The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  ‘Christ!’ . . .

  ‘Wipe it off the rail. . . .’

  Down . . . Down . . .

  Drip —— Drip ——

  ‘Is the car ready?’

  ‘It’s here.’

  ‘Through the door . . . steady. . . .’

  Drip —— Drip ——

  ‘I—I—I gotta pain in me chest.’ The words came from Blue in gasps.

  ‘I know, Blue . . . steady . . . you’ll be all right.’

  Drip —— Drip ——

  Tut the cushion at his back. . . . Rest his head on this. Martin, you sit beside him with your arms supporting his body. Hop in the back, Plugger. Keep his arm up. . . .’

  Drip —— Drip ——

  The car jerked forward.

  Drip —— Drip ——

  These Are My People

  The Aborigines’ Grave

  . . . we were fifty miles away, camped beneath a clump of belah trees, those trees that are never silent but sigh even when the air is still. They grew slowly and with difficulty from mallee sands that, in the summer time, are drained of all moisture by the hot sun.

  In open spaces where the trees had been cut down the north winds had carried away the surface soil in the red dust-storms that darkened towns further south. The underlying sand, free to wander, moved across paddocks in rippled hills leaving scooped hollows and barren clay-pans behind them.

  We often climbed these hills and looked down the steep lee side to where the vivid green barley grass was slowly being smothered. We trailed our fingers along the ridge and the whole step surface of the hill flowed like water, spilling out between the grass stems and moving a tiny space further on its journey.

  Trees in their path were buried till only the top limbs showed above the sand; fences disappeared; abandoned houses pressed back the flood that divided and moved round to meet again in allotments that once were gardens. Then the sand, banked up by the wind, climbed over the back roof and the house and hill were one.

  Yet, stare at them as you might, the hills were always still. They moved without motion like clouds on a still day, though their day was a year and their movement a creep—earth clouds that obscured, not the sun, but things born of the sun.

  One evening I walked from hill to hill reading stories from the tracks of the creatures that had passed that way. Here a fox had crept toward a clump of spinifex, here he had leapt into a run, but, now a rabbit’s tracks stretched beside or merged with his own. Over the ridge they were lost in a patch of trampled sand from which the fox tracks continued alone.

  I climbed a pine ridge and looked down into the wind-scooped hollow behind it. The uncovered skeltons of three Aborigines lay on the sand beneath me.

  It was very still. I could not hear a bird. The day was empty of life, yet a breathing, a waiting, a listening was here.

  I stood without movement, faced with countless eyes that watched me and waited.

  I moved down the steep incline, my crutches sinking deep in the sand. There was only the sun and the sand and a belah tree and a guard of Murray pines.

  The skeletons were of two adults and a child. They lay side by side, the child in the centre. Their heads faced the east, their arms were outflung as if they were tired and were resting there. I sat down beside them and lifted the skull of the child in my hands.

  No barrier is as great as that between the living and the dead. All that I wanted to know I would never know—its name, why it had died so young, whether it had been happy.

  Some Major Mitchell cockatoos flew by. They called as they passed, a sound the child must have known, too. I placed the skull back on the sand and went away, but after that I felt like an intruder in the country around their grave.

  People of the Dreamtime

  The Dog and the Kangaroo

  When the kangaroo and the dog were men they met on a track in the bush.

  ‘Where are you going, Dog?’ asked the kangaroo.

  ‘I am going hunting,’ replied the dog.

  ‘I’d like to go with you,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘All right,’ said the dog. ‘You can come with me and be my friend.’

  After they had gathered their spears and their woomeras the kangaroo asked, ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘We will go this way,’ said the dog and he lead the kangaroo towards the hills.

  After they had gone a little way they came to a creek. The banks of the creek were of clay. There was brown clay and red clay and white clay.

  They dug into the bank with their spears and soon they had heaps of coloured clays beside them.

  ‘You try and write me,’ the dog said to the kangaroo. ‘Draw me like a dog.’

  ‘All right,’ said the kangaroo. ‘I’ll draw you like a dog.’

  ‘Write me in brown clay first,’ the dog said. ‘Try and turn me into a dog.’

  The kangaroo drew his head first, then his neck and belly and chest and tail and four legs.

  ‘Eh, wah!’ he said. ‘I’ve got you down. I write you properly. You are just like a dog.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said the dog. ‘You’ve made me like a dog.’

  ‘Now you write me like I did you,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘All right,’ said the dog. ‘You lie down.’

  ‘Don’t write me baddest way,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘You just lie down,’ said the dog. ‘I’ll write you just like a kangaroo so that you’ll go hop, hop, hop all the way.’

  The dog drew the kangaroo’s head, then his two arms, then his belly and tail and two back legs.

  ‘There you are,’ he said when he had finished. ‘I’ve got you right. I’ve put everything into your body.’

  ‘If you’ve put everything into me I must be just like a kangaroo,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘Everything you have is there,’ said the dog.

  ‘Now, you try and bark like a dog,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘All right,’ said the dog and he barked like a dog.

  ‘Now chase me,’ said the kangaroo. ‘We will only go a little way.’

  ‘You take the lead to me,’ said the dog. ‘I’ll run behind you.’

  Now they were men no longer; they were a dog and a kangaroo.

  The kangaroo bounded away and the dog followed behind him. They went across a valley and over a creek and up the side of a hill, the dog barking all the way.

  Then they stopped to rest.

  ‘What will we call that place where we write ourselves?’ asked the dog.

  ‘I don’t know what we will call that place,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘We will call it “Barl-barl”,’ said the dog.

  ‘Let us run again,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘All right,’ said the dog. ‘You take the lead to me again. I’ll bark behind you.’

  They ran for a long way. They crossed another creek and came to a place where there was a huge rock at the foot of a mountain.

  ‘This is a good place,’ said the dog. ‘We will climb to the top of that rock.’

  ‘All right,’ said the kangaroo. ‘You bite my tail so that I will jump on to the top of that rock.’

  When the dog had climbed up beside him, the dog said, ‘What will we call this place?’

  ‘We will call this place “Numilukari’ and “Beenameenami”,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘All right,’ said the dog. ‘Now we live here.’

  And they lived there, and the dog barked all day.

  The Eaglehawk and the Crow

  When the dark people first came to live on the earth they formed themselves into tribes. The tribes kept to the land allotted them and did not interfere with each other.

  Then men of each tribe married the girls of their own tribe. The women of one tribe could not marry the men of another tribe, nor were they allowed to speak to these men. This was the law.

  In these days the Crow tribe had few men that a woman would desire. The Crow men were old and slow in hunting.

  One Crow ma
n had a daughter whom he loved, and so that she might rear sons of courage he gave her in marriage to an Eaglehawk man who was famed for his valour.

  The tribes were angry at this breaking of the law, but the Eaglehawk man was a warrior and they were afraid to oppose him.

  The daughter of the Crow man was happy with her husband, but he was often away hunting, and gradually she grew discontented. She was always restless when he was away and, at these times, she looked with favour at other men.

  One day, the Eaglehawk man returned from the hunt and found his wife talking to a man of the Magpie tribe.

  He fell into a rage at the sight, for though he had broken the law in his marriage he abided by the law in other things. And he was a jealous man.

  Thereafter he refused to get food for his wife, nor would he allow others to feed her.

  So she became thin and weak, and when her first-born arrived, she died among the women. And if it had not been for her hunger she would have lived.

  The Eaglehawk man, her husband, took his son and gave him to another woman to rear, and his love for this son was great.

  The brother of the Eaglehawk man’s wife, a Crow man, heard of his sister’s death and he swore to avenge her. He bided his time and when the baby had grown and could play with other children he saw how greatly the Eaglehawk man loved the child, and he decided to kill it so that the suffering of the Eaglehawk man would be as great as that of his sister.

  One day he approached the camp of the Eaglehawk man, staggering as if with the fatigue of a long journey, and holding his arm as if he had been injured in the chase.

  The Eaglehawk man welcomed him and bade him rest. He gave him food, and the Crow man ate, then lay beneath a tree as if exhausted.

  He stayed there for three days. On the third day the Eaglehawk man went hunting and the Crow man was left alone with the child.

  Then he rose and killed the child, and around the place where he had killed him he trampled the grass and pounded the bare patches until dust arose and the earth was disturbed as if by many feet.

  When the father returned the Crow man told him that a marauding tribe had killed his son and that he had routed them and driven them away.

  The Eaglehawk man was grief-stricken and could not speak.

  Next day he searched the trampled earth looking for footprints that would tell him what men had done this deed.

  But the footprints were all the same and they were the footprints of the Crow man.

  Then the Eaglehawk man knew, but he remained silent and next day he invited the Crow man to go hunting with him and they set off together towards the hills.

  At the foot of the hills they came on two kangaroos feeding. The kangaroos saw them and bounded away, but the Crow man had raised his spear and was just about to hurl it at the fleeing animals when the Eaglehawk man attacked him from behind, bringing his nulla-nulla down with such force on the Crow man’s head that he killed him.

  When he knew he was dead he rested awhile and thought of his son, then he dragged the Crow man’s body back to his camp and buried him beneath the ground.

  By the time he had done this it was night, and he lay down to sleep. But no sooner had he closed his eyes than lightning flashed and thunder rumbled among the hills. A storm came down upon him and thunder shook the earth upon which he crouched.

  Lightning struck again and again at the grave of the Crow man, and above the noise of the thunder he could hear the shouts of the Crow man go past him on the wind. And he was afraid because he knew that the Crow man had taken the lightning for his totem, and the Crow man’s spirit was seeking revenge.

  The Eaglehawk man fled from place to place seeking shelter, but the lightning followed him with spears of flame so that his flesh was seared with the heat.

  At last, exhausted, he flung himself beneath a ledge of rock and when he had done this all the thunder moved in upon him in one mighty sound above him. A shaft of lightning leapt forth, shattering the ledge of rock beneath which he sheltered and consuming the Eaglehawk man in a burst of light.

  And out of the light, as from a nest, flew an eaglehawk. It rose into the night sky and was gone. Then from the grave of the Crow man a crow flew forth, a bird singed coal-black by lightning.

  Next day the eaglehawk and the crow were seen by the tribes and it was the first time these birds had lived.

  The Winjarning Brothers

  In the days before the ants there lived a tribe of strange people. When these people raised their arms great wings grew upon them and with these wings they could fly like bats. They were called the Keeng Keeng and they were feared by all the tribes.

  The Keeng Keeng were cruel and deceitful and they lived in a large cave in the mountains. In the centre of this cave was a huge pit of fire and in this pit dwelt a Fire God who was worshipped by the Keeng Keeng. The Keeng Keeng sacrificed human beings to this god; they cast bound men into the pit of fire and there the god devoured them.

  One day, two men of the Keeng Keeng were flying over the hills and valleys looking for a human being they could sacrifice. Far beneath them they saw the Winjarning brothers returning from the hunt. These brothers were men of high degree and were known throughout the tribes for their skill in healing the sick. They were always willing to help those in distress and because of this they were loved.

  The two Keeng Keeng alighted near the brothers and walked over to them. The brothers greeted them in friendly fashion as was their habit. They knew the Keeng Keeng were dangerous and sacrificed human beings to their Fire God but when the Keeng Keeng invited them to their cave to be welcomed by their tribe they agreed to accompany them, for they had faith in themselves and in their strength. They were also curious to see these people in their own surroundings.

  When they arrived at the cave the Winjarning brothers were made welcome and asked to stay for a few days so that they could enjoy the feasting and the dancing that the Keeng Keeng would provide for their pleasure.

  So the brothers stayed for three days, and on the third day they announced that they were leaving for their own country. When the Keeng Keeng heard this they pleaded with the brothers to stay one more day so that they could see the sacred emu dance of the women.

  The Winjarning brothers knew that the sacred emu dance always preceded the sacrifice, but they stayed, for their curiosity was greater than their fear.

  The sacred emu dance took place beside the fire pit, so that the flames from the pit cast the shadows of the dancers upon the wall.

  Only the young girls of the Keeng Keeng danced. They formed a circle and moved in and out like emus feeding. Each held an arm aloft and the shadows of the arms were the necks of the emus that bowed and strutted upon the wall.

  The shadow-emus moved with the girls and sometimes they were large and menacing and sometimes they shrunk to the size of a maid.

  The Winjarning brothers would have forgotten all else save the shadows, for the shadows in their play held the eyes like a spell. But their minds were keen and their danger was always with them.

  The Keeng Keeng watched the brothers, and when the brothers seemed to have forgotten all else save the shadows, they rose stealthily to their feet and moved in upon them.

  But the elder of the Winjarning brothers saw them moving beyond the firelight. He saw their teeth, white in the dark, and their eyes like fire without flame. He leapt to his feet as they rushed, and their arms grasped the place that he had left.

  So swift was his leap that he failed to grasp the spears beside him, thus he had no weapon with which to defend himself. He ran round the rim of the fire pit, the Keeng Keeng screaming behind him.

  Round and round the fire pit he ran, and the Keeng Keeng, less swift than he, moved closer to the pit’s rim so that the distance they traversed would be lessened.

  But they grew dizzy as they ran, and one by one they fell into the fire pit where the Fire God awaited them.

  As they fell, the flames leaped high in wrath and they were devoured in a great heat
. Then the last Keeng Keeng screamed and fell and there were no more Keeng Keeng men in the world.

  The Winjarning brothers ran from the cave and went far into the bush, but next day they returned to see if the fire pit was still aflame.

  The cave had gone, and where the pit of fire had burned there was an anthill and hundreds of ants were running in and out of the hill, and some of the ants had wings.

  Thereafter ants lived in the world.

  How’s Andy Going?

  They were Tough Men on the Speewah

  Don’t talk to me about Pecos Bill and Colorado Jack and that giant of the lumber camps who picked his teeth with the trunk of a spruce! The heroes of American folk tales are sissies compared to the men of Australia’s mythical station, the Speewah. Why, Crooked Mick of the Speewah, a man who would sooner have a fight than a feed, used Ayers Rock to stone the crows and he was no giant by the Speewah standards.

  No, give me the Australian folk heroes every time. Tales of them have been told from Cape York to the Otways, from Brisbane to Broome. Where teamsters met or drovers gathered, tales of the Speewah were handed on and men pushing their way outback claimed they had reached its boundaries and there were some who said they had worked there.

  ‘When I worked on the Speewah . . .’

  ‘Talk about mud! You should have been on the Speewah . . .’

  ‘Call this a drought! Why, on the Speewah . . .’

  Yes, Old-timer, strange things happened on the Speewah. The kangaroos there were as tall as mountains and the emus laid eggs that men blew and used for houses. But where the Speewah is, no one knows. The men from the Darling said it was back o’ Bourke and the men of Bourke said it was out West and the men of the West pointed to Queensland and in Queensland they told you the Speewah was in the Kimberleys.

  Tom Ronan, a bushman of Katherine, N.T., told me in a letter:

  ‘It was, I think, originally, the place a bit “farther out”, “over the next range” where cattle were a bit wilder, horses a bit rougher and men a bit smarter than they were anywhere else. With the growth of blackblocks folklore, its position in the scheme of things became more definite: It was the land of running creeks and shady trees and good, green horse feed, the bushman’s “Field of Asphodel”, the place where all good bagmen—and some weren’t so good—went when they died.