Bone Talk

by Candy Gourlay

  20

  I lunged across the courtyard.

  ‘Sam!’ Father cried as I grabbed his wrists.

  ‘Father,’ I sobbed. ‘I must tell you.’

  The words hurried out of my throat as if they couldn’t wait to be free. I told him what had happened in the valley. How the Mangili had suddenly appeared. How I had grappled with him and knocked him unconscious, only for him to vanish while my back was turned; I told him about how Luki and I marched in the endless darkness of the cave, the babies crying incessantly.

  Father listened silently, but I could see the alarm creasing his face. When I finished, I looked fearfully at all the horror-struck faces around me, the mothers gathering their children to their breasts, the fathers reaching for their spears. Mister William looked around him in shock at our sudden transformation.

  Father tore off his ceremonial finery, panting as if he’d been running. ‘I will gather all the men! Where is Tambul? He must command the warriors!’ He snatched up a ladle of water from a clay jar and tossed it into his face to rouse himself.

  Salluyud was scolding, ‘Why did you wait until now to tell us? And to think we were going to make you a man, Samkad. You are a CHILD. A FOOLISH CHILD!’

  ‘TAMBUL!’ Father was bellowing now. ‘Where is Tambul?’

  ‘He and Agkus stayed behind in the forest,’ Luki said. ‘They said they would follow shortly.’

  ‘I will get him,’ Father said.

  ‘No!’ Salluyud cried. ‘You need to organize the men. Now.’

  ‘We’ll do it,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘You!’ Father glared. ‘You are children.’

  ‘He can’t be far away – we only just saw him leave,’ Luki said. ‘Anyway, there are three of us.’

  ‘Fetch him, then. GO!’ Father cried. ‘I will follow as soon as I’ve got the men together.’

  I snatched up a torch and Luki, Kinyo and I sprinted towards the forest path. Mister William lumbered after us, calling in his alien language. But we didn’t stop to explain.

  21

  ‘I’ll tell him. I was the one who fought the Mangili.’ Luki mimicked me as we ran along. ‘But no, you kept putting it off!’

  ‘There wasn’t a good moment—’

  ‘A GOOD MOMENT?’ Luki cried. ‘There wasn’t a good moment to tell them the whole village was in DANGER?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Luki!’ But she was right, of course, I thought with a pang. Call myself a man? What kind of man would put himself before his village?

  ‘Wait for me!’ Kinyo was picking his way down the slope. Chuka followed behind, her head tilted to one side as if puzzled by his clumsiness. I sighed. My brother walked down the mountain like the lowlander that he was.

  ‘I was an idiot to wait for you to tell them!’ Luki fumed. ‘I should have told your father myself!’

  ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ I clapped my hands over my ears.

  Kinyo caught up with us. ‘But you said it was only one Mangili.’

  ‘One is enough,’ Luki said.

  ‘What’s so important about the Mangili anyway?’ Kinyo bleated. ‘Why is everybody so upset?’

  ‘They are our blood enemy,’ I growled. ‘We have been at war with the Mangili since before we began to remember.’

  ‘How can you be at war since before you began to remember?’ Kinyo said. ‘If you don’t remember then how can you know?’

  Luki glared at him over her shoulder. ‘They attack us, we attack them.’

  ‘You people make any excuse to chop someone’s head off!’ Kinyo declared.

  ‘You people?’ I sputtered.

  ‘WE ARE NOT “YOU PEOPLE”!’ Luki stopped and shoved Kinyo so hard in the chest that he almost rolled all the way down the hill. ‘YOU ARE ONE OF US NOW.’

  ‘No I’m not! I just got here!’ Kinyo cried.

  ‘Pah!’ I sneered. ‘What you really want is to become an American! I see it in your face every time you gaze at that Mister William!’

  ‘Mister William is my friend!’

  ‘How can you be friends with the enemy of the lowlanders?’ Luki snapped.

  ‘But he’s not like other Americans!’ Kinyo protested. ‘He’s different!’

  I stared glumly at the mossy forest below us as they argued. Before Father killed the snake, I knew the world I lived in. I knew that I would become a man, that I would have a family, that I would hunt and fish and plant rice. Now? I didn’t recognize this world of war and tongues that spoke words that meant nothing to me.

  The sky was alight with spiralling stars, but down below us the waiting forest was black, black, black.

  Chuka, who’d raced ahead, stopped so suddenly I almost dropped the torch. She pointed her nose high in the air, sniffing.

  ‘Get out of my way, Chuka,’ I cried, nudging her solid body with my foot.

  Chuka gave a deep growl and bolted down the rest of the hill, disappearing into the forest’s black throat.

  ‘Maybe she smelled a squirrel. Or a monkey,’ Luki said.

  ‘The monkeys are all asleep,’ I muttered.

  ‘It’s so dark.’ Kinyo’s voice sounded a little panicky. ‘Can you see anything at all?’

  ‘Of course I can see,’ I said, even though the torch was barely illuminating the trail in front of us.

  ‘Well, I can’t see,’ Kinyo bleated. ‘I can’t see anything at all.’

  ‘Why don’t you turn back?’ I muttered. ‘You might fall into a boar pit again. In this darkness you will probably break your neck.’

  ‘There’s a pit?’ Kinyo cried.

  ‘Here, take my hand, Kinyo,’ Luki said. ‘Ignore Sam, he’s a liar!’

  ‘Thanks,’ Kinyo whispered.

  It was so annoying, knowing that, behind me, the two of them were walking hand in hand. I felt like turning round, and grabbing their wrists and yanking their hands apart. But I just walked faster into the forest.

  Once we were under the trees, the atmosphere thickened, wrapping around us like a moist blanket. I could hear Chuka barking deep in the wood.

  ‘Tambul? Agkus?’ Luki began to call. ‘Tambul, where are you?’

  ‘TAMBUL!’ Kinyo and I joined in.

  I could feel the cold trickling through my veins, worming its way up to my chest and twining round my heart. I was suddenly glad for the darkness: Luki couldn’t see that I was shivering, and not just because it was cold.

  ‘We should have taken two of the torches,’ Kinyo said.

  ‘Don’t be a baby. We’re almost there,’ Luki said. ‘Can’t you smell that? Wood smoke!’

  I was relieved to smell it. Tambul and Agkus must have built a fire.

  ‘Tambul!’ I called. ‘The ancients want you!’

  ‘Tambul!’ Luki cried.

  I had the weird sensation that the air was undulating. It’s just fog, I told myself, trying not to think of spirits watching from the trees.

  I made myself walk on, ignoring the tiny scampering noises in the purple shadows and the heavy creak of trees in the wind. Wet beards of moss dripped on the torch, making it sputter and spark.

  A distant scream.

  ‘What was that?’ Kinyo whispered.

  ‘Oh, you baby!’ Luki said scornfully.

  ‘It was just a monkey,’ I laughed. ‘Are you scared, Kin—?’

  The taunt withered in my throat. Because we could all hear it now. Feet running in the shrubbery ahead. The torch sizzled and then its fire went out. Something exploded in the shadows, and someone was suddenly on top of me. Fingers were tearing at my throat, sharp nails gouged at my flesh. Sweat was flicking everywhere. Claws. Knees.

  ‘What?’ I heard Luki cry. ‘What’s going on?’

  Now I was on my back I could see a tiny gap in the forest canopy, a triangle of moonlight above us. The torch guttered on the edge of my vision. The shadowy figure turned. I could see my assailant.

  It was Agkus.

  ‘It’s me! It’s Samkad!’ I cried. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘
Samkad! Oh, Samkad.’ She was sobbing. ‘The Mangili killed him. They killed Tambul.’

  22

  I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I thought I could save him somehow. Maybe I wanted to prove that it wasn’t true – that Tambul had not been killed, that Tambul was still alive.

  I stumbled to my feet.

  ‘No!’ Agkus screamed. ‘They might still be there!’

  But I was running through the trees. Quickly. Quickly. I could hear the crackle and pop of a fire somewhere. There, on the other side of a boulder. A clearing. The fire was small, right in the middle.

  Under the smell of wood smoke, there was another odour. What was it? It smelled like …

  I knew the smell of freshly butchered meat.

  There was an axe lying on the path. Tambul’s axe.

  There was a black shape sprawled across the trail.

  A carcass with an arm, stretched out. A very human arm.

  Not just a carcass. A man.

  I knew from the beginning who the headless body on the ground was. Even in the dim light, I knew those strong limbs. The deep chest. The pattern of gecko tattoos that marched from shoulder to breast.

  I knew.

  But the words that came to my lips were, ‘Who is it?’

  Whoisitwhoisitwhoisitwhoisitwhoisit?

  And then I was screaming his name.

  ‘TAMBUL!’

  An icy fist wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed, stopping the life inside me. I could not breathe.

  Then I found myself on my knees, arms outstretched. I wanted to gather Tambul up in my arms. But the gaping wound where his head had been filled me with terror. When I gingerly lowered my palm to the broad chest, I could feel the soft heat swiftly dissipating, turning the warm, living flesh into cold, unyielding meat. I snatched my hands away and stumbled to my feet, wanting to flee.

  My knees were dripping.

  Blood.

  I could smell it as it trickled down my leg, oozing into everything, coating every pebble, spilling out over the dirt, seeping between every blade of grass, spreading deep into the ground, soaking into roots of the trees, into the ground, into the caverns below, filling the mountain.

  Blood.

  White threads of mist were pooling around the body, submerging Tambul slowly.

  And then Luki was there. Her arms were around me. Her wet cheeks pressed against mine. Her lips were moving, but I was deaf. I couldn’t hear her.

  My windpipe opened and though I knew that screams were leaving my throat, I heard nothing.

  Luki shook me and, slowly, sounds began to filter into my hearing. The scratch-scratch of the small fire. The wind whistling in the trees. The sobs of the others.

  Agkus was a vague shadow away in the trees. When she spoke, she sounded broken. ‘We were sitting by the fire and the Mangili dropped down from the trees. Two of them. Tambul tried to fight, but they ran him through with a spear. I fled and then I thought they had caught up with me. I fought. But it was you.’

  Kinyo ran to his aunt and clutched at her elbow. ‘Aunt, come, let us go back to the village! Please, let us go back now.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes. We must. What if there are more of them?’

  More of them.

  There had only been one this morning.

  And now there were two.

  If I had told the ancients earlier, if I had spoken up, this would not have happened.

  Tambul was dead. The village was in grave danger. And it was all my fault.

  23

  ‘Hurry,’ Agkus gasped, as we turned to leave. ‘Hurry.’

  Eddies of mist suddenly appeared, gleaming gold in the light cast by the fire as it wound round our knees. Shadows huddled over us in the trees. We glanced fearfully around us, but if our enemy was hiding somewhere in the forest, it was impossible to see in the darkness. Were the Mangili watching us now from some secret hiding place? Were they amused by our despair?

  The forest air was suddenly filled with many shouting voices and the mist parted to reveal Father and torches and spears and five other grim-faced men, gaping at the corpse in the clearing.

  ‘How long ago?’ Father’s voice was harsh. Agkus mumbled an answer and Father nodded. ‘We must move quickly.’ He sent three of the men into the trees to search for the murderers. The other two hacked a great pole of bamboo from a thicket and lashed Tambul’s poor headless body to it. They carried him home, dangling on a pole like a freshly-hunted deer.

  The trail was wet, the moss sucking on our feet as we made our way up to the village. Agkus was hopeless, needing Father’s support to put one foot in front of the other.

  When we reached the skull pillar at the top of the hill, Father gave a signal and the men lowered Tambul to the ground. One began to fix torches to the gate and the other ran to the House for Men to tell the ancients what had happened.

  ‘Wood!’ Father commanded. ‘Bring wood to build Tambul’s funeral chair.’

  ‘Build the chair? Here, outside the village?’ Agkus cried, as the rest of the men scattered to gather wood.

  ‘Tambul cannot enter the village,’ Father said quietly. ‘You know why, Agkus.’

  ‘No!’ Agkus threw herself at Father, clutching his arms like a drowning woman. ‘Don’t leave him out here alone!’

  Father gently took her hands in his. ‘This is the way it has to be,’ he said. ‘Tambul died an unnatural death. The spirits will not have him in the village. He is one of the Uninvited now.’

  People were coming to the gate. I could hear their shocked whispers. It’s Tambul! The Mangili took his head. ‘Tambul!’ someone shouted, far away. ‘Tambul!’

  ‘We will honour him,’ Father said softly. ‘We will build him a death chair. We will sit with him. He may have died an unnatural death, but he is still our own.’

  Agkus seemed to waver – she would have fallen to the ground if there had not been several women nearby, who caught her, throwing their arms around her and lifting her up.

  ‘The ancients have ordered everyone to the cave,’ one of them said. ‘Most people are already on their way. We will take her there.’ They led her away. Agkus didn’t resist, her body spiritless and limp.

  A tall shadow unfolded itself from under a tree.

  ‘Mister William!’ Kinyo cried, running and throwing his arms around the American’s waist. Despite the dozen torches flickering on the fence, Mister William’s face remained in shadow.

  The ancients were shouting before they stepped out of the village, praying loudly to our ancestors, begging them to protect us from the Mangili.

  Where is your spirit now, Tambul? I wondered. Are you in the shadows, watching in bewilderment as Father carefully builds a high backed chair out of the wood we gathered? Are you horrified to see us lift your corpse so clumsily? Do you mind that we are sitting your dead body in the chair, crossing the ropes across your chest, and tying your ankles to the legs with your feet resting on a footrest of bamboo?

  I arranged Tambul’s hands carefully on his knees – they were heavy, the skin dry like bark. His fingernails had turned purple. Salluyud brought a white shawl adorned with spirit symbols to drape over the gaping wound where Tambul’s head had once been. Over this, Pito hung ceremonial strings of boar tusks and dog teeth.

  In the firelight, Tambul’s skin had darkened to charcoal. It was icy to touch. The headless figure looked small in the high-backed chair.

  ‘Children,’ Father commanded. ‘Go now. Join the others in the cave. Luki, your mother is waiting for you there. Take the American with you. It will be safer there, in case the Mangili are planning to follow this with an attack on the village.’

  ‘But they’ve already killed Tambul!’ I cried. ‘Why would they attack again?’

  ‘Go. Now,’ Father said firmly, turning his back on us.

  We obeyed.

  Kinyo called to Mister William, translating Father’s words. The American collected his bag from under a tree and strapped it onto his shoulders.

/>   ‘Which way?’ Kinyo said.

  ‘Just follow everyone,’ I murmured. ‘Look.’

  From where we stood, we could see the flickering dots created by the torches of people making their way to the cave on the black shadow of the mountain ahead. The distant wail of a baby echoed in the valley. Just ahead of us a man put a small pig on his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t want to go back into that cave,’ Luki whispered.

  I shrugged my shoulders, staring up at the moving dots of light on the black mountain.

  ‘I’m just going to get a blanket,’ I said suddenly. ‘You go ahead. I’ll catch up.’

  ‘All right,’ Kinyo said, moving ahead with Mister William.

  But Luki stayed, glaring at me. ‘Why do you need a blanket?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Weh.’ Luki stamped her foot on the ground. ‘I know you, Samkad. You’re going to stay, aren’t you?’

  I sighed. ‘Tambul would want me to stay. If you were dead wouldn’t you want your friends to sit with you?’

  Luki looked at me for a heartbeat.

  Then her foot lashed out, striking my ankle.

  ‘Ow!’ I yelled. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘I’m staying too,’ she said. ‘He was my friend just as much as he was yours.’

  We fetched our blankets and crept back to Tambul’s death chair. The ancients had taken up positions round it, sitting on their heels with their chins tucked into their chests. They were asleep. On the ground someone had already laid a bowl of rice wine as an offering to any spirits who might wander by. There were two guards leaning on their spears. But they made no move to stop us as Luki and I crept into the shadow of a boulder not far from the tree fern pillar. We spread our blankets out and lay down. Chuka whimpered and slithered into my arms, her hot doggy breath blowing into my neck, the warm, furry body pressed against my belly, the wagging tail flicking against my leg.

  Soon the tail grew still, Chuka began to snore, and I began to dream.

  24

  I was dancing.

  My arms were raised like eagle’s wings; my feet were moving to the rhythm of the gangsas.