THE SONG MASTER

by Di Morrissey

  ‘A lot of women are like that because they’ve never had a chance to try on their own.’

  ‘Many don’t want to do so, my love. Maybe you should try letting someone look after you a bit.’

  Susan ignored the remark and gently pushed his mouth away from hers. ‘Andrew, I’ve just thought of what Mick said. About Boulder Downs and Bush University . . . about buying the place. Maybe that’s the way to go, buy this place. Maybe Norma could stay on, run the homestead as accommodation and . . .’

  ‘Susan, it’s too early to front Norma.’

  ‘Oh, Andrew, you’re right,’ she sighed, ‘but maybe some good will come out of this whole nightmare.’

  She rolled into his arms and he stroked her hair, holding her tight as arrows of pale morning light cracked the dark sky.

  At first light, the Police Air Support Services’ Cessna 310 took off from Derby with the chief pilot, Detective Sergeant Tony Spinoza, General Duties Constable Alec Buchan and Aboriginal Police Liaison officer Paul Wangerri, whose role it was to represent the rights of Aboriginal offenders.

  ‘You got all the forensic gear, Sarge?’ asked Paul Wangerri. ‘You going to video the interview with the suspect up there?’

  ‘Nah, has to be done back at the station. I’ve got camera gear to record everything at the scene, though. Wonder what happened?’

  ‘Probably drunk, an argument, someone grabbed a gun. Happened before this. At least there’s no other Aborigines involved so there’s no payback problem this time.’

  Spinoza nodded. Payback, between Aborigines, where justice and punishment were administered by tribal law men and generally by spearing in the leg, was acknowledged by white law and, in some cases, condoned.

  ‘There’s a case recently they reckon was payback, but no one’s talking,’ said Paul Wangerri. ‘Young Aboriginal girl was promised to an old full-blood fella. The elders reckoned there was too much intermarrying, the colour was dying out. But she had a young boyfriend and didn’t want to stay with the old man. So the two young ones ran away. The law men went after them and the story is that the payback was a bit hard and the two of them were killed by mistake. They just disappeared. Missing persons file.’

  ‘It’s scary when the law men come through,’ agreed Spinoza. ‘I saw them go through Halls Creek once. The young fellows who knew they were in for a punishment took off or tried to get themselves locked up. The old men got them though. They were painted up in full gear, feathers and grass, carrying spears. They just travel around to do payback law. The women and kids hide days before, going round wringing their hands, “de lor men comin’!”’

  ‘One way of dealing with crime, I guess,’ said Buchan. The men fell silent as they watched colour warm the sky and bring the land to life.

  Down below, somewhere amid the rocks, in patches of palms, spinifex and waterlily lagoons, four men walked slowly abreast, heads down, following the meandering tracks of a woman. They only occasionally exchanged a comment, pointing at the tell-tale signs of Rowena’s path. Hunter, inexperienced in tracking, watched carefully and appreciated it when Ardjani pointed out the more obvious marks of her journey.

  ‘She not far away,’ said Rusty.

  Digger pointed to the north-west. ‘Reckon she in the rocks. Over there.’

  They scrambled for awhile between the rocky outcrops, her tracks hard to pick up, but Ardjani soon confirmed from almost invisible markings on rocks that they were on the right track. ‘She’s climbed up there.’

  The three Barradja men exchanged knowing looks and felt the same sensation – a deep concern, that spirits had passed this way.

  In moments they found her. She was wedged face down between rocks at the base of a high outcrop, an arm and a leg jutting like awkward stick-insect limbs. Ardjani bent down knowing what he’d find.

  The men spoke in language. ‘She’s been dead since yesterday, abouts.’

  ‘Fall off that rock?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Hunter, deeply shocked, broke in. ‘What are you saying? How come she fell down?’

  Rusty pointed to the redness on her leg and the two small punctures. ‘Snake bite.’

  They turned her over and Hunter knelt beside the American who’d hired him, a prickly, highly strung, unpredictable boss. But behind her brash and forceful personality, they’d all seen a confused, unhappy, sick woman. While she had brought him out here as the hired hand, he felt that he’d failed her, that somehow this death could have been avoided had he been more assertive in looking after her.

  Gazing at her face, he suddenly thought she looked at peace for the first time since he’d met her, as if she belonged here among red rocks and vivid sky.

  They moved her to flat ground and cut bark from a tree to use as a stretcher and began the slow walk back to camp.

  During her time in Australia, the sun had tanned Rowena’s skin so that she looked sucked dry, her juices gone, leaving it rice-paper thin. The intense energy that had driven Rowena had now been replaced by a calm, contemplative stillness.

  Her death would be accepted as an accident. But Ardjani knew that retribution had come, not from one of the many dangerous snakes of the area, but from the fangs of the Rainbow Serpent, the guardian of the land bound by its coils that stretched from the Dreamtime to the present.

  Veronica and Lilian first saw the men carrying the bark bier.

  ‘God, they’ve found Rowena. She must be hurt!’ Veronica went to rush forward, but Lilian laid a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Go over to your camp – tell everyone to come here.’

  The tone of Lilian’s voice sent a shiver through her. Then she saw Rowena’s arm dangling, fingers dragging on the ground. ‘Oh Christ, she’s not . . . dead? Is she?’

  Lilian pushed her gently and Veronica sprinted across the open ground to the camp where the group was finishing a late breakfast.

  Beth crossed herself – a ritual she rarely observed. ‘Justice,’ she murmured.

  ‘She might only be hurt, we can call in the Flying Doctor.’ Billy made a move but Alan told him to wait.

  Ardjani was coming towards them. The group, seeing the look on Ardjani’s face, knew the news was not good.

  ‘What in God’s name happened?’ asked Mick.

  Ardjani gave them details, declining to include a judgement as to exactly how she died. The snake bite was mentioned without exceptional emphasis. ‘Hunter’s over there with her,’ he gestured towards the camp. ‘Must call the police people, eh?’

  Arrangements were quickly made using the Oka’s facilities to contact the police in Kununurra.

  Shareen broke the silence that she had maintained since seeing the corpse being carried into the camp. ‘Please ask the police if I can return with them. They’ll come by plane and I would like to leave then if they can fit me on board.’

  The sight of the corpse being carried into the camp had shaken her. The drama over the stolen art, the tense discussions on political and cultural issues, the constant cultural differences she’d felt had made the past few days utterly exhausting.

  The strange death of Rowena was the last straw. It was time to get back on more familiar ground. She listened to the other whites speculating on the American woman’s breaching of the traditional taboos and she longed for a straightforward, simple explanation . . . like – ‘She was bitten by a deadly snake and died trying to get help.’ She was pleased no one said anything about her decision to leave the camp.

  She looked up as Hunter walked towards Ardjani and handed him a large envelope.

  ‘I found this in Rowena’s room. And here’s a note that she’d started to write that was lying on top of it. It had been covered up by a towel or we’d have seen it earlier.’

  Ardjani pulled a file of torn legal papers out of the envelope. He scanned it quickly and handed everything without comment to Alistair, who flicked through the papers. ‘It’s the copyright contract she signed with the Barradja,’ he explained to everyone. ‘She’s torn it up. It looks like
she could have been writing this note when she must have decided to go for a walk. It says . . .

  ‘I had no right to do this. I’m sorry I let you down, Ardjani. I’ll get it right next time around.’

  In the early dawn at Boulder Downs homestead, Andrew had prepared coffee and toast while Susan woke Norma Jackson from a sleep that had been punctuated by tears and too much whisky. The two women talked quietly and Susan helped her find clothes for the trip to the mine site, and pack a bag so Norma could travel with her husband’s body back to Derby where she’d stay with friends.

  Norma responded well to Susan’s company, the younger woman’s warmth and genuine sympathy giving her the support she needed to face up to the horror of what was to come. No matter how she accepted the fact of her husband’s death, she dreaded the moment when she would have to be there with him, looking down at his body on the red earth, made redder still by his blood. But she was determined that she had to go to him one last time.

  The night rolled its swag and slipped away with sunrise close on its heels as the three of them drove away from the homestead. As features of the landscape became clearer, Norma Jackson began to talk. It seemed to Susan that by talking she was stopping her nerve from completely snapping. Sometimes she was talking to herself, at other times she was including them. It was a broken and rambling discourse on her marriage, her dreams, her differences with Giles Jackson. And it was about her sense of loss, not only of her husband, but also of what she suspected was inevitable, the loss of her home at Boulder Downs.

  ‘I don’t want to leave here, you know,’ she said to her silent companions. ‘I love this place, even though it’s been a terrible struggle. I never really shared Giles’ faith in diamonds or gold pulling us through. It just seemed so unlikely.’

  For a time she watched the stirring bird life and early grazing kangaroos, then spotted some of the station’s poorly conditioned cattle. ‘Don’t look much, do they?’ she observed sadly.

  She was silent again for a few minutes, then looked at Susan intensely. ‘You know, one of the last things we did was have a fight. He was furious that I thought we might be able to get ahead by capitalising on that wonderful heritage stuff that was on our property, by working with the Aborigines. Now one of them has killed him.’

  Susan expected her to break down again, but she briefly dabbed her eyes and concentrated on the landscape, outwardly looking in control, but immensely sad.

  Andrew pulled up at the mining exploration site where the men were around the table, sleepily nursing hangovers and mugs of tea. They rose unsteadily to their feet, mumbling condolences as Norma hung back behind Andrew and Susan. Then, seeing the blanket-covered shape on the ground near the parked vehicles, Norma gave a gasp and turned away.

  ‘Why don’t you wait in the truck, Norma? The plane should be in any minute.’ Susan led her back to the vehicle they’d borrowed from Esme to come here.

  ‘Any trouble?’ Andrew inclined his head towards the tin shed.

  ‘Na. He was quiet. Er, we made a bit of a racket though. Got stuck into the piss, I’m afraid,’ said Kev Perkins, gingerly.

  ‘You’ve let him out for a pee, though?’

  ‘Cops said to keep him under lock and key.’

  ‘Let’s at least take the poor bugger a cup of tea.’ Andrew went to the table and filled a mug.

  Susan joined him as they watched Perkins undo the padlock and slide the bolt back. ‘Your friends are here,’ he announced gruffly and stood to one side as Andrew stepped inside the dim interior.

  ‘Barwon, cuppa brew, mate. How’d . . . oh shit!’ Andrew recoiled, dropping the mug, staggering backwards through the door in horror.

  ‘What the fuck . . ?’ Perkins stepped into the doorway as Andrew’s stricken face turned to Susan.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘Fucking hell . . .’ Perkins slammed the door shut, leaning against it, his face ashen. Andrew reached for Susan, as Perkins yelled to the men who leapt from the table, knocking over chairs in their rush to the shed. ‘Bugger’s hung himself.’

  ‘Andrew, no . . . oh, no!’ Susan clutched at him.

  ‘He’s hanged himself, Susan. Oh God, I never thought for a moment . . .’

  Susan felt a heaving in her stomach, a retching in her throat, and she rushed to lean on a nearby tree, vomiting in a spasm of agony, guilt and rage.

  Norma stepped out of the truck looking confused and, as shouts from the men brought home to her what had happened, she threw a swift look back at her husband. She lowered her head and leaned against the back of the vehicle and wept . . . for Giles, for herself, and this final act that did nothing to assuage her pain.

  Andrew couldn’t control his anger. ‘Listen, you bastards. He was a good man, he was pushed by Jackson, and you were supposed to be looking after him. Why didn’t you check on him?’ Andrew’s voice rose to a shout. ‘You utter bastards.’

  The men glanced at each other, remembering the insults they’d hurled at the hapless Barwon and regretting they hadn’t been more careful about moving all the gear that had been stored in the shed. ‘Christ, we weren’t to know he’d do a stupid thing like this,’ retaliated Perkins defensively.

  Grimly holding hands, Susan and Andrew watched the Cessna take off with Norma, the body of Giles Jackson and the unexpected corpse of Barwon. The police had brought their own tragic news, the third in a series of events that seemed weirdly linked – the death of Rowena had been radioed to the plane by the Kununurra police who were sending officers to land at the Wards’ and drive over to Marrenyikka.

  On the drive back to Marrenyikka, Andrew and Susan tried to find answers to questions that could never be answered. What had finally driven Barwon to take his life would forever be a mystery to them.

  Andrew took her hand. ‘Why don’t you come back to Yandoo with me? Just for a few days, to get over all this. Time for a change.’ He couldn’t keep the note of hope out of his voice.

  ‘I don’t know, Andrew. I do have a new way of looking at things, though, that’s for sure.’

  Andrew was silent a moment or two. ‘You mean because of the Barradja?’

  ‘Yes. And this. Haven’t you learned something? Hasn’t it changed your views or ideas just a little?’

  ‘Not about everything . . . but it’s given me a wider understanding, that’s for sure. But, Susan, these are real Aborigines; the city ones, the drunks in the towns, they’re different.’

  ‘But, Andrew, that’s just the point! I believe that all Aboriginal people are “real”. They’ve all got somewhere deep inside them, that core of kinship that links them to a culture that has survived through Aboriginal families no matter where they are. Like Ardjani said, the drunks, the rebellious young people, the Aborigines accused of selling out, they’ve just lost their bond, their connection with their people and their country. If they could find it, they would have something to hold on to, so that they could go forward, and become part of white society if that’s what they want.’

  ‘Okay, get off the soap box. What’s most impressed me is what Beth yabbers on about – that Aborigines like the Barradja have something to offer us. But how do I convince my parents that Aboriginal culture could teach them things they could apply to their own lives?’

  ‘Send them to Bush University!’

  ‘How would I convince them to go? They’d say, what for? Why do we need to spend time with a bunch of Aborigines in the bush? To learn how to throw a boomerang? Forget it.’

  ‘Do you think being with Aborigines has had any effect on Shareen?’

  ‘She has an ambition of her own. I wouldn’t pin my hopes on her altering her campaign to support reconciliation and giving the Aborigines back their land. Not with the right-wing wackos she has behind her.’

  ‘But you agree, this has been valuable? Rewarding?’

  ‘Yeah . . . I got to be with you.’ He squeezed her hand but before she could speak, added, ‘And yes, I can appreciate that we have to sha
re our country. But, Susan, there has to be fairness. My family has earned the right to stay on our land. I can see Aborigines have a right to land too. But we have to find a way to share it fairly.’

  ‘Bush University might be a start. Reducing the ignorance, learning from each other.’ She sighed. ‘Why did Barwon give up? He could have contributed a lot to Bush University.’

  ‘Like you said, people have to know their place in the world. Security is a vital ingredient to happiness. Personal security and self-esteem, security of tenure and ownership, security of peace of mind. They’re all important,’ agreed Andrew adding, ‘Maybe Hunter will be one of the new generation to make a difference.’

  ‘He’ll help, that’s for sure,’ said Susan. ‘But it will still take generations. The future lies with the children like Ardjani’s young boys, Luke and Josh. Beth told me she spoke to the head of Camfield Grammar . . . in Perth . . . the principal has agreed to take the boys as boarders and the school has suggested setting up a cultural exchange program with the Barradja. Ardjani will give lectures to the teachers and students. The Barradja have invited groups of boys from the school to visit Marrenyikka in the dry season holiday break. And now Beth is working on a school for the girls as well.’

  ‘Hey, that’s fantastic news.’ Andrew reached over and brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘Being with you is kind of remarkable. My life was so pedestrian before I met you.’

  She smiled at him, and reached for his hand.

  It was a sombre group that greeted Susan and Andrew. In the afternoon Frank and Rosalie Ward drove Detective Constable Thomas Blandford and Flight Nurse Sally Barnes from Kununurra over to Marrenyikka after they’d flown into The Avenue. They were met by Ardjani and Jennifer and, after leaving the two officials with the elders, the Wards joined the group for tea and damper.