Hazel was nowhere to be seen. We'd been doing a bit of muck- about hunting and had separated, trying to track a wallaby. She was probably back at the gaolhouse by now. I stopped, stood there listening, waiting for what I didn't know, hardly daring to breathe.
And then, somewhere in that roaring silence, I heard it: music, a strange, ethereal melody that seemed to shake the very leaves in the trees. I looked around, alert, an ominous curiosity looming up inside me. The music was coming from the west, from the direction of the cave hill. From the men's place.
My heart told me to piss off as quickly as I could, to get back to the gaol, find Hazel, ride home. But I was of an age where I was beginning to listen as much to my head as to my heart, and I felt as if there was a massive rope around my waist, dragging me in. I hesitated, then turned around, crouched low and headed for the cave.
It was getting on for dark by the time I got there, and I made my way nervously through the bush. As I drew closer to the hills the music seemed to swivel around and come from another direction. I followed, but it shifted again, and I became disoriented: the song was a circle whose centre was everywhere at once.
I began to back away, but the music changed tempo and key and took on a new intensity, a screaming-in-your skull quality, a vicious rhythm that threatened to tear the top off my head.
Panic and bile reared in my throat. I ran, cascading through the melaleuca, my bare feet flying over rough ground, until at some point I slipped on a root and slammed into the earth. Fire and darkness jarred in my mind, a rush of images roaring through. Snakes hissed, scorpions twisted; the wind screamed and a shadowy figure seemed to rise out of the earth, firing a volley of crystals into my brain. I lay huddled on the ground, my ears covered, my eyes clenched, a chasm of dread opening before me. I was on the point of falling when a hand touched my shoulder.
Hazel.
This all occurred many years ago. Since then I've travelled the world, been to some desperate places, seen a lot of good and a lot of evil; but Hazel following me into that place remains the most courageous thing I've ever seen.
'Emily,' she mouthed, her face stretched with fear, 'what are you doirt? We gotta get outta here! Come on!' She dragged me to my feet and we ran, white-eyed and tear-arsed like there was a howling tornado at our backs. She held onto my hand; kept holding it as I stumbled through the spinifex. Held on still as I tripped one last time and fell, a wave coming over me, gathering me up and sweeping me out into the merciful night.
When I came to, it was to the accompaniment of a slow, bouncing pain in my temple, the slap and jangle of leather and metal, the smell of horse sweat. I raised my head. The ground swivelled for a moment, then flew up at me, but before I could fall too far I felt a steadying hand on my shoulder. I dragged myself upright, rubbed my eyes, realised I was draped across a horse's withers. I turned around, found myself looking at a familiar, reassuring face.
'Lincoln?' I rasped.
His expression was a fearful mask of sorrow and resignation.
'Lincoln, what's going on?'
'What goin on?' he said, wearily shaking his head. 'Old Emily bin muckin up, like always.'
I noticed Hazel on her own horse, moving along behind us. She was grim faced, silent, staring into the distance.
I heard a dog bark and my own house appeared before me. Lincoln walked the horse up to the veranda, where my father was standing with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.
The horse drew to a halt. I made to jump down, but before I could do so Lincoln put a hand on my shoulder:
'Nangali…'
I turned around, looked up at him, lowered my eyes: 'I'm sorry Lincoln.'
'Sorry no matter. Just listen to me, one time. You always lookin for somethin. Lookin ahead, long way. That's okay, might be you learn a lot of thing, but sometime you gotta slow down, listen to them ol people. Take a look inside yourself. Understand?'
'Understand,' I nodded, shame-faced.
I climbed down, went into the house, where my father's anger seemed almost a relief after Lincoln's disappointment. He calmed down soon enough, though, made us both a cup of tea and joined me at the kitchen table.
'What are we going to do with you, Em?'
'What do you mean?'
'Jesus, Em, you stuck your nose into a men's sacred site. There's people out there who think you should be dead.'
'Fuck.'
'That won't happen, of course - not with Lincoln and me around, but you're not to go anywhere near the camp. Not if you want to stay in one piece.'
And that was when he laid it on me: he thought I should leave the station. Straightaway.
Still rattled by my own stupidity, I sat there in a stony silence as he outlined his reasoning and his plans. He told me he'd been worrying for years about my lack of formal education, about what he called my 'wasted talent'. Said I was fourteen now, that the crunch years were looming, and that if I was ever going to make anything of myself it was time to get started. He had a sister in Adelaide who'd offered to take me in, and the
Aboriginal Scholarships Program would cover most of the costs.
And it's not just you,' he said, frowning. 'Right now I'm worried about the whole box and dice.'
'Which box and dice?'
'All of us here. The community. Sivvier's bringing in more and more of his own people.' Brick Sivvier had taken over the property a few weeks before. 'The other day I had some shifty git come sniffin around the workshop like he owned it. Went down to the Big House to talk to Brick about it, and he looked down his nose at me as if I was some kind of cockroach. And he's talking about the blackfellers like they're not even there. Thing is, Em, I dunno if any of us are gonna be here much longer.'
My initial reaction was anger: Moonlight Downs was all the home I knew, and I was buggered if I was going to see us kicked off it. But as the day wore on, as Jack went off to work and I mooned around the house, other ideas began to rise to the surface. I'd never been further south than Alice Springs. I'd always thought of 'Down South', the city, as some kind of mechanical monster looming across the other side of the desert, something that chewed you up and spat you out.
But if there was danger in those crowded streets, there was, as well, a certain allure. The city was the place where things happened, where the decisions and the money were made, where fashions and ideas were fomented.
And there was something else. As I grew older I was feeling more and more hemmed in by the restrictions and narrow-mindedness of the community, more torn between the black and white aspects of my heritage. The incident at the cave was the crowning shame of a series of indiscretions: I'd been arguing with the elders, asking too many questions, talking back, chatting up boys of the wrong skin.
Could I see myself spending the rest of my life in this dump? No way.
The wide, white world was beckoning. I knew I'd have to tackle it some day; given the mess in which I found myself, maybe now was the time.
That night, after Jack had gone to sleep, I snuck out of my bedroom window, ran down to the camp, hid in the darkness and spied upon Hazel and her family. Eventually the others drifted off to bed and she was left alone by the fire, brooding over a pannikin of tea. The depression seemed to radiate out from her, and I cursed the bloody-mindedness - my own - that had brought her to this pass. I crept in close, flicked a pebble at her back.
'Hazel!' I called softly.
She looked around, spotted me in the darkness and frowned, but sidled over to where I lay. 'What you doin here?' she whispered.
'Had to talk to you.'
'Don't let anybody see you, Emily. You should go back home now.'
'What's going to happen to you, Hazel?'
A brief silence ensued, then she said, 'They're marryin me off.'
'What! Who to?'
'You know that Jangala, Jimmy Lively, over Kirrinyu?'
'Shit. He's older than your father. And he's already got a wife.'
She shrugged.
'Haz
el,' I said, 'I'm goin away…'
'Where away?'
'Down south.'
'Alice?'
'Adelaide.'
'Adelaide!'
'Got no choice, Hazel, but I'll be back, I promise.' I squeezed her hand.
A voice called out from the shack. 'Hazel!'
'Comin,' she responded, then looked back at me and whispered, 'Oh Emily, why you gotta break every rule in the book? Can't you at least read the bloody thing first?'
I didn't know what to say. She kissed me, fiercely, then went to join her little sister in the swag.
'Goodnight Hazel,' I heard her father call, and then his voice dropped a decibel or two: 'And goodnight to you too, Emily Tempest.'
I sat there in the darkness for another ten minutes, an ineffable weariness stealing over me. 'I'll be back,' I mouthed to the sleeping camp.
The next day Jack drove me into Bluebush, where I spent the day getting ready to go down south. That evening Jack put a call through to Brick Sivvier and was told that he needn't come back to work, his services were no longer required. Neither of us was surprised, though we put a different spin on it. To Jack it was the incentive he needed to get to work on a promising mining lease out at Jennifer Creek. To me it seemed part of the punishment for my transgression. And when we found out, soon afterwards, that the Warlpuju had been given the arse as well, the proximity of the events was not lost on me.
Our last day was their last day. Jack and I drove out to pick up our gear and we met them on the road to Bluebush. The picture is still there, mig-welded into my memory: the line of cars, the women weeping, the kids gawking, the men ash-faced. Hazel was nowhere to be seen.
Twelve years on I'd grown up, acquired an education and travelled the world. But still, apparently, I'd failed to redeem myself in the eyes of the person whose acceptance I wanted most.
I heard the door of the gaol rasp and she came out and joined me. We sat there in silence, until I rolled a smoke and offered one to her.
'Shit, Em,' she said, 'you trying to corrupt me? I'm supposed to be the health worker, you know?'
'Not exactly a huge crowd for you to set an example for, is there?'
She rubbed my knee, put an arm around my shoulder. 'If only you hadn't stayed away so long, Em, maybe it wouldn't have been so difficult. Why didn't you come back earlier?'
'Lots of reasons, Haze. I was afraid, for one. And I suppose I wanted to see the world, break out of the shithole in which I imagined I'd been raised. Same as most kids.'
Hazel snorted. 'Most kids don't have to kick the door down to get out of the house. Emily Tempest…who ever knew what to make of you?' She grinned, shook her head. 'Tempest? Christ, you was a little bloody cyclone, with your mouth full of questions and your fists full of answers, your spinifex kisses and your wild white ways.'
She rose to her feet, slapped me across the shoulder. 'Come on, you crazy bugger, we're not gonna sort anythin out sittin here. Let's head back in; they'll be wondering where we got to. Go now and we'll be home for breakfast.'
Investigations
Twenty minutes later we were cruising along the track, Ry Cooder ripping into 'Get Rhythm' on the tape deck, Hazel tapping time and grinning like a wet gecko.
'Nice music,' she said.
'Great riff,' I agreed. 'I'll try to get back out in a few days.'
'You gotta go back in to Bluebush right away?'
'I'm supposed to be at work this arvo. Better go, unless you got enough money to keep me in the style to which I'm accustomed.'
'I got a couple o' bucks.'
'That's about the style I'm accustomed to.'
'But Jangala got a nine hundred dollar book-up at the store.'
'Nine hundred bucks? Shit! We're in the red. How'd they let him get that high?'
'His friendly smile?'
'His cunning-as-a-one-eyed-camel smile. Remember the time he managed to con those tourists into towing him all the way to Katherine?'
'Plenty o' people get towed round here.'
'Yeah, but usually in a car that's broken down. That one didn't even have a motor.'
'Oh, that time.'
We drove on for a while, then I said, 'I'll only stay in Bluebush long enough to get a bit of a stash together, then come and spend some time out here.'
She put a hand on mine. 'Long as you don't wreck the place.'
'I'll probably be more trouble than I'm worth, but I'd like to help get the community going again.'
'Wouldn't we all?'
When we reached the camp none of the others seemed particularly concerned about us: evidently they were used to Hazel and her wandering ways. She pottered around with her horse gear for a while, played a game of scratch-basketball with the kids, then began to gather together the wherewithal for a meal.
'You got time for a feed?' she asked.
'Sure. Don't have to be at work until five.'
I wasn't planning to go in straightaway anyway. I wanted to make a closer inspection of the patch of mulga in which Lincoln had been murdered, and Hazel's preoccupation with the meal gave me the chance.
I'd been reluctant to visit the site in her company. Death in any form brings up a vast array of taboos among the Warlpuju; the death of a loved one magnifies those taboos enormously.
So while Hazel pounded a damper and cooked up a stew I went over and stood on the edge of the scrub. The crime scene had been accorded the full extent of the detailed scrutiny warranted by yet another dead blackfeller: roughly zip. Whatever perfunctory investigations the cops had been carrying out had been disrupted by the appearance, and dramatic disappearance, of the prime suspect.
I got onto my hands and knees and wondered if I could do any better.
Nope, I decided a few minutes later. I can't.
I don't know what I'd expected to find. Fingerprints, maybe? There were fingerprints there, or what must have been fingerprints before the wind and the weather got to them. Fingerprints by the square metre. Entire hand prints in fact, not to mention foot prints, knee prints, nose prints, even a set of teeth, all of them mementos of the mayhem that had erupted on this site a few weeks earlier.
But what did they tell me? Bugger all. A lot of people had been doing bizarre things to each other, trying to assuage their grief. I already knew that.
Okay then, if my eyes weren't going to be much use, how about my brain?
Hungry as a hawk. Who'd described me that way recently? Shit. Blakie. Maybe it was time I started satisfying that hunger with a few well-placed questions.
About motive, for one. Why would anyone want to kill Lincoln? Why would they have chosen that particular method? and this particular place?
The last question seemed a logical place to start, given that I was on location, as it were. Why here?
The site's proximity to Blakie's camp had led the cops - and me - to assume that he was responsible, but did it have any other attributes? It was isolated, for one, close to the single men's camp but far enough away to be beyond the noses and ears of the dogs. And, by local standards, the scrub was thick. The ideal spot for an ambush.
I took a few short steps into the mulga, then a few long ones, and ended up at the foot of a low rise. When I climbed it I found myself surprisingly close to the main road.
I stood for a minute or two, lost in the mottled landscape of my own thoughts.
Why here?
The answer emerged from the topography.
An outsider.
If you were an outsider wanting to kill someone in the camp, this would be the logical spot. You could sneak in, conceal yourself, wait for your target to wander by and be gone before anybody knew about it.
Violent death was as common as snotty noses in the blackfeller camps. Anyone investigating would automatically figure it as an inside job. The mutilation, with its intimations of sorcery, would have strengthened the supposition.
Somewhere up ahead, through the knotted branches, I spotted movement in the air. A black hawk hovered, radiating
violence. What did it have its eye on? I took a step forward and saw a flock of zebra finches moving through the grass, eating seeds. The hawk glided down, landed less than a metre from them, waited as if it had all the time in the world - which it did. The finches froze; even I froze, although the blood was rushing in me. The hawk sprang with a casual, hopping movement, seized a finch, killed it with a blow to the brain. The survivors scattered like the blast from a shotgun.
Zebra finch: one of Lincoln's dreamings.
It was the sight of that sudden attack that put into words the half-baked speculation that had been floating around all morning in the half-baked custard of my brain.
The words, of course, were 'Earl Marsh'.
Did our sensitive new-age neighbour have the same approach to blackfellers who were a pain in the arse as he had to dogs which bit him on the arse? He'd fought the land claim tooth and nail: had he decided to fight the claimants similarly? He didn't look like he had the brains to blow his nose, much less set up the murder as an inside job. But, until I knew him better, how could I tell what he was capable of?
He had a motive of sorts: his anger over the land claim, the return of a horde of unwanted neighbours, the trouble with the dogs. He had the means: I could well imagine those massive slab- hands wrapping themselves around Lincoln's neck.
And, more than anything else, he had that dodgy lease, conveniently 'signed' the day before Lincoln died.
Convenient? Shit, it was more than that. Not exactly a smoking gun, but getting there. A spent shell, perhaps; something which could be tied to a gun. If I could find any evidence of the bastard's being here I'd take my suspicions to McGillivray.
I made my way through the silver leafwork and the spindly branches, slowly and deliberately, my eyes scouring the earth.
From time to time I crouched down, studied the sand, searching for anything out of place. The main occupants of this little patch of scrub were ants: white-ants, honey-ants, mulga ants, meat- ants, slow-moving moneybox ants. They scurried across its surface in furious formations, snapped their mandibles, built their turrets and towers. If there was a success story in this country, they were it. They'd be here, moiling away, when the rest of us were grains of sand in the desert of time.
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