“Suits me.”
Suits me. These people all knew what they wanted, whether they actually got it or not. Pearl hadn’t a clue what she wanted.
Marty broke a ten-pound note to pay the check without batting an eye. They returned to the hospital, Enid to go back to work and the other three to sit with Gimpy Jack awhile.
What did Pearl want, exactly? To get away from her mother’s constant complaining and her father’s religious fanaticism. To marry well. Most importantly, to live in a comfortable city—with the amenities of city life—far away from Barcaldine.
Later that afternoon she was struck by an idea. It was so simple! She would return to Brisbane—perhaps even to Sydney. And not eventually. She would do it now. She would become reacquainted with her old set; that is, if her parents would let her. She would pursue marriage prospects that preferred living in big cities. Already she had wasted far too much time in this forsaken pit.
True, most backblockers were a decent sort, and many of the squatters were quite well-to-do, like the Frobels. But they all lived out beyond the black stump, beyond nowhere. Enough is enough; Pearl was tired of being nowhere. Jason would seek his gems in Anakie. Pearl would pursue hers in Brisbane.
Chapter Six
Flowers of Baiame
“After Baiame the Creator left this world and went back home, the flowers he had made withered, and eventually they died. The only bees around lived in three sacred trees. And though the children cried for honey, the wise old men would not permit anyone to approach the sacred trees.
“A spirit reported to Baiame how the people would not raid his trees, even though they yearned for honey, and their devotion pleased him. So he sent white sugar on some gum leaves and sugary sap that hardened on some gum-tree trunks, to satisfy their sweet tooth. The children were happy.
“Ah, but there still were no flowers. Three wise old men set out to find Baiame and plead for flowers. After many hard trials they reached him atop his mountain and begged him to help them. The god whisked them into the heavens, where flowers never fade, a place of countless beautiful blooms, and told them to gather as many blossoms as they could. Overcome, the wise old men picked as much as they could carry and returned to their home, scattering their precious flowers on the wind. The bees came back, and every season the flowers bloom, wherever the wind had carried them.”
Indirri could almost hear Storyteller’s voice now as the boy sat pondering the many meanings of this age-old story while watching a honeybee work the drift of fuzzy yellow flowers all around him. The wise old man had been instructed by wiser, older men before him. They knew which places were sacred, which were to be avoided in order to please gods and spirits. And they had the power within their clans to enforce the taboos. When they needed something—flowers, in this case—they knew where to seek and to find. They knew one had to scatter the flowers to make more. Because they knew all this, they served not just their own generation but the whole world. What wonderful power that is, to be able to serve and to make the world better!
Indirri yearned, desperately, to serve like that. But he never would. He had no wise man, no voice from the past to guide him. He hadn’t the slightest notion where to begin.
The bee lifted away and Indirri leaped up to follow. It paused at another small drift for a few moments, then struck out across open grassland. A bee flies much faster than a man can run. Indirri soon lost it, so he kept running toward the next patch of brigalow. He searched for an hour, but found no honey trove. Apparently the bee had changed course somewhere in its journey.
It was dark when he returned, virtually empty-handed, to Mungkala. He tossed the day’s catch, two dead lizards, to his companion. “Woman food.”
“Food.” Mungkala corrected. He didn’t bother with a fire. He peeled skin back and began to eat.
Indirri flopped down beside him, suddenly very weary. “You find much today?”
“Not much. Time to move on. This place is about used up.”
Indirri nodded absently and watched the colors change in the western sky.
“You’re thinking again. So say it out loud. What about?”
“Flowers and bees. Remember Baiame?”
“Yes. And?”
“And I agree we should move on. To the north. We should never have left the land we know best. We must find a clan who will make us part of them. It won’t be our clan, but there will never be our clan. And any clan is better than none at all.”
“You know what they all say, even the ones out of our father’s moiety. You. But not me. I slow them down.” Mungkala tossed lizard bones aside. “Time we separated. I know why you’re seeking other clans. You want to become a sage. I don’t. So I go where I want; you go where you want.”
“You can’t live without me. You can’t hunt. And our mothers were sisters. No. Perhaps when you’re stronger. Not now.”
“It’s been five wets since the whitefellers fell upon us. Coming six. I’m as healed as I’ll ever get. The way you see me now is the way I’ll always be. No good. You go. Don’t worry ’bout me.”
Same argument. No matter how it started, whether from flowers or kangaroos, this was how it always ended. With a sigh, Indirri stretched out on his back and watched the sky darken overhead. He could appreciate the joy those wise men must have felt when they found themselves surrounded by beauty. He understood the horror of watching his clan die senselessly. What he could not appreciate or understand was emptiness. He was empty now; no gladness, no sorrow, no anger. The rage was dead. Vivid emotions he could deal with, but how to handle nothingness? He didn’t want to continue living—yet he didn’t want to die. He wished the Storyteller had taken time to advise him on this point.
****
Dawn came with the kookaburra’s call. Indirri awakened cold and stiff; still, he knew Mungkala was colder and stiffer. He stretched himself, then patiently tugged at Mungkala’s right leg and arm until they would move. Once the elbow and knee could bend, it was a simple matter to haul Mungkala to his feet and set him on his way, his stout walking stick in his hand and his spear thrower under his arm. No spear—Mungkala could no longer hold a spear very well. He used the broad, flat surface of the spear thrower to gather seeds and roots, like a woman.
A mile or so of walking would loosen Mungkala up enough that he would be able to get down and stand up again with the aid of his stick. Indirri jogged a hundred yards and turned to watch his cousin totter northward. The crooked right arm hung at his side, nearly useless. The short right leg worked more like a trunk than a limb. And the great jagged scar on his side only emphasized the strange concavity in his ribs. Men their age should display the marks and scars of manhood; Mungkala carried only the scars of inhumanity.
Indirri had not hunted this broad basin for a long time. He paused to scan the area, determining where kangaroos and wallabies would most likely be spending the heat of the day. Roots and flowers, grubs and lizards were all right if there were nothing else, but he hungered for some meat. Real meat. He guessed at three or four promising thickets and began with the closest one.
He must have been daydreaming. That was the only explanation for his mistake. You must never daydream when hunting. A wallaby squirted straight out of the thicket before his spear was ready. It took two long bounds toward Indirri and reversed directions in one mad hop. Away it went. Indirri flung his spear; he missed.
Fffwit. The wallaby jerked mid-leap and landed heavily. It thrashed, the hind legs kicking uselessly, trying to get away. Indirri ran to his spear, grabbed it and started for the fallen animal. He stopped cold.
She stood rigid and tense, halfway between the thicket and the struggling wallaby. A lubra. Her age? Young, yet adult, like Indirri. Her skin was lighter than usual; whitefellers lurked in her ancestry. And her eyes. Even from this distance Indirri was riveted by those eyes sunk so deep in the brown velvet face. Blue eyes. Eyes like the overhead sky.
She carried a weapon like no other Indirri had ever seen. It was made
of wood bent into an arch by a cord. A thin stick fit into it crossway, sort of. And she was pointing it at him. She said something he could not understand.
He squatted down and laid his spear aside. If he didn’t know what she said, she wouldn’t know what he was saying, either. So he said nothing. He smiled.
She scowled and lowered her curious weapon. Her dazzling blue eyes flitted about, scanning everywhere. She moved quickly to the wallaby and laid a foot on it. Her message was clear. This is my kill and I’m not sharing.
He pointed to her weapon and gestured with his hands. What is that thing, anyway?
She made no hostile sign; she didn’t point it at him again, so he stood up and walked casually to the wallaby. A long thin stick with feathers at one end, just like the one that fitted crosswise in her weapon, was sticking out of the roo high behind the shoulders. The wallaby’s eyes were glassing over, its movements diminishing. The thin stick didn’t kill instantly, but it did the job. That amazed Indirri, for the stick was much smaller than even a child’s toy spear.
He glanced at her face. She was studying him, top to bottom. What were those blue eyes looking for? She reached out, poked his arm and frowned. Next she jabbed at his ribs and wagged her head. She said something to him, and her words sounded like a question, but he couldn’t begin to guess at what she meant. He smiled harder.
She turned and walked back into the thicket. Minutes later she returned with her dilly bag and woman’s bowl. From the dilly bag she brought out a loaf of some sort. Half a loaf, actually. Half of the strangest loaf he had ever seen. How did she ever grind seeds so fine or bake it so smoothly brown? What made it fluff up like that? And the loaf’s texture—so soft and even. She plopped it into his hand and drew from the bag a whitefeller’s weapon.
His heart almost stopped but he held his place and tried not to let concern show. It was a big shiny metal cutting blade—like the kind of metal that whitefellers’ fences were made of. Dropping to her knees, she gutted the wallaby with a few deft slashes. She hacked and sliced, then flipped the animal, stepped on it and broke the spine with an expert yank and twist. She literally cut it in two. She handed the back haunches and tail—the best part—to Indirri and stuffed the front end in her dilly bag.
He stared, dumbfounded. Apparently she believed he needed fattening. Certainly he was thin; it’s hard to find plenty of food when you’re in one place a long time, and Mungkala moved neither well nor far. But he wasn’t a charity case—at least not yet. On the other hand, he was very hungry.
He looked at the loaf in one hand and the meat in the other. She wouldn’t understand, but he spoke anyway in the only language he knew. “I am grateful. I’ll take this to my friend. He’s ill. I’ll tell him about you.”
Now she was staring, just as dumbfounded. She said in words he could understand, “Your clan comes from the north. Not Iningai country.”
His mind lurched and stumbled in a fruitless search for words. Politeness and convention required him to establish their clan relationship immediately, so they would know how to address each other. But he couldn’t think. “We came south five wets ago, raiding for lu—” Come on! Think! “Because the initiated men thought we should.”
She relaxed, her arms hanging and fingers laced together, and her slight smile said quite plainly: You’re as transparent as the east wind, and you are very nervous and I am not. But her voice spoke, “Do you have a friend, really? Or did you speak from embarrassment because a lubra brought your game down?” Her dialect was that of clans living west of Indirri’s ancestral lands, and she framed the words as if she were not accustomed to using that language.
“Come meet my friend.”
Without the slightest hesitation she fell in beside him and they began to walk. Indirri had to admit her strong and well-nourished body appeared in better health than his. The lilt in her graceful stride told him she was happy; the sparkle in those amazing blue eyes told him she was intelligent.
They found Mungkala at midday. It wasn’t difficult—he hadn’t traveled very far. The woman was not nearly the surprise to Mungkala that she had been to Indirri, for he had seen them coming three miles before they reached him. Fortunately he remembered the correct manner of determining relationships. He quickly learned her name was Goonur; her father was a whitefeller of the scots clan and her mother was from the honey-ant totem. They were, as regards ancestry, total strangers.
Not that it mattered now. If this had been a full clan gathering, she would have waited outside camp while they determined her relationship to them. Then they would have greeted her accordingly—warmly or distantly, as the occasion required. They would have waited until the close of day to prepare and eat their food. Somehow, none of that applied now. Neither Indirri nor Mungkala was initiated, she lived as much in the whitefeller world as theirs, and both her clan and theirs were gone forever. Three orphans sat down around a fire in the afternoon sun to eat the wallaby and the strange-tasting loaf.
Indirri gestured toward Goonur’s curious weapon. “That thing. Tell me about it.”
She smiled. “When I started working cattle at ’Lizbeth Down, all the other drovers carried guns. Pistols on their belts, rifles in their scabbards. So I got brave and I asked the boss cocky, ‘Give me a gun, too.’ He just laughed. But the other drovers, the men, got nervous. They were afraid I’d shoot them ’cause I’m black or shoot them ’cause I’m a woman and can’t shoot straight.”
Mungkala’s eyes were huge. “You’re a drover? You ride on a whitefeller horse?”
“Can’t do it walking. By’m by the boss cocky’s son came along and heard this. He laughed and said, ‘Let’s give her my old bow and arrows. Only bow and arrows in Queensland. Then if we find an arrow sticking out of a man or a cow, we know who pulled the trigger.’ So they gave me this and I practiced until I can hit ’most anything with it. As good as a gun and a lot quieter.”
“As good as a gun.” Indirri felt a shiver of envy run through him. If he had owned this bow and arrows when his clan was attacked, the bones of the evil man in the vivid breast cover would be rotting beside his mother’s now.
She cut herself another chunk of wallaby meat. “The boss cocky’s son and his cousin did Otch Ree, he said. But now they’re grown up, they’re too busy to do Otch Ree. Don’t need bows and arrows anymore.”
“What’s Otch Ree?”
Goonur shrugged. “I don’t know.” She stared at Mungkala awhile. It wasn’t a rude stare or a fearful one. She simply seemed to be assessing the degree of damage, as it were. “No clan’ll let you in, right? My mother’s wouldn’t, I know.”
He shrugged with exaggerated casualness.
“Come work on the station. They find you something to do; you get enough good tucker that you aren’t all bones like this. Most blackfellers come and go. Time for corroborree, time for ceremonies, time for hunting up north, they leave. Boss cocky used to get really angry about that. Called them lazy. They aren’t lazy. Just have other things to do. Besides, they can mostly live off the land. You, though. You would stay there year-round because you don’t have anyplace else to go. ‘Dependable’ the boss cocky calls it. And a good place for you because you don’t fit into blackfeller life.”
Mungkala was so shaken he was sweating. “Don’t fit into whitefeller life even worse.”
“Isn’t that hard. Learning their yabba is the only hard part. It wasn’t hard for me because of my father. I grew up speaking some of both. I’d help you some.”
Mungkala’s eyes flicked wildly toward Indirri, like a hunted animal’s. Indirri sat thinking. If Mungkala found a niche in the whitefellers’ world or near it, Indirri would be free to seek out his own destiny as a sage and elder. No longer would he be his cousin’s sole means of survival. How many times had Mungkala said, “You go your way and I’ll go mine.” Now for the first time Mungkala had the possibility of a way to go. A possible choice.
Indirri said what wise men always say about a new idea. “We will consi
der it.”
It took them two and a half days to walk to the station called ’Lizbeth Down, ample time in which to consider. Indirri felt ripped in two. Every fiber of his body shouted, “You are going with the enemy! The murderers!” And even as guilt and anger screamed, a small voice in his heart whispered, “It is your only chance to become what you have always dreamt of being.”
There was the station, within view. Mungkala stopped stubbornly. “Maybe no. Not a good idea.”
“How do you know? You haven’t tried it.” Indirri wanted to sound casual, but he was solidly convinced now. This was the way.
Goonur pulled a wad of cotton cloth out of her dilly bag and slipped it over her head. It was a whitefeller’s woman dress, very plain and sleeveless, reaching from neck to knee.
“See? I don’t have clothes. No good.” Mungkala was sweating again.
“They give you some. Boss cocky doesn’t like anyone running around natural. You get used to it.” Goonur walked forward a few strides and turned. “You coming or not?”
Indirri drew a deep breath, trying to slow his pounding heart. “I’m coming.”
Mungkala had no choice. He lagged, but he came.
Utter terror wrenched Indirri’s breastbone. The enemy camp. The heart of the murderers’ lair. And he was walking right into it.
How he envied Goonur! She strode along, relaxed. With a simple piece of cloth she had transformed herself. A moment before she had been a perfect fit in Indirri’s world. Now she was fitting quite as perfectly into this one. And why not? The blood of both worlds coursed in her veins. But Indirri was not half and half. Never would he fit here.
And yet, as they approached he realized with a start how many blacks here had made the leap from world to world. Of five men mending a rail fence over there, three were black. A black girl was suspending pieces of cloth from a long rope by the largest building. A black baby played at her feet.
Strong, pervasive smells covered the gentle scent of human beings. Cows, sheep, horses…two camels munched at dry grass behind a distant fence. Talk about a smell. Indirri’s nose would never forgive him the pounding intensity of these alien odors.
Power of Pinjarra Page 7