A large ball of the luminous electrical discharge rolled from around the hill near the grave and moved up the valley, dancing across the top of the grass. Eerily bright in the dim light under the murky clouds, it disintegrated into a mass of glowing coils as it swept toward Alexandra and the men, terrifying the horses. They neighed and plunged in panic, and Alexandra controlled hers by whipping it into a gallop toward the hill. The others followed suit, and the wagon bounced wildly behind.
The flock in the fold, Isaac and the jackaroo rode down the hill as Alexandra and the men reined up at the foot of it. "I didn't expect to see you back here, Mistress Kerrick," Isaac called curiously.
"Well, here I am, Isaac," she replied. "Have your jackaroo put these horses in the pen with yours so they can't bolt, then both of you lend a hand. We have more work to do than time in which to get it done."
A few minutes later, the team unhitched from the wagon, the youth led them and the saddle horses up to the pen beside the fold. The stockmen tossed the mattocks and shovels out of the wagon, and two jackaroos dragged out the large, heavy kettle. They put a pole through the bail on it, hoisting it to their shoulders. The other men, carrying shovels, went around the hill toward the grave as Alexandra climbed up the slope.
Standing near the hut below the fold, she tried to recall where David had dug the grave. The memory, decades old and vague from her confusion on that day, was further muddled by new trees that had grown. Flickers of lightning and the boom of thunder steadily marched closer, and St. Elmo's fire swirled about as she shouted and pointed. The stockmen and jackaroos dug furiously, but the first and then the second attempt were unsuccessful.
At the third place she pointed out, Ruel stopped digging after a few minutes and shouted up the slope over the roar of the thunder, ''We've found bones here, Mistress Kerrick!"
The brush tugging at her clothes, Alexandra raced down the hill. She pushed through the stockmen and jackaroos gathered around the deep hole and jumped down into it, seeing the white gleam of bones. Kneeling and scraping at the dirt with her hands, she uncovered a rotted boot, then the cavernous eyes and grotesque, fiendish grin of a skull.
"Ruel, keep two jackaroos here to help you, and put all of those bones in the kettle," she told him, climbing out of the hole. "And I mean each and every one of them. I don't want a single, solitary knucklebone, tooth, or the smallest bone from a finger left in the ground here."
He beckoned two of the youths, who took the heavy lid off the kettle as they moved it to the hole. Alexandra told Isaac to take a jackaroo to help him gather a cord of firewood, pointing out an exposed shoulder of the hill below the hut where she wanted the wood brought. As he left with a youth, Alexandra went up the hill toward the spot with Eulie and the other jackaroos who carried mattocks and shovels.
The lightning and thunder drew closer, and the air stirred ahead of the storm. St. Elmo's fire danced on the brush rustling in the torridly hot breeze as Alexandra climbed the hill with Eulie, telling him that she intended to make an earth furnace. "The kind that Mr. Kerrick made to bake clay pipe and bricks," she explained. "If you recall, he used a very large, funnel-like contrivance made of poles and bark to gather the wind and force air into the furnace. I want you to make one of those, Eulie."
The stockmen had long since ceased wondering what she was doing and were merely following orders in their usual prompt, determined way. As he looked around at the brush moving in the breeze, however, Eulie offered an opinion. "In a very short time, you're going to have plenty of wind for a furnace without anything to help it, Mistress Kerrick."
"Perhaps, but I want the inside of the furnace to be as hot as the shores of the nether world, Eulie. Make that thing low and wide, and cut posts to support it so the wind won't blow it over."
He beckoned a jackaroo and turned toward a stand of eucalyptus trees to gather slabs of bark as Alexandra went up to the grassy shoulder of the hill with the other youths. Taking a shovel, she marked off a large rectangle on the ground and had the jackaroos dig up the sod in squares. When they were stacked at one side, Alexandra drew lines on the bare earth, leaving ledges to support the sod as a roof for the furnace. Setting to work again, the youths dug a deep trench inside the lines.
As the trench deepened, Isaac and his helper carried heavy loads of wood and piled it nearby. On the exposed flank of the hill, St. Elmo's fire occasionally brushed around Alexandra and the youths with a tingling sensation. When it happened to the jackaroos, they laughed and joked in bravado, their young faces pale and tense with fright of the strange phenomenon, as well as of the violent storm bearing down.
The breeze became muggy, and Alexandra was relieved as she turned to look at the storm. Now only a few miles away, dark curtains of rain trailing down from the black thunderheads extinguished any fires ignited by the lightning. Isaac noticed it when he brought another load of firewood, commenting happily about it to Alexandra.
Ruel also observed it as he came up the hill, viewing it from a different perspective. The jackaroos followed him with the kettle hanging from a pole between them. First he assured Alexandra that he had found all of the bones, then he pointed to the storm. "When that's upon us," he said, "you'd best get into shelter, Mistress Kerrick. There's ample room in Isaac's hut, or you could go to the wagon if you wish."
"No, I want to stay here, Ruel. When everything is finished, though, I'd prefer for you and the men to go to the hut or wagon."
He frowned, starting to object, then changed his mind and went down the hill to the wagon. Presently, he returned with her oilskins, blanket, and a square of canvas. He and the jackaroos drove poles into the ground and made a tent out of the canvas, pegging the edges down firmly against the coming wind, and Ruel put her oilskins and blanket inside.
When the trench was deep enough, the men put firewood into it, wedging the sticks and logs tightly into a solid mass until the long hole was half full. Alexandra looked in the kettle, wanting to see the jumble of bones, and replaced the lid. The men set it on the wood, then packed firewood on and around it, filling the trench to the edge.
Eulie and his helper had finished making a large air scoop, using tough strands of spinifex grass to tie slabs of bark over a framework of poles. The jackaroos went to help them drag it up the hill as Ruel and Isaac covered the trench with the sod. Leaving an opening on the downwind side for an exhaust vent, they placed the thick blocks of soil tightly together up the opposite end where they left another opening for an air intake.
The storm closed in rapidly, and the twilight was broken by brilliant flashes of lightning, followed closely by roaring peals of thunder that made conversation difficult. When the air scoop was beside the trench, the men helped Eulie drive in posts to hold it firmly in place as Alexandra gathered dry grass and pushed it down into the earth furnace.
The grass burned rapidly and ignited the wood when she touched a phosphorus match to it, the rising wind making a draft through the furnace. The men put the air scoop into place, the wide end facing into the wind and the small one over the air intake. The draft through the furnace became a concentrated blast of air, and the smoke lazily billowing from the exhaust vent turned into a tall, thick plume reaching high above the ground.
The wind suddenly gusted to a gale, and the storm swept down in a raging fury of crackling lightning and shattering thunderclaps. As he and the other two men lashed the air scoop to the posts, Ruel shouted to the jackaroos and pointed to the hut. They thankfully fled, seeming to move jerkily in the stroboscopic effect of the landscape alternating rapidly between twilight and blinding brilliance from the lightning.
A jagged bolt crackled down from the clouds to a solitary eucalyptus a hundred yards away. The tree split open in a shower of smoldering bark, and a crash of thunder was so loud it had the impact of a physical blow. The bark fell into the grass and ignited it, the fire spreading rapidly ahead of the howling wind. Finished with the air scoop, the men looked at the fire in dismay, then heavy raindrops began fallin
g and thickened into a downpour.
The men laughed in relief, and Isaac and Eulie ran toward the hut through the rain as Alexandra put on her oilskins. Ruel hesitated, turning to her. "Perhaps I'd best stay here, Mistress Kerrick," he offered.
"No, I'll be all right, Ruel. Go to the hut with the others."
He touched his hat and walked away, and Alexandra sat down inside the tent. As the fire worked its way through the tightly-packed wood in the furnace, flames appeared at the base of the smoke gushing from the exhaust vent. They gradually emerged higher and higher into the smoke until a beacon of roaring fire was spewing from the vent, whipping in the wind.
At nightfall, the initial fury of the storm passed, the lightning becoming distant flickers. The furnace, rumbling from the tempest rushing through it, radiated searing heat. Rain falling on it instantly boiled away into steam, the pillar of fire shooting out of the exhaust vent illuminating the vapor as it whirled and billowed in the wind.
Watching the steam fraying into wisps and floating away into the darkness, Alexandra was highly satisfied. In the fiery heart of the furnace, the mortal remains of the bushrangers were meeting the end that they had earned for their souls in the eternal fires of hell. It gave her a sense of finally reaching out across the decades in revenge.
A jackaroo emerged from the rain and darkness, bringing tea in a billy and a plate of food protected from the rain by another tin plate. Alexandra ate, then covered herself with her blanket. The purpose that had infused her with driving energy now near an end, she allowed the fatigue, like a heavy weight, to bear down on her, and the patter of the rain made her drowsy. Soon, the glare of the flames from the exhaust vent of the furnace was only a glow through her closed eyelids.
Shortly before dawn, the wind moaned low and plaintively as it rushed through the furnace. Alexandra woke to the mournful wail and to a cloud of diffused, eerie light in the rainy darkness, the steam billowing over the oven illuminated from within by a nimbus from the white-hot coals shining through the exhaust vent.
Pulling her oilskins around her, Alexandra walked out of the tent. She loosened the lashings on the posts holding the air scoop in place, then dragged it to one side so the furnace would begin cooling. As the thick darkness started to lift a few minutes later, a jackaroo brought her a plate of porridge and tea in a billy.
After she ate, the light brightened into a gray, wet dawn, and the men and jackaroos set to work. Taking the air scoop apart, they used the poles as levers to prise the sod off the furnace. The blocks of soil had baked as hard as stone, the grass on them shriveled to brittle stalks. While the others uncovered the furnace, Eulie cut down and trimmed a tall sapling that had a stout branch low on its trunk.
Squinting against the scorching heat of the glowing coals, the men slid the sapling down into the trench and hooked the bail on the kettle with the stub of the branch, then lifted it. Rain hissed and turned to steam as it touched the hot metal. Everyone stayed well away from the large, black vessel as the men set it down beside the trench.
The sheep were bleating with hunger in the fold at the top of the hill, and Isaac told Alexandra that he had to take them and the horses to graze. "As soon as they're settled," he added, "I'll leave my jackaroo to look after them and come back here to help."
"Very well," Alexandra said. "When you let the flock out, leave one wether in the fold." She turned to the other men. "Eulie, take a jackaroo to help you butcher that wether, then bring it here. Ruel, you can have the tent taken down, and have someone collect the knives. I want that wether boned out, then the mutton chopped up in this kettle."
The men and youths turned away, going about their tasks. Alexandra gingerly touched the kettle, as the rain started to trickle down it instead of turning to steam. When the lid was cool enough to grasp, she lifted it and looked inside. The bones had been reduced to fine dust by the heat. Nodding in satisfaction, she replaced the lid.
A rumble of hoofs came from the other side of the hill as the sheep and horses were taken to graze. A short time later, Eulie and a jackaroo carried a skinned sheep carcass down the hill, and Ruel and the other youths sharpened the knives. They worked on the carcass, tossing bones into the trench and mutton into the kettle. Alexandra stirred the meat and dust in the kettle with a pole, mixing them thoroughly.
Isaac returned as the place was being tidied up, the mutton in the kettle and the jackaroos shoveling the last of the dirt back into the trench. As the day before, he and the other men had simply followed orders without wondering about their purpose. When Alexandra told him to point out where he had seen the dingoes, only one of the group revealed any reaction. That was Eulie, a thoughtful expression on his Aborigine face.
Ruel and Eulie carried the heavy kettle on a thick pole as Isaac led the way across a rise west of the hill and down into a brushy, rocky ravine. With the kettle placed in an open spot, Alexandra removed the lid and set it aside, then went up the slope overlooking the ravine and sat under a tree. The men and youths grouped under a tree a few yards away, talking quietly among themselves.
As the rain pattered on the foliage overhead, Alexandra watched the kettle and listened to the conversation among the employees. After a few minutes, the scent of the raw meat wafted through the ravine, and she glimpsed a tawny form slinking through the brush near the kettle.
Isaac also saw it, pointing it out to the others. "I asked for help in killing dingoes," he commented wryly. "I can feed them mutton by myself, but that's what I've been trying to keep from doing."
The men and youths laughed, with the exception of Eulie. Other wild dogs moved furtively about in the brush around the kettle, then one that was hungrier or braver than the rest ventured into the open. As soon as it snatched a bite of meat from the kettle without coming to harm, others swarmed out of concealment and joined it.
The kettle became hidden under a mass of squirming, hairy forms, as the dingoes snapped and snarled at each other while gulping the mutton. Some leaped into the midst of the others, trying to force their way through to the meat, while pairs tumbled out of the cluster and rolled on the ground, locked in raging fights. Within a few minutes, it was all over, the wild dogs disappearing into the brush once again.
As she went back down the slope into the ravine, the employees following her, Alexandra noticed that the rain had stopped and took off her oilskins. The dingoes had licked the kettle clean, the inside of it looking as though it had been scrubbed and polished.
"Let's get ready and leave, Ruel," she told him, then glanced at him and the others. "From now on, this is Dingo Paddock. Spread the word about, and I'll do the same and change the map at the house. I want everyone to know, and I don't want to hear this paddock called anything else."
The employees nodded and replied in understanding, then Ruel began giving orders. Two jackaroos raced away to get the horses, two more running toward the wagon to get the harness ready. Others carried the kettle, following Alexandra and the rest of the employees to the wagon.
During the next hour of hurried preparations to leave, Alexandra was too busy to wonder about the possible effects of what she had done. Then, when she and the others left the valley for the track, it occurred to her that there should be some detectable result, unless she had merely performed a meaningless ritual. However, nothing apparent had happened, no changes of any sort had taken place.
She was, she realized, much happier than before, but there were obvious reasons for it. The clouds had broken, revealing the sky, and the rain that had ended a short time before had been a godsend. A break in the dry season that would renew the pastures for the sheep also ended the danger of grass fires for the year. In addition, she had finally finished what she had wanted to do and was going home.
After starting out late in the day, they had reached only the northern part of the paddock when they stopped for the night. Alexandra noticed that her previous dislike of staying in that particular paddock was gone. In her mind, it was now Dingo Paddock, much the same as a
ll the others and simply a part of the land she loved.
Later, waiting for sleep, she let her thoughts wander at random, a fold of her blanket wound tightly around her ankles. The sensation summoned up memories of when she had been a captive, lying on a blanket at night with her hands and feet tied. Before, she would have kicked frantically to loosen the blanket, but for some reason, she was now indifferent to it.
She suddenly realized that she felt a tranquillity about that period in her life that was the opposite of her previous feelings. Before, she had always avoided thinking about the torment the bushrangers had inflicted upon her, the memory too painful. Now, with a sense of having reached out to destroy the cause of her suffering, she regarded that time and its events as merely an unfortunate episode in her life, and felt no pain.
As she pondered her change in attitude, she thought of a rational explanation. Among primitive people, as well as many who considered themselves anything but that, rituals produced results simply because they were considered effective. The actual agent of change was the mind, with its capacity to perceive what it believed. Through convincing herself that she had exorcised the bushrangers from her life, she could have done just that.
At the same time, however, she was unable to dismiss at least the possibility that she had done more.
After decades, she had never quite adjusted to celebrating Christmas in the sweltering heat that December brought in the outback. She knew that there were vastly more significant but subtle ways in which she had failed to adapt, aspects of the outback that she would never comprehend because she had yet to realize that they even existed.
The next morning, while she was saddling her horse, Eulie was also attending to his. Ruel and the jackaroos were several feet away. The stockman quietly referred to what she had done. "It appears," he continued, "that you know something of Aborigine conjuring, Mistress Kerrick."
"A bit, perhaps. I'm sure you know more."
Outback Station Page 43
