‘Brumby Plains to Malarrimun, Brumby Plains to Malarrimun, are you there, Vincent?’
It took a couple of tries before there was a burst of static and Vincent’s voice came through the speaker. ‘Malarrimun here. That you, my boy?’
‘Vincent? Vincent …’ Sam tried to keep his voice calm because he knew Stinkin’ Jerry might be able to hear every word he said. ‘Um, remember that old man you told me about? He’s pretty angry right now, I reckon. Remember we were looking at the stars that night? Same story tonight. Going to be just the same tonight, hey? And us kids are all going to be there too.’ Sam was desperately trying to think of a way to tell Vincent they were in trouble.
He let go of the transmit button, and Vincent’s voice crackled through the static. ‘You-ai, young feller.’
But Sam couldn’t say any more. He could see lights coming down the ridge, and he quickly switched off the set and scrambled back to where the others were hunched on the ground.
‘Quick, Darce, just wrap the rope around my hands again like I’m still tied up!’
‘Do you think Vincent understood what you meant? Why didn’t you just tell him what was happening?’ asked Tess anxiously.
‘Stinkin’ Jerry could have heard everything we said. If I’d said anything else he’d have come out here to tell these blokes. We just have to hope Vincent figures it out.’
Nigel, Sleazy and Russell appeared a little while later, torches lighting their way. They were carrying the pipes carefully now. The birds had been drugged and packed into the pipes. There were little air holes drilled along the lengths of them, and caps screwed onto the ends. They lowered them gently to the ground, and then slid them into special shelves built into the tray of the truck.
‘Right. Now, you lot – into the back of the truck.’ Russell jerked his head at Nigel and Sleazy, and they shoved their four captives into the truck beside the pipes. The canvas cover was tied over them, and the truck lurched off down the track away from the ridge towards the highway. In the back, Sam, George, Tess and Darcy bounced around against each other, trying hard not to bump Darcy’s arm. Sam shook his hands free again, and managed to peer out from under the canvas flap. He couldn’t see much in the dark. After a while the truck left the track and drove down the bitumen highway then, after a short spell, it left the highway again for another bush track, this time on the opposite side of the highway from where they’d come.
Sam was ready. As soon as he felt the truck slowing down and begin to change direction, he dropped his shoes and socks over the side of the tray as it left the highway and headed up a rough track. He scrambled back to the others and Darcy wrapped the rope around his hands again.
They didn’t go far before they stopped. They were left in the truck for some time while the men muttered and worked outside, presumably setting the airstrip up ready for the plane to land. After what seemed like hours, when their arms and legs were beginning to cramp up, the canvas top was pulled off the truck and they were ordered out.
‘Get over there and stay down,’ Russell snarled at them.
There was a small campfire lit nearby, and they sat down to wait. They could see two parallel lines of lights stretching away between the trees, marking out the cleared airstrip. After about an hour, enduring mosquitoes, hunger pangs, and pins and needles in their hands, they could hear the drone of a light plane. Down, down it came, and its headlights flicked on, blazing up the rough little strip. The plane bumped to a stop, but the pilot kept the engine idling, and the men hurried over to it. After a brief conference with the pilot they began unloading boxes from the rear door of the plane.
While the men were busy at the plane, Sam quietly untied the others, and watched the activity with mounting fear. They were going to get away with everything. Maybe Vincent hadn’t been able to understand his coded message. He yelled out to the working men, ‘Hey! What about us? You can’t just leave us here!’
George, Darcy and Tess stared at him like he’d gone crazy.
The men stopped what they were doing and the pilot looked over at the four figures he could now plainly see in the firelight. He started talking angrily to the others. ‘What’s going on? Who are these kids? The boss isn’t going to like this one bit. You got witnesses now!’
‘It don’t matter, just get the birds on board and give us the money! We’ll look after the kids!’
‘Oh no you don’t! You messed it up bad now. I’m out of here, with the money. You keep your birds!’ And he went to get back on the plane.
Russell grabbed him by the shoulder and the pilot swung a fist at him. They struggled with each other, cursing and punching, while Nigel and Sleazy hovered uncertainly around them. In the commotion, Sam shook his ropes off and leapt to his feet.
‘Quick! Into the truck!’
He started up the engine but, having no idea how to drive it, slammed it into reverse, and they found themselves careering backwards, across the campfire and right into the tail of the plane, snapping cables and tearing metal. Sam tried to change gears and go forward but he couldn’t find them, and in his panic he stalled the truck. The door of the cabin was flung open and for the second time that day Sam was dragged out and thrown to the ground.
‘I’ll kill you!’ shouted Russell, frothing at the mouth.
He had Sam on the ground, his hands around his throat, when a stick suddenly smacked him hard right across the head, and he fell sideways with a grunt. Sam gasped to get his breath back and struggled to sit up, half under the weight of the big man.
Headlights blazed into the camp, and three men jumped out of the vehicle, each holding a rifle. Nigel, Sleazy and the pilot put their hands up in the air. A slight figure emerged out of the darkness into the headlights beside the armed men. With a sudden rush of relief, Sam recognised Vincent, who was carrying a heavy throwing stick in his hand.
‘I say, that was impressive, Vincent. Excellent aim!’
Sam squinted at the speaker. He couldn’t believe it – Charles Rowntree? What on earth was he doing here?
‘And as for you, Sam, you might be more comfortable if we get this great lump off you, eh? Heavens, you might catch nits or something, from an unsavoury character like him.’ Charles put a boot under Russell’s bulky body and heaved it off Sam’s legs.
It was after midnight when they finally got home again. The two men accompanying Charles had taken a handcuffed Russell, Nigel, Sleazy and the pilot into the Jabiru police station as the highway back to Darwin was still cut by the river.
Sam, George, Tess and Darcy sat round the dining room table as Old Jock placed mugs of hot chocolate in front of them. He handed Charles a mug of steaming tea and sat down with them, his own battered pannikin in his hand. He looked expectantly at Charles.
‘Well, where do I start? I work for the Federal Police,’ said Charles. ‘When I first met you people I was undercover as a bonsai grower. Gave me lots of excuses to be out bush, fossicking around at odd times. We’ve been trying to crack a ring of wildlife smugglers for some time now. Your station was on our list of suspects, but we didn’t know if your parents were involved or not. We knew they had financial troubles, so they were possible suspects for that reason –’
‘Suspects! You thought we might have been the smugglers?!’ yelled Sam, turning red.
‘Smugglers!’ yelled Jock at the same time, his tea slopping over the table as he set his pannikin down hard.
‘Well, that was the difficulty, you see. We didn’t know who was involved at first. It looked a bit suspicious – a bird smuggling racket operating out of this area, and your station with money troubles. Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to get a bit of extra money on the side. And you did seem to know a lot about birds!’
He winked at George, and went on. ‘Turns out your neighbour Mr O’Dearn had an arrangement with the loans manager at your parents’ bank. I must say, I rather prefer your name for him – Stinking Jerry, I believe? Much more suitable! Anyway this loans chap put the squeeze on the
m to repay the money in the hope of forcing them to a sale. The idea was that Stinking Jerry would get the station on the cheap, and pay off the manager. Who, I might add, is being collected by the local constabulary in Darwin even as we speak.’
‘By the livin’ Harry, I always knew that blasted O’Dearn feller was no good, but I never thought he’d get up ter somethin’ like this!’ Old Jock looked like he was ready to go and sort their neighbour out there and then.
‘But what’s all that got to do with birds?’ Darcy looked confused.
‘Well, your mate Stinking Jerry was approached by this Russell character to take part in some bird smuggling. Russell Burns, as he is sometimes known, organised the collection of the birds and was also illegally importing artifacts on the planes which took the birds out of the country. Jerry’s son Nigel, and his mate Lenny Bates, were recruited to do the work, plus sell the artifacts through the markets in Darwin. You ran into Lenny that time at the Parap markets, if you recall?’
Tess and Sam nodded, remembering the smashed crystal.
‘They needed to do the last run on your place, because the little spring on top of the ridge is a prime collecting site for our banded fruit doves. There’s quite a good return for them on the black market. They got your parents out of the way with a call from the bank, but they hadn’t counted on you lot staying behind, or that you’d be poking around up there in any case. Thought they’d have the place to themselves. By the way, just what were you doing up there anyway?’
Sam, George, Tess and Darcy glanced at each other.
‘Oh, just mucking around,’ said Sam innocently.
‘But how did you know where we were?’ asked Darcy.
‘Yes, and how come Vincent was with you?’ asked Tess.
‘Ah, the marvels of modern communication! Vincent has been of great assistance to us. No one knows the country like he does. After I left Brumby Plains last week, I went to see Vincent, and I’ve been based there since then, waiting for Burns to make a move. I was over at Vincent’s camp when your strange message came through on the radio, Sam. I must admit I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, but Vincent knew exactly what you were saying.’
‘But if you knew all this stuff, why didn’t you just go and arrest those guys? I mean, they nearly got away with it!’ Sam could still feel Burns’ hands around his throat, and shuddered.
‘It’s very difficult to get these people convicted, and we had to catch them red-handed, actually loading birds onto the plane. Certainly didn’t expect them to start strangling people as well, but there you go. Lucky Vincent is such a crack shot with his throwing stick! Anyway, when we got the message from you, we headed off to find you. Nice touch with the shoes, by the way, excellent bit of trailblazing! As soon as we heard the plane come in, we got close enough to catch all the action. You did extremely well, Sam. Yelling out when you did and getting the pilot upset was the master stroke. And if we hadn’t got your radio message when we did, well, they would have got clean away. Burns was going to fly out with the pilot, you know.’
Sam flushed. He didn’t think he’d been such a hero. All he could remember was feeling terrified. If only he hadn’t done this, if only he had done that …
‘… and what’s more,’ Charles was saying, ‘you’re probably going to be an even bigger hero, because it just so happens there is a rather large reward for the conviction of these criminals. Keep the bank off your backs for quite some time, I should think.’
The next morning, Vincent called by. After a cup of tea with them all he signalled to Sam to come outside. They walked across to the horse paddock, and stood there for a few moments patting the horses, who had trotted up to greet them.
‘So, you got something to tell me, my boy?’
Sam swallowed hard and looked at his feet. ‘I’m really sorry, Vincent. I know we weren’t supposed to go up there. But it was so exciting, finding the cave and everything.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling very ashamed, and his fingers wrapped around a smooth, warm object. ‘But I dreamed about the cave after the first time we found it. I dreamed that an old man inside the cave gave me this stone, and the next time we went there, I found it in the cave. There was a fruit dove in the dream too, just like the ones those men were catching in the nets.’ He pulled the coloured stone from his pocket and held it out to the old man.
Vincent went very still. He stared at the stone for long seconds. He reached for it, his hand shaking slightly, and then he looked up and into Sam’s eyes.
‘Was there anything else in this cave? You see any other thing there?’
Sam nodded. ‘There was – there was a skeleton in it, lying next to an old fire, and then on the other side, in the first cave, I saw a kind of parcel. Like something wrapped up, against the wall.’
‘Anybody touch this thing?’ asked the old man.
‘No, no one. There wasn’t time to look at it. We just saw it when we went through yesterday, getting away from those men.’
‘I think maybe you and me better go to this cave.’
Sam and Vincent climbed up the ridge in the hot morning sun. They passed through the amphitheatre that had felt so old and sad to Tess. Vincent sang out a loud song to warn the spirits of the old people that he and Sam were coming.
‘We’ll let them old people know we’re coming here, so they won’t be angry with us,’ he said. His song was flat and eerie in the heavy, quiet air, but to Sam it sounded familiar and oddly comforting.
They traced their way up the worn steps beside the cave entrance and crossed to the banyan on the top of the ridge. Sam showed the old man the hole where the banyan root snaked down into the cave.
‘This is where George fell in, when we couldn’t find a way into the cave. He was looking up at some birds and just slipped through this hole.’
‘What birds?’ asked Vincent, suddenly still.
‘Those black and white ones, the banded fruit doves.’
Vincent nodded and looked very thoughtful, but Sam could read nothing from his face.
They followed the dry watercourse across the ridge to the top of the rockfall, climbed down it, and shone their torches into the second cave.
‘This is where I found the stone by the skeleton,’ whispered Sam.
When they reached the bones and the piece of ancient cloth, Vincent began a soft wailing sound, a kind of immensely sad and haunting song. Sam realised with a start that it was exactly like the song the old man in his dream had been singing.
Vincent gathered the bones gently together, rolled them in a small blanket he had carried in with him, and carefully placed them in the centre of the cave. He shone his torch around the rest of the cave, lighting up the paintings on the sandstone walls. The old man studied them for a few moments, then motioned to Sam to go ahead. They moved further back to where the roof sank down low, and crawled through the space into the other cave. Up, up through the blackness they went, until they could feel the fresh air, and see the light growing.
‘There it is, over there by the wall.’ Sam shone his torch on a bulky shape on the floor of the cave. Now that Sam had time to study it, he saw it was a package wrapped in paperbark and tied with a twisted pandanus string. It looked ancient. Vincent walked slowly over to it, knelt down and laid his hands on it. Tears rolled down his face, and his old head bent to his chest. A high keening wail came from him again, and Sam felt tears spring to his own eyes, though he didn’t know why.
Back out in the sunlight, Sam and Vincent sat silently up on the top of the ridge. The vastness of the flood plains lay around them, quiet and green, steaming in the damp heat. After a while Vincent began to talk. Once, he said, his people owned all the land from where Vincent now lived at Malarrimun, to the sea and along the coast for many miles. White men came into the country. The Munarrwing people tolerated them at first, thinking they were strange, wilful children but allowing them to live on their land.
The white men brought cattle with them, and strung barbed wire across th
e open land, and cut down the trees. The Munarrwing thought that the spearing of a few cattle to feed their families was a fair exchange for the use of their country, but the white men felt differently. There were angry exchanges, and a black man was shot dead.
Munarrwing warriors paid back the violence in full, and it descended into a full scale war with people dying on both sides. Finally the white men rode down on the clan’s camp one night and massacred most of the inhabitants. The survivors hid in a cave high up on the Arm for a while. Eventually even those few were hunted down, and finally the white men tracked them back to the cave, and blew up the eastern entrance with dynamite.
‘The rockfall …’ breathed Sam, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.
‘Everybody was killed in that cave, except only one old man, and two little boys,’ said Vincent, staring out across the flood plains, his eyes not seeing the green grass or the clumps of pandanus and paperbark. ‘That old man told them boys to run away before the white man came back, but he had to stay to look after the sacred thing. He said he would put it in a safe place and then he would come after them and find them, but he never find those boys again …’ His voice trailed off, and Vincent sat for a few minutes without speaking.
‘But the white men saw those two little boys running, and they chase after them and shoot them. One boy dead, one boy just injured. That boy was me.’
The old man pulled back the sleeve on his right arm, exposing the long, ragged scar that ran from elbow to wrist, where a bullet had torn through his skin and flesh.
Sam stopped breathing for a moment. It seemed like the whole world held its breath. The birds were silent, the trees stopped rustling their leaves, even the wind paused.
‘You …?’ he whispered finally, when he remembered to breathe again. It was incredible. This awful history Vincent had been telling him wasn’t just a story from ‘the olden days’, like when his parents were kids. It was real. It had happened to the old man sitting next to him, and it had happened right here on this sandstone ridge.
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