The Nargun and the Stars

by Patricia Wrightson

  He had heard the dogs give a bark, and had gone outside to listen for foxes. He was away for some time, and came back with his face pressed into deeper creases and looking the wrong colour. Simon hardly had time to notice, for Edie said, ‘If you’re helping with fencing tomorrow, Simey, you’ll need your sleep. I’ve put your hot-water bag in your bed.’ And he had to go.

  He was sure he wouldn’t sleep. In the silence, shrill-edged with crickets, nothing seemed to move. There were no Turong cries; he had heard none since the night they sank the grader. No possum jumped, no bird called, the pine-tree was a tall dark silence. There was nothing to come between him and his memory of the afternoon. He thought of the unmoving stone, darkly watchful; of half-glimpsed shapeless limbs; of the little broken piece that scuttled off uphill. And he found his anger returning.

  ‘You wait, you rotten thing,’ he whispered. ‘You just wait.’ Then, after all, he was able to go to sleep.

  He slept heavily, for he had been through days and nights of strain; yet twice in the night he half woke. Once it was to find Charlie in the room shutting the window. Half asleep, Simon thought there must be another storm. The second time he woke because his door was open and the room quite light. He got up and went stumbling to shut the door, feeling that it was very late and the light should not still be on. It was not. From his door he could see the fire, still fresh, filling the room with strong yellow light – and Charlie stretched out in his old chair beside it, dozing. Simon shut his sleepy eyes on the scene and went back to bed.

  Simon slept on; and Charlie stayed in his chair all night. He dozed a little sometimes, and woke to feed the fire and listen, to walk softly through the house and listen again. Once he went to his study and riffled through drawers until he found an old cigar-box. He took it back to the living-room and put it on the mantelpiece. Two or three times Edie crept softly in her dressing-gown and with tousled hair to look at him. Her face was still and her eyes serious in the firelight. Each time she stole away again without being seen, and went back to lie in her own bed and listen too.

  Charlie and Edie heard nothing. Peering through dark windows into darkness they saw nothing. Only once, strained wires creaked when something heavy leaned against the gate; once the firelight, spilling through the window, threw a great crooked shadow on Edie’s roses. And once, when Edie looked out at the dark, she was caught in a huge lost loneliness as though the dark looked back. An ancient hunger, a fumbling formless love, held her for a moment at the window. Then it passed, and Edie crawled shivering back to bed and lay awake.

  That hungering darkness drained away at last. The night was alive again with the secret life of possum and mopoke and fox. The Turongs called. Charlie rose stiffly and went to bed for three or four hours. Everyone in the white house slept at last while the Nargun drew slowly away, foot by foot up the ridge, trailing Charlie’s rope. Charlie went to look for it at first light, and found it back inside its small gully. It had seen the fire.

  The rope had slipped off by then and lay caught on a rock, flattened and frayed in one place where something hard and heavy had ground it. Charlie looked at it for some time before he picked it up and coiled it neatly. He took it back to the shed and went in for breakfast.

  Simon was sitting in his place at the table, and Edie was frying sausages. She looked at Charlie as he came in, and he stopped in the doorway and looked back. There was a kind of shock on both their faces. Then Charlie went to the sink to wash his hands and Edie began to dish up fried tomato.

  Neither of them spoke, and Simon was silent too; but he knew that in the night something had changed. He felt afraid and comforted, both at the same time; and he felt strong enough to help in any way that was needed.

  Charlie and Edie would know what to do now. They had seen the Nargun.

  nine

  ‘I don’t know about that fence,’ Charlie confessed. ‘I reckon we need help. We don’t know enough about this thing.’

  ‘We’d have our work cut out,’ Edie pointed out. ‘We never even saw one before, and it’s not our kind. How could we know?’

  ‘I know, mate. That’s why I reckon we’ll have to talk to the old things. They ought to be able to tell us something about it, we’re just guessing as it is. They might even help.’

  ‘They won’t want to,’ Simon warned. ‘The Potkoorok said they don’t go near. They don’t even want to talk about it – I don’t think it’s their kind, either.’

  ‘M’p,’ said Charlie. ‘But they’ve known me a bit longer than they’ve known you. You don’t even know the drill for it yet, you’ve just been lucky. And I’ve got a thing or two to say that could change their minds for them. We’ll go as quick as we can, I’ve got the horses ready. What about you, Edie? Want to come?’

  ‘You might be needing me later,’ said Edie. ‘I’ll keep things going here while I can.’

  ‘Simey could give you a hand, only I might need him. I haven’t talked to the old things since we were kids.’

  ‘Have you still got the stick?’

  ‘Rustled it out last night. It’s on the mantelpiece.’ He went inside and came back with a cigar-box, which he opened. Simon glimpsed a length of plaited leather, a gold tie-pin with a horseshoe on it, a torch shaped like a revolver, and other old treasures. Charlie took out a stick about six inches long with one end carved in criss-cross lines that made a pattern of diamonds. He buttoned it into his shirt pocket and put the box on top of the refrigerator. ‘Ready, young feller? The old things like it early or late, they’re not much for the middle of the day.’

  Edie came with them to the gate. ‘Where is that thing, then?’ she called after them.

  ‘Back in the gully – no need to worry,’ called Charlie, giving Simon a quick leg up on to Pet. Then they were on their way, waving to Edie as they went.

  ‘What’s the stick?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Our old message-stick,’ said Charlie. ‘You’ll have to be getting one for yourself.’

  ‘Why? What’s it for?’

  ‘Well in this country, when you want to talk to someone, you don’t go barging into his territory yelling for him like you did. You send a messenger with a message-stick, or take it yourself if you’re stuck, and then sit down and wait till he decides to take notice. That’s manners.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The old Potkoorok. It smartened up Edie’s and my manners quick, and I’m surprised it hasn’t started on yours by now. But you’ll see how it’s done today when you take my stick for me. Then you can carve one of your own, and every time they see it after that they’ll know you’re visiting.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they know if I just sat down and waited without the stick?’

  ‘Why should they? You might be just sitting there not thinking about them, or you might be starting in to chop down their trees. The message-stick is a promise that you’re coming in a friendly way.’

  ‘And if I wasn’t they could play their tricks on me …’ ‘That’s about the size of it. If you want a friendly talk you take your message-stick and mind your manners.’

  ‘All right,’ said Simon. ‘There’s the chain-saw starting up. I wonder how long they’ll keep going without a bulldozer?’

  ‘Not long. There’s not enough milling timber in that old scrub, it’s been through too many fires. The clearing’s the main job, and they need a ’dozer for that. Bad luck losing one when they were nearly through.’

  ‘Nearly through?’

  ‘Well, they were leaving timber for shade and camps, and they’d cleared a good area. They reckoned they only had two or three days’ work left.’

  Charlie spoke absently and then fell into a silence. They were within sight of the swamp, and Simon wondered if the Turongs and the Potkoorok would talk to a grown-up man; and how Charlie would feel, seeing them again after all these years. It would feel better than seeing the Nargun, anyway. Perhaps Charlie was thinking and frowning about that. The scream of the chain-saw was caught in a trap of silence,
but the little cries of the frogs went free. Torn scraps of mist littered the hills and were slowly sucked up, as if the sun were drinking them through a straw.

  ‘Now then,’ said Charlie, swinging down from Surprise and waiting for Simon to scramble off Pet, ‘you take this stick and go down to the bank at the far end. Sit down with your back to the water – that’s important – and hold the stick up plain, and just wait. You might have to wait some time, or the old Potkoorok mightn’t come at all. If it does, you stand up. Then you say: “Charlie Waters sent me. He used to be a boy on this place, and now he’s the man in charge. He wants to talk to you.”’

  ‘But you’re not the man in charge! You own it!’

  ‘Do I? For sixty years or so, maybe; but how long do you think the Potkoorok’s owned it?’

  ‘M’p …’ said Simon. ‘All right. Then what do I do?’

  ‘You come back and tell me what it says. I’ll hitch the horses somewhere and wait here.’

  ‘I always use a branch of that log. Will it take two?’

  ‘Just the ticket,’ said Charlie with his serious inward smile. ‘Off you go.’

  Simon went, carrying the grey old stick carefully. He sat as Charlie had said, holding the stick with its carved end up like a candle. It was a long minute before the green-gold Potkoorok came over the bank from behind him. Its wide mouth was turned down with self-importance, and Simon stood up at once. He felt irritated, all the same. He would rather bribe it with apples and sit beside it in a friendly way than go through all this fuss.

  The Potkoorok spoke with sober politeness. ‘The Frog Boy comes from the Boat Boy. I thought that boy was gone.’

  ‘He’s a man now,’ said Simon, and the Potkoorok looked huffy. ‘He’s in charge of all this place,’ boasted Simon, and it gave a snort. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ finished Simon.

  The Potkoorok stood silent for a moment while the frogs sang to the sun. At last it said, ‘Bring the Man in good will,’ and sat down on the bank.

  Simon went back to Charlie. ‘I can bring you in good will, but I don’t think it’s keen. You ought to try an apple next time.’

  ‘None of your lip,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re just the messenger round here, and mind you don’t interrupt.’

  They went back to where the Potkoorok was sitting and Charlie sat down beside it, draping his long legs over the bank and pushing his mouse-coloured hat into the forward position. ‘Been a long time,’ he said.

  The Potkoorok chuckled wickedly. ‘Long for you, Boat Boy. A day for me.’

  ‘A long time for old friends,’ said Charlie firmly. ‘I’ve left this place alone, haven’t I? Even in dry times when I could use the water. I’ve never cut a tree without I had to, even though the place is too small, really, and I could use the grass. That’s because we’re old friends, me and you and the Turongs.’

  The Potkoorok looked sideways from its golden eyes and was silent. Charlie pulled a stem of grass and chewed it, staring at the swamp.

  ‘I remember my old grandfather building this bank,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work, he couldn’t afford to make it long enough. Easy now, with the machinery we’ve got – you could even drain it easy enough. And you could clear that bit of scrub in a week with a bulldozer, like they’ve been doing on the far ridge. But a man doesn’t want to lose old friends, I say.’

  ‘And what does the old friend want of the Potkoorok?’ asked the creature sulkily.

  ‘Eh?’ said Charlie. ‘Oh, that. Well, just a bit of advice, and maybe a bit of help. But I wanted to talk to you and the Turongs together. If I sent my boy up to ask them, would they come down here, do you think?’

  ‘Why should they?’ said the Potkoorok grandly. ‘They will not remember the Boat Boy or know the Man in Charge. Can Turongs dive into water when strangers come? They dive into trees – not so good as water – they cannot help it. They are Turongs, creatures of the trees.’

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Charlie. ‘What can we do, then?’

  ‘The Boy will take my message to the Turongs, for the Potkoorok can dive into trees as well as water. And the Potkoorok is an old friend known to the Turongs. If they welcome us, then we will talk in the forest.’ It slid down under the water.

  ‘You were threatening!’ said Simon, shocked. ‘You were saying you’d drain the swamp and cut down the scrub if they didn’t help!’

  ‘You want to get something done about those ears, mate,’ said Charlie. ‘I said I wouldn’t want to lose old friends, and that’s a fact. The old Pot-K knows what’s what. Nobody could drain this swamp – how do you think they managed to hide the grader in it? And a bulldozer couldn’t work on that slope. Trouble is, the old thing’s huffy because I’ve grown up on it. I had to give it some excuse for helping a grown man.’

  The Potkoorok rose with water running down its green skin and something clutched in its fingers. Simon saw that its message-stick was a stone engraved with fossil shells. He stood up, and the Potkoorok gave him the stone.

  ‘You will go among the first trees,’ it said, ‘and sit with your eyes on the swamp. When the Turongs come you will speak so.’ It threw back its head as if it were addressing a meeting. ‘“The Potkoorok greets the Turongs. The Potkoorok would bring the Man in Charge to talk with them. He will not kill the forest if the Turongs are his friends.”’

  ‘Charlie didn’t say –’ began Simon hotly.

  ‘Thought I told you not to interrupt,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Go,’ said the Potkoorok. ‘We cannot tell what the Man thinks. We know only what he says.’

  ‘You don’t,’ said Simon. ‘You know what he does, too. He’s a good friend, and if he wants help you ought to give it to him. That’s if you’re a good friend.’

  Simey, what did I tell you?’

  ‘What is good?’ said the Potkoorok. ‘What is friend? The mountain is my friend, and the stars. They do not vanish when I close my eyes, and leave me lonely.’

  ‘Good for you, then,’ said Simon. ‘I hope they help you when you want it, and plant new trees, and – all right, I’m going.’

  ‘And mind you say just what you were told to say,’ Charlie called after him.

  Simon strode angrily up to the scrub. Just inside the first trees he sat on a root terrace holding up the Potkoorok’s message-stick and frowning down at the swamp. Charlie and the Potkoorok were sitting peacefully on the bank looking up towards him. Perhaps they really were still friends.

  He heard nothing but the stirring of leaves. He saw nothing till the thin grey shadows with their floating beards came sliding and circling down the trunks beside him. There were four of them, holding out spidery fingers for the message-stick. He stood up and gave it to one of them, repeating the Potkoorok’s message as well as he could. Seeing them close and by daylight, he suddenly thought the message might be wise even if it wasn’t fair. It might need a threat or bribe to hold these wispy, elusive creatures.

  The Turongs retired to talk about the message – in two steps they had vanished. Simon could hear their rustling whispers quite near; and after a moment they were there again, holding out the message-stick.

  ‘Bring the Potkoorok and the Man in peace,’ they said.

  Simon took the stone and went out through the trees. He waved to Charlie and shouted, ‘Hoi! You can come!’ Charlie’s skinny length rose from the bank and came striding up, with the Potkoorok leaping and bobbing beside it. Simon took the chance to have a close look at the spirals of fossil shells on the stone he was holding – until flattened green fingers whisked it out of his hands.

  ‘Oh – hallo,’ he said. ‘I can bring you in peace.’ And he led the way into the scrub.

  A great crowd of Turongs had collected. Shadowy shapes stood among dead leaves – clustered on low branches – came and went from the treetops and scuttled like spiders round trunks. There was a constant hissing and rustling of whispers. Wherever you looked straggling beards were clustered and sly dark eyes looked away. They made Simon feel shy, but Charlie o
nly nodded and waited. The Potkoorok waited too; it seemed to be manners that the people of the place should speak first.

  At last one of them did speak in a voice like leaves. ‘The water spirit is here.’

  The Potkoorok replied in its own gurgling voice, pointing to Charlie. ‘The Man in Charge is here too. You knew him when he was the Boat Boy. He comes for help. Let him be our friend for the sake of our water and trees. Talk, Boat Boy.’

  ‘Glad to see you again,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s this stone thing on the mountain, this Nargun.’

  The hissing and rustling stopped, and the scuttling of feet in dead leaves. The movement in treetops and branches was still. Hundreds of eyes glanced sideways and away. Everything was quiet.

  Charlie went on calmly. ‘This Nargun’s not a friendly thing like the rest of us. It wanders round the place at night, and it’s killed a sheep already. It’s big enough to be dangerous, and I don’t think we can do with it here. I’d like to get rid of it.’ The Potkoorok’s face was comical and sober. It said, ‘We do not know the Nargun. It is a stranger. We do not help you, Boat Boy.’

  ‘Well, that’s just it,’ said Charlie, as if he and the Potkoorok had reached an agreement at last. ‘It’s a stranger here. It doesn’t belong on Wongadilla and I reckon it should go.’

  ‘It should go,’ the Potkoorok agreed.

  ‘So I thought at least you’d be able to tell me something about it. If I knew a bit about it I might be able to get rid of the thing.’

  The Potkoorok spoke to the Turongs. ‘What can we tell the Boat Boy of the Nargun?’

  Their silence was broken by rustlings and hissings. After a while the voices rose like wind in the trees until they began to chant in a wind corroboree: ‘The Nargun should go! Back to its country! Back to the south land!’ ‘Leave our land, Nargun! Leave Wongadilla! This land is our land!’ Those in the trees were swaying as they chanted; those on the ground were stamping and shuffling. ‘Back to its old den! Back to the south land! The Nargun must go!’