Crow Country

by Kate Constable

  Sadie shook her head. ‘Could you . . .’ She hated how feeble her voice sounded, hardly more than a whisper. ‘Could you please ring my mum to come and get me?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, love, I’ll run you home myself. Brayden!’ she snapped, and Fox shuffled forward, chewing his rat’s tail. ‘Go and get my handbag out the locker at the back. We’re taking poor little Sadie home.’

  Sadie dragged herself upright and drew her knees under her chin. She wished Mrs Fox wouldn’t stare at her.

  ‘You’re not in trouble, are you, love?’ Fox’s mum asked suddenly. ‘You know, pregnant?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No harm in asking,’ said Mrs Fox, injured.

  If she could just count to a hundred, she’d be okay, thought Sadie. Everything would be okay.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and began to count.

  Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and patted Sadie’s knee through the covers. ‘I want you to come into the hospital with me and have some tests. We need to sort this out.’

  Sadie curled herself into a tight, defensive ball, arms wrapped around her knees. She mumbled, ‘Just because I felt woozy for a minute, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me.’

  ‘People don’t faint for no reason.’

  ‘I feel fine now.’

  ‘But not fine enough to go to school?’

  ‘Well, one day off couldn’t hurt,’ said Sadie hopefully.

  ‘Hm.’ Ellie stroked back her hair. ‘Let me know if you feel woozy again, okay?’

  Sadie wriggled down in the bed, but Ellie didn’t leave. She picked at the edge of the sheet.

  ‘Sadie?’ Ellie said at last. ‘If you do hate it here – I mean, really hate it – we can always go back to the city.’

  Sadie stared. ‘But you sold our house.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘There are other houses. Mel- bourne’s a big place. And I could find another job.’

  Sadie said slowly, ‘What about David?’

  Ellie looked away. ‘It’s early days with me and David . . . and you come first. You know that, don’t you?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t hate it here,’ said Sadie. ‘I kind of like it now.’

  ‘Really?’ The depth of relief in her mother’s voice told Sadie how much it would cost Ellie to leave Boort.

  She said more firmly, ‘Yeah. You were right, the country is beautiful. The lake’s really pretty. It’s nice having all the frogs and sheep and birds around. And our family comes from here. We belong here, don’t we?’

  Ellie smiled. ‘I guess we do.’ She stood up. ‘But still, I shouldn’t have rushed into moving us here. I should have talked to you about it first.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Sadie was so surprised she could hardly speak. Ellie had never apologised to her before, about anything. She said in a rush, ‘I’m sorry, too – about being grumpy, and not helping, and stuff.’

  Ellie kissed her forehead. Then she went out, gently closing the door behind her.

  Sadie stared up at the flickering of shadows and morning light on her ceiling. Now she’d seen Clarry and Jean, now she’d inhabited the other Sadie’s skin, she felt tied to Boort by long ropes of history, threading back through Mum and Grandpa Phil . . .

  The memory of the previous night gripped her with the sudden chill of a nightmare. The sticky horror of Jimmy’s smashed skull beneath her fingertips; the long bulk of his body under the trees. The blood. Gerald Mortlock’s twisted face, the wreathing clouds of cigarette smoke. I killed the bugger. Jimmy Raven’s dead.

  What if she, as the other Sadie, had defied her father’s orders and told the police what she’d seen that night? Would that have changed everything? If Gerald Mortlock was arrested for murder, would she have returned to a present without Mortlocks, without Invergarry, where the dam had never been built, Cross Creek still flowed, and the dried-up lake had never existed?

  No Mortlocks would mean no Lachie.

  If the Hazzards had lost their shop, if they’d become homeless, maybe baby Philip would have become sick and died. Then there would be no Ellie, and there’d be no Sadie.

  And besides – a chill struck her heart – if Sadie had reported Gerald Mortlock, Clarry would have been arrested too. He’d hidden Jimmy’s body; he’d covered up the crime. That made him a – what was it called? – a helper to murder. An accessory, that was it. The other Sadie believed Mr Mortlock ought to be hanged. What if they’d hanged Clarry, too?

  She had to find out what had happened to Gerald Mortlock. The Crow said, when the Law is broken, there must be punishment. Maybe the story wasn’t over; maybe punishment had come to Mr Mortlock after all.

  Clinging to that thought like a lifeline, she fell asleep.

  The next day was Saturday. After breakfast, Ellie stopped Sadie on her way out the door. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For a walk.’

  ‘You sure you’re well enough? Don’t go yet. Wait and take Walter with you, he and David will be here soon.’ Ellie looked sly. ‘We’ve got a surprise for you.’

  ‘What kind of surprise?’ said Sadie warily.

  ‘It comes in tins.’

  Sadie spread her hands, mystified.

  ‘We’re going to paint your room! David’s bringing the paint.’

  Sadie threw her arms around Ellie.

  ‘See?’ laughed Ellie, breathless. ‘I do think about you sometimes. I’m not the world’s worst mother.’

  ‘Second or third worst, at least,’ Sadie assured her.

  After that, she didn’t feel she could say no to taking Walter, even though she’d planned to go on her own.

  Ellie and David chatted as they spread out old sheets in Sadie’s room, apparently unaware that Sadie and Walter could hear every word they said.

  ‘. . . seem to be getting on well, don’t they?’

  ‘. . . good for each other. They both need a friend . . .’

  Walter and Sadie caught each other’s eye, em- barrassed. Sadie grimaced; then Walter smiled his rare smile.

  ‘I don’t have to come,’ he said. ‘If you’d rather be on your own.’

  ‘If you stay, they’ll make you paint,’ said Sadie. ‘You can come.’

  And she found, once they’d begun walking, that she was quite glad to have him with her. Walter was quiet; he let her think her own thoughts. And his solid presence beside her was unexpectedly reassuring.

  He only said, ‘Where are we going?’ and when Sadie told him, ‘The cemetery,’ he just nodded.

  It was a long walk. The Boort town cemetery was a few kilometres north-west of town, surrounded by flat, empty farmland. Sheep stared as they passed, and the wind moaned softly in the low trees that fringed the graveyard.

  Sadie walked along the neat, broad paths, searching for the older graves, peering at each inscription, walking back in time: 1976, 1968, 1951, 1943. The further back she went, the wilder the weeds and thistles grew, obscuring the stone crosses and crooked headstones.

  ‘You looking for someone?’ said Walter.

  Sadie hesitated. ‘Looking for ghosts.’

  ‘Shouldn’t do that.’ Walter’s voice was serious. ‘Don’t want ghosts to come looking for you.’

  Sadie slashed at the long grass with a stick, her heart in her throat as she glanced at each grave. James Wilfred Gott, aged 65 years. Mary Horatia Tick, aged 4 months, At Rest In Jesus. Percy Williams, Loved Husband and Father, He Served, with the rising sun badge of a soldier.

  And then she saw it.

  It was a low, plain grave, a long box of unadorned grey granite.

  Gerald Stanley Mortlock

  26th March 1896 – 3rd August 1933.

  August 1933. He died that same year. He had been punished after all.

  Sadie’s eyes flew to the next headstone.

  HAZZARD, Clarence John

  4th June 1894 –12th September 1933

  Beloved Husband of Jean,

  Devoted Father of Sarah, John,
Mabel (dec), Elizabeth and Philip.

  Sorely Missed.

  Sadie felt breathless. Clarry had died only a month after Gerald Mortlock. That was a strange coincidence. And he’d left poor Jean with all those children to look after, little Betty and baby Philip – they wouldn’t even remember their father . . . And there was the extra baby, Mabel, between John and Betty. She hadn’t known about Mabel . . .

  She was still thinking about the poor little baby as her eyes scanned the bottom of the gravestone. There was a second inscription, obscured with lichen. Sadie scratched at the letters with her stick, and then all at once the words leapt out at her.

  Also His Daughter

  Sarah Louise (Sadie)

  1920 –1934

  Aged 14 Years.

  Tragically Taken.

  ‘You all right?’ said Walter behind her.

  Sadie put out a hand blindly and clutched at his arm.

  ‘She died!’ Sadie heard the note of hysteria in her voice as her fingers tightened round Walter’s arm. ‘She died, too!’

  ‘You want to sit down?’ said Walter. ‘You don’t look too good.’

  Sadie allowed herself to be led to the dappled shade of a ragged gum tree, and collapsed onto a wooden bench.

  ‘That girl had the same name as you,’ said Walter. ‘Must be pretty weird, seeing that. Nearly your age, too.’

  Mutely Sadie nodded. They’d all died. Within a year, all three of them were dead – Gerald, Clarry, even Sadie. She wondered what had happened to them.

  When the Law is broken there must be punishment.

  Walter said, ‘With my people, with traditional people, when someone dies, you don’t say their name no more. From respect, but also, you know, in case their spirit comes back to get you.’

  Sadie said, ‘You believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Sure I do,’ said Walter. ‘You?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sadie. ‘I do.’

  They sat side by side in silence.

  ‘I saw my dad after he died,’ said Walter at last. He scratched at his shoe with the stem of a gum leaf. ‘I dreamed I’d come and live with David, and I did. Dreamed the house, too. And I dreamed about you before I met you. Didn’t see your face, but I know it was you, now.’ Walter flicked the leaf aside. ‘In that dream, you told me you could talk to crows.’ He turned to stare at her. ‘Can you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sadie.

  Walter looked away again. ‘David doesn’t believe this stuff. The old ways are all gone, he says. We got to live in the world like it is now. I don’t tell him about my dreams. But I tell Auntie Lily. I told her my dream about you, about the crow-girl. She said I’d meet you one day. She said you’d have a story to tell me.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sadie. ‘I do.’

  Walter didn’t look at her while she spoke. He tipped his head back and gazed up at the sky, veiled by the branches of the gum tree.

  She told him everything. About the crows – or perhaps it was always the same crow – who spoke to her. About the circle of stones. About Clarry and Jimmy and Gerald and that last terrible night. When she told him how she’d become the other Sadie, she faltered; but he didn’t laugh or scoff. He just said, ‘Yep,’ and waited for her to go on.

  ‘And now, today,’ she said at last. ‘Seeing those gravestones, Gerald and Clarry and Sadie, all dying so close together, so soon after . . .’ Her voice faded away.

  A flock of pink-and-grey galahs chattered over- head, trailing their noise like a banner across the sky.

  ‘It’s – spooky,’ she finished lamely. She wished she had a better word than spooky for the sense of dread that crept across her skin and crawled in the pit of her stomach.

  Walter spat out a leaf stem and stood up, a dark silhouette against the bright horizon. Sadie shaded her eyes.

  He said, ‘Better go and look at that lake, I reckon. See if we can find where Jimmy Raven’s buried.’

  Of course. That was what she ought to do. Sadie felt her face crack with relief; it wasn’t exactly a smile.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  They heard the whine of the trail bikes from the edge of the lake, a distant drone like giant wasps. Sadie stopped.

  ‘Someone’s out there.’

  ‘Might be a long way away,’ said Walter. ‘Hard to tell, noise echoing round like that.’

  Sadie nodded and slowly walked out onto the crust of yellow mud. But with every step, her stomach churned. The roar of the bikes grew louder as she and Walter crossed the lake.

  ‘I think the graves are over there—’ she began, but then she saw the bikes. Dark shapes were zooming up and around the cup of the secret valley, the place where the circle of stones lay hidden. A big battered four-wheel drive and a mud-spattered ute were parked nearby.

  Sadie felt sick. ‘They shouldn’t be there!’ She broke into a run, and Walter ran beside her.

  Music blared from the site, a thudding bass that made the ground tremble. Sadie pulled up, panting for breath; anger glowed in her like fire.

  Craig Mortlock was lounging against one of the stones, a ring of empty beer cans littered around his legs like a tawdry copy of the stone circle itself. Lachie was perched on another rock, swinging his legs, his bike parked nearby. Sadie recognised two older men, mates of Craig’s, from the front bar of the pub. One of the riders on the swooping bikes was Hammer, the boy with no neck. The other had stiff, straw-coloured hair and furious acne; Sadie had never seen him before.

  Sadie and Walter stood at the very edge of the stone circle. Craig Mortlock crumpled a beer can and dropped it at his feet. ‘G’day, kids.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Sadie. Her mouth was as dry as the lake bed.

  ‘Hi.’ Lachie rubbed his nose and avoided Sadie’s eyes.

  ‘And what can we do for you?’ said Craig.

  One of the bikes wove between two stones, spun its back wheel in the mud and roared off again. Red rage burned inside Sadie.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ she said.

  Craig cupped his hand to his ear. ‘Can’t hear you, love. If you’ve got something to say, you’ll have to speak up.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do that!’ shouted Sadie, clenching her fists. ‘This is a special place! It’s not for picnics, it’s not a bike trail.’

  Craig’s eyebrows shot into his hair. ‘Excuse me, darling. Didn’t realise you were an expert. Been taking lessons from your boyfriend?’ He jerked his chin at Walter.

  Somebody guffawed. Sadie thrust her head high. ‘This is a special place. You know it is.’

  ‘I beg to differ,’ said Craig. ‘Even your mum’s boyfriend says it’s not worth any money, and I bet he knows more about it than you do.’ He pointed his finger at Sadie. ‘Believe me, love, if it was worth anything, I’d be the first one to rope it off and flog it to the Council of Aboriginal Welfare or whoever. But nobody wants it.’ He straightened up. ‘You should be pleased! Look at all these people, experiencing a bit of Aboriginal culture!’ He waved his arm at the men sprawled against the rocks, their boots resting on the carvings, their cans tossed into the centre of the circle. ‘At least people are getting to see it, eh?’

  As if on cue, the bikes drew up to the stone circle, sputtered, and stopped. A sudden silence fell. Everyone was staring at Sadie and Walter.

  ‘You got no respect,’ said Walter very quietly.

  But Craig heard him. ‘You think you can march onto my land, the land my family’s owned and farmed and looked after for five generations, and lecture me about respect? You’ve got a bloody cheek, son!’

  Sadie said, ‘This land belonged to his people, way before your family got here!’

  ‘No, it didn’t,’ said Lachie. He crushed a Coke can in his hand. ‘He doesn’t even come from round here. He comes from up on the border, from the river, same as his uncle David. They don’t belong here. Us Mortlocks have been living here longer than his family have.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Craig.

  Lachie glanced at his fat
her, and flushed slightly. ‘I was born here,’ he said to Walter. ‘And I’ve lived here all my life, and so has my dad, and his dad, and his dad before him. Who do you reckon this land belongs to? Not to you, mate. There’s none of your people left round here. They’re gone.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ cried Sadie. ‘David and Walter have family in Boort, there are heaps of Aboriginal people around here!’

  But Walter shook his head. He said softly, ‘All our people got mixed up in the reserves. Weren’t allowed to speak our languages, weren’t allowed to keep up the old ways. Nobody really knows who comes from where. It’s all mixed up. Lots of things forgotten. Auntie Lily says this is Dja Dja Wurrung land. But they weren’t allowed to stay here. They had to move south, had to leave their country. This is a Dja Dja Wurrung place.’

  Craig rose to his feet, scowling. ‘I’ve heard enough from you two. You’re trespassing. Now get off my land.’

  ‘People died here!’ screamed Sadie. ‘Don’t you care? Your grandfather killed a man. Even if you won’t show respect to the crows, can’t you show respect for him?’

  ‘What’s this bull about my grandfather?’ said Craig. ‘He never killed anyone!’

  ‘He did; he murdered Jimmy Raven!’

  Lachie screwed his face up. ‘What’s she crapping on about?’

  ‘Buggered if I know. Now get out!’ bellowed Craig.

  ‘He was a murderer!’ Sadie shrieked. ‘The Crow knows. This is Crow’s land, Crow’s country; he knows what happened; he punished them! And he’ll punish you, too!’

  ‘Kid’s flipped out,’ said one of the men. ‘Gone mental.’

  Lachie slid from his rock. ‘You heard what Dad said. Now piss off!’

  Sadie heard Walter hiss between his teeth like a warning; she saw Lachie wave his fists; she heard Hammer shout, ‘Get him, Lachie!’ and she saw Craig’s face, red and bullish. Then all at once, Lachie and Walter were struggling together, wrestling, pushing at each other.

  ‘Walter!’ she shouted in sudden fear. Walter mustn’t fight; he mustn’t get into trouble again. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  But he didn’t hear her. He was smaller than Lachie, but he was nimble and wiry, and Lachie couldn’t seem to get a grip on him. Oh, crows! Sadie sent out a desperate, silent cry. Help us!