by John Bodey
“Then it is agreed,” Ngala concluded. “I try to teach Baa-loo the most likely places to find food and game. I take him with me to the Lowlands, to show him where and how to hunt the Big Red, but mainly how to reach the place where he will collect skins for the next five seasons.” He paused. “And when I leave on this trip, it will be for the last time. My freedom then takes effect. Are you sure that we are finished, that we are in mutual agreement.”
“Yes,” Goodji asserted. “Agreed.”
As the cooling winds of the world swung once more in their cycle of change, dragging with them freshness and the chill of the coming winter, Ngala gave a final, parting farewell, left his wife an abundance of lily roots and yams, a couple of the fat, long-necked turtles he knew she loved, and barramundi for her evening meal. Then he walked out of her life.
Baa-loo trudged wearily in his tracks. Others, grinning from ear to ear, passed them by, shaking their heads in sympathy for the man that most of them recognised as the best hunter to ever walk their lands. At last the Tall Trees started to thin and soon opened to the great plains. Here they made camp, making the racks and the pegs they would need to dry and tan the hides; the boys strength, drained to exhaustion point.
Ngala showed him the ways of the Big Red hunter. He led him slowly in the art of stalking; how to cast a single spear throw, which would bring death rather than a long hunt to finish the kill. He showed him as he would a child: how to skin the animal, peg it out to dry, scrape away the membranes, and lay bare the raw hide that would in time be tanned, using the juices of the the tree bark. He showed him how to collect the bark of the ghost gum and cook it to obtain the fine white powdered ash to roll in the newly scraped wet skin.
He showed the boy, who now stood tall and proud, how to tie the bundles to a couple of long poles and balance them across his shoulders, how to use the swing of the load to help his walking, and how, if he broke his load and moved in staggered turns, he could carry far more.
When the winds bit deep into his flesh, telling him his family was on their way and it would be only a matter of days before he was with them again, he turned to Baa-loo and announced it was time for him to leave.
Ngala helped the boy with his load to a place that he had chosen for future pick-ups. He told Baa-loo that if he was wise he would keep to himself the knowledge he had given him, and if he had any sense, he would do his hunting alone. The boy asked where he would go. Ngala knelt in the sand as he had done for his own son, and drew the cleft in the hills, the Tall Trees and the billabong his family called home. Then, he gripped the boy by the shoulders and pointed away to the south-west.
“Over there is our home.”
“Will you be here when I come again?”
“There is no need. The skins will be here, cleaned and dressed, and wrapped ready to go. Just pick them up and go back to Goodji.”
“Then that will be my great sorrow. You are the big brother I never had. I have enjoyed this past moon with you. No one, not even my fathers, have taught me as much as you have. I was hoping that next year we might hunt again together.”
“I could not burden my Lowland family with such a promise, not now. Who knows where we may be next season. I make no promises, but there may come a day when we will again hunt as one. It would give me pleasure. I may even bring my eldest son.”
“Thank you, Ngala. I look forward to our next meeting ... I also have this to say. During our time together, you have treated me far better than you had need to. The time has also made me realise what this foolish great manthing that swings between my legs has done to my life. I thought you were the world’s greatest fool, throwing away all that wealth, now I know who is the fool. I’ll have to wait for Goodji to die before I’ll be free again; I don’t have the strength to walk away from her as you have done. Go in peace, Ngala.”
“It took a man to say those things. It is time to go, I can feel the pull of my loved ones. Take care, Baa-loo.”
“Well, Mother? Why the silence?”
“I don’t know, my son. Something is wrong with your story, something just doesn’t sit right in my gut. I can’t accept the fact that she gave in so easily. I admit her new husband has weakened her bargaining position and seemingly strengthened your hand, but she has given in too easily. I’d like to think you are free, that you don’t have to return. I want to accept it, my heart says accept it, my head says accept it, but something else whispers I should not. I’ll say this to you now, my son, stay alert.”
“I too have that feeling. I know it goes against her character. Still, you must admit, I’m here, I’m free, and I do not have to go back. I feel sorry for young Baa-loo, knowing what he will return to.”
“Yes. His pain means your release. All the same, I think we will sleep very light for the next few seasons.”
“That much I have already decided. We’ll keep the children closer to us as well. I have decided to take the family to the new lands, towards where the sun rises. Gullia and Nwunta are coming with us. Will you join us?”
“Thank you, but no. I would like to do the cycle just one more time, before I start going off to strange new places. I have known no other life, no other road. There are memories and places that I would like to visit one more time on my own.”
“But Mother, we could always return to the Way.”
“Maybe you and Imagen and the children could, but I don’t think I ever will.”
“Are you so old? Do you think your time is coming?”
“No, silly boy. I think that when we meet again in the next cycle, you’ll carry these poor old frail legs so far towards the sun, that by the time they have finished their journey to see the new lands, they will have done enough walking for the rest of their lifetime.”
Ngala smiled. “You gave me a fright there. I thought you were thinking of dying on us. Now that I know different, if that is your wish, I think it will do you good, and be good for us as well. We have never been anywhere without you. It will give us a chance to find out how we fare without your guidance. As for you never settling down, is that how you really feel?”
“I have been giving it some thought since you mentioned it last time, before you returned to the Tall Trees. The more I think of it, the more appealing the idea becomes. One more cycle for old times sake, then go with your kids on your new cycle, just so I know where you take my grandchildren.”
“But where would you stay here?”
“I’d like to set up a permanent camp in that big old cave you showed me. It is close to this waterhole, there is plenty of game on both sides of the river, and ample food grows all over. I’ll have enough food to last me the rest of this lifetime. Here, I could wait for my children to return to me season after season.”
“And if we decide to stay and give up roaming as well?”
“I wouldn’t complain. Not with having the best hunter that this tribe has ever seen. No, my son, you and your family will be free to come and go. I think as my grandchildren get older, they’ll be glad to visit their grandmother each cycle, and be just as glad to go when the time comes. It’s human nature, son.”
“I don’t know that I could walk away and leave you Mother, knowing that with the next coming you might not be here.”
“Of course I’ll be here. I’ll always be here for you and my grandchildren. There will always be food for you and yours in my camp.”
“Father! Are you busy?”
“If grinding spinifex seeds for your mother to make bread is being busy, then I’m extremely busy.”
“Aw, that’s women’s work.”
“I know, but times are changing. What is it that I can do for my eldest son?”
“Will you come to help me find this strange but friendly bird?”
“Strange but friendly? I’ve never heard of a bird like that. Surely, with all your new skills you should be able to find out?”
“That’s just it, I can’t. I try to sneak up on it, but it’s gone when I get close. It calls from a new pl
ace and won’t come out of the forest. At times it seems so close, and yet I never get to see so much as a feather.”
“Up in the tree tops?”
“No. That’s the strange thing. I think it must be a pigeon or a ground bird, it doesn’t seem to fly up into the branches. It always calls from ground level.”
Ngala felt a prickle of fear. “How long have you been trying to find this strange bird? One day? Two days? Three?”
“Oh no, since mid-morning. Mother said I could hunt some quail for her. There’s plenty near where the tall trees come close to the old cave. I was creeping up on some, when I heard the bird call ... so I went to find it.”
“Can you repeat the call for me?”
“Coo Coo Cooo-whiiiiittt!”
“Ah hah! You have it perfectly. It is the call of the Jewelled Dove, as we call it. You are right, it comes from the tall trees. And there is only one?”
“Yes. It went first in one direction, then came back.”
“They generally travel in bands. Listen, Mitti. Tell your mother that I have gone into the tall trees, and hope to be home before dark.”
“Is there something wrong, Father?”
“I don’t know, son. It may take me some time to find this bird.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“Not this time, son. If it is there, I will find it for you. And Mitti—”
“Yes, Father?”
“Tell Mother that I love her.”
“Ngala!”
“Baa-Loo?”
“Yes. We have to talk. I have wasted much time trying to get to you.”
“Then come to my home. Meet my family, wash and refresh yourself, then we can talk.”
“No, Ngala. We have to talk now. Later might be too late.”
“Let’s sit. You watch my back, I’ll watch yours. Now, tell me, Baa-loo, what I think it is you have to say.”
“For a start, I don’t know how much time we have or whether I was being followed. I don’t really know what’s happening. I’m only going on my suspicions, together with a couple of facts. But one thing I do know ... I’m a dead man.”
“Then talk.”
“When I arrived back at Goodji’s with all those skins we prepared, she seemed a different person to the one I left. She claimed all the skins, leaving me with nothing. She had even made up another sleeping area for me.”
Go on.
“I was a slave. At the click of her finger, she expected me to do her bidding. She has obtained some dark liquid that turns her into a raging, frenzied bitch on heat, and she expects to have sex two or three times a day. She bathes whenever she feels hot, and I have to carry water for that. She also demands water cooling in the shade to refresh herself.”
“It was while I was carting water that Ludo’s widow told me of his death.”
“Ludo? How did it happen?”
“Everyone says his heart just stopped, but she reckons he was poisoned. She said she once saw one of those giant possums that you used to get for Goodji die by poison. It was frothing at the mouth. Well, she said Ludo did the same.” Baa-loo paused. “Your other witness to your freeing, Jardee. He’s dead too.”
“Jardee? By poison as well?”
“Who would know? His remains were found after the dingos had finished tearing him apart.”
“And your suspicions?”
“She sent a runner to your old tribe asking that she speak with them urgently ... she said it was of great importance.”
“When did she send a runner?”
“Sometime after Ludo’s death. I was already home.”
“During the season of the storms?”
“Yes. Why he risked his life to take such a message for her I do not understand.”
“She has many people bound to her. But how do you know of this?”
“I thought when I saw Umbagai sneak into her gunya that she’d taken another lover. She’d told me to take a long walk. I listened, I heard.”
“I see. Did my tribe come?”
“Not until it was safe to travel. Umbagai returned with them. She told them that you had deserted her. That she had to take another husband to supply her with food, that I am foolish and lazy and cannot hunt. That you failed in your duty as a husband to father her with a child, that you even gave up trying.”
“Then what shall we do? I know that I can not return to my old tribe nor to her. It would mean my death.” Ngala spoke with sorrow. “We are both dead men.”
“Why? Can’t we leave and go to the lands where the sun rises, a place that only you know? We could be on our way before nightfall.”
“They would kill my family ... Goodji would see to that. If I am to die, then my family is doomed also, and the others that live with us, my sister and her husband and their children as well. They would kill them all.”
“Then let us take them with us. Where is their tribe?”
“We wait for them now to arrive. We came back early so that I could fulfil my promises to Goodji, so that the skins would be ready for you to pick up.”
“We are ... to die?”
“Only if we stay in the forest, if we stay near the shadows, or the darkness of the tall trees.”
“But night is falling.”
“We will go to the cave with one entrance. One of us will have to remain on guard all night. Then we might live until the others get here.”
“Let us at least try—”
Ngala heard the whistling whisper of death—the spear came out of nowhere. He yelled a warning as he dived to safety. He saw the glint as the first of the spear tips emerged through his young friend’s ribcage. Then Ngala himself felt the impact as a spear struck his back. Then another.
“Spread them out. Let them lay together, and feel the death pain of those who do not honour their commitments!” voices screamed from the shadows.
Baa-loo turned to Ngala, his expression shocked and his eyes pleading. His breath rattled in his throat, in his lungs air mingled with blood. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth. “Forgive me, Ngala.”
Ngala lay face-down in the sand, two spears sticking out of his back. He could feel his life pumping slowly out of him. “You led them to us.”
Tears welled in the boys eyes. “I’m sorry ... so sorry,” he wept.
“Young brother ... hold my hand in death. Let us go together to the land of the Spirits. Let them know that in death we are brothers, bound by the deceit of a vicious woman who knows no honour.”
Ngala watched as Baa-loo’s mouth opened in a smile, his teeth framed in red. He watched as the young hunters eyes glazed. And as he felt his life-force slipping from him, Ngala said his silent farewells to his family.
The boy had wondered at his father’s words. Tell his mother that he loved her? Everyone knew that. As the shadows fell and grew long, as the light darkened towards nightfall, the boy found them lying side by side, hands clasped. Their blood, slowly drying, had spread from the protruding spears across their backs to the sand below.
Blinded by tears, Mitticarla ran home to the safety of his mother. Tears flowing in a steady stream down his cheeks, he blubbered out his terrible news. Imagen, his aunt and the other children followed the boy and his uncle. The shadows were deep and darkness was well upon them as they stood, staring upon the forms that laid at their feet.
As Gullia reached out to withdraw the first of the spears, he felt a sudden blow to his own body—screaming out he crumpled to the ground, lifeless, beside Ngala’s fallen body.
The slaughter continued. There were no cries, no screams, no fight. At the close of night two families lay in death.
That was how the old grandmother found her family. She began her death chant; the keening that would carry on until she collapsed from lack of sleep and food. She awoke in the coolness of the new day. She lay quietly, gathering her thoughts, then slowly rose, and on shaky legs walked out into the chill of the coming dawn.
“Culla Mubboo. That’s the story?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.”
“C’mon, Grandad, what happened to the parrots, and what about the vine? I thought this was supposed to be a story about them?”
“Didn’t you like the story?”
“Of course I did. I like all your stories, but I thought you were going to tell me about the Crimson Winged parrots and the Passionfruit vine and how they came to be, and you didn’t even mention them.”
“Oh, them things.”
“Yes, Grandad, them things.”
“Well, Grandson, my throat’s a little dry.”
“I’ll get you a pannikin of tea, if there’s any left in the billy, and you can stoke your pipe while I’m gone.”
“Don’t forget to bring me a nice hot coal for my pipe.”
“I will. What would you do without me?”
“You coming, old woman?” “Where?”
“With the rest of us. We’re moving on. It is time to go. Soon the storms come.”
“No. I’m staying put. I told my mob the last time, before I went walkabout without them, that when I return to this spot, I’m staying for good. They may be gone, but I’m still staying, I’ll keep them company for the rest of my days. When all you fellas come round again next time, you can tell me what’s happening out there in the world.”
The old woman lived out her life there. Through the years she gathered seeds and fed the birds; she watered plants for their flowers and the honey that the birds would suckle. All around the cave, along the stream, out of the Tall Trees and from the plains, birds gathered around her through the hard times. The tribe still came and went, and the memory of her children stayed with them. The story of their deaths grew in legend.
Then after one trip, the old woman was no more. They found her remains beneath the fragments of the burial platforms of her children. They left her where she lay, her spirit too long gone to the Spirit world to those she loved for any ceremony to help her on her way. At nights, when the world was still and the stars shone brightly, the tribespeople would talk of the times that had been.
After many years had passed, an old woman of the tribe, with her grandchildren gathered about her, stood solemnly on the place where the bodies had once lain in the sand.