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Carpentaria

Page 18

by Alexis Wright


  The Phantom family knew the sea eagle well enough, although they never gave it a name. Will remembered being out in a high sea on a grey day, in a stormy sea with his father and Elias, years before, when he was ten years old, and saw the sea eagle when it was a fledgling then, injured by another sea eagle perhaps. They all saw it drop out of the sky and Elias plucked it out of the sea. For perhaps a year it hopped around on Elias’s boat, never leaving it. A greedy, demanding bird squealing non-stop to be fed, whenever he saw a person move. Then, when they had all just about given up believing it would ever learn to feed itself, Elias took it back to sea. He was gone forever it seemed to Will’s young mind so he went around telling everyone that Elias was dead. One day Elias came back and told Will the eagle was in the sky, but it stayed at sea, and lived on the perpetually passing traffic of transport barges, ships and fishing boats.

  The eagle always came back to Elias when he was out at sea, sitting on his bent back while he fished, wanting to be fed, and getting a bellyfull of good fish, until Elias headed back to land. Now, evidently, it had come to a muddy lagoon, fishing with Elias for reef fish, hovering hungry for days, waiting for one of the bags to be opened and fish offered to him as though he was incapable of fishing for himself and had to be fed, as though he had again been injured.

  It had grown hungrier and more disoriented, waiting for Elias to feed it. Yes, yes, Will whispered to Elias, it would be put right soon when the eagle picked up the sound of thunder rolling inland from the sea. Will watched the eagle watching him for a few moments. He hoped that now he had his fish he would be smart enough to fly back to the sea once he heard the thunder clap and roll. The bird dropped the fish and sat looking forlorn on the log. Will turned his attention back to Elias. With a deep breath, he confronted Elias’s empty eye sockets staring straight into his face. Elias’s presence felt so real, if it had not been for the missing eyes, Will would have sworn he was still alive and was playing a joke on him by pretending to be dead.

  The clouds were approaching, wind started blowing through the trees and the unnatural darkness which came with storms was settling in. Alone, with Elias, he did not want to look at the dead man’s face which might tell him things of the other world he did not want to know. This was when Will saw dried blood stains all over the front of Elias’s cream cotton shirt.

  The same stains covered the floor of the boat. Elias had lost a lot of blood when he died. Again, Will saw the image of white men flash by the other side of the boat. They looked as though they were laughing at Elias’s body, as though it was a joke. He placed his arm around Elias’s body and picked up the human shell, weighing nothing. Words, which even surprised Will Phantom, raced out of his mouth, ‘I am going to avenge whatever it was that happened to you, Elias. I am really sorry, old man.’ Easy now to make such a commitment for the first time in his life to somebody else, and mouth the words with conviction.

  He knew the old Uncles always said there were bad omens surrounding the lagoon in that heavy foreboding of the land before the Wet. They pointed to where the spirits had lain in the atmosphere, before moving freely in and out of the lagoon, while they turned normality into a nightmare.

  The clouds ran overhead, and in the distance, he heard wild winds tearing through the woodlands. He moved frantically, automatically doing what had to be done, to get the boat out of the lagoon. Blue plastic rope had been used to tie Elias down to his seat and more rope had been used to secure the boat. The rope was looped tightly around the boat twice, looped over the front and back. Working to untie other men’s work dissolved any idea he had which suggested Elias had carried his boat cross-country as just a foray into fantasy.

  The cloud front had reached the lagoon and a dust storm was only minutes away, so Will took a grip of the pile of loose rope left lying on the floor of the boat and started to lug it towards the edge of the lagoon. The wind blew red dust in ahead of the rain with the pungent smell of wet gidgee warning Will to get out of the lagoon. It was time to find some shelter. He knew if the rainstorm set in, there would likely be a flash flood through the area, and he would have little to no chance in the morning of finding the boat again. If he had not been so preoccupied with his thoughts about the mystery of the fish and why the boat was in this particular lagoon, he might have recognised there were sinister undertones to this unusual situation which had been designed to look so ordinary. He did not hear the droning engine of a machine in the distance until it was almost above him.

  The sea eagle’s blood sprayed over the lagoon like early rain when the bird took off in fright and hit the rotor blades of the helicopter descending at high speed over the spearwood. Will dived under the mud as the helicopter bubble, coated with blood, roared down towards him as the pilot tried to regain control and ascend the other side of the lagoon. Then, it returned at full speed and began to circle slowly above Elias’s boat. The whorling blades stirred the mud into a turbulence that boiled into the air. Will went under again and when he resurfaced with mud falling out of his eyes, he saw the bloody machine moving off over the spearwood, just far away enough to position itself to return. Will waved frantically, hoping they would see him, then as the machine drew closer on its return, Will caught a glimpse of the pilot and another man through the blood and muddied bubble. He watched while the man in the passenger seat positioned himself to lean over the side of the helicopter with a rifle to his eye, aiming the weapon directly towards him. In disbelief, he did not react, or try to figure out how to save himself. There was so much happening in those moments as the helicopter swooped nearer and the flying water whipped his face, that he was not able to determine the identity of his pursuers. Assuming they were white men, simply because they were in a helicopter, he could not comprehend why they looked so dark. Precious moments of saving his own life were slipping away, when it suddenly dawned on Will Phantom, who was unprepared for a trap by the company, that they were mining men, dressed in navy uniform, expecting his return. Idiot! Of course they looked dark.

  He re-entered the sightless world under the mud, knowing that somehow, if he could avoid being shot at, he would have to get out of the water. The machine hovered close above him. His mind running, calculating distances, his own down in the mud and theirs above, and breathless, knowing he must have taken them by surprise, if it was him they were after. If he could get out he would have to run, but where to, he was not sure. All he had to gamble on was the helicopter not having enough space to land, convincing himself that this was so, otherwise why did it not come down?

  Not sure if the man was firing his rifle into the water, Will moved away from Elias’s boat, hoping it would be difficult for them to see him. He crawled along the mud floor, camouflaged by the turbulence in the choppy waters covering the surface. Which way? The image of the log where the bird had sat sprung into his mind. He was almost breathless as he made his way towards it, hoping, convincing himself that it was the only cover, his only chance, to escape. He moved, quickly estimating he had correctly pinpointed the log from under the water, hoping that they thought he would stay near the boat.

  He calculated right, the right length of time he could stay submerged, long enough to bump into the end of the log. He resurfaced behind it. Safe for the moment, he looked back towards Elias, only to see the boat sinking lopsidedly in the turbulence. They had fired at the boat thinking Will would stay under it. Now, the helicopter was taking up position again directly above him, then it flung itself back across the far side of the lagoon.

  He knew it was time to get out of the water – if they had not already seen him, they soon would. He ran hard towards the spearwood with the deafening noise of the machine closing in behind him. He could not hear the rifle being fired. Random shots into the gravel ricocheted beside him, from left to right. Shots hit the ground in front of where he ran, behind, and right to left again. Will thought he was being pursued by a psychopath with high-powered sights, or else someone was trying to scare him off. He ran as a wild zigzagging animal
in full alert to danger, knowing it was being hunted down, became like rubber, flexible, bouncing, too hard to catch. The helicopter, accelerating to get up ahead of him, turned for the gunman to get a crack at him, face on. It was too late. He was running with a power he did not realise existed in himself, and he was approaching the cover of rocks in the gullies. But what neither party realised was, they had run out of time. The storm hit. Wind and rain fell in horizontal sheets across the valley, and the helicopter made a hasty retreat to the west, in the direction of the mine.

  Will knew that he now had the night before they could try again, but if the rain kept up, it would not take long for the roads to become impassable for days. He sat on the rocks and became just another dark shadow in the premature darkness of the rain, except when every minute or so lightning struck, and he was able clearly to see the surrounding landscape, and he and the lagoon in white light. In his mind he began surveying the open space that separated him from the town. Where would he find the best cover if the mine sent out more helicopters to find him? Perhaps it was just a coincidence? He decided to be on the safe side he would assume the company had a memory as big as his of their battles fought over mining in the Gulf. He would have to stay out of sight of search parties as much as possible, if the helicopter was likely to return in the morning, and then he thought about how careful he would need to be in Desperance, after this.

  The rain fell in torrents and he knew even before he caught his breath, he would have to go back down to the lagoon for Elias’s body before the psychopaths from the mine had another chance to tamper with his body. Mozzie had told him about the poison festering in the souls of the men who disturbed the earth. ‘The spirits went Blah! They just spat on the ground like a piece of rotten meat. They were listening to the truth, and they knew, and they looked to you, Will. You keep doing what you got to do.’ Will felt Mozzie Fishman’s presence, standing behind him, grinning and pointing between flashes of lightning to where the spirits flew around in the wet skies, speaking quietly about the mining men, saying how he believed their work was just beginning by using Elias as their vessel. Will could never escape the words he heard in his heartbeat. But, if the rain kept up, the creeks would flood through the lagoon in the night, and who knew where the body would end up, if he did not take it out now?

  He went back into the lagoon, anxious to save Elias before the water rose, and his own spirit shadow, one old ancestor, limped along to keep up with him. When he finally touched the boat in the dark, he found it was not entirely submerged and he was able to straighten it enough for towing out of the water. In the hours that followed getting Elias out of the lagoon, Will took the tin boat and hid it behind a spearwood thicket leaning against a rise, about a kilometre away in higher country above the flood levels. Carefully he concealed the vessel with spinifex and dead branches, until he was satisfied that he had created a hide as though nature’s hand had constructed it. Then he went back for Elias to take him up further into the high country. He was not difficult to carry. ‘We will get you somewhere safe, up in the hills,’ Will kept on talking, speaking to and replying for Elias as though he were alive. ‘How could you be dead Elias?’ ‘Well! I can’t tell you because…because…because I don’t know what happened to me.’ It was comforting to hear the sound of his own voice, to feel he carried a real man, not to think of the dried-out remains of the person who had helped to condition his life. He felt each step of wet, loose rock with his bare feet, as they climbed the rugged terrain as swiftly and with the sensitivity of mountain goats in total darkness, higher on the hill.

  Satisfied he had them both secure in the hills, and sheltering from the rain under a rocky ledge he had located by sniffing where the kangaroos sheltered, he looked down in the distance and saw headlights below. He observed the lights of two cars coming in a hurry through the rain in the direction of the lagoon. He could see how the car lights weaved about in the darkness, that the drivers were finding it difficult to keep the cars on the road at the speed they were travelling.

  ‘Elias, I don’t know what is going on here but someone seems to be in a big hurry coming along that road,’ Will spoke propped up against the rock wall, sitting beside him. ‘Yes, if they are not careful they will be dead too,’ Elias replied. The vehicles continued to swerve back and forth across the road.

  Will slipped back down the hill, without ruffling a stone, to get a closer view of what was going on. The two vehicles stopped at the turn-off, and he listened to the voices discussing whether to take the vehicles down the steep dirt track, which was slippery now from the rain.

  Headlights and searchlights on top of the vehicles beamed down the track through the rain. Water raced down the road like a river and Will watched the navy uniforms of six men, including his two older brothers – Donny and Inso, who worked for the mine. It was a wonder they did not hear his thoughts. Perhaps his thoughts were blocked, concealed behind the rocks on the other side of the main road. He watched the big dark frames of Donny and Inso, sliding down the watery road to the lagoon in the black wet, with their torches jumping ahead of them. Two others followed them.

  ‘What we supposed to be looking for anyway?’ one brother spoke. All four were talking, and someone said he’d been told there was a body down there.

  ‘We have to look out for a little tinnie boat.’

  ‘What’s that smell anyway?’ Donny asked Inso, who said he did not know. ‘It smells like an animal, probably kangaroo fur.’

  ‘Fish! You idiot, it smells like fish.’

  ‘What fish? Animal fur when it’s wet.’

  Will followed, moving through the spearwood on the side of the road. In previous times he would have sprung out in front of them to pick a fight, their fighting marathons, fought until one remained standing. Donny and Inso kept talking to the other two men about the rotting fish smell.

  ‘Can’t you smell it?’

  ‘Yeaaa, I suppose so.’

  Will heard his thoughts leaping out of his mind so loudly, he believed they were hanging around in the heavy humid air, like illuminated balloons. Donny and Inso, or the other two men, jumpy with the torch, often swung the light around to shine straight through the spearwood trees, as if they were trying to locate where the stench of old fish was coming from. ‘There can’t be any fish here.’ It was too dry for fish, they said, laughing at the repetitious topic of their conversation, and the absurdity of the lingering smell, until finally, because they were in good spirits, they agreed that the overpowering stench was the work of indigestion – food poisoning. A fish percolating in their own intestines.

  Will moved in closer, moving next to them through the spearwood. Silently his feet joined the paws of the wallaby and kangaroo, feeling the ground in the darkness, belonging as if to nothing of life. So, close, he listened to their heartbeat, so nearby, almost standing as his brothers’ shadow. He penetrated their laboured breathing inside their lungs, and could see when they waved the torches across the flooding lagoon. Yellow beams cutting across the bucketing rain, sheeting across the rippling water with the wind. He saw the shock on their faces when they could not see the boat. Oh! Glory be. He could almost hear his brothers pray. They argued with the other two workmates, about whether it had sunk and whether one of them should go out into the lagoon and check. Just to make sure.

  Curiosity killed the cat. Will knew Donny and Inso’s motto in life. Not one of the four men volunteered. No one wanted to go into the muddy water that was already rising with the rainwater racing down the steep surroundings of the lagoon, running black liquid over their boots. They heard all the dead things thundering down the hills from miles around with the leaves, sliding snakes, awakened crocodiles, rushing into the lagoon. It seemed as though all the wind and rain on earth was funnelling inwards with the spearwood trees bent, pointing straight down to this little lagoon. Will knew that even Donny and Inso saw the spearwood trees become the spirits blowing spears which whistled past them into the water.

  The technic
al bosses, talking back up on the main road, were minding the vehicles. ‘Who was to know,’ the four men agreed, ‘that we did not go in, looking for the tinnie they up there are after?’ Will was relieved that the other two men followed Donny and Inso, and his brothers were true to form: the story of their life, always willing to shirk duty. No one was arguing; there was total agreement. The four headed back up the road.

  While they walked up the hill through the running water and rain, occasionally they would shine their torches through the bush, perfunctorily, perhaps thinking of having heard a sound of an animal. Many times the beams cut straight across Will, but he was a mud man not seen by others. They tell the others, the two supervisors, waiting with the vehicle, that the lagoon is starting to flood and the boat must have sunk. Their voices, practised, have a genuine ring of truth. ‘That will do anyhow,’ the technical men say dismissively, with authority.

  The technicians continued speaking, discussing the possibilities of losing the evidence in the floodwaters. In voices that speak quietly and without emotion, they discuss the forecast, the rainfall patterns, the jet stream, flood rates, all with a blank look on their wet faces, dismissing the ‘local knowledge’ given by the other four, whenever they spoke. The technicians talked about concrete evidence – not the dead body nor the one they had earlier tried to shoot. The conversation becomes too detailed and monotonous for the likes of Inso and Donny. The mine in their mind meant good food, as much as the money, and they did not want to miss out on dinner, not for one day, not for anyone’s business. While the technicians stand in the rain, Inso and Donny and the two others sit in their vehicles, brand-new four-wheel drive troop carriers, navy blue under the mud, talking of stews and casseroles, excellent fish curry. Good food cooked properly by chefs, not just chucked around in a frypan in a pile of fat until it burned, and nobody to fight you for it. They smile and wait – nobody ever had it this good.

 

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