Crow Country

by Kate Constable

  And here she sat, with another man bleeding, in the same place, Crow’s place . . . blood spilled on Crow’s ground . . .

  ‘It’s different this time,’ she said aloud, though she wasn’t sure whether she spoke to herself, or Lachie or Waa, or to the crows who were Waa’s messengers. ‘Walter’s getting help . . .’

  She scanned the horizon for movement. What if Walter didn’t come back? Already her jacket was soaked through with Lachie’s blood. She remembered the blood on Gerald Mortlock’s clothes, the blood on her fingers when she touched Jimmy’s scalp.

  She couldn’t save Jimmy, but at least she’d saved his special things. And they would save Lachie . . .

  ‘Hang on, Lachie,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t die. It’s got to be different this time.’

  She looked around for a crow, hoping for some sign that Waa hadn’t abandoned them. But the sky was empty, the stone circle sat silent. The lake bed stretched to the horizon, flat and blank and featureless. She and Lachie were alone.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there with Lachie’s head cradled in her lap. But at last there came a distant warning cry: Waah! Waah! They are coming!

  She looked up. The murmur of engines drifted toward her from the edge of the lake. ‘It’s okay, Lachie!’ she cried, almost weeping with relief. ‘Walter’s back! They’re here!’

  David put his arm around Sadie’s shoulders as they watched Craig’s 4WD bump away across the lake bed. Ellie was going with Lachie and his parents to the hospital; everyone else had drifted away, back to the pub, mostly. Boort had actually beaten Donald, even with the team one man short. It was the upset of the season, but no one cared about that now.

  ‘Your mum said it’s probably not as bad as it looks,’ said David. ‘Head wounds always bleed a lot. He’ll probably be fine.’ He looked across at Walter. ‘I’m really proud of you two, reacting the way you did. It was quick thinking, taking the bike.’

  Walter stared at the ground and mumbled something.

  ‘I’m still not clear about exactly what happened.’ David looked from Walter to Sadie. ‘You just found Lachie here, did you? Lucky for him. Though it beats me what he was doing here. We sent him home for his footy boots; this isn’t on the way . . .’

  Walter cleared his throat. ‘That’s not—’ He shot a desperate glance at Sadie. ‘We didn’t find him. He kind of found us.’

  Sadie said nothing, though her insides twisted like a wet rag. It was up to Walter to decide how much to tell David. And up to David to decide what happened after that.

  Walter lowered his head. ‘We went to his house, the Mortlocks’ house. Auntie Lily sent us to find some things, secret things.’

  David’s eyes narrowed. ‘Auntie Lily told you to break into the Mortlocks’ house?’

  Walter shuffled miserably and said nothing.

  ‘We didn’t take anything,’ said Sadie. ‘Honest. We were only looking round.’

  ‘But Lachie busted us. He chased after us – thought he was going to run us down.’ Walter licked his lips. ‘I mighta thrown something at him.’

  ‘Only a lump of mud,’ said Sadie. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt him. We didn’t know he was going to fall off. We were scared. It was self-defence. It was an accident . . .’ She let her voice trail away as she heard the echo of Gerald Mortlock’s words.

  David rubbed his hand over his face. He looked at Walter. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘It was my idea to go to the house,’ said Walter slowly. ‘I opened the window. And I knocked Lachie off his bike.’

  The words weighed heavily in the silence. David waited. Sadie began to say, ‘It was my fault, too—’ but David held up a hand to quiet her.

  Walter shrugged. ‘I better go and see Lachie’s mum and dad. Say sorry.’

  ‘They might want to take it to the police,’ said David.

  ‘I know.’

  David nodded. ‘I’ll be with you. We’ll sort this out.’

  He wrapped his arms around Walter, and they stood there, motionless, for a few moments. Sadie traced the cracks in the mud with her toe.

  At last Walter said, ‘It wasn’t Sadie’s fault. She just came along.’

  ‘We did it together,’ said Sadie hotly. ‘All of it!’ She wasn’t going to let Walter take all the blame.

  But at that moment, she heard the softest, most discreet wah from behind her, like a crow clearing its throat. And she remembered that she had another job to do.

  David held out his hand. ‘You coming?’

  Sadie looked at Walter. ‘I’ve got to do something for Auntie Lily. That special thing she asked us to find – I know where it is now.’

  Walter’s eyes lit up. ‘You saw it?’

  Sadie nodded.

  ‘Tell me about it later,’ said David. ‘You’ll be right to get home on your own, Sadie?’

  Sadie pointed to the ring of stones. A crow was perched on top of one boulder, silently watching them.

  ‘I won’t be on my own,’ she said. ‘The crows will be with me.’

  A frown crossed David’s face, then he shrugged and laid his arm protectively across his nephew’s shoulders. Sadie watched as they walked away across the yellow mud, then she turned to face the crow.

  ‘I’m ready now,’ she said.

  The crow lifted its throat. ‘Wah!’ It flapped down from the rock and looked expectantly at Sadie.

  She set her face to the declining sun and followed the crow as it hopped across the lake bed, leading her where she needed to go.

  The sapling had grown and spread into the old grey mallee gum in her own backyard.

  Disbelieving, Sadie traced the S that she had carved into its trunk on that night so long ago, but only hours before. The scar was thickened and blurred, as high as her waist. She was sure she hadn’t seen it there before.

  When she’d carved her mark, the sapling was in the middle of the bush. In the years since, the houses had crept out from the centre of Boort and cleared the bush away. But the tree had survived.

  The sky was clouding over as Sadie fetched Ellie’s trowel from the shed. She didn’t think she’d buried it very far down.

  The crow watched her, its head tilted. When she poked the trowel into the earth, it hopped nearer, almost jabbing its beak into the hole. ‘Look out,’ said Sadie. ‘Give me some room.’

  The crow hopped back. ‘Wah,’ it remarked.

  Digging was harder work than Sadie had expected. The ground was dry and compacted; dirt crumbled into the hole she made. She kept striking roots and stones. As the hole grew larger with no sign of the buried tin she began to wonder if it was the wrong tree after all, or if someone else had found the tin before her. Her hair tumbled into her eyes and she pushed it back impatiently, leaving smudges of dirt across her face.

  She wondered if Lachie was all right. She won- dered if Craig and Amanda would be very angry with Walter. She wondered when Ellie would come home.

  ‘You seek what was stolen,’ said the crow beside her.

  ‘I think it’s here,’ said Sadie. ‘I think I can find it.’

  The crow’s mad eye regarded her with glittering excitement; it shifted restlessly from foot to foot. ‘What was stolen must be restored.’

  Sadie sat back on her heels. ‘Everything that was stolen can’t be given back,’ she said. ‘The land, the stories. The lives that were ended.’

  ‘Waah! Life does not end. Life returns to Crow, to the ancestors. There is no ending.’

  Sadie turned back to her digging. The sun was going down, the air was chilly. She thrust the trowel into the ground and it jarred against something hard. Sadie poked and scraped. Was it another rock? Her heart beat fast when she saw a metallic gleam at the bottom of the hole.

  ‘Wah! Wah!’ The crow flapped its wings and jigged up and down as Sadie tugged the tin from the earth where it had been buried so long. ‘It is found!’

  Sadie set the tin on the ground and stared at it. In the other Sadie’s time, it had been fresh a
nd new, with smart black paint and gilt edging, the label with its blue crane bright and glowing. Now the tin was rusty, battered, filthy. But it had guarded Jimmy Raven’s secret possessions safely. Sadie remembered Auntie Lily’s warning; she wouldn’t open it.

  ‘Now I have to give it to Auntie Lily,’ Sadie said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘To the elders, to the guardians. Wah!’ The crow flapped its wings. Its eyes shone like black diamonds.

  Sadie wrapped her palms around the tin. It was heavy; she remembered that unnatural heaviness from the other Sadie’s time, as if the whole weight of a family’s grief was enclosed within it.

  ‘I wish I knew where Jimmy’s body was buried,’ she said. ‘I wish I could tell Auntie Lily where he is.’

  The crow’s head cocked to one side. ‘The bones of the clever man lie in Crow’s country. We will find them. But first you must take the power to the elders.’

  Sadie scrambled to her feet, clutching the tin with both hands. ‘Auntie Lily, right – Oh!’ She realised she couldn’t remember the way to Auntie Lily and Vonn’s house. She slumped against the tree, feeling the rough scratch of the bark at her back, fighting tears. She was tired and cold, her whole body ached with weariness. ‘I don’t know where to go,’ she said dully.

  ‘Wah!’ cawed the crow, and spread its wings as it laughed at her. ‘I will show you.’

  The crow hopped from roof to roof, from tree to tree, leading her on through the town, past the RSL hall, the bowling club and the service station, out along the Boort–Yando road. Sadie trudged numbly through the dusk, her face nipped by the frosty air, her hands thrust into her pockets. The cold metal of the too-heavy tin burned through the fabric of her jacket and bit against her thigh.

  ‘Wah!’ the crow encouraged her. ‘Come! Come!’

  And it seemed to Sadie that the other birds were gathering by the roadside, a trio of magpies, a pair of galahs, a chattering flock of tiny green parrots, all watching as she passed. The road stretched before her.

  ‘Waah!’ called the crow. ‘Here!’

  The crow led Sadie around to the backyard of Auntie Vonn’s house. A washing-line draped with sheets was strung between her and the back door. Lights glowed in the windows.

  ‘She is there,’ said the crow. ‘The one you call Auntie Lily. Crow knows her by another name. Give her what you’ve found.’ It hopped from foot to foot. ‘Finish your story.’

  Sadie hesitated. ‘Will I speak to you again?’ she asked shyly.

  The crow opened its beak wide and laughed its cawing laugh. ‘Wa-wa-waaah! You may speak to us every day if you wish it. Isn’t this Crow’s country?’

  Still laughing, it spread its wings and leaped into the air, a black shadow circling overhead. There was a rush of wind against Sadie’s face as its wings beat the air. And then it was gone.

  Sadie stood in the shadows by the back step for a few moments, listening to the laughter and music coming from the kitchen. She knocked on the door. ‘Hello?’ But no one heard her.

  She pushed at the door, and it creaked open. ‘Hello?’ she called again, advancing into the house. She clutched the tin in her pocket between both her hands, as if it might give her courage.

  A woman came rushing round the corner and almost knocked Sadie off her feet. ‘Who’s this?’ she exclaimed. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  The woman propelled Sadie into the light, and Sadie saw that it was Vonn. Recognition dawned in Vonn’s face. ‘You came with David and Walter, didn’t you?’ She sent a puzzled glance over Sadie’s shoulder, out into the night. ‘They here too?’

  Sadie shook her head. ‘I’ve come to see Auntie Lily,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve brought her something. It’s important.’

  Vonn’s broad face softened. ‘Auntie Lily’s not well, darling. You give me whatever it is; I’ll pass it on, eh?’

  Sadie shook her head and gripped the tin tightly. It burned her fingers. ‘I have to give it to Auntie Lily. No one else.’

  Vonn looked her up and down, taking in the smears of dirt on Sadie’s face, the splashes of blood on her clothes, the yellow mud that clung to her shoes.

  ‘Please!’ begged Sadie. ‘Auntie told me to come.’

  Vonn seemed to make up her mind. ‘You come in here.’ She thrust Sadie into the crowded kitchen. Startled faces turned to them. ‘Jarred, get off that chair, let Sadie sit down. Look at her, she’s that tired out, she can hardly stand up. You want a cup of tea, darling? Chrissie, you make her a cup of tea, or a Milo, eh? You sit down, Sadie. I’ll go and see if Auntie’s awake.’

  Sadie sank into a chair and stared at her hands. She hadn’t realised how tired she was until Vonn said it, but now exhaustion threatened to crash over her like an avalanche. Someone pushed a mug of steaming Milo in front of her and she curled her hands around it. ‘Thanks,’ she managed to whisper. Gradually the conversation picked up again, and soon it was swirling over and around her as if she wasn’t there. She was grateful; she wished she could disappear, melt into nothing, the way the crow had dissolved into the night . . .

  Vonn returned. ‘Auntie wants to see you.’ She ushered Sadie down the hall, and Sadie folded her hands around the tin and hugged it to her as she stepped into Auntie’s room.

  A bedside lamp in a ruffled shade cast a pink pool of light over the bed. Auntie was propped on pillows, a red knitted cardigan pulled around her shoulders. She patted the bed for Sadie to come nearer.

  ‘You got something for me?’

  Sadie edged closer to the bed. She pulled out the battered cigarette tin – heavy, so much heavier than it should be – and held it out. ‘I found it. His special things, the secret things. They’re in there.’

  ‘You looked?’ Auntie’s voice was sharp.

  Sadie shook her head. ‘I just know.’ She set the tin down on the flowery bedspread.

  Auntie’s wrinkled hand reached out to curve around it. ‘Good girl.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘Go on, you go. I look after this now.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sadie awkwardly, and shuffled back- wards out of the room.

  Vonn was waiting in the hallway. ‘All done?’

  Sadie nodded. She was so tired suddenly that she couldn’t speak.

  ‘You want to go home now?’ suggested Vonn. ‘Want me to ring someone, your mum, maybe? Or David?’

  Sadie slumped against the wall as she recited Ellie’s mobile number. She was dimly aware of Vonn speaking, making reassuring noises into the phone. She slid down the wall and leaned her head against a bookcase. As if in a dream, she saw Vonn bend down beside her and explain that her mum and David were on their way. ‘From the hospital, yeah? That sound right? They’ll be here soon.’

  Sadie nodded, laboriously, because her head had grown so heavy, as heavy as the cigarette tin . . . She jolted awake. The tin, she had to deliver it to Auntie!

  Then she remembered that she’d already done it. She’d done what the crows had wanted; it was all over. And then holding her head up was really too hard, and keeping her eyelids open was impossible.

  Even when David and Ellie swooped into the house, even when David scooped her up and carried her to the car, she didn’t wake. She was dreaming of a flight beneath the stars; she dreamed it all the way home.

  She was leaning forward along the neck of a giant crow, her hands buried in its feathers. The freezing wind stung her face and hands. Far below, the land spread out beneath them, dots of light twinkled against the darkened earth, like a reflection of the star-sprinkled canopy of the sky above.

  The steady whoosh of the crow’s wings was the only sound as the spirit-bird flew across the darkness, a needle through the night. Silver clouds shredded to reveal the shining face of the full moon.

  And Sadie knew that she was gazing down at ancient campfires, lit by the people of Crow and Eaglehawk, night after night, generation after generation, millennium upon millennium; that the time of electric lights was only a blink in the long dream of this land’s story. The secre
t magic of this country lay hidden, buried under buildings and blood; but it had never gone away, and it would never disappear. It lay waiting, lost in its own endless dream.

  ‘Tell Waa!’ Sadie shouted. ‘Tell him his stories aren’t forgotten! His people remember; his people are still here! You have to tell him! It’s important!’

  ‘Waah! Crow knows this. Crow says—’ But the next words were stolen by the wind, and all Sadie heard was the crow’s cawing laughter.

  Ellie tucked Sadie into bed without undressing her, dropped a kiss on her forehead and smoothed her hair. Something tangled in Ellie’s fingers. Puzzled, she held it up to the light.

  It was a black feather.

  Ellie laid it on the bedside table and tiptoed from the room.

  Sadie and Walter walked across the dry lake bed.

  ‘You think we’ll be able to find it?’ said Walter.

  It was the first time either of them had spoken since they’d left the house.

  ‘The crows will show us,’ said Sadie. ‘They prom-

  ised.’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Walter. ‘I don’t reckon the crows are going to speak no more.’

  Sadie’s heart skipped. ‘How come?’

  ‘It just feels like that’s all over. Since you found Jimmy’s tin and gave it to Auntie. Since we went and saw Lachie in hospital and sorta made friends again. I dunno.’

  ‘But it’s not finished. Auntie Lily said we had to mark his grave, and she said we should take him back to his own country.’

  ‘We don’t know where Jimmy’s country is.’

  Sadie searched her memory. ‘Down south, he said. By the sea.’

  Walter raised his eyebrows. ‘Lots of sea out there.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to worry about that later. Maybe the crows will tell us where he came from.’

  ‘Gotta find his grave first,’ said Walter. ‘Maybe that’s the end.’

  Sadie didn’t answer. She had a feeling that Crow’s stories were sunk so deep in the bones of this country that they would never break off, never be finished. They would circle around as the stars circled, always changing, always the same. She shivered.