Barefoot Kids

by Steve Hawke

  Buddy is itching to get to the old plane wreck. One of the local boys points the way. ‘The wreck’s down that way — or what’s left of it. This way’s better for fishing, but.’

  The track curls away from the bluff. Clearly it is not used much; the deep sand of the twin ruts has no tyre tracks, and the spinifex between the ruts is fresh and springy, not flattened by traffic. It curves around a small hillock that is topped by a weathered slab of rock. The boy points at the slab. ‘That’s an old beachcomber’s grave. Some Filipino bloke. They reckon he was murdered.’

  None of the locals wants to go down to the plane wreck, and it is only because Buddy is so determined that the Jirroo kids are persuaded. Jimmy leaves his guitar at the fork in the shade of a bush, and it takes less than a minute for them to emerge onto a beach that curves away from the bluff in a wide, white sweep.

  He doesn’t admit it, but when Buddy spots the object of his obsession, it is a bit disappointing. Half a century of tides, salt water and weather have reduced the DC-3 to just a partial skeleton of the fuselage. Sticking out from the wet sand exposed by the low tide, it looks like the rusty remains of a whale. Nevertheless, he races down through the soft sand at the top of the beach towards the wreck, with Tich on his heels.

  Most times this would have the makings of a perfect day — the freedom to roam and explore a new stretch of bush and beach. But this morning there are tensions between the three older kids as they follow Buddy and Tich down.

  Janey has not stopped sniping at Jimmy since the day he went to the talent quest, and neither is yet ready to find a way to make up. Nor was Janey’s mood improved by the events of the previous night. Though she does not question the age-old rules that separate men’s business from women’s in Aboriginal law, that doesn’t mean she has to like it. Jimmy and Dancer, uncertain about what they were allowed to say, were evasive when she tried to quiz them on their return from the men’s fire. She could understand why, but she still felt excluded, and jealous.

  When the three of them reach the wreck Buddy is busy with his preliminary survey. Tich has squeezed into a small space behind what used to be the cockpit where a couple of flaking, rusty old metal plates form a compartment with dark recesses. She pops her head out when she hears them. ‘No diamonds, but look at this!’

  She throws a starfish at Jimmy, who jumps out of the way.

  The truth is, there’s not a lot to see. Dancer points out that the tide is turning, and the fish will be on the bite soon; they should join the others on the next beach. When Dancer calls out to Buddy to get a move on, Buddy doesn’t even look up. He calls from the other end of the wreck, ‘I want to look around here some more.’

  Dancer laughs. ‘You really reckon you’re going to find those diamonds do you? After all this time, and fifty million people have crawled all over it?’ Buddy ignores him, so they decide to leave him to it.

  Jimmy heads back up the beach to get his guitar while Dancer, Janey and Tich pick their way across the wet sand of the tidal zone, and round the rocks at the foot of the bluff.

  The guitar is where he left it. But instead of heading down to the fishing beach Jimmy finds himself wandering off the track, out onto the bluff. He can hear the voices down below, but he doesn’t feel like joining them. He lies back and lets his mind wander. Before long the thoughts begin to blur and he is drifting in and out of sleep.

  He emerges from this sleep like someone coming round after an operation, struggling through a soupy fog. He finds himself staring up at a sun that seems abnormally large, and surrounded by a hazy whiteness. As his eyes begin to adjust and the sky tones return to their normal blue, there is a movement. Something comes out of that circle of brightness, a mere speck against the blue.

  He brings a hand up to shade his eyes as the speck moves in a slow spiral. Gradually it grows larger, and he can just make out that it is a sea eagle, wings spread, gently descending from an incredible height. He has to squint to keep track of it, as with each loop it crosses the sun. His mind is still murky with sleep and the image seems unreal, but he feels he has to keep Jiir in his sights. From somewhere within himself he begins to hear a guitar melody, a new one, a tune he has never heard before.

  The eagle glides slowly downwards, shifting in and out of the glare of the sun, growing a little larger with each loop. Now he can see its white neck and head feathers gleam in the sunlight. But his eyes are stinging with tears from the glare, and he must rest them.

  The tune is still playing in his mind, and colours are dancing in pinpricks and whorls on his closed eyelids. And then there is a voice, a deep, rumbling old man’s voice. It speaks in verse of Jiir — of the magic of flight and the beauty of the land he sees beneath him when the rain turns it green.

  Slowly it all fades away: music, words, colours. Jimmy lies perfectly still. His eyes flicker, then open.

  He scans the sky. There is no sign of the sea eagle.

  He breathes in deeply, smelling the salt air, and picks up his guitar. To his amazement, without a moment’s hesitation he is able to pick out the melody that had come to him while the eagle soared.

  He stops playing. Looks at his guitar, his hands. He shakes his head in disbelief and looks back up towards the sun and the empty sky. He knows that something very powerful has happened, but won’t let himself think about it, not yet.

  He bends over the guitar and begins to play the melody again. Very softly, he tries the words. His voice sounds inadequate, thin, after the deep rumble of the old man, but yes, it works: the rhythm of the verse fits the melody of the guitar.

  Jimmy is flooded with feelings he doesn’t understand, and a single thought: ‘Wait till Janey hears this.’

  At that moment he hears her frantic calling from down below. ‘Jimmyyy! Jimmmyyy! Where are you?’ The edge of panic in her voice sends a shiver through him.

  12

  THE FISH WERE biting and Dancer was having a great time. Eventually the thought struck him that Buddy should have turned up by now. Reluctantly, he left his line and went with Janey and Tich to look for him.

  When they reached the plane wreck they discovered Buddy stuck in the cramped space up near the cockpit. He was fighting back tears of pain and frustration. He had been yelling against the wind, and crying out in vain for the last hour.

  After the others left, Buddy had zeroed in on this dark corner as the only spot on the wreck worth investigating. He had set to work scraping out the sand, burrowing further and further, with the hope that he might find some relic he could salvage, perhaps even uncover a diamond.

  It was difficult work in the confined space, but he exposed a panel, wafer thin and rusted, that looked like it might have been the door of a cupboard behind the cockpit. He tried to straighten up and stretch before attacking this with new hope, and that’s when it happened. His foot crashed through the panel, into a cavity below. He lost balance, throwing more weight onto the leg, which went further through the panel with a painful scraping. Then he discovered that he could not pull his foot out. He was wedged between what felt like a pair of struts.

  He tried for a good half hour to get himself out before he started calling. But it was not until the water started to gather around him and he realised that the tide was on its way back in, that he began to feel real fear. He knew the tides of the Kimberley coast — in another two or three hours the water would be well above his head.

  He thought he was saved when Dancer and the girls appeared, but that was only the start of the drama. The water was up to his knees then. They tried to pull him out, but the pain was excruciating and his trapped foot wasn’t moving an inch. And the water level was creeping higher.

  Buddy’s fear infects the others. Janey snaps at Tich to run back and get the women. Tich takes off, her little legs pumping harder than they’ve ever done before.

  For another few minutes Janey and Dancer scrabble and pull and try to bend the struts, but nothing helps. When they stop to gather breath, they realise Buddy is shivering. D
ancer holds him by the shoulders and says fiercely, ‘Don’t worry bro, we’re getting you out of this.’ He turns to Janey. ‘We need tools. A crowbar — maybe bolt cutters.’

  They remember seeing tools in the back of Francis’s car, but they don’t know how far up the track the men have gone. There is a frantic consultation. Dancer has to stay — his strength is needed to keep trying to free Buddy. But Janey is not allowed near the place where the men have gone. Buddy decides the issue — he won’t let Dancer leave his side. ‘You’ve just got to do it Janey,’ Dancer tells her grimly.

  Janey runs up the beach towards the track, screaming for Jimmy. He appears as she reaches the fork by the beachcomber’s grave. She runs on, calling him to follow, saying they’ve got to find the men. Jimmy stops. ‘You can’t go there Janey. It’s a men’s place. I’m not supposed to — let alone a girl.’

  ‘Shut up and run Jimmy!’

  She gasps out an explanation as they reach the firmer ground of the main track. Once Jimmy understands what’s going on, he touches her on the shoulder; he has always been the best runner amongst them. He lengthens his stride, and runs ahead.

  He has no way of knowing how far he’ll have to run to find the men, and after sprinting for a couple of hundred metres he slows a little and scans the bush ahead and the tracks at his feet, knowing he must be alert in case they’ve turned off into the bush.

  Any other time Jimmy would have stopped running long before. Each breath is a struggle and the pain in his ribs and his legs is getting worse. But he pushes on.

  He runs out of a bend into a clearing and feels a flood of relief to see the cars all parked there higgledy-piggledy. He staggers towards Francis’s Toyota, his legs turning to jelly as they slow. He leans on the car, trying to gather enough breath to call out. Then he hears it — the faint chanting sound of the men singing.

  He remembers Buster’s warning that he cannot go to this place. Even in such a crisis, the taboo is powerful. His glance falls on the keys dangling from the ignition of the Toyota. He checks the tray. There is a battered toolbox and loose tools, including a crowbar and a coil of steel cable.

  The singing stops. He takes a hesitant step towards the source of the sound, but almost immediately there is the distant call of the lead singer, followed by other voices. The sound floats on the breeze, fading in and out. He cannot tell how far away they might be.

  With the tide rushing in, every moment counts.

  He decides.

  Everyone has come running from the fishing beach. There is now a knot of women and kids with Dancer and Buddy. Bella is cradling Buddy, whilst on his other side Dancer is working frantically, continually diving under. He now at least has a screwdriver to lever away at the metal, but it is making little impact. Buddy keeps his face turned into Bella’s breast as she whispers soothing words, but the pain and fear are taking their toll.

  The rising tide has brought the water as high as Buddy’s chest. Bella has positioned herself on the seaward side to break the swell as best she can. But with his leg trapped, she cannot lift him above the wash of water as it comes in. The first time the waters reach Buddy’s chin he cannot stop himself crying out in panic.

  Dancer and Bella exchange grim looks. Bella signals one of the women over, and whispers to her to find a hose or something else they can use as a snorkel.

  Jimmy stalls the Toyota on his first attempt. He is hoping that the sound of the engine will bring someone running, but no such luck. Third time lucky. Sitting as straight as he can to see over the steering wheel, he grates through the gears and takes the car jerkily onto the track.

  Coming round the first bend, there is Janey, hands on knees, trying to get her breath. She cannot hide her disappointment when she sees it is Jimmy driving — she had imagined the men would be with him. Jimmy stalls the car as he brakes beside her, screaming, ‘They weren’t there — only the cars. Get in!’

  ‘Jimmy, I can drive better than you — Dad lets me. Swap places!’ He glares at her, but only for a split second, then slithers over as she gets in.

  Janey has driven a handful of times under Eddie’s supervision on bush tracks like this, but always at very gentle speeds — and not in a big heavy beast like this. She grates the gears as badly as Jimmy did. The vehicle starts shuddering as it loses way, but she manages to avoid stalling, and after a few hundred metres gets up to top gear.

  ‘Here, now — right!’ Jimmy has spotted the track down to the beach just ahead. He holds tight as Janey takes the turn. But the car loses traction and judders to a halt in the softer sand of the sidetrack. ‘Low four! Low four!’ Jimmy screams.

  ‘Shut up Jimmy — what d’you think I’m trying to do!’ Janey is wrestling with the small floor lever but it won’t budge. Jimmy pushes her aside, and from his angle, manages to engage it.

  Somehow Janey guides the Toyota at a precarious angle down the twin sandy furrows and into the soft sand at the top of the beach. All heads are turned to them. She keeps just enough momentum to reach the spot on the beach where they are gathered.

  In a flash Jimmy has clambered into the back. He throws the rolled up cable to a woman, passes a hacksaw to Janey, grabs a pair of bolt cutters and the crowbar, and leaps down onto the sand. Jimmy and Janey run out towards the wreck, lifting their legs high, leaping the breaking waves. Tich is halfway out, water up around her chest, tears staining her face, screaming at them to hurry up as they wade on past her.

  The situation has become too grim for any outbreaks of joy at their arrival, though now there is new hope. The water has reached Buddy’s neck, with the swell breaking around his head. No hose could be found. Bella and one of the local boys have their hands under his armpits, stretching his exhausted body as far as they can.

  Dancer bends over close to Buddy’s face and whispers, ‘Janey and Jimmy are here. We’ve got tools now. Hang in there bro.’ But Buddy can only whimper and splutter as another wave of water breaks over him.

  Dancer grabs the hacksaw. He feels about for the right place, and makes a couple of strokes with it. He takes Jimmy’s hand and guides it down under the water, showing him where to cut at one of the struts. ‘You got it?’

  Jimmy nods, his head only just out of the water as he leans down to work the hacksaw. It is incredibly crowded, with the mob around Buddy unable to avoid jostling and bumping each other. Janey shoulders aside the boy helping to support Buddy and takes his place. She gives Buddy an awkward hug. ‘You’ll be okay,’ she says, and looks at Bella with pleading eyes for her agreement.

  Dancer ducks under water with the bolt cutters. It takes him a few goes. They are heavy, and awkward to manoeuvre in the water, but he finds a spot at which he can get the jaws around what he hopes might be a weak spot on the strut that is trapping Buddy.

  On the beach a woman has turned the Toyota to face the water, and is edging it as close as she dares. The wheels are digging deep into the moist sand. A steel cable is attached to the bull bar and another woman wades out towards the wreck with the cable.

  A bigger swell washes right over Buddy. He splutters and spits water. Janey and Bella exchange fearful looks and try to raise him an inch or two higher, but this only causes him to cry out in pain.

  The woman with the cable comes to a halt with a look of anguish — it’s a couple of metres short. The Toyota is virtually at the water’s edge and the wheel ruts are filling with mushy sand. The driver can make no leeway, and the car is sinking deeper.

  Jimmy curses wildly and pulls up the hacksaw, its snapped blade dripping water.

  Buddy has his neck strained and twisted, trying to keep his nose and mouth above the rising water. Everyone looks at Dancer. He is now the only hope.

  Dancer is shivering. Distress, effort, exhaustion; he can feel them all surging through him, along with this weight of expectation. ‘I think it’s starting to shift. I don’t know.’ He glances at Buddy, takes a deep breath, and plunges under once more.

  Everyone has gone quiet; the tension is writt
en on their faces. Most are holding their breath.

  All of a sudden Janey and Bella lurch backwards, still holding Buddy, and all three disappear under water. They surface with Bella clutching Buddy tight in her arms. He is almost unconscious. A couple of the women burst into tears, others are cheering. Janey and Jimmy are hugging each other, and as Dancer surfaces they gather him into their embrace.

  ‘Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!’ Tich is screaming her joy and relief, leaping up and down in the water as Bella approaches, clutching Buddy tightly as she leads the procession back from the wreck.

  Buddy is in bed in the Garnet Bay house, blankets up to his chest, propped up against a couple of pillows. He looks pale, but is otherwise unscathed. Dancer is hovering watchfully as Bella sits on the bed stroking Buddy’s hand. Micky, as always, looks for a way to find a laugh. ‘The salt water cleaned out that cut on your head good and proper. It’s looking fine now.’

  Bella gives Micky a backhander that is only half friendly. She is still feeling the effects of that hour of mental torture, holding the boy up in the water, totally helpless. She is not yet ready to laugh.

  Though his ankle is painful, Buddy is suffering no such mental after-effects. Indeed, he is the centre of attention, and has the best of stories to entertain his mates with. He manages a grin. Micky shakes his head. ‘Those damn diamonds. Like the old girl said, they’re nothing but trouble.’

  Buddy stares back defiantly, raising himself a little. ‘I’m going to find them one day.’

  Bella gently pushes him back down against the pillows. ‘Sshh now.’ She turns to Micky and Dancer. ‘Get along now, let the boy rest.’

  Under the backyard tree in the fading light, Janey and Tich sit totally absorbed. Jimmy is playing the song of Jiir that came to him earlier in the day — it seems like a week ago now. Amidst all the drama of the rescue and getting Buddy back to Garnet Bay, Jimmy has not had a chance to tell Janey and the others of his vision until now.