Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  That night, Perez couldn’t sleep and he sat on his wooden stool surrounded by the canvas walls of his tent and mesmerised by the flame of the lantern, which he decided was symbolic of his ambition. Light in the darkness. Civilisation and honour: that was why he was on this earth. The heart of a true man was a civil heart.

  He surveyed his tent and was reassured by the order of it. His swag was laid out on the floor in a neat rectangle, the sides smoothed and straight. In a line nearby were his rifle, notebook, pen and canteen. His boots were near the foot of the swag, with the socks draped, correct side out, over the top. He slept with his handgun tucked into the belt of his evening trousers. His saddle, whip and bags were by the opening of the tent. If he had to move quickly he could do it in absolute darkness.

  It was hot in the tent and the insects scratched on the canvas trying to get in to the light. Outside the leaves shook in a growing wind and the blackfellas sat at the edge of the camp watching the clouds gather, listening to the voices of the white men, then to the silence, and not saying anything.

  Charcoal took them into sand dune country. Trevor felt naked as the land and the sky reached under his skin, preying on the sustenance of his body. He pulled his shirt around his mouth and nose, and his hat low. He dared not look to the sky where the clouds rumbled and enticed for they were charlatans playing with his mind, eventually passing by or dwindling to a mockery of feathery remnants. He was relieved when Charcoal turned westwards, no longer headed into the great belly of the desert that he had heard stretched all the way for thousands of miles almost to the south coast.

  The old man seemed to have a new energy. He laughed often with the boy and his aged black skin took on a smooth sheen. His eyes remained opaque and blue and the rims were bloodshot with the scrape of the in-turned lashes and the bites of the persistent small black bushflies.

  Trevor had not detected any anger towards him, although it seemed an unspoken rule not to talk of the women even though it was understood that they were moving steadily towards them. As he began to trust Charcoal he no longer worried about survival. His fear was whether they would reach the women before the police.

  Charcoal made sandals for Janarra out of tough fibrous leaves and bark from a shrub he called yakapiri. He twisted two strands of string from his headband, his wapuru, and stretched them between his big toes so they ran taut in a rectangle. He wove the fibrous bark of the yakapiri around the string and in the centre he placed a green twig. This was the sole. He made a thick strap an inch wide and high that went under the sole of the foot and a thinner strap that split behind the heel and joined the thick strap between big and second toe.

  They walked often in the night and always in the early mornings and late afternoons. Fires crackled under the lightning strikes. Janarra jumped from his horse and hunted with Juwurru Charcoal’s long spears, moving easily over the hot sand in his yakapiri sandals. He came back empty-handed and, without looking at Trevor or Charcoal, would take his short spear and come back with a small possum or nothing at all. The moon came up scarlet and big in the smoke of the fires and they walked late into the night until they came to a well, a jila, as Charcoal called it. Trevor was beginning to understand. A jila always had water, a jumu might have water but hardly ever did at this time of the year. Charcoal had many names for water, whether it was in rock or sand, deep or close to the surface, flowing or still, and what flavour it might have. Trevor would press them, asking whether it was jila or jumu they were headed to. Janarra and Charcoal delighted in his frustration. They said, ‘Mebbe jila, mebbe jumu.’

  It was at a jila that Trevor realised they would be staying for several days. He asked the boy to tell Charcoal that the police were almost certainly chasing the women and that they must hurry. Charcoal appeared unperturbed.

  The boy told Trevor, ‘He say dat girl know dat country.’

  ‘That girl,’ Trevor repeated.

  ‘Policem no good.’ Janarra grinned.

  Charcoal wanted to teach Janarra the ways of the desert. On the first day, Charcoal and Janarra returned from hunting with one goanna and some desert walnuts. Janarra was downcast. On the second day they came back with the same and Janarra’s chin was on his chest. In the late afternoon they sat and the flies swarmed on Charcoal’s eyes so thickly it was as if he were wearing dark glasses.

  Trevor took a small knife from his pack and a pair of leather pliers. Using a rock he sharpened the end of the pliers. ‘Janarra, tell Charcoal I will remove his eyelashes.’

  Janarra shrugged; he didn’t know what Trevor meant.

  ‘Tell Charcoal I will stop his eyes hurting. I can’t make him see better, but I might help the soreness.’

  Janarra stared at Trevor.

  ‘Him sick, these ones.’ Trevor pointed to his own eyes. ‘Make him better. Bit.’

  Trevor motioned for Charcoal to lie down and rest his head on his lap. In the brightness of the day Trevor could see the detail of Charcoal’s rheumy eyes, the thick eggwhite and blue scars that tracked across his vision and the stiff short eyelashes curled inward. One by one Trevor gripped each eyelash with the sharpened point of the leather pliers. He jerked at the lash and if it didn’t come out he cut it as short as he could with his small knife. He concentrated and Charcoal was very still. By the time he finished it was dark. Charcoal rose and blinked.

  ‘I killed men,’ Trevor said in a low tone. ‘I was told to. They wanted to kill us. I killed horses, the twenty in my care. I helped with the others. Hundreds. They were betrayed, the horses. I betrayed them.’

  Charcoal nodded as though he heard all he needed to in Trevor’s voice. He sat cross-legged and quiet. Janarra lit the fire and sat as Charcoal did. There was nothing to eat and the three watched the flames for a long while not saying anything.

  The third day at the jila, Charcoal and Janarra hunted again. and came back with only a pouch of seeds. They smashed the seeds, taking turns to pound, mixed the powder with water and a little ash and cooked cakes. The three slept hungry again.

  On the fourth day Trevor followed Charcoal and Janarra many miles, trudging through the red dust and ridges to a stony outcrop shaped like a horseshoe. Trevor could see there might be grass here in the shade of the rocks, maybe even new grass tricked by the humidity of the air. They crawled to the top of the rise. It was hot and there was no breeze. Down below, two thin kangaroos scratched at a smudge of new growth. Janarra crouched on his toes and lifted his spear to shoulder height. Trevor sensed what to do and made his way, silent and low, in a wide arc to reach the other side of the kangaroos at the opening of the horseshoe formation. He stood up. The animals took fright and bounded deeper into the curve of the outcrop. They resumed feeding, looking up every now and again in Trevor’s direction.

  The sun beat into Trevor’s eyes and he could not make out Janarra and Charcoal. He saw the boy’s silhouette briefly as a long spear flew through the air, low and far, straight into a kangaroo’s chest. The other kangaroo bounded up over the rocks. Charcoal ran, sure-footed and nimble, not pausing as he threw a short spear that lanced fast into the side of the second roo.

  Janarra’s pride was unmistakeable but he took great pains to appear solemn. The men walked silently back to the camp. Charcoal broke the legs of the kangaroo. Janarra prepared the cooking holes then flopped the animals over in the flames, singeing the fur. His skinny brown arms moved fast, working hard. It wasn’t until Charcoal mixed some water with ash and drew stripes on Janarra’s face that Janarra broke out into a grin and began dancing. They feasted that day and the following. Another day was spent preparing to leave, eating as much as possible, grinding the bones and the flesh, smoking it and packing it in bark and grass.

  On the evening of the sixth day they were ready to leave and they headed due west, resting in the heat of the day and walking through the night.

  The kangaroo nourished them for a few days but there was little else. Charcoal did not seem to want to slow now for hunting or collecting food. The next tw
o jumu were dry. The rations of water were finished.

  The horses took one step at a time, their heads were low. The boy slumped. Charcoal sat straight on the horse. They took step after step through the relentless red sand. The bushes were few yet some had shy heralds of green. They took the new leaves from a stunted gum and sucked them as they travelled.

  They were moving through country that was like an ancient sea where long shallow waves had suddenly stopped and turned to sand, with small stones like bubbles of surf at the crest. They rested at midday and walked westwards in the dusk, the stars bright and sudden on either side above the line of the ridges. As the moon waned, Charcoal directed them north. Instead of walking in the troughs between the dunes they trudged through the sand to the top and down, crossing one after another. At dawn they rested on a large crest. Below was a single small tree with a canopy of curling brown and green leaves.

  ‘Ngarlka,’ Janarra whooped.

  Around the tree were scattered many hard nuts. Food—but it was water they needed. There was no surface water. Charcoal pointed to a spot ringed by dried grasses. He waited as Trevor and Janarra dug. Flying ants fluttered and buzzed around their faces. The sweat poured off Trevor’s back; he was surprised his body had any more moisture to give. Janarra’s skin was dry. He talked as he dug. He was excited.

  ‘I can make ’em good spear now.’ Janarra stood up and touched his cicatrices. ‘We stay here a bit. Plenty ngarlka. We gettum water. Dat kangaroo fella, ’im good tucker.’

  He strayed from the digging back to the tree where the sap exuded between cracks in the rough bark. It was crusty and sweet. He went back to work, hungry for water, for his tongue was too dry for the hard honey of the ngarlka tree.

  Trevor waved the flying ants from his face as he listened to the distant thunder rolling and peered at the clouds building in the west.

  It was then that Trevor realised that the armies, the tanks, the charging bayonets tipped with blood had gone from the skies. He waited, turning to the south, east and north, for he was afraid too of the dullness, the weight of acceptance of death that threatened his heart and sat like a stone beside it.

  13

  Rain

  Emily looked at Wirritjil’s belly. She tried not to think of Joseph, not to see him. I must hunt for food for Wirritjil and her baby. I must find a nice young wallaby. She asked Wirritjil for her spear and practised launching it, feeling its weight.

  They walked now among low paperbarks and ground covered sparsely in clumps of matted dry grass. The soil was dark and parched. It had dried, forming into crusted shapes separated by small chasms of dry dust. Here and there, skeletons of fish and small animals lay, turning into lace, melting into the dust. It was, in good times, moist swampy ground. There was no sound, no birds, no whirr of insects, just the sun and the haze that went on forever. There were no wallabies. Emily gave the spear back to Wirritjil. No food, no water, just the mirages, the shimmer, the shimmer of madness, the madness of life, life then death. Then death.

  ‘Is he here?’ Emily whispered.

  ‘He here.’

  ‘We will die, Wirritjil.’

  ‘Walangkernany make ’em rain.’

  Wirritjil kept walking in the silence of the waiting land. They came to grasslands again and the friendliness of scattered boab trees. In the distance was the irregular line of a low limestone range. The flowers on the boab trees were wilting and boab nuts of many seasons hung by withered stems. Wirritjil put her foot on an exposed root and her hand on the trunk. She pointed to the nuts and to Emily’s belt.

  Emily lifted her slingshot. She brushed away a couple of flying ants that came close to her face and took aim at the stems of the boab nuts. They came easily. Wirritjil dug with her digging stick at the base of the boab and struck at its roots, tearing away fibres. She smiled at the food and strode away, heading for the ridge, almost disappearing before Emily could catch up.

  Emily did not want to hurry; she was weary again. Weary from the thoughts that circled her like mini storms, bearing her away to madness, and she clung to a dream, a dream of diving into water and the water was alive, a being itself, and it held her and comforted her. Sometimes it was Wirritjil that came through the storm of her thoughts, soothing with the touch of her earthen hands, but the dream became tainted as she remembered. Wirritjil had been careless, fishing in the moonlight.

  Ahead Wirritjil was waiting for her. Emily decided the Aboriginal woman wasn’t leading her anywhere in particular, just making a big circle. They would get old together in the bush and never see anyone again. Maybe that was the only choice. That or to be hanged.

  It was long after sunset and Wirritjil was checking her direction by the stars. They reached the ridge and waited and when the clouds cleared a little they moved on, feeling their way between the arches and the precipices, the bones of a long-ago deep sea reef. At dawn they scrambled to a deep overhang that narrowed into a cave protected on three sides. Old ash littered the floor and the roof was black, the mark of campfires from ancient times. On the walls were painted outlines of hands and groups of lizards with dots and squiggles in their bellies. Emily sank into the coolness. They had no water but Wirritjil seemed unperturbed. She hunted around and found a stone that had been smoothed by many years of pounding, placed a boab nut on it and with a sharp rock cracked the nut, releasing a white powdery flesh. She ate quickly. Emily licked at the sticky substance, but it was sharp in taste and dry; she reached instead for the fibrous roots from the boab tree and was relieved at the slight moisture. Her mind began racing with the thought that Wirritjil had secret plans.

  The police followed the women’s tracks deep into the country west of the Fitzroy River and south of the Oscar Range where Jandamarra had led the Bunuba people in rebellion.

  On the first few days Perez had made opportunity of the night and the fullness of the moon, but the clouds often made the night dark and Ferdinand could not see the track clearly. It was Ned who seemed to know where they would be travelling. Perez had to use the light of day and he urged the men to keep up the pace, either trotting or cantering.

  On the eighth day after leaving Fitzroy Crossing, Perez sent two policemen back to replenish supplies from the cart. One constable was left, along with Ned the Bunuba man and Ferdinand the half-caste tracker. Perez felt uneasy and kept a tight hand on his gun.

  They skirted fires that crackled slowly in smoky arcs or retreated hastily from sudden fierce flames. They lost the tracks and camped for a day, and again for two days near burnt-out grasslands while the full-blood and the half-caste tracker worked together to find the path again. Perez thought how the women’s tracks to water, although infrequent, were more reliable than Ned, who seemed to wander pointlessly. The wells the women had dug were often dry and they had to dig again and scrape for the dirty water.

  They came to plains country with waist-high dry grass that was easy tinder for the lightning. Ned walked away from the main party carrying water bags, disappearing in a zigzag pattern through the man-sized anthills. Perez didn’t like the ant mounds, considering them good cover for natives. Ahead were small bluffs of menacing-looking rocks and the fat boab trees that also could hide hostiles. Bayliss could be here, Perez thought, waiting to make a rendezvous. He twisted in his saddle often, looking deep into the scrub, afraid of a long spear that might come hurtling out of anywhere.

  As the sun set Ferdinand showed Perez a flurry of small depressions in the sand at the base of a boab tree. He pointed to a couple of twigs bare of their nuts and lifted some broken shell from the ground.

  Perez tightened his hands on his reins. ‘When?’

  ‘When sun is up there.’ The tracker drew his eyebrows together, concentrating. ‘Noon.’ He nodded towards a low set of hills across a grassy plain.

  Perez considered what to do. Thick clouds were squeezing the remaining light from the country. The hills were perhaps ten miles away. They had little water, the two constables had not returned, the horses were tired.
He knew they should camp.

  Ned walked from the darkening east with one arm holding empty water bags, two lizards hanging from his belt and a small wallaby over his shoulder. His shirt was off and he was smiling, his teeth white against the blackness of his skin.

  Perez shouted, ‘We are moving on.’

  Ned put the wallaby on the ground.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Ferdinand and went to help Ned with the game.

  Perez and the remaining policeman stayed mounted, expecting the Aboriginal men to strap the game to their horses. Instead, Ned and Ferdinand gutted the wallaby. Perez considered shouting at them, ordering them on, but the night was almost black and not a star shone through the thick blanket of clouds.

  Ferdinand and Ned cooked the lizards lightly in the flames and ate hungrily, the fat and blood dripping down their chins.

  The policemen ate their dried beef stew away from the heat of their fire. Perez rationed the water, half filling two enamel mugs for himself and the constable. He gave none to the Aboriginals.

  Perez sat back from the coals of the main fire trying to soothe his nerves, thinking of reasons why he should not be angry. He looked over to the two Aboriginal men. He could see white clay marks on Ned’s cheeks. He imagined the man’s eyes saying nothing, just flickering with the fire. Perez rose and strode towards them. They were chewing on bones. Perez stopped. Ned’s chest was bare, his police-issue shirt at his feet, full of bones and stained with blood and meat. Perez turned back and bent low to go into his tent.

  He didn’t light the lamp. He walked in a small circle, his head and shoulders bowed. He should order everyone to pack up, ride. They were so close. Perhaps Ferdinand could track by firelight or Ned would be able to find his way to the ridge, the clouds would clear now and then. The two police must be close behind, he had made sure the trail was well marked, and surely that range would hold water somewhere. If only he knew how to find it, if only he could be certain.