’s digging stick again.

  And this time, when Corporal Quinlan fell to the ground, he stayed there.

  Kinyo’s face was livid. He ran towards me, screaming. It was a moment before I realized that the words
roaring out of his throat were American. I looked over my shoulder to see Private Henry and Private Smith emerging from behind their boulder, their slowly-waking faces bewildered as they spotted Corporal Quinlan’s still body on the ground.

  Kinyo grabbed Private Henry’s arm, shouting in a panicked voice. The American broke into a run towards the horses. Except there were no horses. Private Henry scratched the back of his head before he stumbled through the fingers of rock, chasing Juan on foot. Smith knelt next to Quinlan and rolled the unconscious man over. The men turned to the grave and continued with their digging.

  Kinyo leaned towards me. ‘Samkad,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Let us go home. Now.’

  Part Three

  How to Be a Man

  36

  Father did not resist when Kinyo and I pulled him along; he ran obediently at our heels. I thought he was all right, but glancing over my shoulder, I realized that his eyes were glazed. He was as good as dream-walking.

  ‘Then I told the Americans it was Juan who did it. The men helped me free the horses so that they couldn’t chase the lowlander,’ Kinyo panted. ‘I told them he knocked Corporal Quinlan down and then rode away.’

  I was astonished into silence. When did the others decide that the Americans were their enemy? When did they decide that the lowlander was a friend?

  We could hear a distant roaring behind us. Perhaps those great stone walls that plunged down into that dying place had collapsed in on themselves. Perhaps it was the clamour of angry men. I could look, I supposed. I could turn and climb up to that rock over there to see how that part of the story was ending.

  But I didn’t. I was afraid to know.

  It seemed forever since the ancients had summoned me to declare me a man. How little I had known then. I had not known what a lowlander looked like. I had not known there was such a thing as America. I had not known it possible for there to be people with hair a colour other than black and skin a colour other than brown. I had not known that other throats fashioned entire languages that had no similarity to mine.

  All these things I did know now, but I felt like one of those magic vessels that could never be full in those stories told by the ancients. I felt like I could never know enough.

  Small avalanches of gravel bit into the soles of our feet. A gusting wind followed us up that long, rocky slope, prodding our backs with hard fingers, panting, hurry, hurry, hurry. Away, away, away.

  ‘This is my fault,’ Father muttered.

  I touched his elbow. ‘No, Father. We were betrayed.’

  But Father shook his head. ‘We allowed them to lie to us.’ His words stabbed with the same rhythm as our footsteps. ‘We did not resist, we did not question, we allowed it to happen. I was their fool.’

  As we retraced our way home, Father would not be comforted. He continued to accuse himself.

  I left him to it. Because he was right. We had allowed ourselves to be betrayed. How I had preened when Father told me I had become a man. I had believed him, believed that I was ready for it all. But what kind of man would make such an enormous mistake as to believe a lie?

  With just the three of us the journey took half the time. Now the traverses between mountains seemed shorter, the gorges shallower. Even the river, as we crossed it, seemed still and meek, the water only gently licking at our feet.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry. I was surprised to find that Kinyo was running comfortably alongside me. It was Father who lagged behind.

  The sun was dying by the time we reached the mossy forest. It ignited everything with its last light. Under the forest canopy, shafts of sunlight hung like yellow fangs over our heads.

  ‘We should stop to make some torches,’ I called to Kinyo.

  But even as I said it, I realized that there would be no need.

  The trees were glowing.

  The drip-drip of moss from the spreading branches over our heads oozed red. Light shuddered in the gaps of the trees. When we reached the forest’s open mouth, where the village path began, it radiated with a strange leaping red light.

  We walked out of the forest to see smoke rolling down the mountain.

  We were too late. The village was on fire.

  37

  The fire snapped its fingers and flung sparks into the air. I could feel it burning in my eyes. It stained us red all over.

  Too late, was all I could think, my mind dazed by the smoke and the heat. Too late. There was no village to save. No ancients. No people. Nobody.

  Father fell to his knees. And then he was howling, his face pressed into the dirt, the sound spiralling from deep inside him. I turned away – I couldn’t watch his pain.

  Suddenly I saw something on the downward path – a quick shadow, blown along by the rolling heat. Then, something solid careered into my belly and suddenly I was gasping with joy. Black fur and pink tongue and desperate, desperate love. It was Chuka. Alive. Safe.

  Kinyo grabbed me, turned me around. ‘What do we do?’ he cried. ‘We’ve got to do something!’

  I touched Father’s back. ‘Father?’ I begged. ‘Tell us what to do.’ But only groaning noises moaned from his throat

  I stared fearfully at the flames stabbing into the black of the sky. What if there were still people in the village?

  ‘We must go in,’ I said. ‘People might be trapped and need our help. Kinyo, help me with Father.’ We tried to pull Father to his feet, but he was immoveable, a stone clinging to the earth.

  ‘My fault …’ he moaned. ‘All my fault.’

  ‘Please,’ I gasped. ‘Please, Father.’

  I grabbed his elbow and Kinyo took Father’s other arm and together we raised him, forced him to put one foot in front of another. Chuka raced ahead. There was a strange pitch to her barking, like a warning. As if she was crying: ‘Alert! Alert! Alert!’

  Kinyo and I had to hold Father up, his body seemed to have no will of its own. Slowly, we made our way to the top, the air burning hotter and hotter as we climbed. Halfway there, we found Chuka waiting next to the bodies of two men, prone on the ground. Their heads had been taken.

  ‘Don’t look, Kinyo,’ I commanded. ‘Just don’t look.’ But Kinyo had already looked.

  Father staggered to one of the bodies, rolled it over. He traced the tattoo of a snake on the man’s chest. ‘Dipa,’ he whispered. ‘It’s Dipa.’

  He touched the other man. ‘This is Lamang. See, he has a small lizard on his shoulder.’

  He bent over, covering his face with his hands, and this time, his sobs rose higher.

  Father’s weeping was tempting tears into my own eyes. But I blinked them away. Don’t allow yourself to feel, Sam. You must keep going.

  ‘Come on, Father,’ I said firmly. Kinyo and I pulled Father to his feet and we continued to the top of the slope. Tambul was still there, now collapsed sideways in his death chair. But all the red of the fire had clouded over. Everything was bleached of colour. The grass and the path. The low stone wall. The trees. Everything was covered with a white dusting of ash.

  Beyond the low wall, every single roof was ablaze. The fern tree pillars along the path smoked like torches, their buffalo skulls hung awry. Thick gouts of smoke puffed from more houses beyond.

  My heart was pounding. Were there any people trapped in their houses?

  Some of the bamboo poles making up Tambul’s chair had sagged free. I let go of Father and unfastened the poles from the chair. ‘Here.’ I handed one to Kinyo. ‘We must make sure nobody’s caught in the fire.’

  Kinyo and I moved quickly from house to house, using the poles to prod open scorched doors. We shouted into sheets of flame. ‘Is there anybody there? Does anybody need help?’

  There was no answer. Did that mean that they all got away? Were they safely in the caves? Or were they dead and quietly burning in their houses?

  I whistled for Chuka. ‘Dog, see if you can find anyone!’ But she whined and shied away from the guttering huts.

  The smoke was thickest near the House for Men. Fl
ames rose out of the thatched roof in great sheets and under the burning rafters the skulls of our enemies glared at us.

  ‘Sam, look!’ Kinyo gasped.

  There, in the middle of the courtyard, lay Mister William’s music box.

  Kinyo knelt and gathered it up in his arms, his face twisting with grief. ‘They killed him too! They killed Mister William!’

  There was a strange grumbling sound. The House for Men trembled. I grabbed Kinyo’s arm and dragged him away just as the roof caved in, sending up a great cloud of sparks and smoke. Chuka howled as the flames swooped high into the black sky.

  Father appeared in the smoke. ‘We must get away from here!’

  ‘But … the music box,’ Kinyo cried.

  ‘It is lost,’ I said. ‘Come on, Kinyo.’

  We ran, coughing, Chuka chasing at our heels, until the path narrowed and we entered the First Valley.

  The rice paddies flickered spookily in the firelight.

  Father slowly sat on his heels, his face gaunt.

  ‘We didn’t find anybody in the houses,’ I said softly. ‘Perhaps everyone managed to flee.’

  Father whispered, ‘The spirits of our ancestors are gone. Chased away by the fire. We have no one to protect us now.’

  He tore at his hair as his eyes searched the sky. ‘Mother! Uda! Are you still with us?’ He covered his eyes. ‘She’s not here. I can feel it. She has left us. They all have.’

  I threw my arms around Father, trying to lift him up again. ‘Father, let us go to the cave. Everyone will be there.’