Ghost Bird

by Lisa Fuller

  My level of discomfort hasn’t eased any, but the things on the tables call to me. Weird implements, probably from the mining days, or made to do strange things to cattle, are carefully arranged beside vials of what might be small semi-precious stones. I’d bought something similar for $5 at a market when I was a kid, a chunk of rock with a vein of something pretty running through it. It’s probably worth nothing, but I find it fascinating. Deciding to be extra careful, I force myself to read all of the little tags sitting next to each item, along with the name of the person who donated it. I don’t know what I am looking for; a familiar last name or property, I have no clue. All I know is I don’t want to miss anything.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  I jump about a metre and spin to face the lady who spoke. I didn’t hear her come in. A quick sweep and I have her pegged as one of the local property owners, but I don’t know who. She’s doing the same sweep as me. Silver-blonde hair pulled back in a bun, she is the age of a lot of my white mates’ mums, around her fifties, wearing a pair of too big Wranglers and a button-down blouse with boots. The only concession to the heat is her thin sleeveless blouse. The office probably has air-con. And she’s staring at me like I’m some stray dog that’s tumbled in through an open door.

  ‘Umm, I was just … umm, doing a school assignment on the history of Eidsvold, so …’

  My silence and stammering response are forgotten as the woman gives me a big grin.

  ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place! Are you doing a general history or are you focusing on a special time? We’ve got a lot of things from the mining times.’

  ‘Actually I was interested in when white people first came here.’

  ‘Ah, the Archer brothers, the first to discover this place. You know they set up Eidsvold Station?’

  This one seems nice enough so I decide to go for broke and see what happens.

  ‘Well yeah, but I was sort of more interested in how the whitefullas and blackfullas got on and what happened.’

  Her enthusiasm drops to the floor along with the smile on her face.

  ‘Oh. Well, I umm … we’ve got some artefacts …’

  ‘Really? That’d be cool.’ I feel kind of bad for her. It isn’t like she’s being nasty or anything, she just doesn’t seem to know what to make of me. Her smile comes straight back up.

  ‘It’s all on that table over there if you wanted to take a look.’ She takes me to the far right corner and shows me a carefully catalogued group of stones with sharpened edges and petrified wood that looks oddly shaped. I don’t know what I’m expecting but it isn’t that. Each of the tags list the property where the item was found.

  ‘These have been donated to us over the years by many of the locals. We’ve had an anthropologist in to have a look and he thought it was a good record of what the local Aborigines were like.’

  I have to bite my tongue hard before I ask her what she thinks I am.

  ‘We can only guess what some of it was for. This one here,’ she says pointing to a bit of petrified wood that doesn’t look like anything but a branch to me, ‘might’ve been used by women to gather food.’

  I block out the lecture for a bit. I hate when people talk at me like I’m not black because I didn’t grow up in a humpy or run around with my susoos out. Mum grew up on our foods, but Nan said they’d lost access to all that when we got kicked off the stations en masse. It happened right after the government told the property owners they had to start paying their black workers. Funny how that happened.

  ‘… and then they would cook it in the ashes of a fire.’

  ‘Wow. Were there any newspapers that have stuff like this?’ She gives me another weird look. ‘We’re supposed to show we’ve done research and found old documents and things to back it up.’ I give my best innocent smile. ‘If I could take photos that’d be great, but my teacher said written records are even better. I think she wants to make sure we actually do some reading.’

  The woman chuckles. I’m trying not to shift around from the weight of the lies. I’ll probably end up doing an essay on this later just so I won’t feel so bad, as soon as I figure out which class I can fit it into.

  ‘Most of our documents are newspaper clippings we’ve kept in photo frames. The older documents were starting to fall apart so we shipped them off to the state library a few years ago for safekeeping.’

  My face falls and she rushes to reassure me. ‘There are still a few copies at the local library and I’ve heard you can get electronic copies from the state library. The staff over at the council offices could probably help if you asked.’

  ‘Oh. I guess I was just hoping to see something real, hold a bit of history, you know?’

  I don’t need her insulted look to know I’ve said the wrong thing. ‘Well, if you picked up any of the items here you’ll find they’re as “real” as any old newspaper.’

  ‘Oh yeah, totally. I just meant more from the words of someone who was alive back then … you know?’ Hell, I don’t know what I mean at this point, but she tries to be nice about it.

  ‘So … umm, what exactly were you hoping to learn?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe if anything exciting ever happened here?’ I make sure enough of my sarcastic, know-it-all-teen is in that sentence as possible. I swear she stifles a sigh.

  ‘Well, aside from the discovery of gold, which brought in loads of people and change, we’ve got a few clippings from the bigger events in the town.’

  She waves me to follow and steps towards that mysterious little office. All over the walls to one side are framed newspaper clippings that I’d looked right past before. They’re the plain black type with dusty glass on the front. The woman is frowning at the state of them but points to a couple.

  ‘That’s the first time gold was found, and here are some of the local men setting up the first hospital.’ I shudder. Everyone knew that place. It’s this old demountable that has been broken up and turned into houses spread across the town. My cousin used to live in one of them but she moved out pretty quick. I never liked to go visit her after dark. The house would feel fine all day long, but the moment the sun went down you knew you weren’t alone. The only time I’d ever slept over I kept the doona over my head and refused to look, no matter how close the giggling and scratching sounds got to my bed. Later, Nan told me that house used to be the old children’s ward. I never slept over again. Even now, when I don’t believe in that stuff anymore, I know what I heard that night. As much as I want to believe in logic, I’m not sure if I’d be game to test it.

  ‘This was the first time the town was flooded back in the late 1800s. It was national news back then.’ Maybe for them. My Uncle Mack grumbled to me once that if idiots wanted to build houses where water levels rose, they got what they deserved. ‘But this is probably the earliest clipping we have. Look, see, there are some Aborigines … but those aren’t the Archer brothers I’m sure.’

  No, the town heroes would never have clapped chains on men’s necks, wrists and ankles. I stiffen as something hurts deep inside while she brushes past. I have to wonder if any of those men are my family. Does Laney know how they felt right now? I try to pull my mind from that while the lady keeps talking, showing ‘this’ being built or ‘that’ being burnt down.

  ‘And this is an old-fashioned bush trial that happened right here.’

  A spread of men stand in their old-fashioned finery, bleached out facial features staring out at us. I’d ignored it, thinking it was some other all-white event, like most stories in this town. But now that I look close I can see the one man in chains sitting at their feet, like a prized dog. The old blackfulla’s hands are chained in front; his long white beard flows in a way that they’d banned long ago. That old blackfulla doesn’t look cowed, with his chin tipped up, staring down the lens like he’s daring the photographer to say something.

  ‘The man in chains
went on a killing spree, one of the worst in the state. He was the first serial killer in Queensland. He murdered a group of stockmen that trusted him, one by one, and got about eight before they finally caught him. Important men came from Brisbane and even Sydney to keep the whole thing fair. It was felt a normal trial would’ve been too biased as many of the men were local.’

  Her words leave a bitter taste in my mouth. If killing black people actually counted as murder, there’d be a lot more serial killers than that, stretching back 200 years.

  I do a double take as the words ‘Oscar Miller’ leap out from the faded print. My stomach does a motion sickness dance and I have to fight to sound normal.

  ‘Did they say why he did it?’

  ‘Oh that’s not too clear, something about a dispute over property. They found him guilty the same day this was taken.’ I almost snort. ‘There is a newspaper article or two on this; they would probably give you more detail.’

  I force myself back into the present. ‘So is that all there is then?’

  I can almost touch her sarcasm. ‘As I said, you could always try the state library and see what they have.’

  I pretend to think it over. ‘Nah, that’s cool. Could I take these up to the council and get them photocopied so I can make up my mind later?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, they have to stay here. But I can take some copies and email them to you if you like? I can get the frames cleaned up at the same time.’

  ‘Yeah cool, thanks.’ I smile, more genuinely this time.

  ‘Write your email address down here and which ones you want, and I’ll get it to you later this week.’

  I scribble the information down and carefully list the articles she’s shown me. Shrugging my port on a bit tighter I nod in the woman’s direction, eyes on the ground. ‘Well, umm, thanks for that … I’d better, ummm, get back to school.’

  ‘My pleasure. Make sure you ask your teacher if we can see what your class comes up with for their assignments.’ Her encouraging smile is all I wait on before I’m out the door, the guilt is back and I’m panicking a bit about her going to one of the teachers.

  I shrug it off. Hopefully she forgets about it. So what if she asks? I’ll tell them I was thinking of doing it but decided not to. Right now I have two choices. I can head in to what passed for a library in this town – a small room in the council office that is filled with mostly terrible romances about the wild, empty and untamed Australian outback and all the white people who lived there (vomit!). It’s also the only thing that passes as a bank. If I go anywhere near it I’m guaranteed to get noticed, ensuring Mum knows about it all that much quicker. Or I can take a breather and make my way to my favourite place.

  First, I’ll go drop a note at home letting Mum know where I am going, just in case. I can pick up a new CD at the same time. Today I need something a bit less angry.

  Britney Spears keeps me company at the reservoir. She’s my secret shame. In a town divided by country and western, rap and R&B, I’m one of the few who’d sneak in some pop music and the odd alternative rock band. Laney would use my love of Britney and the Backstreet Boys as a threat.

  Loan me your dress or I’m telling people you know the dance to ‘Baby One More Time’.

  A grin slips across my lips as the sound of a car engine leaks through my headphones. A weird sense of déjà vu creeps over my skin as I watch the silver Holden come across the cattle grid. I get a double shock when I see who’s in the passenger seat. Part of me is still terrified, but the steel determination at my centre that I built up on the back streets last night won’t let me do anything but wait. The old girl might be scary damaged, but she might also be right.

  Sam gets out, looks at my shocked face and shrugs. I glare back – this was so not over. Running around to the passenger door he helps the fragile lady out, walking with her over to me, bracing her so she can lower herself down. Neither of them looks at me. Sam goes to sit next to May and her head whips around to glare at him.

  ‘What you think you doin, boy?’ The stern growl would’ve sent me running but Sam sets his jaw and stares down the barrel.

  ‘If I’m gonna get a hidin for it I deserve to know why.’

  May eyes him for a bit longer but when he refuses to look away she finally nods.

  ‘Fair enough, son.’ Then she swings those freaky eyes to me. ‘So you decided to take my advice. Know what you gettin into, do ya?’

  I stay quiet, not too sure what to expect from Mad May.

  ‘You gotta know what them boys are capable of. What their fathers, grandfathers and family done to blackfullas in this town. Especially the women.’ Her rheumy eyes watch me intently while she hits on all my fears. ‘We’re meat, girl. Meat to be used like any other native animal.’ She spits the words at me and I can’t help the flinch. ‘Bah. How can someone so weak face that?’

  I look at her straight and say the only thing that matters: ‘Cos I need to find Laney.’

  My voice shakes. It is my worst nightmare but I know the possibilities. We all do.

  ‘Mmm, then maybe you’ll find her, ay?’ She reaches out a frail hand and rests it under my chin, thumb pressing just under my lip. ‘Don’t fret, girl, wherever your sister is, your connection can bring her back. Our women been lived through worse. I did.’

  I don’t realise tears are flowing down my face till she gently brushes them away. Her paper-thin skin feels like dry leaves.

  ‘How did you survive?’ I whisper.

  ‘Not well, bub. Not too well. But I lost my strength, them bastards ripped him from me doling out white justice. You gotta make sure to be that strength for her when you find her.’ She smiles at me and for some reason the sadness in it hurts. ‘You gotta make sure you end up back here with her or you may as well never have pulled her out. At least there she can believe in you, here, living.’

  ‘Do you remember where you was?’

  ‘You know where.’ I can see pity in her face.

  ‘They were parked on the other side of the property from the house.’ The old girl looks at me, lets me say it myself: ‘Near that mountain.’

  A single nod of encouragement is all she gives me.

  ‘But Aunty, we’re not sposed to go there. Nan said so. All the old fullas say so, and Laney always listens to em.’

  Another nod. ‘And maybe she did this time too. Maybe she got taken there, against her will.’

  Goosebumps race everywhere reminding me of last night’s dream.

  ‘Aunty,’ I pause, not really sure I want to ask this, but I push the words out, ‘I thought I heard somethin outside the house. Do you know what it is?’

  The old girl’s hand drops so fast my head falls forwards. Only then do I realise I’ve been leaning into her.

  ‘No. No! Not that. No, no, not again!’

  And just like that she’s gone. Only this time I’ve seen the real person under that trauma. I am still scared but I don’t run this time. Grabbing her flailing hands I grip them tight, forcing her eyes back to mine.

  ‘No, it’s not. Me and Sam’ll make sure of it.’ I say it firmly with utter belief. There is no other option.

  She reverses her hands and grasps mine just as tightly.

  ‘Check your house, girl, rip it apart. If they’re there, it must be close. Do it soon, almost out of time!’

  Sam’s hands appear over ours. Honestly I’d forgotten about him in that strange little tableau she’d caught me in. He mutters soothing words and phrases, which seem to help. When we can’t get her hands to release mine, we work together to stand us all up and manoeuvre her into the car. A few more minutes of soothing, she slowly releases her grip and settles back in the seat. Sam closes the door as gently as he can and turns to me.

  I try to be subtle at wiping the tears from my face, but he’s seen it all.

  ‘Well, thanks for stickin aroun
d to help this time.’

  ‘You weren’t even supposed to be here today.’ I make it an accusation and he looks a bit guilty.

  ‘Yeah well, she was waitin in the car for me when I got ome. She told me where she needed to go.’ He drifts off but I hear what he doesn’t say. He’s scared he won’t have her like that for much longer, so all of them were precious. I don’t say it because he won’t thank me for it. Besides, when an elder tells you to do something, you do it. No questions. It’s my turn to shrug.

  ‘Thanks then. She seemed to know what was goin on.’

  ‘Yeah, her clear days. She’s a real cluey old girl, most people forget that though.’ He won’t look at me.

  ‘Well, she knew about Potters before anyone else,’ I say, getting defensive for some reason.

  He smiles at me then. It’s kind of nice.

  ‘It’s too late to go there now?’ I can’t hide my disappointment and he looks a bit guilty.

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Takes bout a hour to get there. And if I rush I can get to the end of practice. Sides, goin there in the day is bad enough, I don’t wanna be there at night.’

  ‘Yeah ay.’ Nice to know I’m not the only one shitting themselves. ‘We’re still goin from school tomorrow though, ay?’

  ‘Course.’ Sam smiles again.

  I nod and what I’m really thinking slips out. ‘We’re so gonna get busted.’

  My words rip the smile from his face and I feel terrible.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I say, before turning to walk down the track while he goes back around the car. I wave at Aunty May as I go past, but it looks like she’s going to town talking to herself.