Crow Country

by Kate Constable

  David responded with a furious muttering that Sadie couldn’t make out. She crept back to her seat.

  A moment later, David emerged from the kitchen, his face stern. He said to Walter, ‘Come on, mate. We’d better go; it’s getting late.’

  Sadie scrambled up. Ellie stood in the kitchen doorway, her eyes red, her chin thrust up.

  ‘See ya,’ said Walter.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sadie.

  When David and Walter had gone, Ellie collapsed into a chair and sank her head in her hands. ‘Grr!’ She tore at her hair. ‘I handled that so well,’ she said in a muffled voice. She looked up ruefully at Sadie. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. Did you hear us?’

  ‘A bit.’

  Ellie sighed. ‘I should probably tell you—’

  Sadie gazed at the TV. She wasn’t sure if she could handle any more drama today.

  Ellie said, ‘I thought we could all just move on, you know? Let the past stay in the past, forgive and forget. I mean, what’s the point of dredging up all that old history?’

  Sadie’s stomach lurched. What history did she mean, was she talking about what had happened in the 1930s? Was Sadie about to find out how that story ended?

  Ellie pushed her hair out of her eyes and sighed. ‘See, I used to go out with Craig Mortlock.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ said Sadie. ‘He was your boy- friend?’ Was there anyone in this town that her mother hadn’t gone out with?

  ‘It was a long time ago. You know we always came up here for the holidays, and we’d hang around with Craig and the local kids. And one year, Craig and I just – clicked.’ Ellie shrugged. ‘He was actually pretty hot back then,’ she said defensively. ‘And he was a champion cricket player. Well, anyway. These things happen.’

  ‘So . . .’ Sadie tried not to imagine her mum and Craig Mortlock kissing. ‘Why did you break up?’

  ‘I met David,’ said Ellie. ‘Craig and I had been together for a couple of years. I was only eighteen. I’d let Craig decide how things were going to be; I’d sort of drifted into it. He was keener on me than I was on him, I suppose. He used to talk about me moving up here for good, living with Nana, getting a job. He’d even talked about us getting married.’ Ellie snorted. ‘At our age! Crazy!’

  ‘Your Nana Jean was nineteen when she married Clarry Hazzard,’ said Sadie.

  Ellie stared at her. ‘Was she? How do you know that?’

  Sadie opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘I dunno,’ she said feebly. ‘You must have told me.’

  ‘Did I?’ Ellie frowned. ‘Well, I suppose she must have been pretty young . . . Anyway, as soon as I met David, I knew I didn’t want to marry Craig Mortlock, no matter what a star he was at cricket, or how much land his dad owned.’ Ellie fell silent.

  ‘So, what happened?’ prompted Sadie.

  ‘Something awful,’ said Ellie. ‘Now I wish I hadn’t started this story.’

  Sadie waited.

  Ellie sighed. ‘One of David’s mates asked him to go fishing on the lake – Lake Invergarry. But when they got there, it was a trap. Craig and some others were waiting for them. They – they beat David up. He nearly drowned.’

  She was silent for a long time. Sadie stared at the floor.

  At last Ellie said, ‘I let David down, back then. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I loved David, but I knew I’d hurt Craig. I felt guilty. I thought it was all my fault. So I ran away. I never want to be a coward like that again. I’ve got another chance now. I can’t wreck it this time.’

  Ellie reached for Sadie’s hand and squeezed it so hard she crushed Sadie’s fingers.

  ‘Well,’ said Sadie awkwardly. ‘If you don’t want to wreck it again, shouldn’t you fix things up with David?’

  Ellie laughed, and wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, you’re right. Where’s my phone?’ She stood up, went back into the kitchen and returned with her mobile in her hand, thumbing the keypad.

  ‘Sadie,’ she said. ‘Better not talk about this. Not to Lachie, or Craig, or David, or Walter. There’s no point stirring it all up again. Just keep it a secret, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ agreed Sadie. Then she added, ‘Anyway, I’m not talking to Lachie any more.’

  But Ellie wasn’t listening. She pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Hi, it’s me. Are you home yet? I wasn’t sure you’d pick up—’ She walked out of the room, and Sadie heard her bedroom door click shut.

  Sadie sat on the couch. On the TV, a player was lining up a kick at goal. The umpire’s whistle blew, and the ball soared into the night sky, spinning yellow against black, and the crowd roared as it sliced between the goalposts.

  Sadie aimed the remote at the TV and turned everything to black.

  In bed, she closed her eyes. On the other side of the wall, Ellie’s voice murmured, talking to David, and the sound merged in her mind with the hum of drinkers in the pub, the roar of Lachie’s trail bike, the shouts of the football crowd, the gentle tick-tick of the clock in Clarry and Jean’s kitchen, and rising above them all, the long, mournful lament of the crows. Waah . . . waah . . . waa-aah . . .

  And it was those cries that haunted her as she sank into a troubled sleep.

  The next evening Sadie discovered that she’d lost her gloves.

  ‘Oh, Sadie.’ Ellie lowered her magazine. ‘Not again.’

  Sadie hovered in the doorway, waiting to see which way Ellie would go. She might say gaily, never mind, we can pick you up another pair next time we go to Bendigo. Or she might insist that Sadie retrace her steps for the past forty-eight hours until she found them.

  ‘Did you lose them at school?’

  ‘No, I had them last night when we went to the pub.’

  ‘Did you leave them there?’

  ‘Dunno. Can’t remember. Maybe.’

  Ellie raised her magazine. ‘You’d better go and get them then.’

  ‘Now? But it’s dark!’

  ‘I’m not made of money, you know. I can’t afford to buy you new gloves every five minutes.’

  ‘You got a new scarf,’ said Sadie. ‘And a new beanie.’

  ‘But I haven’t lost them, have I?’

  Sadie muttered, ‘If you hadn’t stayed up all night yakking to David, you wouldn’t be so grumpy.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Sadie dragged on her parka. ‘I’m going. Probably to be attacked and murdered in the dark. Oh yeah, and frozen. Happy now?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ Ellie turned a page. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Weird way of showing it.’

  Sadie stomped out into the twilight. A blanket of cold had settled across the plains. David had told her Boort meant ‘smoke on the hill’ in the local Aboriginal language. Smoke was rising now from the odd chimney in town; Sadie could taste it in the back of her throat. She shrank from the idea of walking into the pub all on her own. At least it was Sunday, a quiet night; there’d be hardly anyone there. The soft grey glow of TVs shone from the houses by the lake; in town, the main street was empty.

  Wah-waah, remarked a crow from somewhere in the dusk. Your own fault.

  ‘Mind your own business, stupid bird,’ muttered Sadie, trudging up the hill, eyes on the pavement. She found her gloves in the gutter outside the pub. They must have fallen from her pocket as she was struggling into her parka on the way home.

  Pulling the gloves onto her icy fingers, she crossed the road and stood for a moment beneath the stern stone soldier. The old shop was closed up and empty, its windows boarded, grass sprouting from the gutters. Sadie lingered, staring. It was bizarre to think that she’d been inside that building in a different time, in a different life.

  Waah . . . waah . . .

  Sadie shivered, and swayed where she stood. As she put out a hand to steady herself against the memorial, a pitch-black tunnel closed around her. Wind rushed in her ears, its howling mingled with the crow’s warning cry. She staggered, almost fell.

  When Sadie straightened up again, she was standing by the kitchen door behind the sho
p, holding a tin basin in her hands. Automatically she swung her arms to fling out the washing-up water onto Mum’s flower beds, shook the last drops from the basin, and wiped her damp hand on her apron.

  She’d already turned to go back inside when she heard raised voices across the street outside the pub. She paused in the shadows and peered round the side of the building, knowing she couldn’t be seen. She listened, her heart beating hard.

  ‘You can’t tell me what to do on my own land!’ That was Mr Mortlock’s voice.

  ‘I’m tellin’ you, it’s wrong! It’s against the Law, all the Laws, you can’t do this thing; you mustn’t do it!’

  It took Sadie a moment to realise that it was Jimmy Raven shouting; Jimmy, whose voice she’d never heard raised in anger.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

  The dim figure of Mr Mortlock lunged forward, his hand raised to strike. But Jimmy Raven didn’t flinch or step back; he stood his ground.

  A door swung open and both men turned, blinking in the blaze of golden light. The door creaked shut, and a third figure, shorter than the others, joined them on the footpath.

  ‘What’s all this, then?’

  A thrill of relief prickled down Sadie’s back. It was Dad; he would sort this out.

  ‘You keep out of it, Clarry,’ growled Mr Mortlock.

  ‘Come back inside and have a drink,’ said Clarry. ‘Too cold to stand out here arguing.’ He added in a low voice, ‘You get on home, Jimmy.’

  ‘I got to speak with Mr Mortlock,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Telling me I’m not allowed to dam Cross Creek!’ shouted Mr Mortlock. ‘Bloody cheek! Mustn’t do this, mustn’t do that! You’d think it was his own damn land!’

  ‘Not my country. But this is my business.’ Jimmy stood tall, unmoving. Mr Mortlock’s bluster blew past him like a breeze past an ancient red-gum tree.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Clarry. ‘No need to get excited. Jimmy, why don’t you come along with me? You can have this talk another time.’

  ‘Just because you’ve been to France doesn’t give you licence to cheek the boss.’ Mr Mortlock pointed a trembling finger at Jimmy. ‘You remember that, boy. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be rotting on the res- erve with the rest of your miserable, god-forsaken—’

  ‘All right, all right, Jimmy’s coming along with me,’ said Clarry. ‘This is all a misunderstanding – things will look different in the morning, I’m sure. Good night, Gerald.’

  Mr Mortlock muttered something. Then he jam- med on his hat and lurched away round the corner of the pub. A moment later Sadie heard the sputter and cough of an automobile engine coming to life, and gravel sprayed as the motor roared away.

  Dad led Jimmy across the street; Sadie pressed herself back into the deepest shadows by the kitchen door.

  ‘Come inside,’ Dad urged Jimmy.

  ‘No, I got to get home.’

  There was a pause. Clarry said, ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about, Bird?’

  Sadie had never heard Dad use Jimmy’s army nickname.

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘He wants to flood the valley.’ His voice was deep with despair.

  ‘Well, it is his land, Jimmy,’ said Clarry. ‘Why shouldn’t he build a dam if he wants to? For heaven’s sake, some of his own family are buried in that valley. If he doesn’t mind covering their graves with water, why should you worry about it?’

  ‘No!’ Jimmy broke away; Sadie could see the fierce light in his eyes. ‘No. He mustn’t do that.’

  ‘Jimmy, be reasonable—’

  ‘It’s like – it’d be like me settin’ that church on fire.’ Jimmy flung out his arm in the direction of the little weatherboard church. ‘What would you say if I set the church on fire, hey?’

  ‘Jimmy!’ Dad’s voice was shocked. ‘You can’t let people hear you talk like that!’

  Sadie clutched at the tin basin’s rim. The new church, with the bell that everyone had scrimped to pay for, and the coloured glass in the windows. God’s own house, a sacred place. The thought of anyone burning it down filled her with a sick hor- ror.

  ‘That’s how it is for my people,’ said Jimmy in a low voice. ‘The same thing. That place was a meeting place for our people, a holy place. You seen them trees there? They’re special trees, a special place. You understand?’

  Clarry was silent. At last he said, ‘No, Jimmy. It’s not the same, not for me. I’m sorry, but . . .’

  His voice trailed away, and the two men stood without speaking. All around them, the darkness was alive with the tiny noises of the night: the scamper and rustle of small animals, the sigh and whisper of stirring leaves, the distant creak of ancient trees.

  Clarry shook his head and lifted his hand in a gesture of regret or bewilderment or helplessness. Then he turned and let himself into the kitchen; the door groaned and banged behind him.

  Sadie whispered, ‘Jimmy?’

  Jimmy searched for her in the shadows and gave her a sad smile. ‘I thought I seen you there, hidin’ in the dark.’

  ‘What you were telling Dad just now – I think I understand.’

  ‘You think so?’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘You understand it? Maybe you can explain it all to me some time.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘You know, Sadie, this isn’t my country. I wasn’t born here; this isn’t my land. My country is way down south by the sea. I don’t belong in this place. I don’t reckon I’ll ever see my country again. But I know a special place when I see it. There’s a special place in that valley. I know it. The people who belong to that place, they’re not here to protect it, so I got to do it. You understand that? That’s what I got to do. He builds that dam, drowns that place, I don’t know what might happen. Bad things. I don’t know what. I been trying to tell him, but he won’t listen. Even your dad don’t understand. Gerry Mortlock never going to listen.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Sadie. ‘You’ve done your best.’

  ‘Law’s the Law,’ said Jimmy. ‘Law’s broken, we all suffer. I gotta do something.’

  Sadie bit her lip. ‘If I can help,’ she said. ‘If you can think of anything—’

  ‘Too late for that, Sadie, I reckon.’ Jimmy nodded toward the door. ‘You go in. Your mum’ll be wanting you.’

  Sadie glanced back at the house and then back to Jimmy. But he was gone.

  Sadie was alone in the darkness, the washing basin cold in her fingers; the stars prickling icy overhead in the vault of the sky; a wild cawing in her ears, and a bright light dazzling her eyes . . .

  She was on her hands and knees in the road, blinded by car headlights.

  ‘You bloody little idiot!’ someone shouted. ‘I could have killed you!’

  Sadie scrambled to her feet, waved her gloves at the car in a dumbstruck apology, and staggered off into the night. She told herself that it was fright at being nearly run over that made her legs wobble.

  But a sick feeling of dread churned in her stomach, a foreboding that something terrible was going to happen. Blinded by the car’s lights, Sadie stretched out her hands in the soupy dark, as if she could grope from one fistful of shadow to the next. The night thrummed with rustlings and scamperings and the slow whir of insects, but she couldn’t see.

  Sadie dreamed.

  In the dream, she walked across an endless plain. It was night. The ground beneath her feet was swallowed in darkness, but the sky that arched over her shimmered with innumerable stars. She walked, stumbling over stones, toward the sound of weeping.

  A crow, larger and blacker than any crow she’d ever seen, lifted his head as she approached, as if he had been waiting for her. Tears etched a terrible silver trail from each of his bright eyes. He didn’t speak but gazed at her from a grief so deep there were no words.

  She wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know how. In her dream, she clumsily reached an arm across the crow’s neck. But as she tried to embrace him, he shivered and dissolved, evaporating beneath her touch, and her arm plunged into nothin
gness, through dark as soft as feathers. There was only the sorrow-struck cry, waa-aah . . . waa-aah . . . that echoed across the earth, inside her head, vibrating through her bones, and she trembled awake in her own bed.

  On Saturday, she didn’t go with David and Ellie to watch the Magpies lose to St Arnaud. Ellie didn’t try to persuade her to come; her mum seemed more than happy to seize the chance of some time alone with David to finish making up after their argument.

  Sadie finished her homework in record time and slouched around the house feeling bored. She thought about visiting the stones, but her dream had made her uneasy. She was worried that the crows might be angry that she’d shown their place to Lachie; maybe it was best to stay away.

  After a day of boredom, she eagerly agreed to go to the pub for dinner.

  Ellie caught her in the bathroom. ‘I think it’ll be all right tonight,’ she said in a low voice. ‘They just needed to get used to the idea. Lots of people saw us at the footy today, and no one said anything.’ She glanced at herself in the mirror, touched up her lipstick and practised a quick smile. ‘It’ll be fine. You’ll see.’

  Sadie wondered how her mum could possibly know if anyone had said anything or not, but she kept quiet.

  As they walked to the pub, David asked Sadie how she liked living in the country.

  ‘I hated it at first,’ said Sadie. ‘But I like it more now.’

  ‘Yeah? What do you like?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Sadie considered. ‘The stars are kind of beautiful. And I like that sculpture made out of old spanners. That’s cool.’

  ‘Gotta love the spanners,’ David laughed; he seemed to find Sadie funny, even when she didn’t mean to be, but his wide smile was so infectious that she couldn’t mind.

  ‘Where’s Walter?’ she asked.

  David tipped his head to look at her. ‘At his aunties’.’

  Sadie thought that David and Ellie exchanged a glance over the top of her head. Annoyed, she stalked ahead.

  They found a table in the dining room. Sadie’s heart flopped over when Craig and Amanda Mortlock took the table beside them, with Lachie and an older blonde girl she hadn’t seen before. Craig leaned across to introduce his daughter Bethany. ‘She’s down at uni,’ he said proudly. ‘Must be smarter than her old man, I only lasted two terms!’