That Deadman Dance

by Scott, Kim

  The men agreed that, with this wind and fading light, it would be unwise to attempt getting the ship into the inner harbour; a fair wind was expected tomorrow.

  Dr Cross arranged for the Chaine family to accompany him ashore with Killam.

  Bobby was already in the whaleboat and had taken the oar from Wooral. Cross sat down in the boat and spread a handkerchief across his knees—a strange gesture to those watching—and the young man whose oar Bobby had claimed lay his head upon Cross’s handkerchief and was asleep as soon as the rhythm of the rowlocks was established. Mrs Chaine studied the greased and ochred face of the young man, the matted hair held by a headband of fur, the body thickly smeared with oil and reddish clay, the scanty belt of woven hair or fur. Her husband pointed away somewhere, somewhere there in the coiled bush, the granite boulders …

  Was that the settlement?

  And then they were in a narrow channel, grey rock sloping either side and ribbons of seaweed waving from a fathom or two below the sea’s skin. There were figures on the shore, and a white sandy beach, dense and willowy trees … A few grey-roofed, white buildings huddled in the cleft between two hills shone warmly in the last moments of a falling sun.

  Bobby Wabalanginy and Wooral sprang from the boat and held it fast while the others—those who in the old stories had always danced so sharp and precisely—staggered, heavy-footed and clumsy, onto our seashore.

  Bobby would have liked to help carry Mrs Chaine, especially when her husband, stumbling on sea legs, almost fell with her in his arms. Or perhaps the children, but they had turned to the arms of sailors. And of course he was too small yet.

  The sun dropped below the low hills on the other side of the harbour. Further up the slope from the settlement a thin stem of smoke rose to the low, pink-tinged sky, and all the differing greys of cloud, smoke, granite and sea began to merge … White sand glimmered and little lapping waves broke brightly in the failing light. It was a subtle rhythm, and Bobby gently moved his hips and knees, sinking his feet deeper and deeper into the wet sand. Settling, having returned, he recalled his departure …

  His people calling goodbye, the boy Bobby Wabalanginy had sailed through the narrow gap in the granite and out toward the islands. Looking back, he watched the sun touch the land and sink, and the white sand of the beaches persist for a time but soon that, too, was no more—he had gone deep into the sky.

  Stars shone all around him. A splash, and half the sky exploded.

  Of course, Bobby knew it was reflections in water, not sky, and he never shook and trembled like the stars and moon that, so slow to reform and settle, were lulled only long after the anchor—now silent and somewhere else altogether—gripped and held him tight.

  He lay beneath furled sails, one ear to the deck, listening to the ship breathe and sigh. Waves slapped the tight timber boards and yet, even out here so far from land, something hulked close by in the darkness. Bobby made himself relax, pulled his kangaroo skin close around him. Slept.

  He sighed and opened his eyes. An island loomed solid in the vast blue of sky and the many shifting, tilting surfaces below. Only ever an ethereal thing at the sea’s horizon, the island was now close enough for Bobby to sense its mass, reach for its shelter, see its tightly curled and clinging tangles of sapling and shrubbery.

  He turned: the distant shore and, more distant still, a thin stem of smoke.

  The sails fell, caught the wind and the boat came around the island. Beyond was only ocean. A small swell moved up and down bare rocks at the end of the second island, not breaking.

  Beneath his feet the bow tossed foam and water like scattered applause, and the swollen sails were all pride and power. It must have been some fluke of wind and the proximity of the island, but Bobby was given—took it greedy and grateful—one last breath of eucalyptus and leaves, of earth and sun-warmed granite before the boat set itself into the swell angling around that jutting dome of headland, and the islands, the very land of home itself was sinking away behind him, and too soon there was only ocean, only horizon, only the boat and those upon it.

  Bobby Wabalanginy felt very alone.

  Where we going, anyway?

  He leaned over the side of the ship, emptying himself. All at sea, he was being turned inside out. One moment the boat was in a valley between mountains of water, the next it was cresting a ridge and held against the sky. Despite the undulating swell, the surface of the water was smooth, and Bobby bowed again and again to what seemed a great fathomless eye, holding him in its gaze.

  *

  Many days later Bobby was very glad to get off the ship. Dr Cross felt the same, Bobby knew, even though he never said. The anchored ship pitched unpredictably, the waves reached for them, wind shrieked in the rigging. This was not the harbour at home with land all around like a mother’s arms, this was like being a cloud out in the blue sky and sea and the wind threatening to tear you apart.

  This was Cygnet River, Dr Cross said, where there were friends from his old home. Menak and Wooral will be here, too, from our home. Bobby smiled with him.

  They rowed from a cluster of restless and anxious ships into the mouth of a river among surging waves that feathered but never crashed. In places it was very wide, and snaked so that sometimes they went into the wind, and sometimes with it. Around midday the wind dropped, and in moments began blowing from the opposite direction, and when they put up a small sail the boat came alive. Warm in his clothes and the sunlight, Bobby fell asleep against Dr Cross and when he opened his eyes the sun was much lower. He fixed his gaze across the wide, brown river on a spot on the bank not far from where a sheltering cliff towered above the water. Soon the boat nosed up to that sandy spot among rushes and paperbark, exactly where Bobby had been looking.

  See? He didn’t even have to write it down; just think it, spear his mind there and it came true. Dizzy, he hesitated with each step. After so long on deck he kept expecting the earth to move under his feet. But it did not. Not that he could trust it.

  Dr Cross knew this place. It was like home to him.

  Bobby looked for signs. Not many birds. No little animals. There were some horses, a cart and, further back, bigger buildings than he had seen before. And there, in among some paperbarks along the bank, a man in a kangaroo-skin cloak and woollen trousers. Wooral!

  Bobby ran, and they hugged one another.

  *

  Bobby and Wooral followed Cross and his friends. Bobby was full of his experiences onboard the ship: the pleasure of it, the fear, too, waves like mountains rushing at you. He realised that, just as on the ship there had been paths where only the Captain could walk and even Dr Cross was not allowed to set his feet, so it was here. As they approached the big buildings it became clear that Bobby and Wooral were to rest among the straw and the horses. Menak was there, waiting for them. He did not speak with Dr Cross.

  Dr Cross returned later with his friend to see that they were comfortable. He had rum, and explained that food would be sent to them. Tomorrow they would meet some of the Noongar of this place, and he wished them to speak of how it was at King George Town. He had, at Menak’s request, brought kangaroo-skin cloaks from home.

  Tell them, Cross said, how in King George Town we are friends.

  Menak looked around them, scowled.

  Winja kaarl? Fire? Wooral asked.

  Cross began to explain, but then saw that despite the straw, there was a fireplace and chimney. He lit the fire himself and left. Wooral swept a small space of the earthen floor clear. So they had a small fire, were out of the wind, and had a roof if it rained. Food was sent to them and, although they would have liked more, they were content just to be together, and spent much of the night talking and getting to know the horses, too. Making a home.

  Wooral and Menak’s experience of the sea voyage had been quite different to Bobby’s. They passed over it quickly, but the problem had been the weather, and their clothing had become wet. They’d wished to anoint themselves with oil to keep off the chill,
but there wasn’t much so they had taken whale oil from the lamps. Wooral did most of the talking and then sang some of their old songs, their stories of journeys and transformation, and individuals returning home as heroes. He reported he did not like it here.

  They keep us at a distance, are so cold and stand away.

  Bobby had never known Menak so quiet, so sullen.

  Hungry as they were, they saved some of the lard from the mutton to rub into their skin, because without it they knew the clothing they’d be given would not keep them warm once it became damp, not if the sun was hidden and the wind kept blowing so strongly. Even now a dry wind was moaning around the chimney. They built up the fire, reassured by its cough and lulled by the soft chatter of its many tongues; if they were to meet these strangers tomorrow, it was as well they went with Dr Cross and his friends with their guns.

  *

  The morning was hot. Better even to be naked, but since this was ceremony, they draped the kangaroo-skin cloaks over their shoulders, letting the breeze find its way across their flesh that seemed so strangely tender and naked without oil and ochre. With the white men, they followed an earthen path broken up and crossed by wheel tracks and the hard feet of horses and sheep and scattered with horse and bullock shit like that of giant emus. There were many footprints: bare feet, not boots. The camp Cross had told them about must be up ahead, but there were no footprints they recognised.

  Bobby was surprised to see so few signs of birds and wallabies in such a place, although there were plenty of yams: enough to feed many people and they would soon be ready for digging. He wondered why fire had not yet been put through here. When they saw the camp they stopped so the strangers could make their way over once their presence was noted, but Cross and his friend kept walking.

  Bobby felt isolated and very discourteous. Menak sat on the ground, on a small rise so that he would be seen from the strangers’ camp. They might have followed Cross and his friend, since they were the only people here they knew, but Menak said wait, and soon Cross returned to bring them to where a group of men awaited their arrival. They were also clad in kangaroo-skin cloaks and had spears, held in the proper formal way of greeting strangers.

  As we would at home, thought Bobby. Wabalanginy, he said to himself. He’d given them that name, not Bobby.

  Bobby hung back behind Cross and his friends, but Menak and Wooral strode ahead to the heavily scarred Elders.

  Menak unpinned his cloak and offered it to one of them. Kaya. Ngayn wardang didarak … Ngan kwel Wooral maadjit koonyart … He offered a greeting, some words of where he came from and how he was known. The younger of the Elders accepted Menak’s gift, and the two men each put their cloak across the other’s shoulders, pinning it at the throat.

  The others stood and watched, far removed and ignorant of how it was for the two men enclosed in one another’s scent.

  Wooral exchanged cloaks with another man, and then the two motioned Bobby forward, with words of explanation for his youth. Bobby remained silent as the men went through the names of families and lands between them, searching for connections. Though understanding one another, neither could quite relax in the other’s dialect.

  The men led them away from Cross and his friends and they sat between small fires talking. As the shadows shifted, they performed aspects of what they recounted.

  An old woman embraced Menak. She laughed and patted Wooral almost like he was a child: pinched his nose, and held him playful-like. Her smile washed over Bobby like sunlight when he was cold, shade when he was hot. Bobby thought of old Manit, Menak’s long favoured companion. It would be good to have her here now.

  Nitja wadjela. Your friends? the old woman said, no longer so friendly and playful. Tjanak! Devils! Smile to your face but turn around and he is your enemy. These people chase us from our own country. They kill our animals and if we eat one of their sheep … they shoot us. Baalap ngalak waadam! The very smell of them kills us.

  Not this one with us, Wooral replied. He is our friend. He needs us.

  But Menak listened carefully to what was said.

  Wooral and one of the other men took turns throwing a spear at a rolling disk of bark, using the spears of different men in the group until the disk began to fall apart. Bobby was surprised; the other man’s spear struck the bark many times. They ate, and Menak, particularly, was given the choicest of what was available.

  In the afternoon, Dr Cross and his friends took them to a piano in one of the huts, and the music rose and fell over them like a waterfall, like a wave that kept rising and yet fell so surprisingly gentle and made them feel fresh. The pianist’s hands danced across black and white, and that hand-dance made the music and did not just follow the sound. They drank tea from small cups and sat in their soft chairs, and the talk all around them, the furniture, the spoons and cups: sharp sounds, tinkling. As is only right, Menak and Wooral sang and danced in turn; they didn’t do the Deadman Dance, but. Too special altogether that one, and a dance for home only. Bobby explained a little of what the dances were about and sang some songs Cross had taught him.

  Their audience afterwards agreed they had found it very entertaining. The young boy’s command of English was remarkable—a tribute to the good relationships at King George Town—and he was confident and charming, quite precocious, in fact.

  Dr Cross’s words passed among the crowd: there is land available at King George Town. Good land at King George Town.

  *

  Cygnet River Colony was a strong wind blowing all morning from land, the rest of the day even stronger from sea. Menak and Wooral were rowed out to where the anchor-snared ship jumped and pitched like an angry beast but soon the sails fell and swelled and the ship was away on the wind. Shore was windy, too, was grit in your teeth and the terrible glare of white stone. Bobby stayed with Dr Cross and together they followed the long brown river inland among scowling, rocky brows back to the buildings and the horses and sheep and cows.

  Bobby, a child-stranger at Cygnet River, saw people looking at him from a distance and caught smiles intended for Dr Cross. Sometimes there was handshaking. Bobby kept at his lessons and stayed in a hut, just as if he was Dr Cross’s own family. Such a closed-in life made Bobby ill, and for a long time he saw the trees and sky only through the frame of a window or doorway. He could not breathe properly, and the wind moaned with a voice that might almost have been his ailing own, circling in his head. He wrote down the sound, wiirra wiiiirra wiirrn … Sleeping, his thoughts and breath bounced from the walls. The paper of his lessons was old skin beneath his fingers.

  Waking in the night, the darkness all around him was unformed spirits pressing for his attention and reaching, ready to snatch him away to where he’d never get home again. Sometimes Dr Cross’s kindly face floated before him, a lock of red hair hanging beneath his hatbrim, his eyes like tiny pools of ocean, his handkerchief at the mouth.

  Bobby heard a repeated call, just two notes: Uh-oh.

  *

  Eventually, they sailed back to King George Town, Dr Cross’s cough as familiar as the creaking timbers, the slapping sail and rigging, the ocean’s foam and wash. That cough came on the wind, disembodied, like the calling of seabirds. That cough sought out Bobby, wound its way to him within whatever enclosure of the ship he had buried himself.

  A man joined them on their return voyage, Mr Geordie Chaine, a tall, stout man with buttons down his chest and belly, and whiskers either side of his face. He had a wife and two children—a boy and girl—who the mother shepherded close. The children and Bobby exchanged glances while Bobby roamed the boat as independent as the first mate. Twins, the boy and girl seemed sufficient unto themselves and did not speak to him.

  Compressing his lips, Dr Cross played the fiddle, and Mr Geordie Chaine skipped on the same deck Bobby roamed. The heavy Mr Chaine went up on his toes, lifted his feet and lightly stayed just above the surface of the deck, bobbing. Bobby had no match for it, had never seen a dance like this. He was still learning
the rhythm of being on deck, the steps to take as the ship hurtled across the sea’s skin, bucked and fell, tackled each line of swell, was caught and released by the wind, again and again.

  The twins held one another, hand to hand, and skipped in circles to the music but they were clumsy, too. And the boy suffered badly from seasickness.

  Doctor’s cough kept on. In his sleep Bobby braced himself, breast foremost like a ship’s figurehead against the never-ending swell. And rose each time, buoyed above that persistent barking breath but the long call, the searching wailing of the fiddle remained higher still, somewhere among the clouds the sail or wind or whatever spirit propelled them.

  Dr Cross coughed. Dr Cross dabbed his lips. Dr Cross would bring his wife and family across this sea, to live where land enclosed a small part of this vast ocean and people had everything you might need.

  Dr Cross coughed.

  *

  Bobby liked being on deck: the smell of fish-soup sea, wet canvas and rope; the sound of waves slapping, of groaning timbers, and oh his bare feet treading the humming boards as he was buoyed along, looking up and thinking mast and sail cling to them clouds we trail sweeping the sky across.

  Sailors looked to the sky and sea, reading.

  Bobby wanted to read all things.

  Sailors went barefoot.

  Bobby liked being barefoot.

  Bobby was a sailor.

  His language grew and his thinking shifted the longer he was at sea. Gunnels and galley. Thwarts and ’midships. Tiller and keel; shrouds, mast, sail.

  Whales and dolphins slipped beneath the surface, waved as they rose again. Land lay like smoke at the sea’s edge, and then was gone. It formed and faded, reformed, rose and sank, as if not always remaining there just beyond his vision.

  Bobby learned the swing of a hammock, how to hold a plate or spoon on a table lest they slide across it … and look! The water in a glass made a tiny horizon, tilting with the boat.

  And the loneliness?

  He attended to his conversation and lessons with Dr Cross, but the older man’s cough kept him to his cabin and with no one to do introductions and help him make his way, few seemed ready to speak with Bobby.