That Deadman Dance

by Scott, Kim

  *

  That was some months ago now. With so much time on his own, in this bush watching sheep, Jak Tar’s shipmates often wandered through his mind. He sighed with relief each time he thought of the bullying captain, but for all that Jak Tar missed the sea. With luck, Chaine would want him to command the boat he and Skelly were building so very slowly. There were always interruptions, other tasks: the sheep, for instance, depending who was around to help; the vegetable garden. Often enough Chaine came rushing with orders for fresh food for some ship that had come in, and sent them out for tammar or quokka or yongar. (He was learning the many different types of this bounding animal, kangaroo.) Skelly suggested Jak get Wooral or Bobby, who was really a bit inexperienced yet, to help.

  When he tried to enlist Bobby, the boy took him to meet Manit. They did not go to her camp but along a tributary upriver, following a path of coarse, dry sand interspersed with occasional small rocky pools of water. When they reached where the creekbed became a rocky slope, and a series of pools one above the other, Bobby came to a halt and looked around. Dark lines across the rock showed where water, when more plentiful, flowed from pool to pool. The old woman sat alone by a small fire in a clearing among the trees on the bank to one side of the rocky creekbed. The fire was only recently lit, Jak noticed, and the woman was not really alone—he saw figures moving around a pool at the top of the sloping series of water holes, and there were other small fires not far away.

  Manit wore a sort of rough petticoat under her kangaroo-skin cloak, and Bobby touched it in his conversation with her, and made sure Jak Tar knew it was worn for him. Respect for his ways. It was hard to know her age. Beyond child bearing, Jak reckoned, but not so old as to be stooped; she moved easily. She poked at the fire with a well-worn stick, and spat, and glanced at Jak as Bobby spoke. Jak guessed Bobby was talking about him, making his case. The boy seemed to amuse her.

  Jak, only an object of discussion, looked around him. Through the trees he could see one pool, so blue that it might have been an opening through to the sky behind it. The rocks were a red-orange colour, unlike others he had seen in the region. A crow landed beside the pool and bent to drink. But it seemed very watchful. There were many crows in the trees, and now that they had been noticed they began to speak.

  Manit slapped her thigh and laughed. Jak heard Kaya.

  He repeated the word.

  She looked into his face; gave a small, slow smile.

  *

  Jak Tar had assumed the men did the hunting, but Manit proved invaluable, and with Bobby as communicator they were successful in supplying Chaine’s order. Manit would slip away before they got back to Chaine, taking enough of the catch to feed her family. Or so Jak assumed, and it seemed fair to him; he wouldn’t have succeeded without her help.

  In truth, Manit’s very presence challenged and confronted Jak Tar. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for cooperating with an elderly, mostly naked woman who teased and mocked him so. His first instinct was to dismiss her, but he could not dismiss Bobby’s obvious respect for her, and Jak Tar was truly grateful to him for the help he’d provided. So he persevered longer than he might have otherwise.

  The old woman knew where animals would be and Jak realised it was best to let Bobby handle the rifle, and not only because he had such a good eye. On their first hunting trip together Jak had assumed command of the gun—he was the man, he was white. Manit, through Bobby, told him where to wait and where the kangaroo would rush, and then she and Bobby went to frighten the animals toward him. Jak Tar twisted his head as she unexpectedly returned, and at the same instant a mob of wallabies sprang from the bushes in front of him. Tammar! He heard the yell and swung the barrel, fired, missed. In one motion Manit slapped him, grabbed the gun, swung it like a club and knocked one tardy tammar senseless.

  Wide-eyed Jak Tar had one hand on his cheek. Manit laughed and squeezed his narrow nose between her finger and thumb. He was shocked speechless. His eyes watered.

  He was a gentle man, Jak Tar, and not accustomed to being bossed like this by an old woman.

  When he was a child, his Aunty used to bring dripping from the kitchens where she worked. Cooked for the Queen, she told him, and made him memorise the names of all the royal family. When she could, she took him to see them wherever they paraded in public.

  In the bush, this arse end of the world, Jak Tar came to think of the half-naked and barefoot woman as Queen Manit. It was clear she was accustomed to command. No jewellery, though, at most a few feathers and some woven possum fur; no rouge on her cheeks, though there might be fish oil and ochre; no bustling skirts supported by whalebone corsets, though she knew well the right whale from whose throat those corsets came. She wore animal skins, sometimes a petticoat or blanket, and carried a possum-skin bag more often than not. She chewed tobacco, kept a wad behind her ear.

  So that was Queen Manit, said Jak Tar, who had tried to explain the British monarchy to Bobby. But who was the older man often in Manit’s camp?

  Menak, said Bobby of the man who turned his back on Jak Tar whenever he saw him. Got that little dog from Dr Cross, and he speared Skelly!

  It was something Jak Tar thought he’d have to ask William Skelly about, but Skelly said they’d best take the sheep along the creek toward the bay; he needed to work on a new boat for Chaine. And the sheep needed new pasture.

  Over the horizon

  Geordie Chaine’s plan was to take the boat around the coast and explore inland from the many sheltered anchorages of which he had heard sailors talk. He intended to look for good grazing country. Mr Skelly had built him a fine boat, a schooner they called Grace Darling, and on its deck there was a very small stable, the walls of which could be moved in tight around.

  Bobby led the horse along a wide, cleated plank from a jetty Skelly had also built out from the riverbank. They placed the animal in a sling, supported by the mast, so that along with the walls each side it might never fall, even in a wild sea.

  On that fine schooner’s maiden voyage, Jeffrey and James huddled together and were hardly any help at all. Not that it mattered because Kongk Geordie Chaine said he and Killam and Bobby (the youngest of them all) could handle such a fine craft grandly between them, and sang out in his fine and buoyant voice that it was a compliment to Mr Skelly how well it sailed, and a tribute to the timbers of this country, too, this ocean and this fine breeze. And the sails filled and all those aboard were well pleased with his words, except perhaps those who didn’t care about this country because it was not their home.

  After barely more than a day’s sailing, the new Skellybuilt boat was well and truly tested: the wind started to batter and roar, to tear at their sails and hair, and the waves grew bigger and bigger. They might’ve taken down the sails and battened up but the sheltered anchorage of Close-by-island was not far, surely. The boat leaned over, and oh the spray and the tremble as it was hauled along the front of waves with sails stretched. They went far out from shore hoping to outrun the storm coming back because there was no sheltered shore here, but were caught and seized, and could not see, could only fight to stay upon the boat, stay alive. When the horse began to shriek and panic, Bobby had a mind to let it leap, but he didn’t, and that we got through at all, Bobby told Christopher and Christine, echoing their father’s words, was a tribute to that boat and its timbers and we sailing it.

  But you can never know what’s in the ocean.

  So they saw out the storm and the night and next day were still out of sight of land and racing along; a fine day, the sea and sky blue, and the wave at the bow all foam and lace and bubbles and further ahead, there! Land! They were not sure where they were, not even Chaine who had the charts and journals of those early mariners who plotted the coast or so they say, but as they rounded a headland the boat struck something, hard. A reef, or maybe a whale, though no one never saw nothing, just felt the shocking jolt, and then the boat still going, still going, but so low in the water and sluggish they knew it was hol
ed, knew they’d never even anchor but must run it up on that white sandy beach right there if they were gunna save it.

  The wind blew from the land, flicking the spray back from waves they were suddenly among and they were grabbed and jostled and pushed and everyone was swimming inside the boat. Frightened excited laughing Bobby untied the horse and it swam powerfully ashore, hauling him behind.

  Talking about it afterwards they realised that storm must’ve got inside their heads, too, and flung them further around the coast than they’d thought or meant to be. Oh, they knew they’d gone past Close-by-island alright, but not how far. They stuck the oars upright in the sand for when they’d come back.

  We could save her, I know, Chaine said, or if we have to we can build another from her timber.

  He had always wanted to walk back from further east of Close-by-island to get a good look at the coast and some of the bays he’d heard the whalers and Noongar talk about. He wanted to know about them, because so far he only knew King George Town and our home and Close-by-island Bay that our river led him to.

  (Did Bobby even know how much it pleased Christine that, when he recounted the tale, he said our river, our home?)

  They hauled things from the boat, retrieved things from along the shore, and of course a lot of the flour was ruined, the gunpowder wet, and even two of the water barrels were leaking.

  Chaine took his bearings from a hilltop, trying to determine just how far east they must be, and concluded they’d all go on rations, as a cautionary procedure, because they were further east than expected and who knew how long it might be before they reached a place they would recognise. Chaine looked to Bobby, but Bobby was only a boy and declared he didn’t know this country or its people. Bobby could tell that Kongk Chaine and Soldier Killam were worried, maybe a little scared.

  You could see where people camped—there was an old fire, diggings, even a very faint path. Bobby was glad they’d left; he didn’t want to come across them without signalling their own presence first, but Chaine said, No, if we meet them we’ll deal with them, but no need to attract attention yet.

  Chaine wanted to send Jeffrey and James out hunting, thinking they were old enough, and there were two of them, and since they were black they must know how … But they knew nothing about hunting. They were hungry, though, that’s for sure, because Chaine dispensed only a little biscuit and a little water at a time.

  It was hard going, just the walking, and there was no water they could find. It was good to have the horse loaded, but it had to be led, and hobbled at night, and needed good food and plenty of water, too. But way out there so far from home (Bobby, recounting it, waved his hand toward the sunrise) there’s not so much of those things. He was so hungry for meat! Chaine and Killam, too, and Jeffrey and James most of all. But Chaine said, No, we have many days to go yet and if someone can find and kill something (looking hard at the two young men) then we can eat to our heart’s content, but what we now have should leastways get us home if we are disciplined. We will make it last. Mr Killam, I expect more from you, Sir. The husbanding of our resources, the will to stay our course … That is what sets us apart, Sir.

  For the moment there was energy in his voice, but for all of them it was difficult. Sometimes there were well-beaten paths or dry creekbeds that served as such and gave them shade, where otherwise there was none because of the short and spiky bushes, but as soon as such paths headed inland, Chaine, looking to his compass and the curve of shore, took them back beside the ocean. That salty breeze, the sound of waves, the fetid scent of the dense growth in the valley between dunes and sometimes a soak or spring or ridge of granite solid under their feet, suddenly ringing under the horse’s hooves.

  They walked all day, and at day’s end fell and slept wherever they’d reached. The nights were cold and the wind strong, and they sat around the one campfire, eating their meagre allowance. Chaine and Bobby slept by the campfire once the horse was checked and settled, but the other three moved away and lit a separate fire of their own. They slept huddled closely together. Sometimes Bobby heard one or other of the boys grunting and moving in his sleep as if tossed by brutal nightmares.

  Next morning Jeffrey and James were sulky, not talking with Chaine and staying close to Killam, as if they were family, together, in a strange place. And then they would come apart, all three in separate directions.

  The scrub was so dense they had no choice but to walk the soft, sandy beaches. But in places the seaweed banks were so deep they went onto the damp sand between seaweed and sea, even into the sea itself. Then they had to fight the horse to stop it drinking seawater.

  Bobby collected dew from the grass and shrubs in the early morning using a long piece of folded bark he’d kept from the day before, and they drank it slowly because it was so precious. Refreshing, but not really enough.

  They were thirsty and oh so hungry. Even Killam was angry with Chaine, who said he was also hungry, and so, too, the horse. But we must get by, he insisted, with as little as we can and we will travel further yet.

  Killam baked damper. Too much! said Chaine, and now they ate more than he rationed else it spoil and go to waste. Killam said, Sorry, a miscalculation, but seemed pleased enough. Even so there was not much to eat, and Chaine saved what he could along with the biscuits and dried meat for the future.

  Jeffrey and James asked Bobby at different times: did he and Chaine eat food secretly, sneak away on their own? Could Bobby get some? For there was now only flour and dried biscuits. Once Bobby recognised tubers, another time some other root; he shook seeds from trees and ground and pounded and roasted them in ashes. It was women’s work, he said, because he was not sure how it was done. And they kept moving, on a journey that was dry and hard and sandy and for which there was no path.

  Jeffrey went to Chaine as they rested, staring at their feet. Mr Killam was starving them, he said. Chaine looked to Killam, who had charge of their rations, and Killam only said, We might all complain because our rations are small. The two grim men looked at one another, and Chaine said, Mr Killam is responsible for you and for your welfare, not I, or not so directly. Killam told Jeffrey that if his contribution to the party increased, so might his rations. How could he do that? What could he offer?

  Jeffrey turned his back, as Bobby had seen Mrs Chaine do sometimes when her husband displeased her, and walked away.

  Bobby, busy with the horse next morning, was slow to realise Jeffrey and James were not there. Chaine added that Mr Killam’s rifle and several days’ ration of food and water were also missing.

  There was no sign of the two youths by nightfall, but late the following day Bobby saw two heads bobbing in the distance like corks in the sea a long way behind, and that evening he saw the glitter of their fire. He told Chaine, then listened to the two men talk of compassion and discipline, and what action to take if the boys returned.

  Or we could take them at their campfire, suggested Killam, who seemed most concerned at the loss of his rifle.

  Next day they came across a kangaroo snared in a noose of some description. Chaine walked up to the frantic, kicking animal, loaded both barrels and held the weapon to the beast’s wide-eyed head. Click. The barrel jammed, an unfortunate characteristic of this particular gun. He pulled the other trigger, and the animal stiffened and fell to the ground with all their ears ringing.

  Killam took the noose which was made from many neatly woven strands of sinew. He admired the ingenuity of placing it on a thin path a little way into a tight tangle of bushes. Bobby said they could leave at least a leg for whoever had set the snare. But no, they would not. Those runaways might receive it. They lifted the animal onto the horse.

  Late that day they saw two figures, it had to be Jeffrey and James, in the distance. They butchered the kangaroo and cooked it that evening, but Chaine kept some in reserve. The party moved off in the morning and saw the faraway figures reach their departed camp, but nothing remained for them. Killam had taken the trouble to carry any e
xcess even of skin and claw out to the rocky point and dump it in the ocean.

  Jeffrey and James came within yards of Bobby the next afternoon as he trailed the two men and the horse. You help us, Bobby? This even though he was a boy and they several years older, and should be men really. Chaine affected to ignore them, and Killam turned and sneered, but neither said anything until they stopped and the light began to fade. Jeffrey and James walked a step or two behind Bobby, and came to a halt when he did. Killam held out his hands and the two young men placed his rifle there.

  We need to unpack, Chaine said, and indicated the loaded horse. Bobby bent over a fire and the boys attempted to set up camp while Killam and Chaine sat and smoked and snorted criticism, then stepped in to direct the recalcitrants: sent them to collect firewood; showed them (again) how to hobble a horse. And as the small party sat around their fire, Mr Geordie Chaine explained how, in order to teach and train Jeffrey and James, he was going to put them on smaller rations than before, smaller than their own. He still did not know how far they must yet travel. And they had stolen enough some days ago to last them a much longer time. You will not die of starvation, never fear.

  The party stretched out in a line, became small clusters; Chaine and Bobby at the front, Killam next, Jeffrey and James trailing, dropping further behind. Killam drifted back to join them, came to Chaine off and on over the day, the two men sharing the burden of responsibility, the ingratitude of those boys, their talk of distance and fatigue. Bobby moved away and back, went to higher ground, looking for granite islands on the plain, for hollows of green or level sheets of granite on the slopes … But there was no green, no sloping land, and any distant granite islands were dreamed or imagined way over there beyond the horizon. Distances grew between all members of the party except for the two young men, who together stewed and chewed resentment.