Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  On the sixth day after they had passed the drive Emily was desperate. They hadn’t had water for a day and a night. Her foot ached and she could see it was swelling. She rode with her sore leg across the brumby’s withers.

  From the groves of the thin hakea they had travelled across stony ravines with orange and yellow boulders, back to valleys where the black soil and rock had spilt from the hills in long-ago avalanches. There were no trees on the hills or the landslides but in the valley grew leafy nutwood and a lonely wild plum or pear that offered a few dry fruits. The anthills changed colour and shape with the soil. They came to country of long grasses and the anthills were black and dotted the landscape, poking out from the sea of faded green. Bell-shaped boab trees with twisted skyward arms stood alone in strange expanses or on the upsweep of stony escarpments, keeping vigil over the parched land, as they had done for centuries.

  Wirritjil walked as though it didn’t seem to matter that the leather pouch was dry, that they had no water. The country was changing again, back to the red soil, and ahead were stretches strewn with head-sized boulders and red-orange pebbles that rolled under the horses’ feet. Emily knew Wirritjil chose paths that would best hide them from the tracker and that the stony passages were the hardest to find tracks on, but she wondered if Wirritjil was finding ways to punish her. She thought about the way Wirritjil kept looking back at her. Sometimes Wirritjil touched the spear in her hair as if she was going to quickly take it and launch it right at her. Wirritjil wanted revenge, Emily was sure of that, for the black people, for all the bad things done to them. Then she wasn’t so sure; Wirritjil was a native, just a shadow of nothing important, but caught with demons, yes of course, caught with crazy demons.

  The rhythm of the brumby’s walk changed. He was slow to move his front legs and he let the tips of his hoofs drag through the dust. Emily lay with her head resting on his neck and she could see the tracks as he made them. An orange spiky pigeon fluttered from the spinifex and disappeared again. She sat up; there must be water.

  ‘Wirritjil.’

  Wirritjil was gone. Emily dismounted. Her foot ached. The sun bleached her vision outside a few yards and she squinted. All around was knee-high shrub, nothing but thorny acacia, two thin stringybarks against a red bluff, a rise of rock the height of a tall man. Emily tried to lick her sunburnt lips but her tongue was swollen and dry. The pigeon came back in jerky little footsteps. Emily sat under the sparse shade of the gums.

  The horses scuffed the ground and pulled on their ropes.

  ‘Can you smell water?’

  Their faces swivelled to her voice, eyes wide and searching as if she might be holding water in her hands, but after a few seconds their heads drooped again. Emily took a leaf from a gum tree. She sucked it. There was no moisture and the eucalypt oil made her mouth tingle.

  She needed to get her foot high to stop the throbbing. She was so hot, but an iciness came which made her shudder and want to crawl into the open sun.

  The brumby lay down in a patch of scant shade. The mare splayed her feet and her nose trailed close to the hot sand. Emily closed her eyes. She could hear the cicadas being born, rising, rising. Shouting, shouting. Is the baby crying? Kathryn, are you here?

  A splash of water hit her head. Emily opened her eyes. Wirritjil grinned at her and held out the billy. It was half full. Emily drank it all up and over her swollen tongue. The brumby trotted to her and the mare followed. There was nothing left.

  ‘William will be sending help, Wirritjil. We should turn back.’

  Wirritjil helped Emily mount and led them behind the sandstone shelf and followed it for some distance to a pool of water, a spring about three feet by four feet filled with clear water. Emily lay on her belly and drank straight from the spring. She drank so much her stomach hurt. The horses sucked the water fast, coughing and spluttering, then slowing to long draughts.

  ‘We stay here?’

  Wirritjil shook her head. ‘Walangkernany. Gooniyandi country, Walangkernany belonga ’em.’

  The snake again. Emily filled the billy and poured the water over her burning foot. She looked ahead into the shimmering land. She could see only scarce trees with few leaves and dying grass under the burning sun. Wirritjil was collecting reeds and pieces of grass, singing as if she was talking to the bushes and the water and the dirt.

  ‘Why are you singing?’

  Wirritjil waved her hand across the direction they had come.

  ‘Make ’em all dis grow. Lizards lotsem jilikum.’ She grinned. ‘Lots tucker.’

  They rested and slept for a while. They woke in the evening and lay for a moment gazing at the changing blue of the sky. Emily ate tomatoes and yam and drank more of the fresh water. Her body ached, but the iciness was gone. The throb in her foot had eased.

  ‘Walking yesterday is the same as today and tomorrow will be the same too.’

  ‘What dat, yedderday?’

  ‘Yesterday is what happened, like we had no water yesterday. We sleep then the sun comes up and we do something else. That’s tomorrow, after the sun rises.’

  Emily shrugged; that didn’t really make sense as they were walking mainly at night. Her world was upside down. She drew in the sand, the sun going up and down like a series of hills. She put stick figures in the middle hill.

  ‘We are here. This is the sun. That one yesterday, that one today, that one tomorrow.’

  Wirritjil sat in the sand and examined the drawing. She shook her head. ‘Never had ’em yedderday, damorra den kardiya come.’

  ‘Everybody has a yesterday and tomorrow. Except the day you are born and the day you die.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Aamayee.’

  Nunnawarra was out front, cantering slowly, surveying the ground. The women’s path over the grazing plains was easy to follow. It was of no concern that their tracks disappeared on the stony hills. He knew they were heading to the river. He knew the story that Wirritjil would be following.

  John pretended to take shots at Nunnawarra with his rifle. At first Nunnawarra sensed the movement of the gun and swerved his horse. John laughed. Trevor was a distance behind.

  Nunnawarra kept his hands tight on the reins. He slowed his horse to a trot and dropped back to Trevor. ‘Dey slow, Boss. This one stopping.’

  ‘Lame?’

  Nunnawarra shook his head. ‘Looking.’

  ‘Looking?’

  ‘Blackfella walk, lookin’, Miss she ride.’

  They found one of the women’s camps around noon and another in the evening. Nunnawarra said the tracks were a few days old. Trevor pushed them on as though it was possible that they were just ahead. They camped in the starlight, soaking dried beef and making damper with flour and salt. John spat a mouthful of food to the side. The dog jumped and caught it before it hit the ground.

  ‘No kidding, day after day, this stuff stinks.’

  The tracker came into the light of the camp. He had in his palm a few shrivelled small fruits with brown-scarred green skin. Trevor took one and peeled it. Inside it was a dull orange. He took a bite. He nodded at Nunnawarra. ‘Good.’

  John took a fruit. He was careful not to touch Nunnawarra’s palm. He peeled the fruit and sucked it. It was sweet. He felt its goodness. He was quiet, then said, ‘Well, Nunna, you just saved me from scurvy, I think.’ He didn’t look at the tracker. He threw the peel in the fire. ‘Thanks.’

  The water in the billy bubbled. Trevor threw in a pinch of tea leaves. John watched the peel turn black and shrink in the flames.

  ‘Did you know any Johnnos in the war? Any Australian Johnnos?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  John was quiet for a bit.

  ‘My granma used to call me Johnno.’

  The leaves churned to the surface as the billy boiled, the speckled mix turning over and over, a tiny maelstrom. Trevor hoisted the billy from the fire with a stick under the hot handle.

  ‘Would you like to be called J
ohnno?’

  John poked at the fire. ‘Yeah. I’d like it if you called me Johnno.’

  Wirritjil and Emily rode with their feet high or cross-legged across the horses’ withers. The spinifex dotted among the rocks had become thicker until all they could do was find a path where the spikes were thinnest. At the end of the dry season it was brittle and sharp. It stabbed the horses’ feet and in places was high enough to scratch their bellies. Wirritjil had taken to wrapping the horses’ legs and her own to the knees in whatever material she could find. Paperbark was the best, laced around with ribbon grass.

  The heat shimmered mercilessly around them and stretched in a silvery dance far into the distance. Clouds came in the late afternoon, skidding on top of each other before they were sucked dry into the blue vastness of the sky.

  It was eight days since they had passed the cattle drive and nineteen days since they had left Cicada Springs, but Emily was not keeping track of time for her foot had swollen big and red and she could think of little else. There was a deep hole in the centre of the sole which had scabbed over and the skin around it was turning black. Emily had seen this before. During the war, Lidscombe Manor had been requisitioned as a recovery hospital for amputees. Injured soldiers, most often those who had their torn or blasted legs hastily sawn off in the field tents or the crowded hospital boats, were carried into the hall, bandages falling from their wounds and their faces blank. A doctor came every third day and a nurse stayed at the manor. Emily and Kathryn gave the soldiers hot porridge and put flowers by their beds, trying to bring light back into their eyes.

  Emily told herself her wound was just a barb, a double gee, not a bullet, it would work itself free soon, but she could no longer walk at all and Wirritjil switched her from horse to horse and walked alongside. Fever came ferociously at times and she felt cold even in the burning heat of the day. She shivered and begged Wirritjil to wrap the drover’s blanket around her. She became sure that Wirritjil was out to avenge her and kept her eyes fastened on the slim black figure shimmering in the haze ahead.

  On the twentieth day Emily’s fever did not abate. Her face was wet with sweat but pale and her eyes glassy. They had walked beyond noon and the sun was fierce. Wirritjil looked for shade. Emily rose from her prone position on the brumby’s back. A sudden blush came into her face.

  ‘They are coming. They are there. I see them. I see them.’

  ‘Miss Aamee?’

  Emily looked at Wirritjil and hissed. ‘Foul. Black hand. Stain of the devil.’ Emily pointed at her and hissed again.

  Wirritjil dropped the rope holding the mare and scuttled up a slender snappy gum.

  Emily punched the air and shouted. ‘Devil! Black gin! Death! Devil! Devil!’

  The brumby planted his feet. The mare trotted some distance away and stopped to peer back at the commotion. Emily tried to stand on the brumby’s back.

  ‘They are coming.’

  She slipped and fell onto the hot sand. She raised her head, searching for devils. One rose in the sand, red with the face of the priest, smiling, ingratiating even in fury. It threatened to devour her. She screamed.

  Wirritjil stayed in the tree. Emily thrashed at the ground and then was still. The brumby nuzzled at her. She did not move. He made his way to a bush that afforded a little shade.

  They stayed like that through the afternoon. As the sun set Wirritjil came down from the tree and took cautious steps towards Emily. The brumby snorted and Wirritjil ran back to the tree. Slowly she came across the sand again. She touched Emily, watching her, ready to run. She took the water bag from the brumby’s neck, and waited. Wirritjil came close and felt Emily’s breath, coming and going as if in sleep. She held the water to Emily’s lips and tipped the bag slightly. The water dribbled down Emily’s chin.

  Wirritjil tucked the water bag under her arm and examined the set of reeds in her belt. She chose one and broke it so it was a few inches long. She blunted the fibres on the end and inserted it into Emily’s mouth, took a mouthful of water from the leather bag, closed her lips over one end of the reed and pushed the water down the tube. Emily coughed but did not wake. Wirritjil took smaller sips, releasing the water slowly so that it dribbled down drop by drop.

  Darkness came and the horses snuffled at Wirritjil for water. She ignored them. A quarter moon rose a few hours before dawn and heat came with the first hint of light. Wirritjil’s eyes closed and the reed fell onto the sand.

  A hand clawed at her face.

  ‘Wirritjil. Cut my foot. Cut my foot.’

  Wirritjil jumped and crouched. She moved backwards.

  Emily clutched at her. ‘Give me your stone.’

  Wirritjil took the flint from her bark pouch.

  Emily snatched it from her from but that was all she could do, she was spent, her breath heaved, she could not lift her face from the ground. She whispered, ‘Cut my foot.’ The flint fell from her hands.

  Wirritjil took it and turned it in her hand.

  Emily rolled her foot to turn the sole upwards. ‘Cut it.’

  Wirritjil took Emily’s foot in one hand and with the other cut the skin from under the toes almost all the way to the arch of the foot. Blood and pus gushed out. Wirritjil turned away at the smell. Emily closed her eyes.

  Wirritjil waited. The earth baked. The brumby lay down and the mare began to wander, her knees buckling. Wirritjil kicked the brumby on his rump. He shook himself, pulled his legs under him and rose. Wirritjil hauled Emily onto him, laying her across his back with her head and arms down one side and her feet on the other. She led him west and the mare followed, her head low to her knees.

  Wirritjil paused only to turn Emily’s head sideways and pour a little water into her mouth. The brumby walked with his nose almost on the ground. Every now and again the mare stumbled and threatened to lie down. Wirritjil switched at her rump with a piece of wattle.

  They walked through the night, finding their way in the low twinkling glow of the stars.

  ‘Campfires big, bin chase fella moon, he go,’ said Wirritjil, but Emily did not hear.

  Wirritjil used the switch to get the horses to take another step, and another. The small caravan of the desperate horses, the desperate woman and her maid inched towards the Fitzroy River.

  The Gidja speakers gathered at the spring not far from the homestead. Their bodies were washed of the white paint of sorrow and the women’s caps of clay had been left at the funeral site. The elders of the camp left quietly and headed into the hills. The women and the children watched them go and set about grinding the seeds to make cakes in the fire. Fires sparked high with flames. They mixed ash from the bloodwood trees with dried leaves of the pingurul and smoked it in pipes made of hollow nuts from the same tree. Some women chewed the herb and when they chanted the pingurul sat in sticky globs on the edge of their lips.

  The elders’ beards were oiled and twined with string of animal hairs. Their arms were banded tight with strips of kangaroo hide and tufted with emu or the treasured eagle feathers. They painted their bodies with dots and stripes of red and ochre. Some wore conical hats of bark and feathers and necklaces of beads and shells traded with the Nyikina, Yawurru and the Bardi of the west Kimberley.

  The murders of the man and the child and the banishment of the Gidja woman needed to be dealt with. The child had been taken back by the Walangkernany. He would come again soon. The woman would be found. The man was now part of the land, the water, and maybe he had become his totem, his jaarinji, living among the animals and men.

  The elders debated. It was difficult to punish someone who had a different skin and lived by a different set of rules. The elders also knew that their word had no power in that other world, yet they must hold to the rule of ngarrangkarni.

  There was no question as to who was responsible for their deaths. It was decided. He must be sung. He would die.

  The dance began, materials were gathered. A strong branch was brought forth from the ironwood tree, the bark shredded in cerem
ony and the wood ground to a shaft. Barbs were carved like the sharp fins of the tayiwul fish along two edges of the sword. It did not need a flint for its arrowhead for it would only be used for one throw. The spear was hardened in the fire and sanded smooth with rough bark and oiled with emu fat. Painted elders fastened feathers of the nightjar to the shaft.

  The women gathered at the fire in the valley and began the slow rhythm, beating the karrpakpu with their children asleep in their laps.

  The nightjar owlet flew from the rocks and watched the men as they danced in rhythm with the long spears, karlumpum, like a forest of trees piercing the sky, and the painted curved sticks, the karrabirim, were passed through the smoke of the fire. The nightjar was joined by another and far away, in a labyrinth in a hidden cave, the massive snake of many colours, the Walangkernany, stirred.

  There was no moon, just the stars in the multiple depths of black sky and the fire shadows against the sheen of the skin and the whirl of the feathers. The nightjars added their calls to the clack-clack of the sticks and the alternating pulse of the women’s chants from the valley.

  The old man Juwurru Charcoal had gone long ago. He was slowly moving across the country, following the story of the snake and the emu, the path he knew that Wirritjil would be following. As he camped, he heard the nightjars calling and he began the chant, the same chant as the men who danced in a trance around the fire.

  6

  River

  Wirritjil dozed as she walked, faintly aware of her feet moving one after the other on soil that the river flowed across in the season of Yuwinji, when it rained and rained and the finches and doves couldn’t find dry places to make their nests.

  The pale blue of the coming day was tinged with a line of pink heralding the warring flame of the sun. A gentle breeze carried a brief coolness and the brumby neighed. He could smell water.

  They came through the thickening stands of wattle and bloodwood trees to tall river gums shading a sandy bank.

  The river was wide and green, streaked with brown stirred from creatures moving below the surface. Paperbark trees, drooping long tattered sheets into the water, leant inward from the banks, pushed in the floods of the wet season in the direction of the river’s flow. On the other side, great slabs of sandstone sat haphazardly on top of one another. Along the river, red-winged parrots commandeered the branches of the river gums, calling out in harsh screeches, diving across the water, their wings spread and their yellow tail tips flashing. In the clumps of sharp pandanus palms that hugged the water’s edge, tiny wrens with brilliant crowns of purple flitted quietly with others that were drab with just a flash of blue to their tail. They perched, several to a frond, bending close to the water.