There was not much to go around once they had gutted the goanna and cooked it – not for thirty or so children anyway. They had been hungry so long – for most of them they had always been hungry – it felt like a feast. Every child acted like they had plenty, eating only a little, pretending they needed no more, so the others could have a share. Every child was still hungry when the lizard was nothing except scattered bones and stripped charred skin, yet many theatrically rubbed their bellies.
That night, emboldened by the meal of lizard, and still hungry beyond imagining, six of the older children, Jacky included, escaped from their locked dormitory. Sneaking carefully across the silent mission grounds, each praying all the others would be as quiet as them, they broke into the dining hall. At the back of the silent hall was the kitchen, hard-floored, surprisingly cold and empty at that time of night. They stole through it like cats.
The pantry was locked when they silently and carefully tried the door; it had not been locked last time they had performed a raid. Although they had not been caught, the missing food must have been noticed. In silent agreement they boosted the smallest child up to a grill above the door; it was loose and emitted only a tiny creak like the song of a cricket.
She slipped her head and shoulders through the grill and wriggled until she lay over the sill of the vent on her belly. Her hips disappeared and then she slithered into the hole like a lizard. Too fast, she must not have found anything to hold on to. There was a thump, and then a terrifying clatter, too loud in the silence. Jacky stepped closer to the door, suddenly worried for the girl. A string of whispered profanities he was surprised the girl knew filtered through the door.
The door lock clicked, barely audible through the bitching and moaning, and the door swung open. The girl was lying on the floor, half curled up, a scattering of food containers half covering her. She moaned then, making sure she would be heard.
Helping her to her feet the other children fell upon the bounty before them, shovelling whatever food they could into their mouths. It was simple food: some of the cured meat the Settlers ate so much of, some bland cheese, blander bread, dried fruit that was sometimes, rarely, used to make their porridge more exciting. In determined silence they shoved small amounts of food in frayed pockets and down their tucked-in shirts. So hungry, so intent on filling always empty bellies they were oblivious to anything else, heads empty of all thought.
It was not until they prepared to leave, bellies distended, pockets bulging, that they gave thought to hiding their presence there. It was too late. Jacky turned to leave and saw the silhouette of a nun in the doorway, shadows at her back, blacking out her face.
They had only two sheds in which to lock the children so four of them, including Jacky, were chained to trees at the corners of the mission. Left there for days they were given barely enough water to keep them alive, but no food. ‘You have eaten enough,’ the nuns would say when the children begged for something to eat. In the end the heat, the thirst, the hunger was too much for Jacky and he blacked out, unconscious, oblivious, near to death under his tree.
When he awoke in a bed in the tiny infirmary he was allowed a small bowl of watery soup, not much more than broth from boiling bones, not even any bones to gnaw. It was water at least, even if it was not a lot to eat. He returned to the dormitory then, hungrier than he had ever been in his life, so sick they allowed him a day off work, a day off classes, a day moping in the dormitory. When the other children returned from class that afternoon nobody wanted to speak to him, nobody wanted to be the one to tell him. The girl who had climbed in through the vent, who had opened the door, had died of starvation and thirst in the ‘boob’.
Jacky woke in his nest in the grasstree needles; they rustled and cracked under him as he rolled over to look for the Settlers who had inadvertently trapped him there. It was dark. Jacky had slept and dreamt the whole day through. The Native slaves had stopped working on what he thought must be the start of some sort of building, at the crossroads. Some of the tents glowed with a faint, warm, yellow light; others were dark. A small number of the Settlers sat around a small campfire in the middle of the circle of tents. Jacky could see them there well enough to count them – eleven, and there were no doubt more in the tents – yet not well enough to get any clue what they were doing.
They are probably eating, thought Jacky, as his stomach moaned at him again.
He had no hope of getting to sleep, his unplanned rest taking away too much of his fatigue. His fear of discovery, his long-standing hunger, were conspiring to keep him painfully, annoyingly alert. No matter, it was best that he watch what the Settlers were doing. Lying there he rolled into a more comfortable position, as silently as possible. He needed to pee, yet would not dare move; it was too dangerous.
The moon was directly overhead, casting her silvery-blue light on the world, before the last Settlers wandered off into their tents. Stopping to relieve himself within the cover of the grasstrees, Jacky began a wide skirting path around the camp. It was his hunger that stopped him from simply running. There would surely be food in the camp, could he, should he risk it? Was entering the camp, stealing from the Settlers, more of a risk than going on without any food?
Hunger – desperate, painful hunger – drove him into the camp of people he knew could be nothing other than enemies. There is no greater drive, no greater force in behaviour than hunger; it trumps even sex, the desire to breed, for those desires do not exist in the truly hungry. People will do almost anything if you starve them long enough. Hunger made him careless, hunger made him stupid.
Relying on the scant darkness for cover he silently edged closer to the ring of firelight around the Settler camp. All was still; not even the sound of snoring broke the silence. Not every Settler in the camp had made it inside to sleep; some lay, long cloth-wrapped lumps, around the fire. There was no sign he could see of the Native workers, the slaves, they must be locked up somewhere.
The night was so silent Jacky would have believed he had gone deaf had not a curlew cried out, cried like a restless spirit. ‘Weeeoooooooorleeooo,’ it cried again, mournful and cautioning. Jacky knew he was not safe. Maybe half-woken by the alien noise a Settler snorted and rolled over, almost rolling onto Jacky’s foot as he skittered away from the Settler’s hot breath.
Dashing to the pile of luggage and supplies, momentarily forgetting caution, Jacky climbed up top, feeling the bags and boxes for anything familiar as he went. Here, dried meat; there, something that smelled like dried fruit, finally something he could eat for a long time; a bag of flour. He stuck handfuls of dried fruit in his pocket, and grabbed so much dried meat in his left fist some slipped through his fingers. Raising the heavy sack of flour to his shoulder, a difficult manoeuvre with meat in one hand, Jacky prepared to run.
Unexpectedly, he was startled by a sudden voice.
‘What are you doing here?’
Jacky stood up just a little too quickly, a little too carelessly. The mouth of the flour-bag frayed open, showering him and the surrounding area with flour. It filled the air like fog; it filled his nose and mouth, making him choke, making him sneeze; it covered his face. The curlew cried again. Jacky was looking straight into the eyes of a trooper, those eyes were wide with shock, maybe with fear.
‘Who-what-are-you?’
Jacky was speechless, was frozen with fear. He stood there making no noise at all. Another night-bird called out, wailing its defiance at the sudden return of silence. He turned too fast towards the noise, flour billowing off his clothes into the still night. The trooper screamed. Jacky ran, stumbling, tumbling down off the hillock of baggage. The clatter and crunch, the screaming and shouts followed him as the rest of the troopers woke. Dashing off, he was too afraid, too desperate to even notice that he was running through a cloud of flour leaving a white, dusty trail, his bare feet marking it clearly. The Settlers were too sleep-fogged, too confused to give pursuit, even those co
nvinced it was not a ghost who had attacked them.
Johnny Star was completely and thoroughly sick of the local meat, the stuff the Natives seemed to relish. It was tasteless, it was tough, far tougher than what he had grown up on, tougher than his boots if anyone asked him. Even if it had been better meat, it would still be inedible, charred as it was, by necessity, cooked direct on the flames. His friends, companions, had provided this meal, and many before it so maybe it was time to raid another settlement for food he would find more familiar. They sat around the fire in a rough ring, everyone but him a Native. But they were different to the other Natives he had seen.
These men were rough, rugged, strong, solid and healthy; carved of bone, leather and wiry muscle. They were dressed in a ragged, dirty combination of Native clothes and those they had stolen from Settlers. There was no reason, no intent to their choices except for the desire to cover their bodies in protection from the elements. Johnny had been learning how to read their faces better and under every expression – joy at the food, laughter at a joke, sleepiness, a shallow constant fear – simmered an underlying anger and fierce determination.
They were all, to a man, armed with weapons they had stolen from Settlers. This was what the Settlers feared; the Natives were already cunning, violent, dangerous. Their skills had kept them alive with no modern weapons for thousands of years. The addition of better weapons had made them extremely, even terrifyingly, dangerous. They were his friends, the only friends he had, having deserted from the Troopers. Maybe they were the best friends he had ever known. He admired them, trusted them, even loved them. Years of fighting and escaping together had forged bonds stronger than he could have imagined. Despite that, even Johnny was scared of them; he was too sensible not to be.
Above all, what made them different to all the other Natives was that they still had pride. He remembered the Natives from his old life: those he policed, those he arrested, those he injured and killed in the process of arresting them. Those he injured and killed for no reason. They had no fight left in them; they lacked life, they lacked energy, seeming to want little more than to make it through their remaining days with as little energy spent as possible. His friends were different: they stood straight and tall, unbent; they were strong.
He had learnt, through his friends, that the bent, broken drugged and drunk state of those surviving near the settlements was not the habitual state of Natives. The truth was, it was a sort of depression brought on by what they had lost, brought on by being dominated and controlled by another people. Who could not be depressed, being treated like animals in a land that had once been theirs alone.
His friends were only five, but with those five he had terrified the Settler communities.
Tucker, the man who had found him half-starved and nearly completely dehydrated, was his right-hand man, and most importantly his best friend. He would be the leader of the group were it not for Johnny’s training as a trooper. It was that training that had kept them alive so far, kept them free. He had taught them the Settler ways, taught them Settler guns and the brutal tactics that had made the Troopers so feared. Perhaps more importantly, he had taught them to show no mercy.
Only the Natives’ respect for his abilities, abilities learnt to fight their countrymen, kept him in charge, not his status as a member of the Settler race. Which was fine for Johnny. He was no longer convinced his people had any right to control the Natives, or even that they deserved to continue living in this place.
The truth was, were it not for Tucker they would all be long dead. His ability to find food in the most barren of environments, his ability to hunt game, both small and large, had earned the respect of Johnny and the other Natives. He was not, however, the best fighter. That title belonged to Crow Joe. They had found him when he ran away from a Native circus owned by a Settler. There he had entertained the Settlers with an unearthly ability to throw an axe with pinpoint accuracy. There he also got in constant trouble for brawling.
Deadeye was the best shot in the group. Before he absconded, running for his life after refusing to hunt down a countryman, he had been a Native tracker working for the Troopers. His employers, who relied upon him at every moment they were out in the desert, had foolishly taught him how to fire a rifle. So impressed they were with his skill they had bet against others on his accuracy. It had not occurred to them, then, that a Native who could outshoot them would be dangerous.
Brothers Dip and Dap were almost silent and completely unassuming, almost impossible to notice unless they wanted you to notice them. They had escaped from a mission when still quite young, eking out a living in towns and on the fringes. Somehow they had avoided being recaptured, becoming almost invisible, hiding in plain sight among the servants and workers of their race. Making a living as thieves they survived that way from childhood, developing a devious cunning intelligence and an uncanny ability to fade into the background.
It was unpleasant out there, where they were camping, where they were hiding from his former friends. Near the settlements was simply not safe. He had been declared outlaw, his life forfeit, after he was recognised on their last raid. So they were out on the edge of the desert where, without his Native friends, he would have almost no chance of survival.
His Native friends thought it beautiful – this place he was forced to tolerate, this hot dry desert, the twisted grey trees, grey trunks and grey leaves. He was trying, always trying to see it their way. If he could appreciate the beauty, his life would be more pleasant. No matter how much he wished it, this place was not beautiful.
Not for the first time, not even for the hundredth time since that fateful, excruciatingly horrific night when he lost his faith, lost everything he had, Johnny wondered why they were even there, why the Settlers had taken this place. It was not like the other places they had colonised. It was drier, more alien an environment than any they had been to before. It was less hospitable here than any other they had conquered.
Why did I come? That was the thought that never left his overburdened mind. Why did he travel to the colony to join the Troopers? Certainly home was not the land of opportunity; there was nothing for him there. But here, this place . . . what a shithole. Why did I not, he thought, tell them all to bugger off when the choice to come here and join the Troopers was offered?
Now he was declared outlaw, he could never go home; he would be lucky to be sent home in a box once he was dead. A lonely unmarked grave, never to be visited by mourners, never to be mourned, for nobody would even care. That was what happened to the other outlaws after their execution – he had seen it, he had helped catch those same outlaws. That would be his fate. All he could do was live as long as he could then hope for the afterlife he had been promised.
He didn’t deserve the afterlife, none of his people did. Murder is a sin, he had been taught that so many times, yet murder was the way of life throughout the colony. How could people be so blind, so ignorant to believe that killing the Natives was in some way an exception to the rule?
They might not even bury him. His bleached bones would lie forever, long after his soul had left, long after his flesh had rotted. He had seen the places where the Natives had been buried after his people had attacked; where rivers had flooded and eroded, cutting through the mass graves, scattering the bones. He had seen where burial had been too much effort, where wild dogs had scattered bones in their squabbles over the last scraps of flesh.
It was a land of bones he walked, a land of death and bones and pain. He had helped make it that way, had added bones to the soil. He was as guilty as any other. He knew now though, that when you plant bones, nothing grows from them. Nothing but pain.
As much as his homesickness racked at his soul there was no use thinking about it. This camp in the bush was his home – a series of camps in the bush would be his home until they planted his bones.
The blue-grey of the desert trees, stunted and dry, matched the blue-grey sky b
etter than the green of trees from a wetter place. Jacky was at home there, for a short time. Even the sun was not too hot for him. He was home, not the home he knew, or even the home he did not remember. Instead he felt the touch of home in the scorching fire of the sun.
He stopped running; there was no longer any need, or so he felt. They were still after him, but they were no longer close, he hoped. Freedom, something he could not remember ever feeling before, lifted and cradled his wounded heart.
Weeping, he staggered to a stop; the sky, the leaves, the cloud-grey bark, blurring from the tears until he could no longer place his feet. Falling to his knees he lost himself in his loss, his hope, he could not know if his tears were happy or despairing. All he knew was that he could no longer stand, no longer even try to walk.
Even if he could stand he would be going nowhere; he was no more lost than ever before. This was not the issue, was not what blocked his path, he simply could not move. Despair and hope pulled him in opposite directions until there was no impetus towards either.
Swaying in a breeze that did not move the trees he stood, breathing in air that was too heavy for his lungs he stood. There was nothing he could do, no way to move, he would stand there until he starved, until he fell, until his bones were painted brown by the dust of his flesh. Or at least that was how he felt.
‘Ghosts don’t steal flour,’ one man said. ‘It was just a Native, look at the footprints,’ said another. Yet the argument continued. The trooper who had seen the apparition refused to give up his theory; there was no way he would accept being scared by a Native. The sides when they formed were more along friendship or grudge lines than based on knowledge or logic. Most of the civilians – the engineers, the builders were on the ‘it’s a ghost’ side, surprised to find the Natives siding with them, though it was impossible to know whether they took that side just to frighten the Settlers.
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