Fight ’em, Cooley, fight ’em. Stand up for Rachel and Ben and Lucy Fluter and you, boy. Kill ’em, Cooley!
He kicked Mizen in the crutch and the boy dropped as though he’d been shot. His hard, bony fist shot out and connected with James’s jaw.
Like a willy-willy he was everywhere, but the odds were still four to one.
First big Wally King punched him in the stomach and he felt like chucking up, then Jackson hit him twice in the face and Cooley collapsed. Now the Packers put their boots in. They kicked him in the face, head, chest, back and, finally, a few times in the groin, nearly making him black out. They kicked him as though he were the football that could have taken him to fame and pride and other forgotten, or not yet known words, one day. They staggered off, those brave victors, and left him lying, a small curled-up ball in the blood and mud.
He managed to crawl away before the people came out of the hall after church. He got out of town, then lay down in the green-brown arms of the bush. He coughed and spat out blood and wiped the blood away from his blackened eyes, while over the trees Sally O’Brien’s organ boomed out melodiously and the priest shook hands with the congregation as they departed.
The pain of his wounds and the memory of his humiliation brought tears to his eyes. Several teeth were loose, he was sure he had a broken rib and his groin felt swollen to twice normal size. He ached all over.
One day soon I’ll kill you bastards, he thought. You could do it, Cools. Make a bomb and blow the whole fucking lot into such small pieces the remains wouldn’t fit into a matchbox.
He staggered home. The birds crooned in the leaves for their conquered brother. Branches touched him gently on the face and arms, but he had no feelings of love to return to them. There was a great killing rage in his heart.
When he got to the stumpy clearing, where most of the trees had been cut down, he hesitated in the shadow-dappled area at the edge of the bush. He decided to circle his house and get in his window, then no one would ask about his battered face and body. He lurched like a drunken man around the outskirts of the ragged bush. He reached the front side of the house, then his slinking form froze into the stillness of a stump.
Packer’s Mercedes was parked there and the huge man was smiling down at his stepmother; his stepmother, whom he hardly recognised with her powdered face and lipsticked mouth and lank hair combed and tidy. Even while he looked, the man stooped and kissed the woman on her pale face.
Red rage shook Cooley’s thin form. His eyes glowed like a lion’s, tawny in anger. Oh, now he could see their little game! No wonder Mum Cooley hadn’t been so worried about her breadwinner going away. Now everything became clear. It had been Packer’s evidence that had condemned his dad!
Geeze, Cooley! You should of been that detective bloke, Boney. Don’t you see? They must of planned it together. When his dad went out to see about the bull after his wife urged him to, she rang up Packer who drove into the garage, faked the robbery and planted the evidence to get rid of his dad.
Got out of his big, soft, double bed and fucked everything up. He owned vast tracts of land and two cars—both fine ones, no rubbish—lots of money in the bank and respect from the entire district. Now he had Cooley’s stepmother as well, and that went just a little too close to the boy’s heart.
For, although Cooley’s dad had belted him, he had once been good to him. Besides, Cooley always associated his dad, Ben and himself as all together with Lucy Fluter in a time where dreams were true in the Dreamtime of the earth. His stepmother had always bullied him and treated him with contempt; now she was kissing, laughing, smiling at the man he hated most of all. Suppose he got rid of his wife and they got married, where would Cooley be? In the biggest problem he ever came across. It could never happen. Never!
His eyes were like the coming of a summer storm. Like the bursting of a rain-swollen river, hate and rage and violence flowed forth and swept away Rachel’s love like the bloated bodies of sheep caught in the flood or the immaculate lines of Packer’s fences flattened by the storm.
In his eyes shone a bright yellow light as dangerous as broken bottles. All the hurt he had felt on this day sent his mind reeling as he watched Packer place his arm around the woman and guide her along the path.
He was his old hating self, with a sneering snarl on his thin lips. What to do, Cooley? Then he remembered what he had said to himself once, when Packer had yelled at him for being lazy. ‘One day I’m going to put a bullet through that bastard’s head.’
Well, why not, Cooley? You got the gun, you got the guts. Hey, you’ll be main actor, Cooley. You’ll be Number One.
He sneaked through the tall greenness of the wild oats that sought to dissuade him with soft gentle whispers. The birds in the old grapevine whistled, ‘Look out, Cooley, and have some sense.’ But he was a volcano with bubbling red and yellow larva in his brain. He crawled along the tumbledown stone wall surrounding the back garden that was rife with weeds. All the children were over at Kelly’s, he remembered. Only Mum Cooley and Packer were there—with the angry, thin brown snake edging through the mess of the untidy garden, ready to strike with the deadliness of a king brown.
You’ve had it, Packer. You’ve boiled your billy.
He climbed in through the window of his room. Out back, near the laundry, cold and ignored. That was Cooley. But not now. Cooley, the big man, avenging his dad, or really, avenging himself, his tribe.
He sat on his lumpy, springless bed then reached under it and carefully took out the gun. It was Ben’s and only two years old, but Cooley had become acquainted with it and knew its every movement. How tight to hold it, where exactly to aim it if you wanted a direct hit. The shiny red wood had grown into him like a third arm.
Cooley adjusted the telescopic sights with reverence and a strange smile appeared on his deadpan face, while his slanted eyes glowed with a burnished yellow light. From a box he took a handful of golden slugs. It was Ben’s gun; Ben had taught him how to use it. Ben would take part in this killing as much as Cooley would. Thus the Fluter boys would hold their own. An eye for an eye. That was the law from long ago, as ageless as the purple jagged ironstone mountains the boy could just remember. That was the law that kept people’s pride aglow, like the fire that never went out.
As Cooley slipped out of the window he heard the deep bass laughter of his enemy and his rage poured over and spread through his battered, shaking body. Only one thought was in his head and he mouthed like the hissing of a snake, like the tiny sounds of a lion about to spring on his unsuspecting prey.
Just you wait there, Packer, laughing and drinking tea and kissing and rooting. Just you wait there, Mum Cooley, and watch your lover die. Just you wait there, all you white arseholes who hurt me and turned me into dirt. I’ll show you a thing or two.
He slithered out of that house, along the bush to the cattle yards. He climbed up the slippery wooden wall of the milking shed. Thrown on the tin roof was a pile of bags and Cooley settled himself down. He was about three hundred metres from the homestead and the gun could bowl over a boomer from a mile away. He wouldn’t miss.
Thunder rolled like the droning of a didgeridoo and clouds twisted and wreathed in a sky corroboreee. This was the time for his coming-of-man ceremonies. Now he would be a man, with man scars across his thin yellow chest and his foreskin ripped off with a sharp rock and his mother and uncles and old Bandogera shouting and chanting for him from the grey swirling sky.
Rain, like dust, touched his face with the gentleness of tears.
The old faded door of the home opened and Cooley took a slug from his pocket and put it in the breech. The bolt slammed home and Cooley raised the gun.
Packer Was by his car and stooping to kiss his dishevelled lover when the shot rang out across the cold air, splitting the stillness. Packer fell, a fountain of dark red blood spraying from the side of his head, and Mrs Cooley screamed and screamed. The screams penetrated Cooley’s hot mind and, instead of rage and triumph, he felt te
rror, stark and vicious like a slap on the face. Cooley slipped off the shed and ran for the bush. They would discover that the gun and he were both missing. Then the police would come and shoot him.
Oh, Cooley, you’re in the shit now, boy. Those white fellahs are going to kill you. Run, Cooley, run. Think, Cooley, think!
But Cooley, never a great thinker, couldn’t think at all now— his brain was frozen in fear. He just ran. Past the sheds, past the Packers’ house, over the stone crossing that cut across the creek, and into the bush. He kept on running until he came to a little old rotten wooden cattle crate. Once, years ago, he and Ben had found it and quietly made a cubby out of it, pinching wood and tools from the Packers’ shed and making a two-storey hidey-hole only the two brothers knew about. It was their castle, their retreat and the only territory Cooley could call his own, as a kangaroo will call a blackboy bush his own where he can sleep away the hot bright days, as a possum can call a hole in a tree his own.
So Cooley came back to it.
His boots were wet from the puddles he’d stepped into. His thin trousers and coat were wet and the wind that sliced between the cracks of the slapdash walls froze him. His long curls were gone and the wet rattails of his hair fell in his eyes. Poor Cooley.
He got right up in the darkest corner where the top floor still stood. It was dry and dark, if not warm. Cooley’s wild eyes kept a sharp lookout and his thin hands kept a firm grip of the gun.
What, Cooley? You a relation to the Governor brothers, or Musquito, or who? Cooley, here come the white men, creeping, creeping. Ready to pull you under and wipe you out. Old Nigger Cooley, you’re nothing to them. You killed the richest man in the district, just like flicking your fingers. And what about Rachel, boy? You see her when you killed them rats and rabbits. Now you killed a man. She’ll go right off you, Cooley.
Everyone was against him and Cooley was afraid.
Mrs Cooley had not wasted any time. Still in serious shock, she had covered the dead man with a blanket, then rung the Maidstone police. For once the police had been fast in coming out. The big sergeant had said, as he looked up from the body, ‘A three-o. Who’s got a three-o around here, Mrs Cooley?’
‘Why, Reg has one,’ answered the woman, ‘but he never uses it. He prefers his snares.’
‘Where is Reg, Mrs Cooley?’
‘I haven’t seen him all day.’
‘What was Mr Packer doing up here?’
‘Why, he was just visiting, you know. Checking that we had sufficient food, you know.’
‘Yairs,’ the man said laconically, then, ‘Well, do you know where Reg keeps the rifle?’
Mrs Cooley led the police into the little room out back and she bent to look under the scruffy bed. When she stood up, her face was a mask of pale, dumb shock.
‘It’s missing. It’s not there,’ she whispered. Then she screamed, ‘It was him. I know it was him—the little yellow mongrel!’
The police car roared off down through the town and into the reserve. It stopped outside the Quinns’ shack. A bigger quieter replica of Morry, with white in his black hair, stared placidly at the policemen and still kept puffing at his old black pipe.
‘Good-day, Charlie. We need you for a tracking job.’
Charlie still stayed hunched in his greatcoat and grunted, ‘’Oo ya trackin’?’
Inside the house, Morry, in the act of cutting up a stolen sheep, stood listening.
‘Reggie Cooley. He done Packer in with his three-o and is still wandering about. He might have a go at anyone, you know.’
‘Aaaw, yeah. Rightio,’ Charlie said, and stood up. He got into the back of the car and settled back with his thoughts and his pipe. He was the best tracker this side of Carnarvon. Cooley would be found in no time.
As soon as the police car had zoomed out of the muddy reserve, Morry took off over to the Garpeys’. Shaughn was having a sleep, but when Morry shook him awake and told him in shocked tones what had happened, Shaughn knew where Cooley would be. He had followed Cooley once to the cubby house, curious to see where the skinny youth went when he vanished sometimes. So he would be gone for days and no one would know where he went, no matter how many times his Dad belted him or the teachers caned him. But Shaughn never told Cooley he knew, let alone anyone else. The big solemn Nyoongah knew the need for a secret refuge.
While the police and Charlie were scouting around the Cooley house looking for Cooley’s tracks, the two cousins ran full pelt for the old cattle crate. They came around behind it and Morry called, ‘Hey, Cool Cat. It’s me and Shaughn ’ere, buddah.’
Cooley faced the door, gun raised, then lowered it when the two came in and squatted down.
Morry stared at the boy in awe.
‘Shit, Reg. Waffor ya go shootin’ Packer for? Dad’s trackin’ and there’s three munadj with guns.’
Cooley spat and shivered.
‘What ’appened to ya face, Cools? What’s been goin’ on t’day, koordah?’ Shaughn asked, puzzlement in his dark eyes.
‘You blokes gotta ’elp me. I gotta ’ide somewhere. You could borrow Norris’s car, ay, and get me the fuck out of ’ere. I could go back to me own mob, up north.’
Morry shrank back from the figure crouched in the corner. He thought he knew this boy after eleven years. But when it came right down to it, he was as strange to southern Morry as the red land of his birth.
‘No, Cools. We can’t ’elp ya. You gotta give up,’ he whispered, and there was fear on his dark round face where before there had always been laughter. Shaughn gazed blankly into the yellow eyes of the demon who had been bom this cruel day.
For a long moment Cooley stared at the two boys, seeing them properly for the first time. He suddenly realised they had fought for him only because they had liked the physical act of fighting, not because of friendship. They hadn’t laughed with him, but at him—like all the white boys. Now, when he really needed their help, he might as well have been a white man. He would get no help from these two.
He ducked his head and said in a weary voice, ‘You two better go, then.’
Morry reached out a tentative hand to touch him on the shoulder, but Cooley shrugged away and stared out at the bush. The two crawled out and away, and Cooley was alone with just the singing wind playing on its wild flute. Alone as he had always been, now he had time to think about it.
Cooley waited. Like a human bloodhound, Charlie Quinn came closer and closer. The big sergeant looked at the rifle he held and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. This district was a peaceful one and the policeman was worried. He hoped he was handling this situation properly.
Aah, heck, he thought. It’s just a kid out there. Most probably as soon as he sees our uniforms he’ll give up.
It began to rain again but they were in the bush now and Charlie’s sharp eyes picked up bruised grass and broken branches. Then they saw the crate.
The rain fairly swept down in grey slashing waves, hurling itself with the dedication of a kamikaze pilot onto the mildewed wood of the crate. The wind moaned through the cracks like the devil’s dogs howling to a red moon on a black hill. It bit into Cooley savagely; it swirled the treetops around in a mad dance against the purple sky. Up above, the thunder roared and rumbled like an awakening bear. Even the weather was against him.
As he peered out the cracks at the grey rain and the thrashing trees, he thought of all those westerns he had read. What did all those blokes do to the bad fellahs, Cooley? Lynch ’em! Is that what they’ll do to you?
Suddenly he saw a form coming towards him out of the mists of the rain and the swaying trees. He aimed and fired.
The sergeant shouted as Kenneally went down, shot in the shoulder.
‘Hit the dirt, men! He’s in there!’ Then he muttered to himself, ‘Shit. Perhaps I should of waited until the boys from Perth came down.’
Kenneally crawled back, pain written all over his young face. The sergeant gave the constable’s rifle to Charlie, then stood up and shouted aga
in, ‘Settle down, Reg. Don’t be a bloody fool now. Give up.’
But the wind tore away his words. All Cooley saw was a policeman yelling at him and he fired again. The bullet grazed the officer’s cheek and he threw himself onto the ground. He motioned Charlie around the back way.
‘If you have to shoot, Charlie, only wing him. He’s just a kid, after all.’
Charlie nooded silently and crawled away through the dense curly jungle of the bush until he was nestled up against the crate. Through a jagged hole he could see Cooley, his rifle still aimed at the police.
‘Reg Cooley,’ he called softly.
The boy swung around, startled, and fear showed in his slitted amber eyes. As he raised the gun to fire Charlie stood up too and, raising his rifle, pulled the trigger. He meant to shoot above the boys head or in the shoulder, but he slipped on the long wet grass.
A hole appeared in Cooley’s forehead and blood flowed into his eyes before he dropped dead. Quick and clean was Cooley’s death.
They took Cooley back to town and the people stared as his body was taken into the hotel, where a doctor from Maidstone was waiting. Cooley, the dreamer. Cooley, the hate-filled and hated half-caste, Cooley, the dead boy.
After the inquest he was buried in the small cemetry out of town. Only the preacher, the sergeant, Rachel Layne, Shaughn Garpey and Morry Quinn were there. And Mrs Cooley for appearance’s sake.
Not a big funeral.
Poor Cooley who was going to be a big, strong man who would beat up all his enemies, a farmer with his own land, a famous footballer.
Silly Cooley, bom a half-caste, die a half-caste. That’s life, boy.
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