“Their wise and powerful leader, whose sacred name is not spoken, had an orca totem. The orca promised to warn the leader when the bond with the ancestors was broken. One day the leader saw the orca breach and heard it call out the danger to him. Alarmed, the king tried to warn his people, but they were deaf from the loudness their shadow stories had created and did not hear him. The leader left the bay with the orcas as the people danced and forgot the ancestors’ ways. As the years passed, the echo from the ancestors fell silent, forgotten,” said Figgie.
His story made me think of all the silence that surrounded my kin and me.
“The bay became devoid of life,” Figgie continued. “The bounty it and the land provided disappeared. The people grew hungry as great deserts engulfed the land. A small group of villagers, who kept the ancestors’ stories alive in their Dreaming, saw visions of their leader returning.”
Figgie had the attention of all his mates, who had put down their paintbrushes and gathered around him. Everyone stopped working.
“One day the villagers felt a powerful storm blowing from the west. The people were afraid that the bay would swallow them. They waited in fear as the sun fled from the sky and the west wind—the orca Jungay—arrived. The spirit of our great leader returned with him. Jungay summoned the spirits of all the village ancestors with him to live in the orcas. They showed the villagers how to live in harmony. Jungay taught our people the Law of the Bay,” Figgie explained.
“What’s that, mate?” asked one of the town boys.
“We take only what the bay gives to us, what we need to live,” continued Figgie. “Above all, we honor the spirits of all things. Every fall, this pact is reborn when the orca ancestor spirits return. They guide sick and dying whales to the inlet for us to hunt. The large whales accept this, knowing they are nourishing the bay that fed them life. It is the natural way of things. We, in turn, share our catch with the orcas. Every creature—man and animal—get a fair share.”
I knew those beasts helped with the hunt. I figured at best they were pointer dogs, at worse a nuisance, like seagulls hovering over a school of fish. Now Figgie gave us this to chew on. His story was a rippa, but I couldn’t see any good coming from relying on those killers.
Somehow, Figgie made river stones seem like diamonds.
“Savannah, our grandfathers shared Jungay’s gift with both our people,” Figgie added, looking at me as his voice strengthened, “and vowed to always uphold the Law of the Bay—Jungay’s Law. His return one day will deepen our sacred bond with the bay, but it will bear a warning too.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I do not know yet,” said Figgie, starting to paint again.
We finished painting in silence—white hull planking and blue gunwales trimmed with a yellow stripe underneath. Figgie revealed what the colors of the boats meant. I knew the blue and white were the Scottish colors of St. Andrew and a symbol of hope for Zionists. The yellow trim stood for the villagers. All united in one vessel, just as Abe had said to Papa. Those colors were as good a mark of ownership on the bay as signing a land deed was in town. Now I knew they meant even more than that.
Figgie said the spirits of many of the old whalers had gone on to join the pod. His grandfather’s spirit was in Burnum, the great warrior.
Seemed those Blackfish were behind all my agitations. They kept popping up in my life, haunting me. By rights I had a score to settle with them. Bay or no bay, those killers hadn’t protected my brothers none. It was high time I found out what made them tick.
Figgie’s storytelling got me thinking that our folks had some special things to share with the world, too. After we finished painting, I planned to show him.
In just a few days Figgie had darn near learned his ABCs and could pronounce a few words I fingered. I wondered at times if he had been pulling my leg about not knowing how to read because it came so naturally. To show him what was in store once he could read, I invited Figgie to my secret space.
Papa never went up to the attic, so I’d made it into my private area. We lit a candle and crawled through a narrow passage toward my space. Along the way, we saw old dolls and toys from my younger years and the two lockers containing Ezra and Asa’s things.
“This is what I like about you, Savannah,” said Figgie, finally able to stand. “You’re full of surprises.”
As I lit a few more candle nubs, Figgie rummaged through things propped against the wall.
“A bit small, but well made,” he said, retrieving a fishing pole and snapping it with a surf caster’s wrist. “I would do fine with this.”
“Don’t be touching that. It was Asa’s fishing pole,” I barked, grabbing it from him. “There are some things that need to be let be.”
“A new sketch,” said Figgie jumping across the room.
“Must you touch everything,” I said, rolling my eyes but glad he found it.
“That is a fine drawing,” he said.
“Thank you. It’s my family as I figured we’d look,” I said, proudly holding it up.
In the drawing, we were all there. I was sitting at my wondering spot on the railing. Asa sat on a lower step with his legs crossed, wearing shorts and long socks. Eli crouched on the top step, elbows on his knees the way Papa sometimes did. Mum leaned forward in Papa’s chair, knitting. Papa stood behind her, his hands on the chair, smiling, his face bright and unwrinkled. Two cats were slinking around behind us because that was what they did.
“You have long hair and appear the same age as your brothers?”
“Artists are allowed to do that sort of thing.”
“How do you know what your mum looked like?”
“I don’t really,” I said, placing the drawing back on Papa’s old locker. “This is all I had to use.”
I led him to where Mum’s things were in the far corner by the chimney so they wouldn’t get musty from the dank air. Her cedar chest was half-open like a clamshell on its side. I’d put shelves made from scrap wood and loose nails inside it to hold her books. I proudly pointed out the highlights of the collection. There were six Dickens novels, two Jane Austens, and a few philosophy books, along with many others.
Figgie didn’t wear the expression of astonishment I’d expected.
“You’re lucky I’m the one teaching you,” I said. “I had to learn from Brennan by reading The Boy’s Manual of Seamanship and Gunnery.”
I told Figgie that I’d named my cats after many of the characters I read about in these books.
“That’s the great thing about reading,” I added. “After hearing the words in your mind, you kind of own what they say, too. They stay with you the way your ancestors do.”
Inside the concave lid of the chest, I showed him the few mementos of Mum’s that I’d pinned to the cloth. I had her nurse’s hat, silver mission pin, and a gold brooch with a rose that sprang open. Inside it, I’d found a sealed note that she had written to me. Figgie asked what the note said, but I couldn’t tell him since I was still afraid to read it.
“This isn’t a library, Savannah,” he said, touching the chest. “It’s a shrine to your mum, the way the landscape is to my people.”
“You see, we both have things worth sharing,” I said.
Yet there were secrets that the world still withheld from me. For all the bounty it brought forth, the bay remained an exacting master offering nothing freely. It would be up to me to decide if the levy was worth the sacrifice.
11.
The glen behind Loch Bultarra was mowed only twice a year—once in early spring and again at the end of the summer—to create a cricket field for the annual fishermen versus whalers trophy match.
It was quite an ordeal for us working females. We not only had to put up with weeks of listening to male bluster and gamesmanship, but were expected to remove the grease, grime, and grass stains from t
heir uniforms after each practice. Just before the whaling season, the try-works turned into a giant laundry. The iron pots filled with lye as we spent an entire day boiling away last season’s memories.
Everyone dressed to the nines for the whalers trophy. I had to wear the one white dress that fit me, though it ripped under the arms every time I moved my shoulders. Frieda still bemoaned my missing locks, combing what little hair I had straight back and stiffening it with Abe’s scalp tonic. This made my forehead look like a giant bulbous growth. Frieda slathered some cream on my face as if she were painting a whaleboat.
“Stop fidgeting,” she said, grabbing my chin. “You ought to get used to making such sacrifices if you want to attract young men with serious intentions.”
“Well, even a show horse draws plenty of unwanted flies,” I half-sassed back.
Frieda threw back her head, laughing and grabbing both my cheeks.
“Oh, my chica bonita, such sweetness of youth,” she said, standing me up. “But you understand nothing of becoming a woman.” She laughed again, turned me around, gave my hindquarters one good smack, and told me to get on with it.
I borrowed one of Frieda’s floppy straw bonnets to hide my hideously painted face. The field looked particularly lush, making the long rectangular cricket pitch of bare earth stand out even more. The umpires set the bails upon the wickets as they went about inspecting the pitch and creases in the box. Papa, Lon, and Abe stood for our crew while lads from seven other stations made up the Whalers Club.
I went to grab a bat and hit a few practice balls to our fielders, as I always did, when two of the wives escorted me back to the food table. One of them said it would be proper if I wanted to bring a plate to Lon during the lunch interval. I replied that he’d be waiting longer than a Federation drought for that meal.
As I skedaddled away from the women, the fishermen arrived in a white-painted wagon with a canvas awning drawn by two horses. Exiting the cart, they held aloft one of the most prized possessions of Reflect Bay—the Dodd’s Plug. It was only a brass scupper plug from Ebenezer Dodd’s ship, but for the past fifty-three years, the trophy gave the winners of this match bragging rights across New South Wales. We hadn’t won since I’d worn my first smock dress. Bowlegged, the fishermen strode onto our grounds in their pure white uniforms with red bow ties and red-and-white-ringed caps. A garish red B appeared on their shirts, which Papa said was contrary to match rules established at the Hook & Harpoon office in 1857. Our lads wore dignified light blue trousers and matching caps with plain white open-collared shirts.
Papa readied himself to bowl. As the umpire yelled, “Play, play,” our eleven took their places. I settled down far away from the sitting area with my new book. As much as I enjoyed smacking the ball around, I didn’t care much for watching cricket. All the finery and the men worrying about leg kicks and falling wickets gave me a good laugh. Most of the afternoon I kept to reading about poor Laura Rambotham and her classmates in The Getting of Wisdom. I wouldn’t think any boarding school could be that terrible, especially after living in Dawson Station. Occasionally I looked up from the goings-on in my Melbourne book to applaud a good play or an innings change.
The foul barks from the fishermen’s fans interrupted my reading. Looking for a new area to sit, I glanced toward the far end of the field. Lon snatched the red ball out of midair, stopping the white-suited runner in his tracks. While others clapped politely, one man stood, shook an angry fist at the sky, and bellowed at the clouds.
“Savannah, Savannah, over here!” I didn’t turn to acknowledge Lon’s shrill calls and whistles. “Help us give it back to these bottom feeders!”
I pulled Frieda’s bonnet down to my eyebrows and made a beeline away from the crowd. Now Lon was hunting me. I moved through the food area, avoiding eye contact with the mothers and wives who wanted to pair us off. Lon’s cries chased me as the teams switched places. With all the milling about, I slipped across the field behind the wickets to the footpath that forked down a gully and back toward Loch Bultarra. The last thing I expected was a blood-red carriage rumbling through such a narrow lane. The driver had whipped his horses into a gallop so they cut the turn where I was standing. The driver yanked the reins as I jumped out of the way and hid behind a tree.
“Hold on there!” he shouted in a strange accent. “Did you see someone?”
“It’s too hot to pay attention to such things,” came a female voice from behind the canopy.
The man leaped out of the carriage. He wore an old-fashioned cream-colored frock and matching Panama hat. He had a face like a dropped pie with dark beady eyes, and he craned his neck as he surveyed the area like a snake about to bite.
“Whatever it was, it’s gone,” he said, climbing the buckboard.
“Spoken like a true Bittermen,” added the female voice from the seat. “Must we really watch insects?”
“Cricket is a game you ought to learn,” he said, snapping the reins and charging off.
I ducked into the forest and followed the ridge of yellow gorse down to the graves. I hid in front of Pop’s large tombstone. So that was Jacob Bittermen, the bloke Papa had talked about over draughts. He seemed an odd fellow and hardly the sort to cause a sensation.
When the match and the cheering began again, I headed toward the beach. I wanted to visit Figgie’s village, but he’d told me he was part of a tossing ceremony for one of his friends. Instead I walked along the river mouth, gawking at the vessels from across the bay that invaded our shore. One of the ship-to-shore rowboats had gotten loose from its moorings and bobbed helplessly against the sand. Pulling my dress up to my knees, I pushed the bow free with my thigh and hopped on for a spin. I saw a young boy anxiously splashing between the float dock and an anchored boat.
“How am I doing, Savannah?” he shouted, continuing his lap toward me.
“Is that you, Aiden, swimming so well on your own?” I hollered, clapping loudly.
“It sure is,” yelled the boy, struggling to keep his head above water. “Soon I’ll be able to race you with the others, see.”
Aiden lifted his deformed leg above the side of the rowboat for me to examine. I pinched the misshapen muscles and congratulated him on his progress. Satisfied with his success, he headed to shore to catch the rest of the match.
Paddling my way around these floating neighborhoods, I saw every facet of life from Paradise tethered to our pylons. I wanted to cut each anchored line and let the whole town float away, taking those cocky gents I’d overheard in Paradise with them.
The bluff loomed over the inlet as a final marker before I hit open water. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go any farther in the small dinghy, and I had no plan or destination in mind. In some ways, I realized, I was as chained to this place as any of those boats.
I drifted in circles for a bit, the late afternoon sun casting shadows on the dipping waves. As I was rowing in the torches and campfires were already glowing. Singing and fiddle-playing drifted from the bunkhouses. The roar of the crowd rose over the trees, flooding the inlet with noise. I tied up the boat close to where I figured it should be as people streamed down from the meadow.
“Is it over?” I asked a passing stranger with his wife.
“Over?” said the man, annoyed. “It never started. Those whalers gave us a throttling we won’t soon forget, especially that Logan fella.”
“You mean Lonny?” I said, scarcely believing my ears.
“That’s him,” the man said. “Mark my words, he’ll be playing for the test team one day. Well, it’s done with.”
I wanted to ask another question, but the approaching throng distracted me. The heaviness of their footsteps made the rickety boards of the quay shake. Atop the shoulders of the team were Papa and Lon. Papa held the brass scupper plug over his head, laughing in a joyous way that I had never witnessed. The lads, and those following behind, were singing the vi
ctory song.
Beneath the Southern Cross I stand
A sprig of wattle in my hand
A product of my native land
A voice within me cries aloud
Australia you…
Lon yelled that I was his good luck charm as the entire team ran toward the end of the dock where I stood. Abe whisked me off my feet, and we all cannonballed into the drink. Floating and singing with the team, I knew this white dress would never fit again.
I didn’t see much of Papa or the crew the rest of the evening. Just as well. They expanded their shebeen into momma-girl’s outpost kitchen. It seemed every ounce of potent beverage in New South Wales flowed through there that night.
When things quieted down a bit, I took my fancy white dress and tossed it on the still raging bonfire at midfield. It had a dampening effect that I hoped would extend to Lon’s intentions toward me. He howled my name in a wounded dingo growl as he prowled from campfire to campfire, trying to sniff me out. Well, I tied my door shut and pushed my locker up against it just to be on the safe side. I fell into an uneasy sleep with a belaying pin under my pillow as I intended to be the only one lying there come sun-up.
The next morning I had the run of the place. It would’ve served them all right if three sperm whales had come waltzing into the bay while they were dragging the whips and jingles about. When Papa appeared on the porch, all bent up with his shirttails out, I used my book to cover the ear-to-ear grin I was growing.
“What are you looking at?” he said, patting himself down for matches. “Where’s my pipe?”
“You sure those are your pants you’re wearing?” I said, continuing to look at my book.
“Ah, be done with ya,” he said, waving me off. “I need to find my old army locker.”
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