by Sarak Kanake
‘I can follow the stones,’ said Samson. ‘They go all the way over there.’ He pointed to the bush beyond the fence.
Clancy took a step back, and his heel caught one of the tiny mountains he hadn’t noticed on the verandah. It toppled, and he looked down. Every stone was grey except for one, which was striped orange, brown and white.
He left Samson fussing with the stones and went back inside, but he couldn’t sit still. He paced up and down. Queenie tried to follow, but Clancy’s leg was unwieldy. She gave up and waited for him by the door. ‘Why, after all this time?’ he asked.
The dog didn’t give an answer, but Clancy didn’t need one. He knew what was happening on his own mountain. River Fox was finally trying to contact him.
‘Isn’t she, old girl, aye?’ he mumbled, pacing. ‘Isn’t she? A new story, this is. A new story, but an old one too. Cairns. Of all the things, aye, Queenie? Cairns.’
It made sense. Spending her teenage years in the dens of tigers, River must have lost some, maybe even all, of her human language. He could understand that. The cairns would make sense in both her worlds. Maybe she even knew he would understand. After all, it had been him, hadn’t it, who’d explained the cairns to her in the first place. Or had he? ‘Fuck.’ He wished he could remember.
George would have remembered. He would have known.
Then it struck Clancy. He stopped pacing and braced himself against the kitchen wall. Of course. There had been a grave, and River had seen him mark it.
Clancy sensed the pelt graze his finger, even though he knew it was locked safely away in her bedroom.
Queenie nudged his hand. ‘Not today,’ he said. But they both knew she wouldn’t listen. ‘You can’t come today.’ He left through the back door.
She followed, like always. Head down. Smelling her way. She was nearing nineteen and slower than him most days. Blokes in town joked that she should be in the Guinness Book of Records, but Clancy didn’t think it was worth banging on about. His da’s cattle dog had lived to twenty-seven.
Now Queenie’s breathing was heavy, and Clancy doubted she’d make it up the steep crest. Her back legs were almost as damaged as his. ‘Get home, girl,’ he said firmly, and she obeyed. He watched her trudge back down the track, her bushy, white-tipped fox tail wagging behind her.
After his granddad had stumbled back into the house, Samson followed the stacks of stones into the scrub, knocking them over as he went. It reminded him of building sandcastles with his dad on the beach. Sometimes they’d spend hours making the perfect castle, then afterwards Samson would always smash them to bits.
Eventually the stones stopped, but Samson kept going.
He heard laughter again. The bush came to an end, the trees opened and everything was sky. Samson tried not to look out past the twisted scrub to the sharp rocky drop, but he couldn’t help it. The laughing stopped.
Samson squinted. Standing on the edge of the largest sharp rock, just outside the trees in a long shimmer of pearl light, was a girl. A tumble of hair. Two bare feet. One gripped the edge of the rock, like that of a possum on a branch. Toes. She looked at him. Blue eyes like glimpses of sky.
Hello? signed Samson.
Hello, signed the girl. To anyone else the gesture might have seemed a wave, but Samson knew signing fingers.
He touched his chest and signed each letter individually. S-A-M-S-O-N.
The girl smiled. M-A-T-T-I-E.
She jumped over the side of the rock and vanished. After a few seconds, Samson followed.
three
Since their first meeting at the drop-off, days before, Samson and Mattie Kelly had spent hours together, racing through dense, scratchy bush and chasing wallabies with sticks. They’d set elaborate traps for wild animals and walked until their feet hurt. Sometimes they saw Jonah walking alone through the bush, but Mattie didn’t want to play with him. She said he had bad energy and the sign for energy was one finger pointed towards the shoulder, which flipped and fell to under the elbow like a rock tumbling down a mountain. It was a small sign, and there was hardly enough room for him and Mattie inside it, let alone Jonah. Occasionally Samson would feel sorry for his brother, but mostly he was happy to have Mattie all to himself. Between them, they used almost every possible sign. Samson told Mattie about Queensland, warm sandy beaches and pelicans, while Mattie explained the history of the mountain. Murray had told her most of what she knew, but they didn’t see much of him. He was busy with Mattie’s mum, Tilda.
Mattie said it was good that Samson could sign too. She said everyone else in town talked until they were blue in the face, or red. Samson had never heard her speak, except for the clicks she made when she mouthed the words she was signing.
Samson had loved all his adventures with Mattie Kelly, but as he stood on the edge of the rushing creek bed with his bare toes clenched over the rock, just touching the icy water, he wondered if she’d taken him one step too far. She clapped her hands loudly from behind him, getting his attention, but he couldn’t turn. He was too scared. Sometimes his extra chromosome made his knees shaky and his feet unsure.
Mattie clapped again, and Samson shook his head at her. It was the scariest thing they’d done so far, and he didn’t trust her to save him if he tumbled and fell in. Mattie hopped across the stones to join him. He turned his head slightly. His knees wobbled. She tied her long brown hair back in a scrunchie, striped black, fluoro-green and pink. She was in her underwear too and looked like a newborn foal.
Slippery, he signed.
Mattie dipped her foot into the creek water and gave a silent shriek. She never even made noises like screaming or laughter. Freezing, she signed, and the sign for freezing was a hook in each hand coming down like a scorpion and striking from inside her palms.
Careful.
You first.
The water moved quickly, dropping from the height of the falls behind them. It bent around rocks and branches as if nothing could stop it. He was cold standing in his underwear. So cold that even his skin could feel it – not even his Down’s Syndrome could dull the sharp stabs of icy air or melt the water.
The creek wasn’t like the ones he’d seen back home in Queensland. Those creeks sat fat and idle in sand that led out to crashing, white-froth oceans, or thin, cool creeks that meandered through hot rainforests.
Samson shook his head again.
Chicken.
Samson scowled.
You first, signed Mattie, and the sign for you first also meant I’m after you. It looked like a gun with a trigger.
Samson stuck out his tongue. He could already taste the water. It wasn’t salty, like at home, but clear and sweet. He closed his eyes, sucked in a breath and jumped. The water closed in around him. His feet touched the bottom. Pebbles moved beneath his feet. The water dragged. It wasn’t like the ocean, because the creek wouldn’t hold him up. He pushed with his legs, and his head broke the surface. Water sprayed from his body like thousands of tiny gems. He shook his long hair.
Mattie lifted her knees and hugged them into her body with her arms.
Samson pushed his hair back from his forehead, but it wouldn’t stay. He pinched his nose and plunged backwards into the water. Only for a second, just long enough to catch every strand of his hair and smooth it over his head. He broke the surface again, but this time his hair stuck to his neck.
‘Come in,’ he called, but Mattie wasn’t looking. He splashed a handful of water towards her. She looked over at him. He beckoned her once more.
Mattie shook her head. Cold.
Though he wasn’t cold yet, Samson’s arms snaked around his chest, and he nodded. He didn’t want Mattie to think he was weird, and he didn’t want to explain his extra chromosome. With a few large, splashing steps, he was out of the creek and up onto the stones. He almost tripped.
Careful, signed Mattie.
They sat on the rock together, Samson with his feet dangling in the icy water, and Mattie with her knees tucked up. She put her arm around
him. Mattie was smaller, and if Samson had wrapped his arms around her, he could easily have reached all the way around her shoulders and overlapped their hands. But he was too nervous to touch her or even look at her properly, so he stared at the water instead.
Rainbows danced through the falling stream. The surrounding trees rolled back and forth, reminding him of the ocean rolling in and out over the sand. The white tree trunks caught the light and pressed it in behind the bark, igniting them from the inside like city streetlights. Across the rocks, green ferns covered with beads of water made a kind of bush music in the breeze.
Tink, tink, tink.
Eventually, Samson glanced at Mattie. Her skin glittered like a kaleidoscope of rainbow fish scales.
Samson’s extra chromosome lightened, a balloon being filled with air inside him. Maybe Mattie Kelly was his Dreaming Snake, and Samson was her ground. She moved around him, pushing him into the shape of mountains and gullies, rivers and lakes, trees and even flowers. The sign for rainbow was four fingers that moved in an arc. Each finger meant a different colour, with the thumb hidden behind all four.
On the edge of the creek, Mattie’s arm around him, Samson imagined he was the thumb.
Clancy called for Queenie again from the edge of his verandah. ‘I’ve got steak,’ he tried, but the bush lifted his voice and, instead of carrying it through the trees, turned it into a ghostly echo. Where the hell was she? He hadn’t seen her since the day after the boys arrived almost a week ago. The same day he’d sent her away, as though she hadn’t made the climb with him a hundred times.
‘Queenie, Queenie, Queen-eee!’ he called to the tune of ‘Olly Olly Oxen Free’. He waited, but she didn’t come. No sign, and the shouting made his headache worse.
His head had been throbbing for days. Every night after a few hours of telly, he and the boys would hit the sack. Samson slept with the bedroom door open, even though Jonah didn’t want him to. Clancy would leave them to their bickering and get into his own bed. Sleep would come, but not in the comfortable, warm waves he had known when he was younger. These days his sleep moved through him like a thunderous wind, snapping inside his thoughts, lifting him out of his bed and then dropping him. Some mornings he’d wake and feel as if he’d been walking for hours. Some mornings he’d even wake with dirty hands like he’d been digging in his sleep.
‘Queenie!’ he shouted again. He checked under the back verandah, as he had every morning since she went missing. Dozens of chewed sticks, soup bones cleaned of meat and marrow, but no sign of his dog. He walked around to the front verandah and peered underneath. An old bedsheet was half buried in the dirt, but no Queenie.
He stared into the bush and thought of the tiny red pup who’d changed her tail to look more like a Fox. George would have been able to find her.
Clancy went back inside. Next to the mudroom, Queenie’s water bowl and dry food dish were full. He had been keeping them fresh for her. Again, he checked all her favourite places in the house. Under his bed, then behind the couch and the floor of the pantry. He even checked Samson and Jonah’s bedroom. Jonah was still asleep, his blankets pulled up over his head in a fabric cocoon. Clancy made a hell of a racket looking around, but Jonah didn’t stir. Samson’s bed was empty. Clancy didn’t worry – the boy was rarely there for breakfast but was always back by dinner.
Clancy walked back outside. The sky was clear. He took a deep breath and shook his head. He should never have sent her away. He should’ve let her come with him. She’d never sulked this long. A day or two was normal, and once her hearing had started to go, Clancy suspected she sometimes stayed away only because she couldn’t always hear him call. He wasn’t sure what she ate when she went bush, but she must’ve got her tucker because she never came back starving.
‘Queenie?’ Clancy kicked the edging around Essie’s dead rose bed. She would have said he was acting guilty, and she would’ve been right. Missing Queenie had reminded him of things he’d rather not think about, but it was no good. A memory tugged at the corner of his mind, thin and clinging, like walking through a spider web at dusk. He remembered watching River and Murray play together on the lawn.
Murray was just seventeen, a year older than David, and River was almost thirteen. Clancy was standing inside the back door while Essie cleaned up after tea. Murray lifted River into the air and swirled her around as though she was made of rags. ‘Putmedown, putmedown!’ she shrieked.
Essie was watching too. She’d been drying the same glass for almost five minutes.
‘You right, love?’ he asked.
‘Don’t you think they’re getting too old to be that … playful with each other?’
‘Depends what you mean by playful.’
‘They’re teenagers.’
‘River’s not. Not really.’ Clancy was thankful she still wore baggy clothes.
‘She’s almost thirteen. That’s high school. High school means teenager.’
‘Yeah, but … she’s not like other girls.’
‘Neither was I,’ said Essie.
Outside, River squealed and broke free of Murray’s hands. She ran. He chased her, but she was faster than him, even though he was a good two feet taller.
‘Bloody bugger off!’ she called over her shoulder.
‘No way,’ said Murray. ‘I’m winning.’
Essie plunged her hands into the soapy dishwater. She pulled out an almost-clean plate and started scrubbing. Her eyes stayed fixed on the kids.
‘You’ve never said it out loud before,’ Clancy said quietly.
‘And I won’t.’ She didn’t look at him.
‘Murray’ll have to go away. George might want him told.’
‘I understand.’
‘You want me to talk to them?’
Essie dropped the plate in the drying rack. Then she nodded. ‘River will be angry.’
‘Face that when we get there,’ said Clancy. ‘He mightn’t want to go, or George might not let him.’
Essie’s face fell. ‘None of us have much of a choice now.’
Clancy nodded, and together they watched their daughter throw her arms around Murray’s neck and cover his face with kisses. He laughed and tried to shake her off.
‘I love you, Moonie,’ she said.
‘I do too,’ said Murray.
Essie knocked on the window, and both kids looked up, startled. ‘Time for him to go,’ she said.
Murray Bishop had been the first to be sent away from Clancy’s mountain.
He shifted his weight back onto his crook leg. The space behind his missing kneecap groaned. Beyond the verandah, the bush sounded as restless as he was. He didn’t like thinking about seventeen-year-old Murray walking down his mountain, or River screaming from inside her locked room, or Essie crying by herself behind the water tanks. Clancy swallowed hard and tried to push his wild, angry sadness down through his ribcage and into his gut, but he couldn’t reach.
‘Queenie!’ he called, as though he could call them all back home again.
The bush beyond the fence quivered, like a huge snake digesting an animal whole, but Queen Elizabeth didn’t come.
Jonah filled the kettle and placed it carefully on the stovetop. He was trying to start the burner when Clancy shambled in from outside and shoved him out of the way. ‘Let me.’ He turned a knob on the front of the oven and lit the almost-invisible gas that shimmered for a second over the burner.
Jonah took a half-empty loaf of bread from the fridge and dropped two slices into the toaster.
‘Did you sleep well?’ asked Jonah, because that was what his mum said every morning.
Clancy grunted. It was the first time Jonah had seen him without his ponytail. The long, thin grey hair slipped over his shoulders like oily smoke.
‘Me neither,’ said Jonah. ‘My bed’s really hard.’
‘Which one you got?’ asked Clancy, although it didn’t sound as if he wanted an answer. He reached for the tin of tea and nudged the rusty lid off with his thumb.
>
‘Under the big window.’
‘It was good enough for your dad.’
The toast popped. Jonah dropped both slices into the middle of his plate and spread lots of butter but hardly any vegemite. He went to sit at the table, but remembered the dog. Had she come back?
‘She’s not there,’ said Clancy, without turning around.
Jonah sat down and took a bite of toast.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ asked Clancy.
Jonah swallowed. The vegemite coated the inside of his mouth. ‘Under the house.’
Turning to him, Clancy’s eyes were wide. ‘What were you up to?’
Jonah shrugged. He didn’t want to tell Clancy that he’d been snooping around the locked room. ‘She tried to bite me.’
‘Bullshit.’ Clancy sounded angry. ‘That dog’s safe. Never bit a person in her life.’
‘She did,’ said Jonah. He hated being called a liar.
‘You must’ve scared her,’ Clancy said, as though he was talking to someone else.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘She’s been missing since the day after you arrived. How do you explain that?’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
Clancy switched his weight from one leg to another, and his face tensed with pain. ‘Poor old girl,’ he said. ‘Must have scared the stuffing out of her.’
‘I can help,’ said Jonah, standing up. He didn’t exactly want to find the vicious dog, but he did want his granddad’s company. ‘I’m good at finding things, promise.’
When Clancy shook his head, something inside Jonah’s chest unbalanced and dropped into his feet. ‘Best go on my own.’
Looking down, Jonah mumbled, ‘Whatever.’ Another day all on his own. Big deal. It wasn’t as if he’d ever had friends. The boys at school thought he was weird and weak. They said he was too skinny for football and not tall enough for basketball. It didn’t matter, though, because Jonah didn’t want to play. He’d lasted years on his own. A few more weeks weren’t going to kill him. He didn’t need Clancy. He didn’t need anyone. And besides, he didn’t really want to be friends with his granddad. There was no one on the mountain he wanted to be friends with.