The Waterboys

by Peter Docker

  ‘You bin livin in dreamland, coorda. It’s written all over you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You got that faraway look in your eye. Only yours looks far, far away.’

  I take him in. ‘You bin dreaming up big too, bruz.’

  ‘In a different place. You’re going back. I’m going forward.’

  ‘Two camps,’ I say absentmindedly.

  We finish our smokes. Stub them out. Put the ends into our pockets. We watch the sun just cruising now he is in the open sky a little. I touch my bare face to feel the paste Aunty rubbed into me earlier. Mularabone sees me.

  ‘DOz moved on too, coorda. While you were underground. Aunty was just being careful.’

  I nod. It’s funny how our bodies or minds can sometimes be aware of time passing, and sometimes not. Once all outside references are gone, it is almost impossible.

  My head is full of blurry memories of being a Water Board trooper.

  And there is something else haunting me like a half-forgotten tune. I can’t quite get hold of the tune and I can’t get it out of my mind. The feeling I had with that grog twisting its way through my veins, as I watched the troopers burning up in the full sun, and falling to my bullets, as Mularabone sprinted for the dam – I felt strong. I cared nothing for the carnage. That grog transported me to another place in my heart. A desolate place. It feels now like the killing and death amused me in some way. I remember laughing.

  ‘We have to get more water,’ Mularabone says.

  He suddenly seems all light and loose again. He drags me effortlessly along with him. This is what we do best.

  We walk.

  Shared Waking Dream Memory: Secret Water

  I’m coming back from a long walk. I’m about fifteen or sixteen. As I come over the rise I see the van parked there by the little spring. My throat tightens when I see that my father’s dusty vehicle is there. I didn’t know he was coming back. Mum didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t know either. I edge down towards the van. As I get closer I can hear him shouting. Her voice is in the mix too. I come up to the vehicle, keeping it between me and the van, and creep along the side. I gently open the front door. There are empty grog bottles and shit everywhere in the cabin. It looks like he lives in this vehicle. There’s a swag in the back. I open the glove compartment. There’s pair of leather gloves sitting there. I tentatively lift the well-worn gloves to see a large pistol crouching underneath like a big black scorpion. I reach in and place my hand on the cold metal. I rest my hand. When nothing happens I lift the weapon out. It is huge and black in my hands.

  I hear him shouting. She is moaning. I push off the safety catch and creep to the van window. There is a tiny slit I can see through at the edge of the window blinds. Inside the van it is much darker, the only light spilling from those red military lamps. He is naked and standing over her, thrusting into her on the edge of the bed. I look down and shrink back from the van. I slip the safety catch back on the weapon. I turn and walk, retracing my path back over the rise, the pistol hanging from the end of my arm like a bad afterthought of my creator. I’m trying to keep the image out of my mind. I couldn’t see her face, just a section of her bare torso, and one breast wobbling back and forth, the nipple dancing this way and that, in time to the rhythm of his thrusts.

  I was suckled on those breasts, I catch myself thinking. This memory lives on my lips.

  I have this strange grin twisting my face, which is red and hot from the quick-skin blood of shame. It reminds me of Stirling’s snarl-grin as we rode down on those unarmed women and children on the riverbank at Pinjarra, after I was dragged through the Country in the Garungup dream. Time is weaving in and out of itself, and I can feel the web humming with life beneath me.

  I thought they were arguing, him bashing her, but they were fucking.

  I career away from the van and walk, almost running, for a long time, before I remember the heavy weight in my hand. I take aim at various rocks and trees and pretend to fire the weapon,

  ‘Pee-ow! Pee-ow!’

  It takes a two-handed grip for me to be able to hold the weapon steadily. I imagine the rounds hitting my targets in explosions of rock shards and splinters, and the sound of the shots repeating dully in the hot air all around me.

  The sandiness of the earth starts to disappear and all around me the Country is getting rocky and hard. I walk on. The gullies are deep and boulder-strewn. It doesn’t seem possible that a force of water rolled these boulders as big as cars and trucks here, but I know it’s true. I can feel it. That flood was tens of thousands of years ago. Water has a song that echoes through my veins, but this song of that water is so old, it is just the ancient ghost of a flowing hymn. I go downhill and then turn and walk up one of these ancient watercourses. There is a little fine sand at the bottom but it is still pretty rocky.

  Ahead of me I hear what sounds like a fight: the smack of something hard into flesh, grunts and strangled cries. I proceed more carefully, stashing the pistol into my belt at the small of my back, like I’ve seen my father do.

  I turn a corner and there is this young Countryman about my age. He smacks his fist into the huge flat rock one more time, then grunts and cries out in pain. He dances around, rubbing his aching knuckles. He is deep in this self-flagellatory dance and doesn’t notice me approach. I’m only a few metres away when he spots me and jumps back like he’s seen a ghost. And I’m a hidden ghost, all my flesh being swathed in the UVP cloth composite. He is bare-chested, bare-armed, barefaced, barefooted. We’re from different universes.

  ‘What you sneaking round for, fulla?’

  ‘I wasn’t sneaking.’

  ‘Yes you was, if I hadn’t bin dancing, I woulda seen you before you seen me.’

  ‘Is that the famous rock-punch dance?’

  ‘I’ll punch you if you’re not careful.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m armed and dangerous.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I oughtta flog you now for lying.’

  ‘I wouldn’t try it.’

  ‘Who are you, anyway? This is my Country.’

  He takes a step towards me.

  With a flourish I take out the big pistol.

  ‘Holy fuck!’

  ‘Yeees. Holy fuck. Still think I ain’t armed?’

  ‘You ain’t dangerous.’

  I grab the pistol with two hands, lift it to eye level, aiming off to the side of him, flick off the safety catch, and let off a round.

  Boom!

  His eyes go wide. He smiles. ‘I was wrong, brother. You is armed and dangerous!’

  ‘My father says we ain’t brothers, we’re shareholders.’

  ‘That’s cause your father is an ignorant immigrant, brother. He don’t know any better. What’s ya name?’

  ‘Conway.’

  ‘Mularabone.’

  We shake hands.

  ‘Can I’ve a shot?’ Mularabone asks quickly, as if the whole sentence is one word. In his Language it would be.

  I offer him the pistol without hesitation.

  Mularabone’s face lights up, and he grabs the side arm.

  I say, ‘My father’s not an immigrant, we been here since Captain Fremantle.’

  ‘Immigrant is in his mind, not where he’s come from.’

  Mularabone grabs the weapon, spins, drops onto one knee and lets off two rounds.

  Crack! Crack!

  He comes up smiling. He likes it. He shifts it from one hand to the other like it’s a football, feeling its weight. He looks back to me, and hands the weapon back.

  ‘Whatcha doin out here?’ I ask.

  Mularabone looks away. He kicks the red dirt with his bare feet. He walks away a bit.

  ‘You all right, brother?’ I hear myself ask.

  I’ve never called another person ‘brother’ before in my life. But then I’ve never met a Countryman before.

  M
y father says they own nothing. That their respecting of the Country and therefore the Country producing food and wealth is all bullshit. That our side of the continent simply fared better than the East under the massive climate changes. That there is no Law in the Country. In the plants. Animals. Rocks. The Countrymen.

  ‘I’m sposed to find water,’ he says into the ground.

  ‘Out here?’

  ‘My grandfather is a water man. Can make rain. Find water hidden in the earth. He says I’m the next one.’

  I watch his mouth closely because I’m not used to the Countryman accent. We all love that accent too, us Djenga. If ever I use it, my father flogs me. He’s one of the special contractors recruited by the Water Board of the Coalition of the Eastern States of Australia. He’s always going away. Mum kids herself that he’s doing some type of construction work. We all do. We have to. He has construction helmet and tool belt in his vehicle. As well as the huge pistol. And the crates of grog. He has a shotgun in the van as well. He doesn’t feel comfortable unless he has guns around.

  A silence hangs over us.

  I know exactly what Mularabone is going through. My father always makes me find the water. My grandfather told him that I could do it. My mother’s father. The man whom Warroo-culla knew. My father can speak Language as well. I know it even though I’ve never heard him.

  ‘How does he do it?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How does your grandfather find secret water?’

  The young Countryman gives me a sharp look, his head still half turned away from me. Then he smiles.

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘You don’t know.’

  ‘Yes I fucken do.’

  ‘No ya don’t. That’s why you were punching the rock.’

  ‘It’s my rock, on my Country, and if I feel like punching it, I will.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘It doesn’t work when I try it!’ he says.

  Now I start smiling. He catches my smile like it’s a thrown ball and smiles back. I turn and start to walk away.

  ‘Hey, where you goin?’ he calls after me.

  ‘Well, if it’s anywhere – it’s back there,’ I sling over my shoulder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The water.’

  Mularabone grabs up his digging stick and runs to catch up with me.

  ‘What you talking about, Djenga boy?’

  ‘I thought we was all brothers.’

  Mularabone bends and picks up a tennis ball–size rock, tosses it up, and whacks it with his stick. I whip out the pistol and line up the flying rock, following its trajectory with the barrel.

  ‘Pee-ow! Pee-ow!’ I sing out.

  ‘You woulda missed.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  We walk.

  ‘How can you expose your skin and not die?’ I ask finally.

  ‘Secret.’

  I look to him, trying not to seem eager, hoping for an elaboration. There is none. We walk.

  ‘My grandfather is a secret water man,’ Mularabone reiterates.

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Yep, it’s the next valley for sure.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘Feel it where?’

  ‘It’s like I can hear it flowing in my own blood.’

  Mularabone goes quiet. He’s heard someone talk like this before. If I’ve heard someone talk like this before, I can’t remember it. I don’t know where my voice is coming from, or who is directing my speech.

  ‘Sometimes it is like a song in my head. Sometimes it makes me feel warm, sort of under the ears...’

  Mularabone is giving me a strange look. I’m already starting to learn that these looks are part of our conversation. I start to walk quickly as the sound/feeling/heat gets louder, more intense, hotter. I run up the little ridge in front of us, and cascade down the other side in a shower of small rocks and dust. There are two fresh saplings in the creek bed. I fall to my knees between them and start to dig with my hands. Mularabone falls down in front of me. With his digging stick he goes down twice as deep twice as fast as me. Half a metre down, clear water floods the hole.

  We stop and look up at each other. Mularabone shouts for joy and pulls me into a hug over our water hole. Our first one. The suddenness of his movement surprises me and pulls me off balance. We both end up in a laughing heap in the wet hole, caving the sides in as we go. We drink, cupping the water in our hands and lifting it to our mouths.

  Mularabone breaks into a dance and song in Language. I join in his dance and he laughs at my clumsy parody of his movement. The song swirls and then finishes. We stop. We look at each other.

  ‘You knew it was here,’ he says tentatively and watches my eyes for his words to land.

  My mouth tightens but I don’t speak. We look into each other’s eyes.

  I did find the little spring near where our van is camped – last year when my father wanted us to move out here – which means there could be more water – but I hadn’t come looking. I didn’t know where it was. Not until I knew, anyway.

  Mularabone eventually smiles (You knew I had to ask, brother, didn’t ya?).

  I feel like we’re standing chest deep in a torrent of water. We are trees or rocks in that terrible current, standing strong, so that the spirit water has to swirl around us to continue on its headlong rush.

  I blink, and it’s just a Djenga boy and a young Countryman standing in the bush, having met for the first time.

  Seventeen: Reward or Punishment

  Mularabone and I make our way back to camp, each carrying two bush turkeys from his overnight traps, and each wearing secret smiles from our shared waking dream memory of our first meeting. The power from our hearts linked for the dream has left a tingling feeling all down my spine. When we get back the billy is boiling. We pluck the fat birds, throw them on the fire, and heap coals on top of them. Uncle Birra-ga is talking to Uncle Warroo-culla who arrived in the night with Cuz Mortimer. Nayia and Aunty Ouraka are putting on a damper. Nayia barely notices me. I don’t know what I was expecting. Young James and Cuz Mortimer have automatic weapons. The presence of the weapons changes something for me. Mularabone too, I can feel it. Maybe it’s because Mularabone, Mort, Young James and I were in the same cadre. Mort’s name means still water, and he was the one who coined the phrase the Water Gang: Muddy Water, Still Water, and Holy Water. Even Young James, whose name means supplanter, reckoned he belonged. Can’t be a coincidence we’re all together. Nothing is.

  By the time the uncles are ready to talk to us, our bellies are full of rich turkey flesh, and we’re feeling like another thinnie. We both roll an extra smoke and hand it up. Sharing Law. We all light up. What a strange little council, sitting out in the peaceful desert morning, dreaming up the future, or the past, whichever comes first.

  When I look up from my smoke business Nayia and Aunty Ouraka have gone. When I’ve seen them out walking, they seem to just amble, but that pace is so deceptive. They have completely disappeared as though swallowed up by the Country herself.

  Uncle Warroo-culla makes an expressive speech in Language. After months in Water Board custody I struggle to follow Uncle’s drift. I try to pick out words I know – or even words that sound like words I know – and thread my own meaning. Uncle is talking about Country, I think, and strong men, and joining things up. I concentrate intensely on the glowing end of my thinnie, as if the red light will open up my heart to the Language. Then I think he’s talking about big holes in the ground, how certain nuts are hard to chew with old teeth, and why we need more good pairs of boots and more egg-laying birds who can fly.

  Everyone is nodding at Uncle’s speech. Me too. They must think I’m silly.

  Uncle looks into the fire while he finishes his thinnie. Uncle Birra-ga comes over and sits near me.

  ‘We will go to the big meeting,’ says Uncle Birra-ga as if we are both expecting th
is information/instruction. Mularabone nods so I nod too.

  ‘You will take care of all water business,’ says Uncle Birraga.

  I look to Mularabone. He is looking into the morning fire and makes no attempt to meet my gaze.

  ‘The Djenga from the south Country was here looking for you. Your brother Jack kept you hidden,’ says Warroo-culla.

  ‘He’s not my brother.’

  The two Countrymen elders look straight at me as if I have blasphemed. I feel their power drill into me. I feel the shame of denying my brother.

  ‘When I was young, there were two brothers who fought with us,’ says Birra-ga in a measured voice.

  ‘One of these brothers fell to the grog ... and crossed over,’ says Warroo-culla. ‘He was the most vicious, ruthless enemy we faced. He sometimes worked with your father. We think your father turned him onto the grog path.’

  ‘When his brother, our comrade, was killed ... he came back to us. Now he is our man inside the Water Board. He is the one coming for you. His name is Greer, the Guardian. His brother you knew. He was The Sarge. Now, you will complete the circle with Greer,’ says Birra-ga.

  ‘All around, the Country is telling us it is time to speak. To answer the invasion,’ says Uncle Birra-ga.

  Uncle lets his words settle like a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos, and even though they’ve landed on me and settled on my branches, they continue to squawk and call out questions and jeers into my heart.

  ‘We need you, Nephew. We need both of you. We need the connection to the ceremony in the south. The spirit path must be walked to free up this world. Free us to grow again.’

  These words are cockatoos squawking in my boughs, breaking off small branches, picking the seeds out of the nuts, and then casually discarding the broken off nut-bearing branches.

  My throat is constricted. I have broken into a heavy sweat. I don’t look up now. A terrible fear grips my guts. I feel certain the uncles must look right through me and see my treachery, see what I am keeping locked away in my underground bunker. I remember too well the grog that passed my lips the night The Sarge died. That was what I remembered when the troopers got me drunk. That ache. That emptiness.