Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  There was a single white cloud in the sky. Wirritjil looked at it at first quizzically and then with a smile. The juarriny was on his rightful journey.

  Emily’s vision blurred and she slid time and time again, righting herself as the brumby slowed and waited. The horses were tired and there was no water. They came to a standstill.

  Emily took the ropes to make the hobbles but any strength she had was gone. Wirritjil knotted the rope around the horses’ legs. She took the lizard from her belt and sat next to Emily, but did not eat. Thirst grew on them. They fell asleep with their mouths dry and slept curled on themselves like two cocoons in the sand.

  Trevor and John walked through the caves, looking for signs and tracks, but they found none. There were myriad openings and areas that needed to be checked.

  Trevor stood at the entrance of a large courtyard. It was silent. There were no birds. No sound of insects, no rustle of lizards. He stepped into the clearing; above, the sky was the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. He touched the green and red fibre identification discs that hung from a strap of leather around his neck. Thoughts came sharp-edged through the quiet. He thought of the grey monsters, the warships from England slicing through the azure ocean that lapped on Egypt’s shore. Tanks, trucks, horses and men came out of the hold. The horses lifted their noses high, sniffing at the salt of the water and the dust of the desert sand. Trevor spread his hands wide in front of him, hating the thought of what he had done.

  ‘We need a tracker.’

  The dirt-stained black and white dog trotted into the sunlight of the opening and sat panting. John spat. The stubble of his beard was dirty with dust and black lines were etched through his lips. ‘Nah. Trackers are trouble. Look hard enough we can find tracks.’

  They looked in clearing after clearing. There was a silence so deep it was as if they were in a different world. Trevor stopped. He could just hear the water tinkling within the stone labyrinth. Two brown finches with long tails peered down at him from the branch of a bloodwood tree. The roots of the tree had grown upwards along the rock face searching for nutrients, yet the trunk was strong, the leaves a deep green and the blossoms thick with clusters of creamy flowers.

  One of the birds flew to sit on a root. He was camouflaged against the brown of the root and the black of the rock and Trevor strained to see him. He understood then and looked around and saw the others. The sand lizard on the small bank of a stream that flowed through the clearing, the skinks a little shinier than the rocks, the cuckoo shrike with its white breast like the strips of the paperbark tree he was perched on. All were still, all were silent, all were watching.

  ‘Camp at the entrance and we go back.’

  John shrugged, brought out his hipflask and held it high, letting the rum run in a thin torrent down his throat.

  They ate dried beef and damper and boiled a billy of tea under the three gum trees. Water boatmen skipped across the oily surface of the pond dark with leaves and sediment.

  John threw the dog some meat. ‘Bastard.’

  Trevor leant back and willed himself to be strong against the stare of the stars. A dingo caught the scent of an injured animal and called to his pack. The howls came back across the clear night, two, three, four rising in pitch and overlapping each other.

  ‘Bastards hang near them shrinked-up water holes, eat the weak.’

  ‘Clean up those that can’t live anyway.’

  John frowned. ‘You like ’em?’

  Trevor shrugged and pushed a stick into the fire.

  John shook his hipflask. ‘Yer a war cocky, aren’t yer?’

  ‘You know that.’

  ‘Why’d yer bloody go?’

  Trevor didn’t answer.

  John took another swallow of rum. ‘Yer a pom, but. Made no sense to me. What should I be worried about? Some kraut or bloody turk, eh, rows his boat ashore here and goes ping with his pistol.’ John put both hands on his knees and laughed. He wiped the spit from his chin. ‘That’s what these abos are good for. The old turk he takes a look at them ugly boongai and goes, Ain’t worth fighting for, and rows away.’

  Trevor stood up and walked away from the campfire. When he came back John was stirring the fire looking remorseful.

  ‘Sorry, mate. Did yer have to kill people?’

  ‘I took care of the horses.’

  John snickered, and the rum trickled from the corners of his lips. ‘Horses. And I thought you were a brave soldier with all sorts of crosses.’

  Trevor unrolled his swag. ‘Yeah, I got those.’

  The sun stung early in the morning and Trevor set his horse back to the homestead. John had no choice but to follow. In the evening they came to one of the station’s outlying camps. They trotted to the edge of the camp that was dotted with semicircular bark windbreaks and bark humpies covered in leafed branches. Women sat cross-legged in the dust around a fire that was just coals. Fat and wriggly children crawled between them. Some men sat further back partly hidden under low spreading cabbage gums heavy with leathery blue-green leaves. The women were heating up rocks and putting them in the strong wood labim, dropping small yams in to cook.

  The women didn’t look at the white men. The toddlers stood and stared, holding on to the women’s hair. The younger women and older children rose and gathered the toddlers and babies and disappeared to the scrub. A man strode towards them. Although he was slim, the lines of his muscles showed a fit man. His bare chest was marked with horizontal scars and the only clothes he wore were baggy trousers tied with string. His hair was in straggly locks and a small bone with jagged black ends cut through the septum of his nose and stuck out from either nostril.

  Trevor dismounted.

  ‘Gidja woman. She run away with white woman. Kardiya woman.’ Trevor pointed west. ‘Give you tea, nalijam.’ Trevor nodded towards the horse. ‘Flour.’

  The man considered this. Three other Aboriginal men approached behind him. They were naked, slim and longlimbed, their chests were scarred and their hair wound in topknots or pushed back with bands of kangaroo skin. One had a long thin bone through his nose, two wore nagam, pieces of pearl shell or kangaroo fur hanging from humanhair belts around their waists.

  The man with the trousers put out his hand. ‘Ngaju nga-rna Jaru-yaru.’

  John cocked his rifle. The men behind disappeared, the women rose and ran silently and swiftly, leaving their labim and hot rocks on the ground.

  ‘You black bastard. You might get paid if you do the job. Not before.’

  Trevor looked at the scrub. The men were shadows in the slight movements of the bush.

  ‘Says who he is. Jaru speaker. Put yer rifle down.’

  John snarled but let his rifle slip so the point of the barrel rested on his boot. He kicked at the dog, sending him sliding sideways, the red dirt heaping into his coarse fur. The dog gazed up at John, panting, his moist red tongue over his pointy teeth.

  Trevor took a bag of flour and a small one of tea from the supply horse. He gave it to the Aboriginal man. The man put it where the women had been sitting and nodded to Trevor. In the bush the hidden men watched them leave, their spears and throwers close by their side.

  Just before dawn, Emily and Wirritjil rode directly west. The horses were listless and struggled to raise their pace. The sun rose and at first it was welcome as the night had been cold. Emily ached all over. She lay across the brumby’s withers and rolled with his stride from side to side, not wanting to sit up or lift her head for the fear of the dizziness that made the land change shape and frighten her. At noon they reached a waterhole. It was a sandy soak less than an inch deep and hardly a foot wide, surrounded by bright ribbon grass and a stand of waist-high prickly acacia but not much more. The horses drank fast, shaking their heads at the sand that came with the water. Emily slid from the brumby.

  ‘What to do?’

  The skin on the back of her hands was red and dotted with sun blisters. Wirritjil took her dress off and put it over Emily’s head, but Emily sna
tched at it and threw it into the dust. Wirritjil picked strands of the grass and wove it roughly and loosely into a large square and fashioned it across the gnarly hand-like branches of the thin leafed acacia. Emily shook her head at the shade that was offered. It was fitting she should burn—the hell on earth she deserved. Her skin began to hurt and black spots danced in front of her eyes. Wirritjil dropped wet sand on Emily’s arms, her head and the back of her neck. Emily shivered.

  ‘Where are we going? What place?’

  Wirritjil drew a wavy line on the ground. ‘Nyarnagum, miss.’

  ‘A river. No. We should go back.’

  Wirritjil shook her head. ‘Killa me, killa you.’

  ‘No.’ Emily stared hard at the Aboriginal maid. ‘Why would he?’

  The heat shimmered over the treeless plain. A small spiral of dust came into view and sped away again. Emily crawled under the shade of the matting and closed her eyes against the black dots and the new pains that came from her skin and feet.

  ‘That government station, Moola Bulla, we could go there. Which way is that way?’

  Wirritjil lowered her gaze to the ground.

  Emily opened her eyes. ‘You came from there. They taught you to be a housemaid. Speak English. They taught you. Speak it.’ Emily thrust her head close to Wirritjil so that their faces were only inches apart and she was forced to look up. ‘Speak it.’

  ‘Yes, miss. I bin come Moola Bulla. Longa time.’

  Emily let herself slump. It is all my fault. His eyes burning like those of an angry snake.

  ‘Emily. Call me Emily.’

  Wirritjil was silent.

  Emily pursed her lips. ‘Emily. Me.’ She pointed at herself. ‘Emily.’

  ‘Ammee.’

  ‘Yes. That will do.’

  The dizziness came back and Emily let it take over. She heard the whistle, the song of the meadow lark that was William’s signal. The leaves of the trees were gold but the workers’ village was black slop and low houses of grey thatched roofs. William came to her where she huddled against the dirt wall of his family home. He held her close and his breath was warm on her neck. He kept his kisses until she gave him a book of verse, and a promise to meet him on the moor at midnight on the full moon. She would bring paper and quill and he would bring a wooden flute. It helps to write when you have music, he said. She laughed at his serious and slow words and he walked away. She knew he would come back and he did, his fingers tickling her ears as they stood with their feet in the cold mud.

  ‘A-a—mmee. Up. Up.’

  Emily stumbled to her feet, swayed and sat down. The sun was gone and above the piercing blue was softening. A three-quarter moon glowed above the hills they had come from.

  ‘I tried to teach him to ride. He fell from behind me, from my pony. He called me a witch.’

  Wirritjil waited.

  ‘His father wanted him back. Kathryn told him he had to go. He made money working for a milliner in the village.’

  Emily stood, unsteady on her feet.

  ‘A milliner, Wirritjil, is a hat maker.’

  She put her hand on the brumby’s flank. This time Wirritjil held her up. She used her shoulder under Emily’s hip to push her upwards. Emily sank forwards onto the horse’s neck.

  ‘William can’t ride. He is afraid of horses.’

  Wirritjil picked her sacking dress from the dust and tucked it into her belt and stood trying to make out what Emily was saying.

  ‘It is not William chasing us.’

  Wirritjil fed the rope around Emily’s waist and fetched it from under the horse’s belly. Emily slid, lopsided, but the rope held.

  They plodded slowly and steadily through the night. Wirritjil adjusted their direction according to the stars, where the wind was coming from, the tracks of the animals in the sand, the calls of the birds, and the stories her people had told her.

  ‘Where we going, Wirritjil? Moola Bulla?’

  ‘Where karnanganyjal go. Emu. See ’im? Big man bin eat all eggs. The karnanganyjal she go him water dat place snake sleep. Him good snake. Dat man get punish. Him in dat tree. Karnanganyjal wiyarril. Run, run, big way. See ’em eggs all cross ’em hills. Follow ’em eggs.’

  Emily frowned at the nonsense but the sudden talk soothed her, weariness overtook her, and she rested on the horse’s neck and let his gait lull her to sleep.

  Wirritjil walked next to the brumby and the mare followed. The sun rose, turning the pale jutting tops of the escarpment ahead a vivid orange. At the base of the escarpment Wirritjil led them northwards, following a dry creek bed. The first pool of water they came to was dark and bitter and the next had dried to a pink milky puddle, the sand around it dotted with delicate empty crab shells and fish carcasses in different states of decay. Wirritjil dug a hole in the creek bed away from the pools. Emily lay down on her belly as the clean water filtered through and rose to her lips. Skin peeled from the back of her hands and her arms and face. Wirritjil handed the dress again to Emily and this time Emily tied it around her head, wearing it like a scarf.

  They continued north for a few hours then crossed to the other side and turned south, back in the direction they had come.

  ‘Why this way?’

  ‘Dem bin follow, lose track.’

  Out of the creek bed the going was difficult, for the terrain was small rocks and stiff spinifex that pricked the horses’ legs. Pigeons, with spiky striped head feathers and black eyes in bright orange masks, rose suddenly from the ground in front and nestled again behind them. At first the horses stepped sideways in surprise; after a while they hardly appeared to notice the abrupt flutter of birds at their feet.

  They passed the point at which they had first come to the creek and continued upstream, coming to a fork where the stream from the range broke into north and south branches. The south branch was dry. Wirritjil headed upwards over platforms of brown and yellow sandstone, some with small dribbles of waterfall overhung with ferns and grasses. They kept as much as they could to the water. The horses jumped up the shallower steps or found their way around the edges.

  At the top of a rise they came to a long clear pool, bare to the vastness of the sky surrounded by rock and sand scattered with a few tall palms, slender white gums and bushes with silvery leaves and flowers of yellow filaments rippling in the sun.

  Emily stood where the ground levelled, gazing from one point to another.

  The bare rock dropped sharply on the east side with the sweep of the plain and the creek far below. The sun was already high above the range of hills that held the cave system where the Wunggud Walangkernany rested and beyond was Cicada Springs station. Behind the pool, on the west, the rock rose in jagged ledges of black and red. Wirritjil stopped a distance from the water’s edge and lobbed a pebble into the pool. A flock of swifts with forked tails and pointed wings rose and curved with the updraft of a breeze, the arc of each growing as the wind took them away.

  Emily felt her mouth go dry.

  ‘Why here?’

  She saw that the only way out was the track they had come.

  The horses made their way to the shade under the palms. Wirritjil, naked and still smattered in clay, inched in a crouch towards the pool, calling out in her language.

  Emily began to retrace her steps downwards along the stream.

  Trevor and John rode into the homestead. William ran to them from the veranda, taking deep breaths and looking beyond them as if they had lost something. Trevor spoke first.

  ‘Need another horse and supplies.’

  ‘You should have her. How many more days?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Trevor. He saw that the horses were still in the home paddock and the men down in the workers’ quarters were chatting to each other leaning on the fences and smoking. ‘You need to get branding for the wet.’

  William gripped his brother’s arm. ‘I want to tell the Earl that she is well and by my side.’

  Even John did not seem to want to stay long and they were away b
efore first light.

  The tracker’s camp had disappeared. The bark shelters were empty and the fires cold. Trevor waited, holding the reins of the fourth horse. John hooked one leg across the saddle and took a hunk of bread from his saddlebag. He tore it and threw bits to the dog.

  Trevor was about to turn away when the Jaru speaker emerged dressed in the same drawstring pants but with a clean khaki cotton shirt buttoned tightly to his chin. His hair and beard were oiled and twisted into segments held by string.

  John laughed. Trevor dismounted and led the horse to the Aboriginal. The man did not take the reins nor did he mount. Trevor waited. The painted dog edged his way into the cool shade under the cabbage gums.

  The tracker’s finger moved slightly. Trevor went to the pack horse and took a small bag of flour and put it in front of the tracker.

  John jumped from his horse. ‘Are you kidding?’

  Trevor ignored him. The man took the flour into a small bark humpy and came back and resumed his stance. Trevor set down a bag of sugar. He opened it and offered a pinch of it in his palm.

  The tracker put his fingers into the shiny grains. He watched how they fell, he licked his fingers so the sparkling specks held and he put them on his tongue. He grinned with wide lips and strong white teeth. The deal was done. He took the reins of the horse.

  For the tracker the flight of the women was easy to see. He saw that the wind had tried to cover the tracks and he wondered about that. The lip of a wallaby’s footprint was dry and folding, at least three days old but untouched by any breeze. On a canter he saw where the hawk had swooped and the dingo had passed. It was hard to tell the importance of these findings. It was a butcherbird sitting in the sand where it shouldn’t be and nestling like a pigeon that made him worry.

  3

  Rest

  Emily kept to the creek, her bare feet slipping on the stones, that were warm and worn with the perpetual skein of water, hurrying, until she fell, bruising her hip and grazing her arm. She found a place where the stream ran thin and wide across a long flat rock and dropped, curling to a ball. The water trickled around her face and her body, the edge of it cold against her hot skin. She stretched on her back to reach as far as she could with the tips of her fingers and toes. ‘Mercy,’ she whispered.