She answered with a sigh, ‘All right.’
‘Wha’ we waitin’ for, then?’ He leapt up and took her hand and raised her.
Again they went eastward; and although he took her hand when they were clear of the house, and swung it in exaggerated arcs to the rhythm of their walking and probably the turbulence of his feelings, he gabbled as usual about what she had heard so many times and surely but half understood. Igulgul was glaring. A Willy wagtail was singing. They came round a bend to find a couple of curlews waiting for them. The birds clucked to each other and danced ahead for twenty yards or so before taking off. That stopped the gabble. ‘Baby spirits,’ he said. ‘They lookin’ out for baby spirits. That’s what they reckon, eh?’ She nodded.
He swung her hand high, then kept it down, arm stiff, and said, ‘Yo’ know . . . you never tell me nothin’ ’bout yo’self. All the time I’m tellin’ you ’bout me. Not ’cause I wan’ ’o. I like you . . . yo’ know that, don’ you . . . eh?’ She nodded. ‘I think you like me, too, don’ yo’?’ Another nod. ‘See . . . you never talk . . . tell me nothin’. I wan’ ’o know . . .’cause I wan’ ’o help you. You in some trouble, ain’t you?’
When she dropped her head, he said, ‘Please tell me . . . Nelly. You can trust me, can’t you?’
She breathed, ‘Yas.’
‘All right, then . . . tell be ’bout yo’ trouble. Come on. You runnin’ away, ain’t you?’
She nodded. ‘Then tell me ’bout it . . . so’s I can help you.’ He halted her. She drooped before him. He urged.
She breathed, ‘Dey wan’ tek my lil boy ’way.’
‘Who’s that . . . Cobbity and Co., eh?’
‘Yas.’
‘You can’t go on livin’ in the bush, though.’
‘I tek him Beatrice . . . long o’ Lily Lagoon. Dat Mullaka dere, he look out we.’
‘Jeremy Delacy? What the Delacy mob done for you? That’s Martin’s kid, isn’t it?’ She nodded. ‘Well . . . what you goin’ there for?’
‘Mullaka say my boy can go school dere. Das wha’ for Mick Cusky wan’ ’o tek him ’way . . . send him school somewhere long way.’
‘I heard about ’em sending kids away . . . but halfcaste kids . . . with black mothers. You ain’t black . . . an he’s nearly white as me. Wha’ ’bout them creamy kids with white fathers? They goin’ to State School in Town. Wha’s he wan’ ’o take yours away for?’
‘I don’ know.’
‘Maybe ’cause he ain’t got a father now . . . now Ah Loy’s dead.’
He started her walking again, swinging her hand again, said somewhat breathlessly, ‘Look . . . how ’bout I marry you . . . and then he’s got a father again . . .’ He caught her swift look, turned from it quickly, to continue: ‘I’d send him to the Convent School. He’s a smart kid . . . he ought ’o be educated . . .’ He seemed to run out of breath. They went on quite a way before he suddenly turned to her, blurting, ‘’Ow ’bout it . . . ’ll you marry me?’
She breathed, ‘I wan’ ’o go Beatrice.’
‘Beatrice’s two ’undred mile . . . police ’ll pick you up.’ As she drooped her head he went on: ‘And wha’ you wan’ ’o go there for, when them Delacy bastards done nothin’ for you ever? That right . . . they ever look out for you and the boy?’ She shook her head. ‘Then wha’ you wan’ ’o go there for? When she only drooped again, he asked, ‘’Cause it’s yo’ country . . . that it?’
‘Yas.’
They walked on in silence again, stiff-armed again. They disturbed a horse grazing, causing it to bolt. He remarked that it was a mare they were looking for. Then he stopped suddenly again and swung on her: ‘Tell you what I’ll do . . . I’ll take you and the boy down to Lily Lagoons in the truck. You can’t get there yo’self. Police’ll be lookin’ for you . . . specially down Beatrice. I’ll run you down. Nobody’ll know I got you with me. Then you can see what’s what. If old Jeremy’ll look after the boy, then it’s okay. If you wan’ o’ stop there, it’s okay. I only wan’ ’o help you, like I said . . . but . . . but I’d like to marry you, too Nelly . . . I . . . I love yo’ . . .’ He snatched his eyes away from hers, swung her into a walk again. Still walking, after a while he asked, ‘That suit yo’ . . . I take you down?’
‘Yas.’
‘Good-o!’ he cried, and swung her hand high again. He went on: ‘Jes le’me go to Town first . . . get rid the tin. If yo’ like I’ll take yo’ and leave yo’ near the railway . . . some place where you’ll be safe and comfy . . . till I get back. I’ll be back same day. All right?’
‘Yas.’
‘Well, then, everything’s sweet. Let’s go back, eh? Get to bed early, we’ll get early start on cleanin’ and baggin’. Then we can get away early day after tomorro’. Sooner the better, eh?’
Igulgul, just ahead of them, seemed to be leading them — surely a dance.
Nell might have been thinking so, the way she kept her eyes down on her own dark feet and his paler feet padding the silvery dust. But not her companion, babbling again of how bright the future was, with world war looming and a chance to share in the spoils thereof with the Master, Lord Vaisey — she too, if she chose. Coming in sight of the house again, before letting go the dusky slender hand, he drew her to him, just enough to peck her cheek, covering his embarrassment with a guffaw . . . yaaaaah!
Knobby and Queeny were sitting in silence on the edge of the moonlight. Again guffawing, Nugget asked them if they’d had a row, then in their continued silence, suggested they all have an early night for an early start tomorrow. While Nell and Queeny got the usual cocoa and brownie, he told Knobby about the horse he’d seen: ‘That bloody mare . . . must get her before she foals, or we never will.’
It wasn’t until they were in bed that Nugget said anything about the arrangements he’d made with Nell. The hard creaking of the leather of Knobby’s bed should have given him a hint of how Knobby was taking it. But he really needed no hint, as revealed, when, clearing his throat, he asked, ‘Wha’ you think o’ that?’
Knobby took a deep breath first, then: ‘I think yo’ bloody well mad.’
Quite calmly Nugget said, ‘Yeah . . . I reckon you would.’
‘Wha’ ’bout Mum and Dad?’
‘Wha’ ’bout ’em? ‘S my life.’
‘Kill Mum, you marry a yeller piece.’
‘Where I goin’ ’o get a white sheilah’s goin’ ’o live this kind o’ life?’
‘Plen’y other ways o’ livin’.’
‘Might suit you workin’ on the road . . . but not me. I wan’ a property, a stake in the land . . .’
‘Yo’ goin’ ’o do real fine with a yeller wife, ain’t yo’!’
‘I’ll make a lady of ’er.’
Knobby sat up suddenly: ‘You gone bloody insane or sumpin?’ His voice was thick with feeling.
Nugget went on in the same tone: ‘I don’ care what anybody says . . . I’m goin’ ’o marry ’er, if she’ll ’ave me . . .’
‘A bloody Compound whore!’
Now Nugget sat up, snapping, ‘’Ere . . . careful what you say!’
‘Well, it’s right, ain’t it? Wasn’t she jailed for whoring?’
‘No she wasn’t. The paper said . . .’
‘The puggin’ Progressive said . . .’
‘That’ll do me. Now shut up and go to sleep.’ Nugget dropped back to his pillow.
‘No . . . by crise I won’t. Listen, Nugget . . . listen, now . . . I’m only tellin’ for y’own good. You don’ know nothin’ ’bout ’er. She’s jes yeller shit. She’s a whore . . .’
Nugget shot up again and fairly yelled, ‘You use that word again I’ll crack yo’!’
Knobby, heaving for breath now, got to his feet: ‘I tell yo’ . . . I’m tellin’ yo’ for y’ own sake . . . I know what she is, Nuggett . . . they all the same, these yeller pieces . . .’
Nugget leapt out of bed, advanced on him, grating now in anger, ‘You dirty-minded bloody bastard . . .’
&
nbsp; Knobby snatched up the kerosene box beside his bed, scattering smoking things, thrust it before him to hold his brother off, panting, ‘For y’ own sake, Nugget . . . I . . . I been up ’er meself . . .’
‘You . . . you . . . eh, what you say?’
Knobby backed away along the verandah. ‘It’s the truth. She’s after me from the start. I couldn’t hold her off . . .’ He leapt off the verandah, to stand out in the moonlight, a lanky bony figure. He set the box down, panting, ‘Only for y’ own sake . . . ’cause yo’ me brother.’
Nugget yelled, ‘Jees bloody crise!’ and went loping down the verandah, sightless past Prindy whose pale eyes were luminous in the moonlight, two dark heads peeping from the passage-way vanishing before him. He went down to their room, looked in at the open door. The women were pulling dresses over their heads. He stopped, to stand gasping and goggling, at a loss now. Nell drooped her head. He looked back at the figure out in the moonlight staring in, then again at Nell, and asked, in a voice comparatively high-pitched with strain, ‘You . . . you ’eard wha’ he said . . . my brother?’ She remained drooped. He said, ‘He’s sick, yo’ know. You’ll be sick, too, now.’
She glanced up. He added: ‘You must ’ave proper treatment. I’ll take you in to Town to doctor . . . tomorro’ . . . bugger the tin.’
Now as she drooped again, she turned her head sideways, as if to avoid a blow. As if he felt charged with delivering the blow he turned away quickly, came padding back, called to his brother, ‘You goin’ the doctor, too.’
Knobby took a moment to answer, ‘Eh?’
Now Nugget was back to Prindy, whom he saw, and bent and touched the bright head, saying, ‘I’ll look out for you sonny. Go to sleep now, eh?’ He went on to his own bed, dropped down to it with a groan.
Knobby came in, set up his bedside box, began to pick up the spilled things.
Nugget said hoarsely, ‘I should’a’ made you go to the doctor in the first place.’
‘I’m gettin’ right on what you givin’ me, ain’t I?’
‘How do I know?’
‘Well, you took on treatin’ me with what the chemist give you.’
‘’Cause you whined ’bout not wantin’ anyone to know.’
‘Well, don’t everybody know, the way them bloody Gover’ment doctors treat you?’
‘So should everybody know when a bastard like you’s got it and goes spreadin’ it round. I see what the law ’bout reportin’ VD and havin’ it properly treated means now. And I ain’t breakin’ the law no more. You’re comin’ in with me tomorro’ to report yourself.’
‘I bloody well ain’t!’
‘If you don’t I’ll do the reportin’ for yo’ . . . and you’ll have the Johns after you.’
‘Wha’ . . . you’d do that y’own brother?’
‘Wonderful bloody brother I got!’
‘That makes two of us. Yo’ only narked ’cause I got in before yo’.’
Nugget leapt up from his bed: ‘You dirty-minded bloody bastard!’
Knobby snatched up the box again. Then seeing that Nugget was not coming at him, he set it down, but gathered the things from it, and also reached for clothes hanging on the wall beside the bed. Bundling them up, he started off down the verandah.
Nugget demanded, ‘Where you goin’?’
At the second door, Knobby turned and snapped back, ‘I’m pissin’ off. You can go and get donkey-walloped, yo’ bloody wowser.’ He disappeared into the house.
Nugget shouted, ‘Come back here, Knobby.’
Sound of thumping in a room inside. Nugget went after it. The room was half-lit with glancing moonlight. Knobby had a suitcase on a box, was throwing things into it. Nugget came up to him, saying, ‘Knobby . . . you’re goin’ ’o that doctor.’
‘Oh, yeah!’ Knobby slammed the lid of the case, clipped the catches.
‘Yeah . . . if I ’ave to pole-axe yo’ to get yo’ there.’
Knobby almost screamed, ‘Try it!’ and swinging the case up by the handle, hit his brother in the bare belly with the end of it. Then he turned and bolted out the back.
Nugget, sprawling for a moment amongst boxes, cases, hanging clothes, recovered, and bellowing, rushed after. Knobby, long-legged, was already passing the woodheap, with the dogs out of their holes, barking. Nugget yelled, ‘Stop, Knobby . . . stop . . . or I’ll belt crise out of yo’.’ Knobby kept on, vanished into the shed.
Dogs in the blacks’ camp were barking now. Nugget raced across the yard, entered the shed to find Knobby waiting for him with a raised shovel. ‘You bloody mongrel,’ yelled Nugget. ‘Put that down and come out and fight like a man.’
Knobby panted, ‘You le’ me ’lone, Nugget . . . y’ain’t goin’ ’o bully me.’
‘I ain’t goin’ ’o bully you, you bloody shit . . . I’m goin’ ’o teach you a lesson you won’t forget . . . teach you to be a bloody man, ’stead o’ a puggin mongrel bastard. Drop that!’
‘I’ll give it to yo’, yo’ come near me, Nugget . . . my bloody oath I will . . .’
‘Will yo’!’ Nugget leapt. If Knobby had intended to use the shovel he was too slow with it. Nugget snatched it out of his hands, sent it flying across the shed to strike the iron wall with a fearful clang that set the dogs fairly screaming. ‘Outside!’ roared Nugget, pummelling the bony body trying to keep him off with helpless flapping hands. ‘Outside and fight like a bloody man!’ Knobby was punched outside.
A mob of dark faces and yapping dogs surrounded them. Black hands tried to part them, voices crying in protest: ‘No goot two-feller brother fight, Boss . . . eh, you stop!’
But Nugget hammered, never missing, spitting out foulness, fury, while Knobby flailed and sobbed and spat blood, doubled up when he could take no more. ‘Take it like a man!’ cried Nugget in a ragged voice, and grabbed at the skinny arms, which instantly grabbed his — and Knobby brought his bony knee up hard into Nugget’s crutch.
Nugget gasped and fell to knees, while the surging crowd cried; ‘Eh, look out!’ Perhaps it was as much warning as comment. Knobby brought the knee up again, this time under his brother’s sagging chin. Nugget grunted and sprawled out asleep. Knobby swung on the crowd: ‘Get t’ ’ell out o’ it, you black bastards!’ Those in front of him leapt aside as he went loping back into the shed.
They were all standing jabbering over Nugget, when the engine of the utility roared. They looked. Grinding of gears — and there was the rear of the truck — and Nugget in the way of it. Yelling, the blacks dragged him clear. Knobby hung out, with bared teeth glinting in the moonlight. Someone said, ‘Mad bugger!’ He swung the truck round with savage tearing at the steering wheel. Then he was off. He was headed eastward. His dust rose edged with silver.
Knobby’s going was only a sugar-bag drone when Nugget opened his eyes. He groaned and clasped his chin. He sat up and groaned again, clasping his loins. ‘Where’s he?’ he gasped.
‘He go, Boss.’
‘Goo . . . good riddance, too.’
They helped him up, supported him in his unsteady going back to the house. By the woodheap were Nell and Queeny and Prindy and King George. Nugget said to them, ‘No-good business, eh?’ They only stared at him. He added, ‘Come on . . . back to bed. Still got ’o make that early start for Town tomorro’.’ He looked at Queeny: ‘You and George can stop ’ere while I take these two-feller to Town.’
He waited to see them go, with what looked liked reluctance, to their beds. Saying goodnight to Nell, he added: ‘Everything’s goin’ ’o be all right, girl. I know you don’ wan’ ’o go Town . . . but you got ’o. Women get that sickness a lot worse’n men. I got ’o see you properly fixed up. I’ll take you to Dr Cobbity myself. Wan’ ’o talk to him about the boy, too. Tell you ’bout it while we’re drivin’ in tomorro’. Right? Goodnight, Nelly, dear.’
She breathed, ‘Goodnight . . . Boss.’
‘Hey . . . what’s this Boss business?’
But she was gone.
He sat on Prindy
’s bed for a while, as Igulgul flooded the verandah with light, telling him about their future together — till he discovered that Prindy was asleep. Then he kissed the pale brow and went off to his own bed.
It was dark when Prindy woke again, with someone touching him gently, stroking his eyes. As they opened the stroking finger slipped to his lips to silence them. His mother breathed in his ear, ‘You come.’
He rose silently. She gave him his clothes that had hung on a peg, but pushed him into the house and through it. From the kitchen the first silver of dawn could be seen. She whispered to him to put on his clothes. He came outside to see the silhouettes of Queeny and King George. He whispered, ‘Wha’ nam’?’
His mother answered, ‘We clear out now.’
‘Where we go?’
‘Come on.’
‘I wan’ him my dog.’
‘Him dere,’ whispered George.
‘I wan’ him my tommy’awk.’
He dodged his mother’s clutching hand and went back into the dark house, through to his bed, got the tommy-axe from a box beneath it, along with a small bundle of other things. Then he came back: ‘Where my dog?’
‘I been tie him up dat-a-way,’ said George, with a jerk of the dark bulk of his head westward. He added, ‘We go now.’
The other dogs whimpered softly in the gloom. One gave a single yap. It was answered by a faint kai-kai-kai-ing from the creek.
8
I
At least as far as Njorjinga (also known as King George) was concerned, the trouble that put the runaways to flight again was much less the cause than the mere precipitant. He was fully prepared for it, not simply with all the necessities in the way of hunting appliances and other gear, but with assurance that their intentions should not be interfered with as before, through having these meet those of him supposed to be interfering at long distance, namely the Pookarakka back in Port Palmeston Jail. At first opportunity for privy male talking, George told Prindy he had made up a Letter Stick for sending to the Wise One, to say that they two would be going on to the Alice Country to await his coming when he freed himself. The message had been entrusted to one of the Hang On Creek blacks, who would be going in to Town with Nugget Knowles. He and Prindy would take the two women as far on their way to the Beatrice as need be for them to find the rest of it themselves, then desert them. They couldn’t be mixed up with women in the bijnitch ahead of them. Mt Mooragetaghee was their immediate goal. They must reach it this first day, going by ridges to avoid leaving tracks for police. Once there they would have the advantage of the magic it offered. Climb to the top, and not only did you have a view of the country from sea to sea, but a hint of all that would be happening to concern you during this period of Igulgul. Then there was its stock of brush-tail wallabies. They would be wanting a couple of tails for their subsequent journeying. There were also the porcupines: ‘Aw, mek’m spit come out!’ said George, swallowing his saliva.
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