Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  ‘Stars still your fires, let your light see my black and deep desires.’

  ‘What in the shit is that?’ whispered Timmins.

  Linklater made sure his rifle was ready and he eased the door open. He stepped back. A thick smell of fermenting decay struck him.

  William sat against several pillows on a high bed. He was holding a book open in his hands and his rifle was by his side. He wore a white nightshirt. His left leg was exposed. Black blood oozed from a multitude of deep jagged wounds on his thigh and the skin was all but gone, just scraps on the purple pulp of his flesh. Strips of torn cotton hung frayed around his upper leg and his foot was a dark blue.

  William turned towards the police. He seemed pleased to see them. ‘I am a fine poet. My wife loved my poetry. Would you like to hear some?’ His hand tightened on his rifle under the sheet. A small bound book fell to the floor, its ink-etched pages open. William’s chin sagged onto his chest and the words came slow and stilted. ‘The devil’s helpers marked by black sin . . .’

  Linklater moved slowly to the other side of the bed. William’s eyes were half closed, surrendered to recital. He saw William’s hand and the shape of the rifle. He lunged and wrested the rifle from William’s grip. It came easily. He threw it away, jumped back and levelled his own rifle at William.

  William continued, as though nothing had happened, ‘Stalk the land, hungry for prized souls, found in the purest of white skin.’

  ‘Enough!’ Linklater shouted. He nodded to Timmins who proceeded to tie William’s hands.

  William looked up. ‘Good officers, can you tell me where my wife is? She will tell you what happened. There will be no need to feel sorrowful. Strike your tomorrows, empty them of sorrows.’

  Linklater levelled his rifle at William’s head. ‘You are apprehended. I formally charge you, William Lidscombe, with the murder of the native known as Jurulu.’

  William laughed. The agony of his limb had eased. There was only heaviness and dullness, like it was no longer part of him. ‘Please, good gentry, put some water to my lips.’

  Linklater looked along the barrel of his rifle to William’s head. Timmins lifted his flask to William’s mouth.

  William drank, drawing the water in hasty swallows. He sat back, closed his eyes and took long deep breaths. ‘Take me to the people. The black people. Promise me.’

  Linklater shook his head. ‘No.’

  William coughed. He strained to make the words full, instead the utterance was feeble and thin. ‘I do not ask for anything, only forgiveness from the Lord and to say sorry to those who have suffered so greatly under my hands.’

  Linklater’s face was impassive. The rain hammered on the roof. ‘We ain’t goin’ anywhere too soon.’

  Timmins gagged as he tried to clean up William’s wound.

  William smiled at the constable’s efforts. ‘This is a good country,’ he said. ‘There is always someone . . . someone more wretched.’

  The policemen took turns through the night, one in the room with the sweat of sickness and the other on the veranda watching the purple and white lightning streak between the clouds, lighting up the curtains of rain washing the land. The sun rose with single rays breaking through the banks of clouds to a shimmering landscape covered in water. A cool breeze came through the house and the candle sputtered in the room of darkness.

  ‘Take me to them,’ whispered William.

  ‘I can’t bear this,’ said Timmins. ‘Let’s do something.’

  In the drifting rain they hauled a buggy from the shed and fashioned a plank for William’s leg. They wrapped their shirts around their faces and carried him in a hammock fashioned from a blanket. They braced his leg on the wood and tied it with strips from the sheets. They used cushions from the parlour to stop his body slipping and untied his hands so he could steady himself.

  William’s lips tightened as pain returned but he smiled to encourage the two men. He held his face up to the rain, closed his eyes and muttered, ‘Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break . . .’ His fingers scratched on Timmins’ shoulder. ‘Shakespeare.’

  Timmins brushed water from his eyes. The blanket was wet against William’s withered form. ‘Yeah, heard o’ him.’

  They put flour and tea in a tin box and loaded it onto the buggy. The going was rough and every foot forwards took considerable effort. The camp was a distance from the homestead, along the course of the creek. Linklater led the horses and Timmins pushed the buggy out of ruts and threw tree branches under the wheels to stop them spinning in the mud.

  William gave a small, burdened laugh. ‘Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break . . .’

  They reached the camp but it was empty. The rain trickled down the sides of the bowers, small squares of dry earth under some, others with small ashen fires.

  ‘We can put the tin here under one of the bowers,’ said Timmins.

  The thin boy who had sucked the frog walked into their view.

  ‘Aha,’ said William. ‘A representative party.’ He lifted himself on his elbows. ‘I would like to give this land to you.’ He waved his hand around. ‘All of it—it’s yours.’

  He turned to Timmins. ‘Write that down, that proclamation.’

  Linklater and Timmins were quiet. The rain poured down and ran off the sides of the buggy. The sheet had fallen from William’s leg and the flesh was black. The boy stood, staring at them.

  It was a sudden movement, a flash of silver. Timmins looked up. William had a small revolver in his hand. He lifted it to his forehead. Timmins sprung towards him. The shot was no more than the beat of the rain. William fell back, a neat red hole between his eyes.

  The child put his head sideways a little. He was listening for frogs. Suddenly, he dashed away.

  14

  Panariny

  Perez’s tent sagged in the rain and collapsed. The tracker absconded, disappearing in the night on foot. Perez was furious and shot his gun once into the dark wilderness as though the pot shot would find its mark by the will of God. The two policemen continued to camp in misery, the canvas of the tent draped across them and the muddied saddle blankets beneath them. The water seeped into the tins of flour and ran in white streams into the growing sea around them. Perez could see the constable was hungry and angry. He felt he had no choice but to order retreat.

  He stood with his hands on his hips, looking through the scattering rain to the sandstone ridge. He resisted the urge to run with his rifle towards it. Instead he said out loud, ‘The law will prevail.’

  They made their way back. The country that was dry before was now a swamp full of birds and snakes. They inched their way across it, leading their horses with the pack horses wandering behind. The mosquitoes and insects rose in clouds. It was unbearable, the heat, the moisture and the insects, as though the earth had become a vociferous being that wanted the policemen for itself.

  Perez was glad he had sent the forward party to warn the stations of the murderer at large. He was certain he would catch up with Bayliss in Broome and eventually snare the murderer. He hoped Lady Lidscombe would still be alive. It would be his failure if she were dead. It was a terrible thought that the police force might not be able to hold back the likely brutal retribution against the Aboriginal people. It could have been avoided. If they had only been able to move more quickly; if only the darned tracker hadn’t been so slow to start. This whole thing could have been nipped in the bud but now it would become an issue, one that would divert the Kimberley from focusing on progress.

  The rain eased and the constable begged to rest. Fog rose from the land under the drying blaze of the sun. The wind faded to weakening small gusts that whipped half-heartedly in eddies through the mists. Perez and the constable were for a moment captivated by myriad small rainbows that came and went like fireflies playing in the puffs of white.

  The constable took his hat off. ‘The rainbow is God’s promise that the big flood will never happen again. Now here are hundreds of prom
ises.’

  Perez glanced at the constable. The man was bent over with a straight back, his hands stretched out as he tried to touch the fleeting colours.

  Perez wiped the mud from the shin of his boots. He reminded the constable to do the same.

  In the cave on the range, firelight danced against the painted fishes and hands. Wirritjil walked in from the rain naked, her skin glistening. It seemed that in a day the earth had turned into a food basket. She held a goanna with a rough tail in her hands, and a number of small muddy yams, the soil loosened by the rain.

  She lifted the goanna. ‘Kilpany, dis one.’ She held up the yams on a stick. ‘Panariny.’

  They sat down for a feast, eating the food as it cooked, the goanna last. Emily sucked on the bones then spat them in to the fire.

  ‘You are too good to have come from hell.’ She smiled at Wirritjil, ‘and I am not going to heaven unless you can come with me.’

  She laid back, her belly was full, a small rise above the bones of her hips. The cave was warm with breeze eddying through it that was cool and fresh. ‘I must clear my name, our names.’

  She would be strong. She would be forgiving but William must confess. They must all try to understand it, suffer whatever punishment they were due. Only then would they be free. Emily bit her lip. Would they forgive her? Her mother, her father, Kathryn. Could she face prison? Death? Kathryn would understand. Kathryn would make things right.

  Wirritjil organised the cave in subtle ways that signalled to Emily that they might be staying. She made the sleeping hollows more comfortable, dried branches of leaves by the fire, took pieces out of her bark pouches and examined what needed maintenance, and looked to the tip of her spear as if considering fashioning a sharper point.

  ‘We must keep going, Wirritjil.’

  Wirritjil sat quietly. Her belly was round but not tight. She looked quizzically at Emily then stretched herself by the fire and slept.

  In the morning the rain came in sweeps across the country. On the third day, they had no food left. Wirritjil dozed in the depths of the cave or sat quietly on the ledge, letting her body bathe in the rain.

  ‘Wirritjil, we go.’

  Wirritjil shook her head. ‘Wait ’em rain go.’

  Emily picked up two digging sticks and left. The day was a metal grey with tufts of white and a cool wind. She knew now how to find the yams close to the surface, little bumps in the soil with tiny flowers tucked close to the earth. A sheet of water covered the country in front of her. Flocks of birds were descending with great calls and spins in flight. Ducks with patterned brown feathers and pink near their eyes paddled in groups, waders with long thin legs and beaks walked in stilted fashion in the shallows and geese skimmed across the water, still in the V formation of a long flight.

  There was a sudden flick in the grass and Emily pounced, her fingers wrapping around the tail of a kilpany. His scales were smooth and in a quick move he slipped from her grasp. He ran through the wet shrivelled grasses, his body rocking from side to side. Emily gave chase, yams falling from her pouches. They neared a deep pool and Emily dived to the grass as the lizard’s front feet sank into the water. She caught him by the tail, this time holding him firmly. She rolled on her back and swung him, smashing his body against the ground on either side until he was limp. She crouched in the mud, took out her digging stick and cracked it across his head.

  Emily took the yams and the kilpany back to the shelter. She cooked the yams using hot rocks and covered the kilpany in the ashes. She went to the ledge and washed herself in the rain that was now just gentle drifts across the land. She sat there for a long time watching the birds, wondering what it was that they all fed on, what could have come alive so quickly after only two days of rain. She thought of Jurulu and she remembered the song and strained to hear it. It was there, in elusive wisps among the birds and the fall of the rain.

  Emily woke Wirritjil and as they ate she fashioned two pouches of damp bark, one for Wirritjil and one for herself. In these, she placed hot coals wrapped in green leaves. Wirritjil stopped eating.

  ‘We have to go, Wirritjil. I must meet Kathryn in Broome. She might be there already. She is a very strong and clever woman. She will save me and you too. I have thought about it all. There were many men who saw the killing of the black man. They cannot lie under oath. And John—we were saving ourselves.’

  Wirritjil placed her yam at the edge of the coals. She looked up at the gallery and Emily followed her gaze. She saw the new hands there. Wirritjil rose and poured water from a rough bark laanturrji into a depression of rock that was stained with centuries of paint and now held fresh ochre dust. She mixed the water and ochre with a twig then chewed the end of the twig until it was feathered. The mid-afternoon sun came from behind a cloud and shone directly into the cave, lighting the lizards and hands on the wall, making their earth colours blaze.

  Wirritjil waited, resting on one foot, the skin on the curve of her belly shining, the mixture in the palm of one hand and a twig brush in the other. Emily put her hands flat on the wall next to all the other hands. Wirritjil painted around her fingers, the outspread thumb and down to the wrists. Emily stood back. Two new sets of stencilled hands, bright orange and touching.

  They gathered their few belongings and picked their way across the plain. The rain came towards them in occasional drifts and the sun was a weak grey disc behind the clouds. They walked first on fingers of rocky land, trying to avoid the black sticky mud. Emily used the mud to stop the insects biting, slapping it on until she was as black as Wirritjil.

  When the thunder and lightning came together over their heads, they huddled holding each other, hoping the jagged sticks, the menan menan, would not strike them. Every time they came to rocks Wirritjil would hunt for dry twigs under ledges and push them into the two coal pouches. In another pouch she put spare dry twigs. Emily did the same and their waistbands steamed.

  They built a bower of wet leaves and sticks and stoked a fire although they had no need to cook, for they still had kilpany meat and yams. They slept oblivious to the rain, damp but protected from the wind under the bower of gum leaves.

  Great flocks of water fowl quacked and honked in the amphitheatre of the clouds, and in the orchestra was the pip-pipping from the speckled streamers of sandpipers and stilts and only the pelicans were quiet, descending in great spirals, skidding, splashing to ungainly stops and then floating with grace.

  Trevor, Charcoal and Janarra moved easily across the stony and sandy reaches of the desert. The rain had brought food and water. The water soaked into the dry sands, and they skirted lakes that came and went within a day. The rain stopped after the second day but in the north they could see the storms peppering the land.

  Charcoal walked steadily; his eyes had lost the hurtful redness and the swarm of flies had gone. He murmured to Janarra often, teaching him the ways of the desert.

  Trevor wanted to talk to him about Emily and Wirritjil, to understand why the women kept running, but he didn’t know how. He was grateful that the old man did not question him and that the boy was such an energetic, happy companion.

  Charcoal told Janarra they were coming to the country of the bush turkey, the pinkirrpal. Janarra made a new spear, a fine light short spear of different woods that skipped off the ground like a stone across water. They frightened a bush turkey that ran, tripping over his own feet before taking off into the air then falling before reaching any height as if he had forgotten how to fly. Janarra ran in pursuit then stopped, holding his hand to his chest, puffing hard. He handed Trevor his spear.

  ‘Chase ’im quick,’ he said.

  Trevor sprinted and threw the spear with as much force as he could. The spear went a few yards and slapped onto the ground. Trevor kept running until he was parallel with the turkey then dived to grasp the big bird. He crashed into the sand with just a tail feather in his hand. A short spear lanced in front of him followed by a flash of brown. The turkey went down and Janarra rolled with it
until it stopped struggling. The boy sat up, holding the turkey in his lap. He hit the ground with his hand as peals of laughter came fast and unquenchable. Trevor waited until Janarra skipped to his feet and the instruction—of how to use a turkey spear properly—began.

  The turkey was a treat, roasted until crispy and cooked through. Trevor felt as though he were a lord, eating and drinking at will as they made their way in a gold and red canvas. The water was plentiful, every jumu was brimming. The trees and bushes flowered and the birds flew in chattering flocks to the abundant desert.

  In the evenings, the lightning struck across the land and the rain sometimes came. Charcoal spoke in language, determining the next day’s travel. Trevor began to distinguish the words. They were tangled in stories that were part of the landscape itself. Janarra listened intently, his eyes wide and his hand on his spear.

  As they moved northwards the bush became thicker. Trevor thought the trees, ragged or nondescript, of little value or substance compared to what an oak or an elm tree might be. For Charcoal, though, each tree meant something; some were likely to have grubs in the roots, others with galls or lerp on their leaves, new fruit or nuts, smokeless wood, medicine wood, good tree for making laanturrji, or this one with sap that could be chewed or used as gum to fix the spears.

  As Charcoal talked, Trevor asked Janarra to tell him what the old man had said. The three walked, talking and muttering to each other, stopping to inspect trees, rocks and plants, and the horses trailed behind.

  Linklater and Timmins wrapped William Lidscombe in a white sheet. They dug through the mud under a bush fig not far from the homestead and lowered him down. Timmins shielded a Bible from the rain with a piece of wood as Linklater shovelled the wet earth over the shrouded body.

  ‘The body that is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable

  Sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.’

  Timmins carved a cross as Linklater stood at the edge of the fresh-turned earth under the old tree, its knotted branches sharp against the jagged red hills and slate sky. The light and the shade of the tree changed almost imperceptibly and when there was a faint rustle of leaves it was almost as if the tree were talking, whispering, and Linklater felt a sudden and inexplicably deep sorrow.