by Peter Watt
Grunting, sweating and ignoring the sharp sticks that lashed their bodies the two boys vied with each other and called on their respective spirits to win the race. Neither had understood Wallarie’s actual words of warning. But still they had understood his meaning.
~
Gordon was first to the top of the hill. He had conveniently tripped, causing Peter to stumble and roll back just far enough for Gordon to take the lead.
Wallarie squatted in a small sun-dappled clearing shadowed by the rainforest giants. He stared at the two boys gasping for breath as they kneeled in the rich compost-like earth, regaining their breath once they had reached the summit. So the white boy had beaten the son of his white brother Tom Duffy, Wallarie thought sadly. And so it would always be. Peter’s eyes, glazed from the exertion of the climb, came to settle on Wallarie’s dark eyes watching him speculatively.
‘I have come for you Peter Duffy,’ Wallarie intoned in the Nerambura dialect. ‘I have come to teach you the spirit ways of your ancestors who once sat under the bumbil tree and told the stories. But now I must also teach the ways to the son of the man who killed our people in the shadow of the sacred hill of the Nerambura people,’ he said. And his eyes shifted to Gordon who he knew did not understand what he was saying. Gordon frowned in his puzzlement and glanced at Peter who listened with an expression of rapt attention to the words he was once again beginning to recognise. Wallarie continued to intone the message from the ancestor spirits.
‘What’s the myall saying?’ Gordon whispered.
‘He’s saying things you wouldn’t understand,’ Peter replied in an awed voice.
‘You understand his lingo?’ Gordon asked switching his attention back to Wallarie whose body glistened with sweat and was marked by many scars as he continued to drone his message in a lilting voice that was the sound of the bush creatures.
‘I think I do. It’s like things in my head are starting to make sense,’ Peter said slowly. ‘Things I remember when I was a little kid when the troopers killed my ma and da. Wallarie is telling me things I have to do. He says you and I have to go with him when the Kyowarra go north on walkabout.’
‘My dad will give us a hidin’ if we go with him,’ Gordon whined. ‘And Kate will give you a hidin’ too.’
‘We have to go with Wallarie,’ Peter scowled. ‘Because he is going to teach us things I have to know.’
‘You can bloody well go,’ Gordon swore. ‘But I don’t want my dad givin’ me a hidin’ down at the wood pile. And he will give you one too because your aunt Kate will tell him to.’
‘I don’t care,’ Peter retorted. But his resolve was beginning to crumble at the thought of Henry James’s heavy leather belt around his backside and legs. ‘I am going without you. You can run back to your dad like a girl if you like but I’m going with the Kyowarra and Wallarie.’
Gordon took a couple of paces in the direction of the track. ‘See you back at the store then,’ he quipped over his shoulder. He hesitated when he noticed that Peter had not budged from the clearing, turned and walked slowly back to his friend. ‘Well, I’m bloody well going with you,’ he said with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. ‘I beat you up the hill and you bloody myalls aren’t as smart as me anyway.’
‘I always beat you at counting and spelling,’ Peter bridled. ‘I’m smarter than you at school.’
Gordon scowled. It was true that he was smarter than him by a long shot when it came to school work and that didn’t seem right when Peter was a half-caste.
‘Yeah, but I’m better in the bush than you,’ Gordon retorted angrily. ‘You might get lost.’
Wallarie smiled. He had observed the interaction between the white boy and the half-Nerambura boy with interest. In the end it had been Peter’s will that had won out. The white boy would follow and the signs were good for the time ahead.
He rose from the earth and turned to Peter. ‘You and the white boy will follow me now,’ he said. ‘We will leave for the hunting and fishing lands of the Kyowarra in the morning. You will be safe and in time return to the white man’s town. But for now you will learn many things and one day use what you have learned. And you Peter Duffy,’ he said, fixing the young boy with his smouldering dark eyes, ‘will have to learn more because one day the son of Henry James will kill you if you don’t.’
Peter shuddered with a terrible fear and glanced at Gordon standing beside him. It was obvious that his friend had no comprehension of the words that Wallarie had uttered.
With mixed thoughts the boys followed Wallarie wearily back down the narrow, winding bush track to the camp of the Kyowarra. They were aware that in accepting the invitation to go north with the last of the Nerambura clan they would be defying people who loved them. But they were both excited by the mysterious quest that lay ahead.
Four days passed and the boys still had not returned home.
Neither Kate nor the Jameses had felt any real concern for the boys’ welfare when they had not returned in three days. They had long accepted that the two boys were just as much at home camping in the bush as they were sleeping in their own beds. Once before they had disappeared into the bush and had returned after three days only a little worse for their experience. Hungry and covered in insect bites, they had received hugs and kisses from the women – and a visit to the wood heap with Henry. Needless to say, they had promised not to stray at any time in the future for more than three days. But four days had now passed and both Kate and Emma were growing more anxious with each passing hour.
Only Henry remained unperturbed by their absence. They were after all both boys with a keen sense of adventure and a proven ability to look after themselves in the bush. But his complacency changed when, in a chance conversation with an old German prospector at the store, he had been reliably informed that both boys were last seen camping with the remnants of the Kyowarra tribe a mile or so from the town. Henry knew the old prospector had a good understanding of the differences between the tribesmen. He was a veteran of the north who had often camped with the tribes – and he had added that the Kyowarra had upped camp and gone walkabout two days earlier.
The Kyowarra – like the Daldewarra – were fiercely independent warriors who rarely came close to the white man’s civilisation. Their traditional hunting and fishing grounds were along the stretches of the Normanby River north west of Cooktown. The old German prospector’s news chilled Henry but he did not tell either Kate or Emma of his apprehension. Nor did he tell them about the boys being with the Kyowarra.
Kate, however, was suspicious of his feigned calm. She noticed that he had packed many days’ supply of rations – and extra ammunition – in his saddle bags before riding out of town with the transparent excuse that he was just going on a week’s hunting trip.
Emma also knew something was terribly wrong but both women had faith in the former police sergeant’s chances of finding the boys. Still, Emma prayed as she had never prayed before that God would make a special point of protecting her husband in his search for Gordon and Peter. The lives of the two boys were in God’s – and Henry’s – hands and there was nothing anyone else could do.
As Henry rode north west of Cooktown into the rugged rainforested hills he felt his unease increase by the minute. Not only for the fact that he was riding in hostile country, but for an unease that was very much spiritual. It was as if a voice was calling to him from the forests, speaking of a distant memory, of a horror he would rather forget.
Sweat ran in rivulets to sting his eyes and his leg throbbed from the unnatural angles it was forced to endure keeping his balance on the treacherous hills as he walked leading his horse. His shoulders ached from hauling down on the bridle to keep the big horse reluctantly moving forward, and many times he had been forced to stop and hack at the tangle of rainforest scrub with a machete.
It was slow and laborious work with only tiny tunnels to show for hours of back-breaking effort. But they were tunnels that allowed him to cut across the ridges and down onto
the Normanby’s flatter floodplains, shortcuts to make up distance and time between himself and the Kyowarra. He knew they were somewhere ahead of him from the numerous signs he stumbled on of recently abandoned camps.
His gruelling trek through the jungle-covered hills finally proved successful. The previous evening he had watched the Kyowarras’ campfires from the ridge. He had seen the flickering figures celebrating a corroboree in the shadows of the night. The Kyowarra had been so close that he had smelt the delicious aroma of fat river fish cooking in the coals of the fires and heard the laughter of people with full stomachs.
The sound of the corroboree had been haunting. Only when the clack-clack of the hardwood song-sticks had ceased in the early hours of the morning did Henry snatch a few hours of sleep.
At the rising of the sun he was able to see the distant smoke of cooking fires. The vegetation had changed dramatically and he now looked over the sparser scrub lands of the Cape. He stood with his horse, gazing out at a broad valley where he could clearly see members of the nomadic tribe rising to meet the day. It was an impressive sight as hundreds of men, women and children chattered and laughed as they prepared to join once again with the diurnal spirits of the land in their never-ending quest for survival.
Gazing down on the Kyowarra Henry felt his stomach knot with fear. He knew that he was alone against the impressive numbers of heavily armed warriors. And he was a long way from the safety of civilisation, in territory that the tribesmen had not conceded to the white invaders of their traditional lands.
Leading his horse, Henry descended the steep slope to the river clearing below. When he reached the grassy plain he mounted his horse to ride towards the main camp to confront the tribe.
Startled by the appearance of the lone horseman, hundreds of brightly painted tribesmen rose from the grassy plain with spear, war club and wooden shield. They stared at the approaching white man with a mixture of curiosity and animosity.
Remembering the terrible times when the white men’s guns brought death to their warriors daring to stand against the miners’ guns, women and children stood wide-eyed and fearful, staring at Henry. Now one of those same white men was boldly approaching their camp astride his horse with a rifle resting across the saddle.
As Henry rode slowly across the plain he scanned the wall of armed warriors spreading menacingly in a defensive screen across the front of their camp. He could clearly see that he was not welcome. He was an intruder on the land they still tentatively controlled.
He was acutely aware of the predicament he had deliberately exposed himself to. Should they launch an attack he knew he had little hope of escape. He might take one or two with him into death before being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers. But he also knew that he had no other option than confronting the hostile tribesmen if he was to ascertain if the two boys were with the tribe.
He calculated that he was a couple of hundred yards out from the line of warriors. He also knew that another fifty yards would put him within range of their long, deadly spears. As if by tacit mutual agreement neither he, nor the warriors standing silently in their ranks watching him, seemed eager to close the gap.
Henry stood in the stirrups and scanned the ranks of tribesmen fingering their spears nervously and muttering amongst themselves. The sound was like the growl from the belly of a dangerous animal. ‘Gordon! Peter!’ he called. His call carried to the warriors who fell ominously silent.
‘Dad! Uncle Henry!’ the twin response came to him across the open space of the plain. Henry felt a wave of exhilaration that momentarily overcame his fear. They were alive! The days of sweating and ankle-twisting tracking in unfamiliar territory had been rewarded. For a brief moment he hated himself for harbouring the doubt that he may never see his son or Peter again, a doubt that had been a strange and superstitious fear creeping to him in the dark nights on the lonely tracts of primeval rainforest. A fear that the land and its people would claim his son from him as a cruel punishment for his role in dispersing the dark people of central Queensland.
Henry’s nightmares had caused him to wake and scream protests at the spirits of the night. He would wake in a lather of sweat and stare into the blackness. He would see the flitting shadows and hear whispers discussing the death he had brought on a helpless people. He had begged them not to claim his son for the sins of the father. But as the day crept above the jungle and the mists lay on the river like smoke from the night spirits’ fires, he would reassure himself that all in the night was but a dream of his own guilt.
Gordon stepped forward from the line of warriors. His young body was lean and hard. He was covered in animal fat and dirt. His hair was matted and except for a tattered pair of shorts he was to all intents a white Kyowarra. Behind him stood Peter in a similar condition.
Both boys appeared healthy and unharmed. For this Henry felt gratitude to the fierce tribesmen who stared malevolently at him. At the same time he also fully knew that the same courtesy was not being extended towards him. The warriors were notching spears to woomeras and the eerie silence in their ranks was broken by a murmur of low growling voices.
‘God! Not now!’ Henry whispered. He could see his son’s terror-filled face as he realised what was about to happen. He was about to see his father cut down by the Kyowarra warriors!
Henry raised his rifle above his head as the spears rattled on the woomeras. He held it high so that the warriors had a clear view of the weapon. Then he tossed the rifle to the ground as a gesture that he meant them no harm. But his gesture seemed futile as the warriors’ murmur turned to a loud growl.
Hopeless despair swept over Henry as he faced the ranks of warriors surging towards him. His mount shifted nervously under him as it sensed its rider’s fear. In seconds the Kyowarra would bridge the gap and Henry would never see his son or his beloved wife Emma again. He also knew that any attempt to retrieve the rifle in the grass was futile, and that the big Colt he carried barely matched the range of the spears, that would in seconds fill the early morning sky with their whispering death.
A single voice rose above the din of the warriors. It seemed to berate the Kyowarra tribesmen. And it was a voice vaguely familiar to Henry. ‘Wallarie!’ it hissed. Although six years had passed the voice had burned its fear into his mind forever. There was a distant memory of a black face behind a rifle pointed at him as he lay in a world of pain and imminent death brought on by the snake’s bite.
As suddenly as the attack had been launched it miraculously ceased. The line opened to allow a single warrior to stride forward with the two boys beside him. Wallarie stopped at the forward edge of the ranks of Kyowarra and turned to Peter. ‘The man who is my enemy has come for you,’ he said. ‘It is not his time to die yet. You will return with him to the white woman who is sister to my brother Tom Duffy, your father.’ He then turned his attention to Gordon who stood trembling beside Peter. ‘He has the spirit of the wild dog. One day he will be as his father was – a killer of black people.’ His voice seemed to come from a place beyond him. ‘You and he will travel together. But the day will come when a choice must be made as to which of you lives. I do not know which of you that will be. But I do know I will come to you again in my lifetime. I will come to you on the wings of an eagle, as old Kondola did when the white men hunted him in our lands. He flew to the sacred place of the Nerambura Dreaming and sang the songs for the others who could not. Go now and remember all that you have been taught.’
Mesmerised by the transformation that had come on Wallarie, Peter stood rooted to the earth, staring into the dark eyes of the warrior. He saw flashes of the Dreaming and for the first time in many years the confusion returned as to who he was. Standing on the grassy plain – so far from the world of Europeans – he saw his other spirit. It was wild and free. As old as the Dreaming itself.
The transformation in Wallarie’s face seemed to dissolve. He was once again the man Peter vaguely recalled in childhood memories, the man who had stood beside his white fat
her on the plains of Burkesland. But now nothing more could be said and Peter walked hesitantly with Gordon towards Henry astride his horse.
Henry could not take his eyes from the tall Nerambura warrior who stood in the front rank of Kyowarra tribesmen. It was as if they were in communication without words being said. Just a mere presence was sufficient to understand each other.
Wallarie had given him back the two boys as a gift. Without his timely intervention Henry knew that he himself would have surely died. And yet the message that came to him from the Nerambura warrior was not of the forgiveness that he so desperately sought for his past wrongdoings. It was a message that only his death would suffice as penance for what he had done. That only his spilt blood could satisfy the spirits of the sacred places of a land where the crow and goanna lived amongst the bleaching bones of a long-dispersed people.
Was it guilt at confronting the last of the Nerambura clan of the Darambal people that caused him to experience the feeling of dread? Henry knew the answer could never come in ways a white man could understand. ‘I will pay the price for my life Wallarie, but spare my son,’ he muttered defiantly. ‘He was born of this land like you.’
The boys reached Henry’s mount and stared up at him somewhat sheepishly. They were no longer young Kyowarra warriors but two schoolboys caught in the act of truancy. Henry sighed as he gazed down at the grubby face of his son who was not only a reflection of himself but also a stranger. A child of the new land and belonging to this new world of harsh places.
For the first time he realised that Gordon would never be a part of a land he still occasionally yearned for as ‘home’. Not for Gordon the neatly terraced green fields of England. It was even possible that his son would never see a field under snow or walk amongst the forests of oak. Strange thoughts for a strange time, Henry told himself. He turned his attention to Peter whose grey eyes were those of his father Tom Duffy. His dark skin that of his mother’s people. Here stood the true native of the new land, he realised with a dawning insight.
