True Country

by Kim Scott

  The early beers were cool, and the clearing between the small cliff faces formed by the rocks was cool also, and in deep shade. The men told her that there were many rock paintings through here, but it too nice to sit here and drink so they would show them to her another time. In the wet season, they said, it was nice in this spot; you could shelter from the rain, there was always a breeze, and the water ran around this spot and made music from many little waterfalls playing. In old days, people came here always, Moses said.

  What were they thinking, these people? That they were getting a bit drunk? How the breeze felt on their little-bitnumb cheeks. The light like diamonds winking in the leaves above. Of the voices just out of hearing in this place. Of their flesh, man and woman, dark and pale, alive.

  Jasmine happy. She was definitely getting tipsy. This was a way to live. This morning was so awful, and now so good. This was real. This was Australia, she thought. I am living a unique existence, here, among these rocks and paintings, in this shade and breeze, beneath this sun, with these people. Aboriginal people. She hadn’t really known Aboriginal people before she came here. Well, not real ones. Just some in towns mostly, down south, walking along the streets, sitting together in the distance, waiting at the end of queues. Oh, did she say this aloud? Her cheeks felt flushed.

  They finished the beer. Well, there were more drinks at Jasmine’s place. They could have a party. Quiet but. And it surprised Jasmine that they walked back, which Moses wanted to do, because it was a very short distance, and they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves, and because Jasmine’s place was right on the edge of the settlement closest to where they were now.

  Jasmine lived in a small parked caravan. It was surrounded by a tall wire fence against which brushwood had been wired. But it was still possible to see into that yard, even from quite a distance, because of the gap that the gate made.

  That night there was loud music playing there for a little while. And they were dancing, dancing like crazy people in the moonlight. Jasmine held her long skirt up around her thighs and danced like a forest queen in a gardiya’s children’s story. Alphonse danced with his feet motionless, like a drunk at a Sunday session. Even Moses danced for a minute. Milton copied Jasmine’s dancing, to make fun of her, and she danced corroboree style, to make fun of him.

  Then there was only the two of them. There had not been much to drink. The others had left. Billy, out walking, stopped near the gate and saw them. Milton and Jasmine slow dancing, close together, holding one another. The powerful moonlight made solid chunks of shadow, strong lines of silver. That light was so strong you could have climbed up it, toward the moon, and looked down on the two embracing within that tall fence, and Billy peeping from the side of the gate.

  Jasmine moved herself out of the embrace. Milton held one end of her cotton scarf. They looked at one another from either end of that scarf, and Jasmine pulled Milton toward her by it, took his hand, led him into her caravan. For a moment they were seen in the door of the caravan as the electric light held them, their colours strong after the moonlight; purple-black, red, white, all in yellow light.

  Further Evidence

  You could see that Jasmine was hanging around Milton. She would happen to wander over to the school when he was gardening there, just to talk to him. The two of them sit down in the shade. She brought drinks over for him. He is a married man, you know that, and Annie is a good wife to him. Alex would have to come and join in the conversation so that Jasmine would leave and Milton could get to work again. Others just watched, noticed them there.

  Milton’s little sister wrote in her school journal:

  One night my brother was drunk and he was making us laugh then he said to my mum I gotta nother wife here and we laughed again and then he told Ricky and Alan to ring up for her but Ricky and Alan told him that they have no silver left and what for anyway she got no phone there. Last night when I was trying to go to sleep I heard someone fighting and so I woke up and look who was that and went back to sleep then my mother came out and woke me up again and asked us who was that banging the house and we told mum that is Annie banging the wall and my mum asked us why she is banging the house and we said we don’t know why she is banging the house and we went back to sleep again.

  Misunderstandings Still

  Liz and Billy were returning from a weekend of camping and fishing. They saw Milton, Alphonse and Araselli parked near the airstrip, but although they waved and slowed down to speak with them, they got no response. Alphonse drove away before Billy could stop his car; Milton may have moved one finger in a reluctant sort of wave as he drove off, but that was all. They looked angry and sullen.

  ‘What this mission mob here for anyway? To help Aborigine, or what?’ Milton’s face worked as he spat the words out. ‘It’s not right they—they say they Christians?’ He snorted. His fingers clawed with tension, then clasped one another, intertwining like a nest of snakes. ‘Who say they can just shoot people’s dogs like that, like murderers?’

  He put his clasped hands to his forehead, and pushed his thumbs into his eyes. He sighed, dropped his hands to his thighs, pushed his shoulders back into the chair, and looked at Billy.

  ‘Father Paul, this wouldn’t happen if he was here. But they his horses, eh? They care more about them than us? They should be here to help us. They don’t care, they just here to make money.

  ‘I should get a gun, shoot those horses myself. Or tear down the fence, and let them go, free, run with the brumbies. That stallion be more happy then, anyway.’

  Milton clenched one fist, and shook it as he spoke. The other hand gripped into his thigh. ‘That mission better throw them out, get Murray right out of here. Sack Gerrard we will get him out.

  ‘I see that Murray, catch him at the airstrip and I grab him, grab him by the back of the neck and rub his face in the dirt, how him just like a dog.’ His bare feet drummed on the floor.

  ‘And some people,’ Milton paused. Billy had been disturbed to see Milton so transformed by his anger, and now he saw Milton soften for a moment as he said, ‘Some people say maybe it is your wife’s fault.’

  They remembered. Liz had offered to look after Father Paul’s horses when he went on sabbatical. Her house was between the camp and the paddock where they were kept, so it was convenient for her. Father Paul suggested people she could use to help prepare them to be ridden again. He said he had had a word with those people.

  She did get people to help her, because the horses had not been ridden for such a long time. Moses came over once, first. He rasped down the hooves on the old gelding, the only one Liz had been able to catch. Hard work that. He held the horse’s leg, he grunted and sweated as he rasped, and his bare toes gripped into the soil when the horse tried to kick him away. But he didn’t swear, he didn’t talk much, not to Liz.

  Liz didn’t try to ride the horses straight away, but tied them to a long lead and made them run around her in circles. Milton came to help her after that. It took him a long time, of walking and talking softly, to catch them. He rode each of the horses, within the paddock, and then rode with her the first time she rode the gelding out of the paddock and into the bush.

  Sometimes the dogs from the camp got into the paddock and chased the horses. Sometimes the little children threw stones at them. Liz would get angry and shout, and she chased the dogs with a stockwhip.

  One time she found cuts on the horses’ chests and she spoke to Murray about it. He said the camp dogs had done it, probably by chasing them into the fence. She sought help from Moses, who laughed, and said that the mission used to shoot dogs for that. Liz walked straight away from him and brought Murray back with her. She was an angry woman that one.

  So she, Murray, Moses, they stood in the hot dark office. Some other people, sitting outside near the basketball court and by the door, heard them talking, and maybe peeped in a couple of times.

  Liz said, ‘What can we do if people won’t look after their dogs and keep them away?’ She was talki
ng most. She said she had chased them away and chased them away and chased them away. Maybe, if their owners can’t keep them away, they should be shot.

  Moses laughed. ‘Too busy playing cards this mob.’ Moses did not know what to do, really he didn’t.

  ‘You mean we should shoot them?’

  Moses spoke to Murray. ‘Mission used to, all the time. And now if they get with the ducks, chicken ... Father Paul, he still shoot ’em, eh?’

  What could Moses do, all on his own? Why did they want to make trouble for him? ‘Maybe you have to shoot them still. Maybe they won’t come back. We can hope, eh?’ He laughed again and waved his hand. He was relieved when they left. He is a big man, but he sat down when they left and felt weak and bullied.

  Murray was pleased because the dogs could cause a lot of trouble with the stock and poultry, and in the gardens. When Father Paul was here the dogs never went into the mission grounds because everyone knew they would be shot, just as had always happened. Every now and then Father Paul did shoot one. Usually early on a Sunday morning, the gunshot and yelp...

  But now. Murray felt the mission was losing clout. And that meant he was in danger somehow.

  So, what had happened?

  It was on the Saturday afternoon. Murray and Gerrard were sitting out the front of the little house in which Murray lives. It is down past the store, the bakery, along the path that goes past the gardens, past the chickens, ducks, pigs. There were still feathers scattered around the chicken pen where some dog had recently claimed a victim.

  Murray and Gerrard were sitting there, in the sun. Maybe they were having a drink. Gerrard was talking about what he was going to do when he left, and they were telling each other how hard it was to work here. They felt taken for granted, used. But the fishing was good, and these beers in the heat.

  They saw two dogs come up from the creek down there, in the distance, and slink under the fence at the far end of the horses’ paddock. Gerrard and Murray looked at one another, and they recognised the dogs all right. They knew that one of them belonged to Milton’s mob. They grabbed a couple of rifles and walked through the gardens toward the paddock.

  They saw the dogs, and the horses, on the other side of the paddock. The two groups of animals stood facing one another, as if about to begin some elaborate ritual.

  Then the dogs saw the men, and turned immediately back to the creek. Murray knew the camp was at his back, so it was safe to shoot. He raised his gun and aimed at the second of the loping dogs. Gerrard said, ‘No! Not from this far.’

  Murray smiled, and bang! he shot at that dog. The animal jerked, and fell. Its front legs folded up first. Murray felt triumphant, and was about to brag to Gerrard. But the dog got up, staggered, and ran clumsily, yelping yelping yelping, in the direction in which its partner had disappeared. The two men ran a few steps, and fired again, but they couldn’t hit it.

  They were worried now. They went back to the mission buildings, and they were swearing.

  The dog went through the camp, bleeding and whimpering. It snarled at the people, who stepped away from it and watched it walk past. Some of the children followed it, squealing with excitement and concern. It limped on a front leg, and there was blood on its short mangy hide and spattered in its trail.

  It came to a stop, swaying, in front of its home. Sebastian sat in the shade, leaning against the front wall of his house beside the remains of a small fire. He was sick this day, weak and shaking badly, and so his family had left him behind when they went fishing. He looked up and saw the dog come to a halt, and fall over. He saw the children gathered a few paces behind it, staring as the dog lay there, in the dirt, whimpering.

  People gathered around, angry with what had happened. They moved close, and the dog snarled at them. Sebastian stroked and patted his dog.

  Raphael came, and spoke with Sebastian and some of them there. He swore at the mission, and went away, and came back in Milton’s old ute with Araselli and Alphonse. He shot the dog, right there in front of the hut and all the people and kids. He threw the dog in the back of the ute and he and Alphonse and Araselli they drove away and into the mission grounds. No one followed them.

  They drove through the grounds, down the path past the banana and mango trees, the leafy shady green, past the cackling chickens and snorting pigs and the rich scents. They stopped with the front wheels touching the front of Murray’s house. There was no one there. The house was locked. They threw the dead dog down at the front door, and its blood spilt over the mat and on the door.

  If it was not locked they would have thrown the dog on his bed.

  Araselli came marching over to the school early on the Monday morning. She was wild. It was before most of the kids had got to school. She asked Liz, angrily, if she had told Murray to shoot dogs. Liz said she’d spoken to Moses about it. She spoke softly.

  They sat down. Nobody really wanted trouble, but was it fair?

  Araselli, she was wild still. She was nearly crying. She said she had heard the dogs over that way earlier that morning, but she didn’t go and see or call them. It hurt her that their dogs could be shot just like that. That dog belonged here. They just don’t care, some people, gardiya like that Murray. And Gerrard.

  She sat there a long time, and they started to talk friendly. Some of the kids coming to school saw her in the room and they didn’t come in because they thought there might be trouble, and they did not want to see trouble between their teachers and Araselli or anyone. They were happy to see Araselli leaving and talking softly.

  When Murray went away Jasmine walked out to the airstrip to see him off. There were just her and some people from the mission to watch as he noisily dwindled into the clouds.

  When they offered her a lift she said she would walk back. But then, as she walked into the dust left behind the mission vehicle, and Murray was still a buzzing speck in the eastern sky, Milton was suddenly there in the dust with her. His old Hilux was idling noisily, and he was grinning at her. He was going to dump some rubbish from the school. She got into the car with him.

  It was later in the day, and they were driving back, coming a different way. They were a couple of hundred metres from Billy’s place, near the paddock where the dog had been shot, and they could see young Alan, in his bright shirt and on his bicycle, over on the flat by the powerhouse. They saw him wave, and at the same time saw the pack of dogs rushing at him; saw him try to flee, and the leading dog leap, the dogs tear him down. And then they were bouncing over the flat, they themselves shouting and the horn tooting motor roaring. But still, even in all that other noise, they could hear the boy screaming.

  The dogs fled, and the boy was sobbing with pain and fear when they got to him. They rushed him to the clinic and sister called the flying doctor.

  Milton slipped away. Alex and Annette came rushing over, and said they were calling the police to kill those dogs, they were leaving this place, Alan couldn’t come back here, they would not, this was too much to expect anyone to put up with...

  Some people said, later, that it was the boy’s fault. He should not have gone so close to the dogs, not when they was eating. He should not have screamed and tried to get away, that just made them dogs excited like they was hunting, and he should not have been on his own, and the dogs didn’t know because they never saw him anywhere.

  But Milton said nothing.

  That boy had very many stitches. Alex came back later to pack away all his office things, and he left again quietly. He looked very bad. A truck came to drive away all his family things.

  We are Not as One

  Ah, they all leave, these other people. Let them go, we getting rid of them. Gone. Father Paul, the builders, Alex and his family. Murray too. Some of them see their world slipping slipping the longer they stay, and they struck out before they marooned and forgotten.

  So Liz became the boss of the school, one new teacher come in, and Stella became a teacher with them. A trial for her, to see if she could do a good enough job,
and then Liz could say to the Ministry of Education, ‘She is a teacher already, this one.’

  But this time was a trial for others too. For Liz, as a boss. For Billy.

  This time of the year, when this was happening, it is getting hotter. Late in every day the sky comes low, it sags down like it is swollen and bruised. The flies are sticky drinking your sweat. Over on the edge of the sky the lightning stabs the hills. But no rain comes yet. It will.

  All day nearly, small willy-willies form, sucking up dust and paper and the kids run nm to catch them as they skitter-scatter dance away. The kids run hard to catch them, run with them; get inside them and you might fly.

  Mostly, this time of the year, people wait for the rain.

  Then the roads will close, and there will be no tourists and not much drinking. Sometimes, on Christmas Day, the mission used to give us one, maybe two, cans of beer for every man.

  But waiting can be a hard thing. The fat nasty sky; sweat oozing; the earth so dry, burnt, and thirsty. The grey river grows green in its shallows. People get tired and cranky, and will drink too much too quickly of the last beers that come in overland before the roads become river and mud. The people drink, sniff petrol, empty themselves. Kill the world.

  Milton is at the tip with that woman Jasmine. They are together, alone there, by the river, in the heat of day.

  Milton drives back with Jasmine. They have been gone a long time. He lets her off where she lives. She should be working, you know, in the office, for us. Not going off with school rubbish and school gardener. Some of the women are calling her names. Slut. Annie’s sisters say they will teach her some things.