Journey to the Stone Country

by Alex Miller

  Arner’s head drooped and he gazed unhappily at the ground between his feet.

  Annabelle wanted to reach out and put her arms around him. She wanted to silence Bo. She wanted to tell him Arner worshipped him. She watched them both and said nothing.

  Arner slowly lifted his head and looked at Bo, his eyes glinting sorrowfully in the firelight. ‘I wouldn’t go against you, uncle Bo,’ he murmured, his voice sad and filled with emotion.

  Bo said, ‘Shit!’ and stood up. He walked out of the firelight into the darkness. They heard him cursing and trampling about.

  Annabelle said, ‘He didn’t mean it, Arner.’

  Arner looked at her.

  ‘He loves you,’ she said. ‘He does it for you and Trace, not for himself.’

  Arner’s big eyes glinted in the firelight, watching her.

  Bo came back and tossed down an armful of wood. He picked up the billy and looked into it. ‘I’ll make us a drink of tea.’ He stepped out of the light again and tossed the dregs from the billy and filled it from the water container at the back of the Pajero. They watched him put the billy on the stove to boil. He stood close over the stove, rolling a cigarette.

  A mopoke was calling out in the bendee.

  Arner stood up and murmured, ‘Goodnight.’ He stepped out of the firelight into the darkness.

  Bo turned from the stove and gazed after him. ‘Goodnight, Arner.’

  Annabelle thought he might follow him, but he just stood gazing into the dark towards the tamarind tree. ‘That boy’s no different from his dad,’ he said. ‘That’s what the old Dougald would have done. Just get up and leave without saying nothin. Him and my old feller was the same. I used to wish I was just like them, but I’m not.’

  She pointed, ‘The water’s boiling.’

  She watched him making the tea, his familiar action of tossing a handful of leaves into the billy and lifting it off the fire.

  He set the billy to one side on the iron and stood looking at her. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ The landscape of the Suttor. The secret region of her heart that she had never shared with Steven but which she had shared with this man all her life. She would wait until the morning to tell him that she had decided not to go with him to the playgrounds of the old people. It was not necessary to know everything. She realised she had once believed in something called objective inquiry, the right to know everything. It was not necessary to understand. Understanding was the least of it. She would give the cylindrical stone to Arner to take back for her to the stone people. He and Bo could go together. It was their story, not hers. She would wait for them here at the Verbena camp.

  Bo set a mug of tea beside her. He was saying, ‘We’ll call in and see that Bill Stirling on the way back through Collinsville. Bring this title into dispute. That old feller knows Grandma never signed no contract of sale.’ He sat beside her and sipped his tea, gazing into the fire. ‘When we get this place back, me and Clarrie Stokes will train up that boy of Trace’s to handle cattle in these old windbreak scrubs.’

  She listened to him telling her his dream and she wondered how much Verbena would cost to buy and stock. She had half the house in Carlton and half Zamia Street. And there would be something from her super payout. She could work for Susan for a while. Become her partner even. Live in Townsville and come out to Verbena in the winter when the mustering had to be done . . .

  When she woke beside him later, the bush beyond their camp was still and silent. She lay awake listening. She realised she could not hear the thump of Arner’s music. Bo stirred beside her. ‘Arner’s not playing his music,’ she said. They lay in the dark, listening.

  ‘That boy’s gotta sleep sometime,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a sign to you.’

  He was silent a moment, then, ‘I guess you’re right.’

  She felt for his hand in the warmth of the swag and held it. ‘I’m not coming with you to the playgrounds of the old people.’ She waited.

  ‘You’re not afraid of that old woman, are you?’

  ‘You and Arner should go without me. It will be better for all of us.’

  He said nothing but squeezed her hand.

  ‘I’ll be here when you get back. I’ll be waiting for you.’

  They lay in the silence, not speaking, holding hands and listening. For the moment it was enough to be together in this place.