He picks up the flourbag. ‘Some supplies for your journey home.’ Then from one of his voluminous pockets he draws a comic book. ‘You should tell your father you want to read. This is Adam’s favourite story. It helps him learn his reading.’ He opens the comic for Wajarri to see. ‘Look, it has pictures too. It is about a man who lives hidden away. They call him The Ghost Who Walks.’ He tucks the comic book into the flourbag. ‘Tell me, Ottelo, does your father have a name? Is it … Charlie Walker?’
Seized by panic, Wajarri clutches the bag to his chest, turns on his heel, and runs for the hills. He does not look back when he hears Sohan calling after him, ‘Don’t worry. I will say nothing.’
The last morning of the return journey. Billy scrapes sand over the remains of their small fire and hefts his saddlebag. ‘Just remember, lad, that what I’ve done was for his own good. His own. Yours. All of us.’ With no further explanation and an air that brooks no discussion, he sets off at a faster pace than ever.
Until that moment the return journey has seemed so much quicker and easier than the going. Wajarri has spent the days rehearsing and refining the stories he will tell Janga, and practising under his breath his imitation of Sohan’s lilting voice. The one afternoon they’d made camp before sunset, he cajoled Billy into reading the strange story in Adam’s book. It made no sense to him, but was nevertheless wonderful; whenever there was a moment to spare he would pull the book out and pore over the pictures. But after his father’s words this morning he trails behind, with a sense of foreboding.
He is still trailing as they near home, his dread rising when Janga fails to appear on the track, even as the camp comes into sight. Then the shouting from Billy. ‘Bessie! Bessie! Where the hell are ye?’ The anger in his voice. ‘Did ye give him the axe?’
Bessie in the door of the hut. Gashes on her forehead still raw as she screams at him, ‘Yuwai. I been givim axe. You fucken bastard.’
Wajarri sees the chain, still with its heavy padlock, looped around the corner post of the boughshed. The blunted axehead. The leg-iron at the end of the chain, smashed open. The dark stain of the dried blood in the dirt.
Mother is wailing, beating and clawing at her head, opening half-healed wounds afresh. Amidst the wailing she screams Bunuba words.
‘What’s she saying?’ Billy demands. ‘What the fucken hell’s she saying?’
Wajarri sinks to his knees. Holds the leg-iron. Translates.
‘He’s gone … He’s gone, an’ he’s never comin’ back.’
3
Heading back to Broome, 1989
The breeze is hardly a feather; just enough to cool the sweat on his forehead. The blades of the windmill stir, making a rod coupling beneath him creak softly. Andy tests the platform, high up on the mill tower, then sits and lets his feet dangle and his eyes find the horizon.
In every direction the thrusting granite ranges of the Kimberley plateau turn the skyline jagged. The hills are close to the east and the north. Banded, folded rockfaces dotted with precariously perched trees – boabs, bauhinias and an array of eucalypts. The range recedes to the west. From its foot a scrubby plain stretches south, patched with meadows of ribbon grass and curly spinifex, and etched with the meandering tree lines of the creeks. Beyond the plain the next range is distant enough to take on a blue-green tinge. That ridge line sits beneath the paler blue of the mighty King Leopolds, the ancient spine of this country.
It could hardly be more different to the landscape Andy has grown up with; the endless vistas of Roebuck Plain and the Indian Ocean on either side of Broome, stretching towards distant, ruler-straight meetings with the sky. But he has come to love it just as well.
Will this be a goodbye?
He discovered this country and its secret delights through Two Bob and Milly, but this perch on the mill is his private place. They would probably understand, though it seems a bit ghoulish, even to him sometimes. A dozen years ago Andy’s father was greasing the mill head when the old platform collapsed underneath him. The manager came looking the next day, assuming a breakdown, but not ruling out the possibility that old Joe had smuggled a bottle and gone on a bender. He found Joe dead at the foot of the tower.
Two Bob had pointed out the track without comment during Andy’s first year on Boxwood Downs. Andy had borrowed a station ute a few Sundays later and made his way out. That first time he came without any preconceptions. But as soon as he got out of the ute he found himself drawn. Hands and feet carried him up the steel ladder as if of their own mind. It was only when he reached the platform that he stopped to think. He tested the replacement timbers carefully before stepping off the ladder. And then he looked around.
He can still remember the shock of that moment. The still, silent, abiding power of the country he surveyed sucked the breath out of him. Jiir the sea eagle, his dreaming bird, gliding in a downward spiral and disappearing behind the northern range. For a moment he felt his father, as a benevolent, welcoming presence.
This place seems always to greet him with the familiarity of an old friend. Sitting up here with legs dangling, back leant against the tower, he can dream, remember, or just float, as the mood takes him.
But not today. His spirit is unable to connect, to reach past the turmoil and the fug of despair that envelops him.
Seven hours driving will get him back to Broome and baby Robert. But the other half of his heart has been left back at Highlands. Milly wouldn’t even come out of her room to say goodbye. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the small community follow him to the car, but only Two Bob was in view, sitting in the shade of the boab tree, hand gently tapping his thigh with the beat of an ancient song.
Two Bob waited until Andy started the car before unfolding his lanky frame. He approached, and then just stood watching the road. It was Andy who broke the silence. ‘I’m sorry, lambara. I just don’t know what to do, an’ she doesn’t want me here.’
Two Bob flicked a hand – the ‘nothing’ gesture. Andy wasn’t sure if it meant shut up, or perhaps agreement that there was nothing he could do. Or both. ‘Might be she’ll come good by’n’by … Might be.’ After another short silence he bent down to look in through the window. ‘You tell ol’ Buster to keep an eye on that little Robert. Tell him I asked.’
‘I will.’
Two Bob rested a hand on Andy’s shoulder for a moment before stepping back. Andy eased into gear and left Highlands behind, holding the memory of that hand.
Now, after climbing the mill, there is nothing to look forward to but the road. The only thing he really knows is that he is too young, too green to deal with this. He blinks back a tear, grips the wheel tighter, and tells himself to remember the good times.
The Boxwood turnoff. Only a couple of miles in to the station, behind that spur. New boots and hat, his guitar and a half-full suitcase were all he had in the world when he arrived there three years ago, still shy of his seventeenth birthday.
Andy didn’t think of himself as a troublemaker, but whenever his mum chuckled and reckoned he was the one out of the four boys who took after his father – ‘lovable to be sure, but oh what a handful’ – he would swell with pride.
He and his mate Georgie just knew they were the coolest kids in town, and acted like they owned it. They were planning to enter the bull riding at the looming rodeo, and decided they needed some practice. Down behind the meatworks, backing onto Simpson Beach, were the holding yards for the cattle awaiting slaughter. It seemed obvious. The half-moon provided plenty of light. With Georgie working the gate, Andy managed to manoeuver a couple of steers into the race leading to the empty yard and get his makeshift bull rope on one of them. He offered Georgie first ride, but knew he’d decline.
It was less glorious than he’d expected. He sure as hell didn’t make the eight seconds for time, and he hit the dirt hard, shoulder first. Dead arm and no wind, he lay where he’d fallen. The second steer charged out of the race as Georgie ran to Andy’s help, leaving the gate swinging. Somehow th
e panicked beasts managed to bust the rails and head for the beach, followed by the hundred head from the next yard. The night fishermen on Simpson Beach lived on the story for weeks.
How Sergeant Griffiths managed to link him to the great escape, Andy didn’t know. But a few days later the gruff, burly copper pulled him aside and told him that his card was marked. ‘I can’t pin that stunt down at the yards on you, but don’t go thinkin’ you’ve got me fooled, or got me beat boyo. I’ll be comin’ down on you like a ton of bricks first chance I get. Take that as a warnin’ – and a promise.’
Despite his bravado, it put the wind up him. There was no planning, no forethought, but when he bumped into Big Al Steer a week or so later at the bakery he found himself asking if there were any ringing jobs going on his stations; preferably up the Gibb River side, he added, remembering a run he’d done as a young tacker with Joe one school holidays. Serendipity: they’d just lost a man at Boxwood Downs. ‘Can you start Monday? Me manager Goldy’s headin’ back up then.’
Goldy dropped him at the single men’s quarters saying supper was at 5 pm. The first man he met was the head stockman, Two Bob Walker. ‘Some of me mates call me Wajarri though,’ he said with a wink. By the time supper was finished Two Bob had him pegged.
‘Andy Jirroo eh. What relation for that ol’ man Buster?’
‘He’s my uncle.’
‘I know him little bit. Strong feller that one. My Marj knows him more better, from all them Land Council meetings. That old Joe Black was mixed up with all them Jirroo mob wasn’t he? Poor feller.’
‘He was my dad.’
‘Ooh, sorry young feller.’
It turned out that years ago Joe had contracted to repair a couple of mills on Highlands. Two Bob had offsided for him, and remembered him as a good gudia to work for, and a generous man. With this connection established Andy was taken under the head stockman’s wing.
Two Bob was a veteran of the time of packhorses, mules and jerry-built bronco yards, and proud of it. Despite being well into his fifties he could work a mob of cattle and sit a horse at day’s end better than any of the younger men under him. Of a nighttime round the fire he was the best yarn spinner in the camp.
His yarns were all of Highlands, the next-door station, where the road ended. ‘You reckon this place is old style,’ he told Andy. ‘Only thing changed at Highlands since I been start there in the forties is the new coat of paint the ol’ boss been put on the homestead twenty years back.’ But the Highlands mob had a falling out with the boss there, and had all moved to Snake Springs, a new community set up on the Gibb River Road on a small block of land excised from one of the big stations. Two Bob couldn’t stand having nothing to do, and had taken the job on Boxwood.
Andy might’ve been green, but he took to the life as if born to it. Long weeks in the stock camp living out of a swag, eating beef and damper, with tinned fruit for a treat. Pre-dawn starts, night shifts tailing the mob of cattle, evenings around a campfire listening to the tales of Two Bob and the other old ringers. The occasional day off at a waterhole to have a bogey and wash the jeans and shirt turned stiff with dirt. He embraced it all.
Lost in his memories, Andy realises he is about to hit the Gibb River Road. He pulls up at the tee junction as a convoy of tourist four-wheel drives flies past, throwing up roiling clouds of dust. He waits to let it settle, bemused by the silly buggers who think they are in the wilds. Coming from Highlands, it feels like hitting a superhighway on the outskirts of town.
A left turn, two bends, and there is Snake Springs. Behind the store that fronts the road, beyond the dozen or so houses, he can glimpse the bare posts and beams that were once the frames of the Jimbala Wali humpies.
Where he first met Milly.
He doesn’t stop.
The first proper weekend off that season at Boxwood he spent alone in the quarters doodling with his guitar; Broome was too far for a weekend, and besides, he had no vehicle. Second time round Two Bob took pity and told him to jump in when he went to Snake Springs to see his family.
Milly Rider took her surname from her mother Marj’s side. The Riders were the biggest family at Highlands. A shy slip of a girl, she’d endured the minimum three years at the hostel in Derby for high school like a prison sentence. Apart from that she’d hardly ever left the tiny community there on Highlands until they moved to Snake Springs.
When Two Bob saw the two of them making eyes at each other, he just smiled that crooked smile of his. And he kept letting Andy tag along on the odd weekends off. By the end of the year the two youngsters had really fallen for each other. Hard.
There’s the backtrack to Bullfrog Hole. He can feel his dreams unravelling with each landmark of their lives that he passes.
Andy saved up enough that year to buy a beaten-up old Hilux during the wet season break, proudly anticipating Milly’s delight. They would have their own wheels! But in the meantime Highlands had gone on the market and the government had bought it for the mob. Two Bob pulled out from Boxwood and returned home as the manager. So instead of driving west to Snake Spring on his days off Andy would head east into the hills, to Highlands.
His romance with Milly was conducted as she guided him to her favourite camping spots amongst the hidden valleys and waterholes of that remote country. Andy had always fancied himself as a bushman, but he was a novice next to her. She could track anything, rustle up a feed of bush tucker any time of year, build a neat little fire and have a billy boiled quicker than he could gather the firewood. And it never seemed to take her more than ten minutes to catch a feed of bream. She wielded a handline like a maestro, casting with unerring accuracy amongst the snags.
Her very favourite place was a billabong called Bullfrog Hole. They only went there a handful of times. It was a hell of a trek from the Highlands side, right down at the southern limits of the station. The old women of the community frowned on it; they reckoned it was too close to the debbil debbil country the other side of the big river.
Milly held no such fears. Each time she would check the ground, confirm that no-one else had disturbed their place since the last trip. The idyllic waterhole was so rarely visited that giant bream virtually jumped onto the hooks. The lovers revelled in their solitude, the proprietorial feeling that this place was theirs alone. When Milly fell pregnant she had no doubt that their child had been dreamed at Bullfrog Hole; that was their baby’s Unggurr, its spirit place.
Inglis Gap, with the bay for the tourists to take in the endless view of the lowlands they have just traversed, before they head into the ‘wilderness’ of the plateau. He is going the other way. Last time he did the run to Broome, Milly was sitting beside him. ‘All downhill from here,’ he murmurs.
Two Bob and the Rider mob at Highlands were almost as happy as Milly and Andy when the pregnancy was confirmed. But Milly was young and small, and the child she was carrying was a big one. The Community Health nurse wanted her to move into Derby, but she refused point blank. Then in the sixth month there was a scare, some spotting and bleeding. The nurse insisted she couldn’t stay out there at Highlands, hours from medical assistance. Andy pulled out of Boxwood, and the two of them packed their meagre belongings into the old Hilux and headed to Broome. As they left the hill country, Andy knew that beneath Milly’s smiles and silences she was scared.
Forty clicks to go, the Port Hedland turnoff. It is almost tempting, the thought of flight, escape. He was nervous last time with Milly on board, but never before has he dreaded arriving at Jirroo Corner, the only home he has known.
Joe Black hit the jackpot like never before one night in one of the old Broome gambling houses. In the only prudent move of his life he bought the big corner block with the winnings, and set up his woman Maisie Jirroo and their brood of young boys there. He couldn’t keep up the discipline, and slipped back into his drinking ways, but thankfully for their sake he never gambled the house away, and luckily, he left a will. He and Maisie had never got properly hitched, and without that bi
t of paper anything might’ve happened after the windmill accident.
Maisie had to work herself to the bone to keep them all in tucker. There were times they wouldn’t have got by without a hand from her brother Buster. The boys grew, and the house seemed to become smaller. They all played guitars from a young age and Joe Black’s joint became Jirroo Corner, a house of music.
But when Andy arrived back there with Milly it seemed to have gone out of tune. The yard was a building site as his oldest brother and his wife worked on their new cottage. No back yard jams. The women were gentle with Milly, but could not get close. Through three months she said hardly a word except to answer questions in a soft whisper. Even alone with Andy she was silent and withdrawn. He promised that as soon as the babe was ready to travel they would head back to the bush; Snake Springs, Highlands, she could choose.
One morning Andy’s mother Maisie didn’t get up, she who always beat the rooster’s crow. They found her dead in her bed, taken by a heart attack. Two weeks later, Milly left a house in mourning to go into hospital.
Baby Robert was born strong and healthy. And large, a ten-pounder. Milly lost litres of blood, and had to stay in hospital for weeks after the birth. She never seemed to recover properly. She pined for her family and the hills of Highlands, and would turn silently to the wall when the doctors insisted she was not strong enough to return, not with a new baby.
When she made it back to Jirroo Corner she stared at the bedroom wall for hours on end. It was never clear to the Jirroos what was wrong; some combination of postnatal depression and ‘women’s troubles’ was the best they could establish. Andy was too young and too overwhelmed to know how to reach out to her.
The Valley Page 3