by Barbara Wood
"Mr. Fox," she said quietly, as they walked along the edge of the shanty town, "how did these people come to this?"
"They tried to fight us, years ago, when the first white people arrived and settled on Aboriginal land. The settlers retaliated by burning the blacks' camping grounds and driving away their food supply. Having nothing to hunt, the blacks resorted to stealing food from the farmers, for which they were punished. Finally, they capitulated. They decided that the way to survive was to join us, to imitate us. But they have no idea of how to go about doing it. They wear cast-off clothing donated by churches, they struggle to speak English, they drink alcohol and smoke tobacco, but they never really succeed in becoming like us."
They paused to watch a woman cook bread over hot coals. She was barefoot, and her dress hung on her. The shelter behind her had been made out of crates, and the words "Adelaide Produce Co." could be plainly seen. The lean-to was large enough to accommodate only one person; inside was a mattress with stuffing spilling out. The woman looked at the visitors, and then away.
As Joanna continued to walk slowly along, she noticed that few of the blacks seemed to care about the group of white people strolling in their midst. "Mother," Beth said quietly, "is there no one to help these poor people?"
"Actually, there is," Fox said. "The government takes care of the natives through the Aborigines' Rights Protection Board, which provides food and clothing, and looks after their general interests. But it is difficult to correct problems that were begun a long time ago. Many of the original missionaries who came here came not to minister to the needs of the settlers, but to take care of the blacks. But I'm afraid their good intentions went awry. For example, they insisted that the blacks give up their kangaroo cloaks and dress like Europeans. But the Aborigine used his kangaroo skin for many things—one of them was shelter from the elements. Rain will run off a kangaroo hide, while the man under it remains warm and dry. Frock coats in the rain, however, become sodden. As a result, a lot of blacks came down with pneumonia and died. Good intentions, Mrs. Westbrook, can sometimes result in negative consequences."
But there was more to this deplorable scene, Joanna thought, than good intentions gone awry. She saw in the blank faces of the people she passed a kind of surrender, as if they had simply given up. Joanna thought of John and Naomi Makepeace, and wondered if the inhabitants of this wretched gully were somehow the far-reaching result of her grandfather's crime, fifty-two years ago. Worse, were some of these people once members of the very clan the Makepeaces had lived with?
"Surely something can be done for these people. Couldn't they perhaps be relocated on their ancestral land?"
"Even if that land was available, Mrs. Westbrook," Fox said as he shooed flies away from his face, "most of them no longer know where they belong. They wouldn't be able to recognize the songlines—that is, the tracks that connect the sacred sites."
"Can we find out if any of these people came from Perth?"
"We could try asking. Otherwise, there is no way of knowing. We don't keep records of these people. Their numbers are always changing. They come and go at will. Some might be here one day, and gone the next. And tomorrow morning you might find a hundred new ones squatting in their place."
"I'm looking for a tribe with a kangaroo totefti. Surely they would remember their totem."
He shook his head. "Many of them here wouldn't even be able to tell you the name of their tribe."
"I want to talk to them," she said. "I want to know if any of them are from Perth."
"I must warn you, Mrs. Westbrook," Fox said, "these people have a habit of telling you what they think you want to hear. And that is not necessarily the truth."
They approached an old man who was sitting beneath the one tree in the gully. His white beard reached down to his waist, and he was smoking a pipe. Joanna thought he bore a strong resemblance to Ezekiel. Eric Graham brought out his notebook and pencil and began to write.
Commissioner Fox said, "Do you speak English?"
"I speak," the elder said.
"What tribe are you from?"
Small piercing eyes regarded the commissioner from beneath heavy brows. When the Aborigine didn't say anything, Fox said, "I'm not here in an official capacity, old man. We merely want some information. Do you know anything about the Karra Karra clan?"
"Yeah," he said. "I know Karra Karra."
"Mr. Fox," Joanna said, suddenly excited. "Ask him where—"
"Just a moment, please, Mrs. Westbrook. Old man, do you know the place where the dish ran away with the spoon?"
"Yeah, I know. I take you there."
Fox muttered, "For a price, of course," and turned away. "Do you see now what you are up against, Mrs. Westbrook? Perhaps," Fox said, "you should talk to Sister Veronica. She's lived in this area for decades. She might know something."
"Sister Veronica?"
"She's one of the Catholic nuns who run a school and infirmary at the edge of town. She's been here for ages. I can take you there right now, if you like."
As they headed away from the encampment, with Eric Graham wondering if he was going to be getting a story out of this after all, and Captain Fielding pausing to light his pipe, Beth saw a signpost that caught her attention. It was a pole stuck in the sand and tilted to one side, with several crudely written signs nailed to it, pointing in different directions. One of them read, "Bustard Creek, 20m. south." Beth smiled. A prankster had gone over the letter "U" with a paintbrush and changed it to an "A."
The other signs read: "Johnson's Well," "Durrakai," and "Laverton."
Beth gave it a puzzled look. As far as she could tell, they were pointing to nowhere.
The convent came as a surprise to Joanna. Expecting to find a plain wooden building set in the middle of arid scrub, she found instead a collection of stone buildings clustered at the edge of what must have been the only water source for miles around. It was like an oasis, Joanna thought, when she saw the stand of trees, the grass growing down the bank of a clear running creek. Fox led her to a large clapboard house with a deep veranda and a tin drum on the roof to catch rainwater. A faded sign over the front door read: ST. ALBAN'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, FATHER MCGILL, PASTOR, MASS EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH. Beneath it, another sign had been added: SCHOOL AND INFIRMARY.
"The nuns live in that house over there," Fox said as they went up the veranda steps. "But I'm sure we'll find Sister Veronica in here. She seems to live in the infirmary."
Joanna was further surprised to find herself entering a cool, quiet foyer that smelled of lemon polish and fresh flowers. The dust and flies of the goldfields and the Aborigine camp seemed not to reach this religious outpost that was tended, Fox explained, by twelve very dedicated nuns.
Sister Veronica was a robust woman in her late sixties. She wore a white habit that accentuated her tanned skin, and although her face betrayed her years of hardship beneath the desert sun, she spoke with a surprisingly refined British accent.
"Paul," she said to the commissioner, taking his hand. "How nice to see you again. You don't visit us often enough."
Fox introduced Joanna and Captain Fielding, and young Beth. Eric Graham tried to remain unobvious, his pad and pencil ready. The commissioner explained, "Mrs. Westbrook is looking for traces of her grandparents, who might have come through the area years ago. Their names were John and Naomi Makepeace, and they lived for a while with a family of Aborigines in a place called Karra Karra."
"I'm sorry," the nun said, after a moment of searching her memory. "I have never heard the name Makepeace, and I do not know Karra Karra. Perhaps if you inquired among the Aborigines who live outside of town ..."
"We already have," Joanna said. "I'm afraid I found nothing there."
When Sister Veronica saw the disappointment on her visitor's face, she said, "Perhaps if you told me a little more, it might jog my memory. I was just on my way to relieve Sister Agatha in the sick ward. If you care to come with me, we can talk along the way."
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nbsp; They left through the rear of the building and followed a path that cut through surprisingly green lawns. The bottlebrush trees heavy with red blooms and the branches of tall eucalypts rustling high overhead reminded Joanna of Merinda.
"What a beautiful setting," she said. "When one sees the town and the goldfields, one can't imagine that such a lovely spot as this could be nearby."
"We have a good water supply here. Bustard Creek, which is twenty miles to the south, is fed by an underground river that flows through limestone caverns, far beneath the earth. There is very little here that we cannot grow."
"You're very fortunate to have this land, Sister."
"Oh, we don't own the land, Mrs. Westbrook," Veronica said. "The colonial government allowed us to set up our hospital here a few years ago, in order to take care of the few gold diggers who had staked claims in the area. And then when the gold rush hit, we suddenly had our hands full. We treat many banged heads and injured feet. The men seem to be so careless with their shovels and pickaxes!"
"I'm sure the men are thankful that you and the other sisters are here."
"We are kept very busy, I assure you. But we have run into a problem, Mrs. Westbrook. The authorities are being pressured to move us off this land, because gold-mining companies want to take it over. We are not a rich order, Mrs. Westbrook. The little money that does come our way is just enough to purchase medicines and supplies. If we are forced to move, I have no idea where we will go."
They passed a carefully tended cemetery; a greenhouse, where more nuns in white habits were working; a vegetable garden; a yard with farm animals. "We try to be self-sufficient," Veronica said. "But we are getting on in years. Our youngest sister is fifty years old. We are having difficulty attracting new members because we are so poor."
They came to the steps of a wooden bungalow, with a sign over the door that read SICK WARD.
"Mrs. Westbrook," Veronica said, "what years were your grandparents here?"
"Between 1830 and 1834."
"And you say they lived with the Aborigines, somewhere around here?"
"Possibly, I'm not sure."
Sister Veronica stopped and looked at Joanna. "If they were here at that time, Mrs. Westbrook, they would have come through Perth at the same time that I was there. I came to Australia as a novice when I was seventeen. I and two other sisters arrived with the first settlers. We lived in the Perth settlement for three years, and then we moved eastward, where we established a farm and a school for the settlers' children. Wait a minute, something is coming back to me ..."
Joanna waited, as the sun dropped behind the trees and the constant noise from the nearby goldfield seemed suddenly to grow subdued.
"It was in 1834," Sister Veronica said. "I remember the date because I had just taken my final vows. A little girl was brought out of the desert, Mrs. Westbrook. A white child. She was about four years old and in a terrible state. Physically, she was all right, she had been well taken care of, but when questioned about her parents, she became hysterical. We could hardly make sense of what she was trying to say—she was so frightened. I seem to recall that she was trying to tell us about dogs—wild dogs—and a large serpent. And the most baffling thing of all, Mrs. Westbrook, was that she didn't speak English; she spoke an Aboriginal dialect!
"The authorities brought her to us, to take care her of until she could be put on a ship bound for England. There were relatives there, we were told. Mrs. Westbrook, could that child possibly have something to do with your grandparents?"
Joanna stared at the woman. "She was their daughter," she said. "My mother." She became suddenly excited. "Then they were near here. They did come this way. And if so, then Karra Karra has to be nearby."
"What will you do now, Mrs. Westbrook?"
"I have to find out where they went, where they lived."
"Why? I doubt you'll find anything out there after all these years."
"Something is out there, Sister. My mother believed that it was waiting for her, and now, in a way, I feel it is waiting for me."
Veronica's eyes, small and lively, searched Joanna's face. "It is a spiritual journey then?" she said. "I thought I felt that when we shook hands. I get a strong sense of purpose about you, Mrs. Westbrook, a feeling of destiny, perhaps." She looked at Beth. "And your daughter as well. I wonder if God has brought you here for a reason."
"Something brought me here," Joanna said, "because I have been on this journey for years. And it has not totally been of my own choosing. I have felt compelled to come here. My mother did, too."
"I understand," Veronica said with a smile. "I, too, was compelled to come here, many years ago. I came from a rich family, Mrs. Westbrook. And I was, if I may say so, a very pretty young woman. I had all the advantages, as it were. But I was 'called.' I had no choice but to come here, to bring God's goodness and love into this wilderness."
"What will you do if they make you move off this land?"
"We'll find another place. We always have." She took Joanna's hand and said, "God go with you on your journey, my dear. I pray that you find what you are looking for."
TWENTY-SEVEN
I
DON'T LIKE THE LOOK OF THIS, JACKO," HUGH SAID AS HE examined a dead sheep. He knelt and studied the wounds on the animal. The nature of the sores on the body and the tattered condition of the fleece showed him he was dealing with fly-strike. Finally, he stood up, stripped off his gloves and surveyed the scene. Sheep carcasses lay everywhere. The sheep that were still alive looked as if they weren't going to last much longer.
It had taken Hugh five weeks to get from Kalagandra to Merinda, and as soon as he had arrived at the homestead, he had saddled up a horse and ridden out to talk to Jacko. And now, an hour later, he realized that the situation was much worse than he had thought. All over the district, sheep were dying in the hundreds. They dropped where they stood, their wool hanging in tatters, their bodies covered with sores and maggots. Entire flocks were affected, from Williams Grange to as far away as Barrow Downs. The weather was cool now, but Hugh suspected that when the warm weather broke and a new generation of flies hatched, there would be a stronger, bigger wave of blowfly sweeping across the plains.
He threw down the gloves and ran his hand through his hair. He was tired. He had traveled almost nonstop from Kalagandra, taking the train to Perth, then spending four-and-a-half weeks on the coastal steamer, and another two days getting from Melbourne to the Western District. And he knew now that he wasn't going to be rejoining Joanna as quickly as he had hoped.
"This is no ordinary fly-strike, Jacko," he said. "There's something odd about this one. The sheep are dying a lot quicker than with the usual strike."
"That was why I decided to send for you, Hugh. I knew that I couldn't handle it myself."
As Hugh walked slowly among the carcasses, looking at each one, his mystification grew. The time seemed to be too short between the initial infestation of an animal and its death. He was glad now that he had left Kalagandra when he did. He suspected that every single day was going to count in finding the cause and a way to prevent more sheep from dying. He walked over to a ewe that was still alive.
She lay on her side, her body swarming with maggots. Hugh picked up his rifle and shot the animal through the head.
"Have the men dig a pit, Jacko," he said. "Bury these carcasses."
"And then what?"
"We'll examine every flock. We'll quarantine the infested ones. The clean ones will be crutched right away. I don't know, Jacko. This is serious. I've never known fly-strike to be so swift and so deadly. The incubation period is too short. Maybe it's a new strain."
"We've only got four months until shearing," Jacko said gloomily. "I reckon we oughta get started on the dipping."
"I have a feeling, Jacko, that the usual insecticidal dip isn't going to work this time. Have this carcass hauled back to the homestead for me. I'm going to do an autopsy on it. Maybe I can come up with something. In the meantime, I'm going to ride
around to the other stations and see what they're doing."
When Hugh finally returned home, he was exhausted. He was alone in the house, except for Mrs. Jackson, who was cooking dinner.
As he wearily changed out of his traveling clothes and poured himself a whiskey in the parlor, he found a special comfort from being within the familiar walls. The beauty of the house at Merinda calmed a troubled soul: its polished floors, the modern tile bathrooms, the stained-glass panels in the front door and the finely made furniture and gaslights. It was a peaceful house, solid and large and reassuring—a sanctuary, Hugh thought.
But even more reassuring than Merinda's simple elegance was the presence of familiar objects, each with its special significance, in particular the many photographs of all sizes and shapes, in silver or wooden frames or no frames at all, covering tables and walls: Adam, at nine, proudly holding up a fish he had caught in the river; Beth dressed up for a children's costume party; Sarah and Joanna working in the greenhouse, captured unaware by the camera as they stood with their heads bent over herbs and flowers, sunlight washing over them. There were knickknacks that brought back happy memories, souvenirs from the International Exhibition, a ribbon Beth had won for a pet sheep at the Graziers' Show, certificates of scholastic merit from the Cameron Town Secondary School that Adam had attended.
Hugh slowly sipped his whiskey and tried not to think of the terrible sights of the past few hours—sheep rotting while they were still alive, the hopelessness in the eyes of men who knew they were going to lose their stations, everything they had worked for. Tomorrow, he thought, he would roll up his sleeves and get to work on finding a way to combat yet another scourge besetting the sheep farmers of western Victoria. But for now, tonight, he sought the comfort of his family.