Power of Pinjarra

by Sandra Dengler

  There—over there…a slight movement beneath a bottle tree…

  “Indirri!”

  “Marty!” Jase’s voice! “Down! Duffers!”

  Guns exploded, thunder and orange flashed among the trees beyond the bottle tree. On the far left a pair of light-colored trousers ran from a black shadow to a black shadow.

  At least now he knew there was an enemy, where it was, and where they were moving to. Marty dragged the roan to comparative safety behind a gum tree. “Jase!” he shouted. “Where’s your horse?”

  “Dead!” Jase sounded much too far away. “Get back to the Downs and bring help. Don’t try to wade in here.”

  “No time. I’m coming to get you.”

  “No! I’ll come to you.” The figure behind the bottle tree darted across a patch of moonlight to the blackness of a gum-tree shadow. He ducked across another open pool of silver. A gun roared from the trees beyond. Bushrangers. Most town constables would have you believe bushrangers no longer existed, except in folklore and history books. Yet here were four of them, big as life—at least four, as near as Marty could tell.

  He saw a dim gray shadow bob far to the left: a horse’s blaze face. One of the bushrangers was astride and trying to ride around to cut off Jase and Marty’s escape. Jase must have seen him, too, for he fired at the man, and the gunshot, much too close, almost shredded Marty’s nerves. He wanted desperately to run away, and so did his roan, Marty could tell. He was just as jumpy, lurching and swiveling to escape. I must stay. Jase is doomed without me!

  He heard Jase’s gun click. Suddenly he popped out of the shadow into silver light. Marty lunged the roan forward. He leaned forward and down, his arm out. He almost had him. Jase need only grab his hand and swing up behind; they’d be gone and safe before these dingoes could—

  Jase grunted as if someone had slapped him too hard on the back. He slammed forward against Marty’s leg. Marty groped wildly, grabbed a big handful of shirt, then wheeled the horse away so his cousin wouldn’t be trampled. Jase’s right hand clung to Marty’s pant leg for a minute, then fell away. He was dead weight in that shirt. The shirt ripped; the weight fell away.

  A thousand strident voices shrieked “no!” in Marty’s ears. Pop’s gun was in his hand even before he dragged the roan to a stop and spun it about. He saw just barely a smoky form in the distance, moving through the gray. The gun in his hand bucked and jerked him back with its kick. The form in the distance cried out, and in his head Marty heard Turk Moran’s voice.

  Over there, another movement—Marty fired, fired again. He didn’t hear Turk this time; he didn’t let himself hear anything, not even the roar of this bucking, kicking lethal weapon.

  Jase was on his hands and knees at the roan’s nervous feet. He reached up and grabbed Marty’s boot. Marty shifted his reins to his gun hand and reached down to grab Jase. Together they squirmed and struggled and finally got him up behind the saddle. Marty reined the roan toward home and with a whoop and a shout turned it loose. The terrified horse needed no encouragement. It stretched its neck out and flew. With all his strength Marty clung with both hands to Jase, struggling to keep him aboard. Only when the roan began to stumble badly did Marty gather up the reins and draw him in.

  Marty slid off the spent horse and helped Jase scoot forward into the saddle. Then with his cousin sprawled across the roan’s neck, Marty jogged off homeward with the horse trotting in tow. Even so, the roan was tottering and ready to drop when they finally copped the rise and staggered into Pinjarra’s dooryard.

  Marty yelled, and a gladsome wave of relief washed over him as he saw Pop jump down off the verandah; he’d been waiting up! By the time he reached Marty, lanterns were glowing yellow in two windows.

  “Starve the bardies! What on earth—” Pop exclaimed as he pushed nearer for a closer look at Jason.

  Marty stepped back to let Pop take over. His legs were like rubber. His body shivered, slick wet from top to bottom with a drenching sweat. Not even the night air was cool enough to relieve either him or the horse. Pop led the roan toward the house with Jase still slumped in the saddle.

  The kitchen door swung open, spilling yellow light. Mum called, “Martin? What’s wrong?” She clapped both hands to her mouth.

  “Shove his leg up, son,” Pop said as he led the roan up onto the verandah. Marty swung Jase’s right leg straight back and up while Pop managed the left, putting the injured man prone on the horse’s back as they led it right through the door into the kitchen. The roan’s belly scraped both sides of the kitchen doorway. With a sweep of his arm, Pop shoved a basket of apples from the table. “Right here. Easy does it.” The apples hadn’t stopped rolling before they had Jase flat out on the kitchen table.

  Mum, a seasoned squatter’s wife, never even blinked at a horse in the kitchen. Whipping out her sewing scissors, she cut away the remains of the torn shirt as Pop applied dish towels to the bleeding chest.

  Jase’s shirt was stained with a mixture of partly bright red and partly dried brown blood, like blood he had seen before. But this wasn’t Turk Moran. Marty had not spilled this blood. Other men, evil men, had done this. And he, Marty, the inveterate coward, had not let his cousin down. He hadn’t run. He had stayed and fought. He had pulled the trigger.

  Inside him a new and undefined feeling exploded. It wasn’t pride. It wasn’t the heady thrill of victory. It wasn’t rage exactly, but “rage” came as close as any word to describing it. Those duffers had entered his run, his Pinjarra, to attack Jase.

  They made a fatal error doing that, for Marty would find them and defeat them and bring them to their knees. He knew he could, he knew he would, for now he had mastered the one enemy that would have kept him from winning—his own fear of guns.

  Uncle Edward came waddling into the kitchen, tucking his shirttail into his trousers. He blustered and gasped a few moments. He hovered around, uncertain, then shook his head. “Fatal. Bullet in the lungs is always fatal.”

  Mum scowled. “Ed, run fetch the feather pillow off my bed. Now.”

  Pop’s hands were smeared with blood halfway to his elbows. He tipped Jase slightly for a better examination as his voice purred, smooth and casual. “Bullet entered from behind, right beside the shoulder blade here—see, Grace? Probably took out a rib here, but nothing serious. Then it broke up and exited here in pieces. Looks like ground beef under your arm, lad. But the lung’s not compromised or he’d be coughing bloody foam by now.” He straightened. “You got off lucky, Jase. What happened, anyway?”

  “I was riding up the creek,” Jase explained, “looking for dried-up billabongs that might be wet enough yet to dig down to water. Came on tracks of horses with cattle. Fresh tracks. None of our people moving stock there, and that’s about where Marty’s seed bulls ought to have been. So I followed them out.”

  Uncle Edward returned with the feather pillow and stuffed it under Jase’s head. “Marty, you should’ve had someone in the saddle by now, going for a doctor. You’re wasting time.”

  Pop snorted. “This far out? That’s rich. Doctor’s not going to travel two days to come see this. Sunday’s nearly here and this is Father Bill’s week at Muttaburra. We’ll take him down to St. Joseph’s church. Father Bill was a medic in the army. Good as most doctors. Now finish your tale, lad.”

  “They were lifting Marty’s seed bulls, all right. Four of ’em. It was dark, the moon just coming up. I didn’t know what to do. I yelled and fired in the air, hoping they’d think they were found out and run. Instead, they turned on me. I never expected cattle duffers would take up murderin’ on the side.”

  Pop nodded. “That’s what it’d be—murder. They would have hauled you away or buried you in a claypan, and nobody would ever have known what became of you.”

  Jase simply lay there breathing awhile before he continued. His face was the color of mashed potatoes. “I almost got away in the dark, but they shot my horse out from under me. Kept them at bay in the trees, but I was running out of shells. Then
Marty yelled in the darkness. Nicest sound I ever heard—and the worst. I was afraid they’d get him, too. I didn’t know he was carrying a gun. He never did before. I used my last bullet, but he was able to burn our way out of there. He saved me, and that’s the truth.”

  Pop looked across the table at Marty. “Next time you argue with me, son, you’re gunner hear about this. Count on it.”

  “Every time I argue, so long as we both shall live. Jase, did you see anything of Indirri or the skewbald?”

  “No. Nobody out that way.”

  Suddenly Marty was too nervous, too keyed up, to stand still. He took up the roan’s reins and led it outside before it did unspeakable things to the floor.

  Goonur was standing there in the dark by the verandah step, barely discernible. “Did they do this?”

  “No. Whitefellers. Cattle duffers.”

  “Did you find them? Hear of them?”

  “No. If these duffers were the enemy he’s looking for, he might’ve come to grief. If they don’t mind shooting a whitefeller, they sure won’t mind blasting a black.”

  Gimpy Jack came hobbling toward them. “What’s going on?”

  “Jase ran into cattle duffers.” Marty handed the roan’s reins to Goonur. “Put him away, will you?” He thought another moment. “Goonur, you don’t have any trouble going bush. You’re a good hunter, a good tracker. And Jack, the first time I ever saw you, you were tracking for Sheldon. Tomorrow first light, I want you two to track down the skewbald. Find out what’s become of Indirri and Mungkala. If you overtake them, tell them to come back. I need help against my enemies just as they do.”

  With a bright smile she nodded eagerly and led the roan off toward the barn. Jack watched Marty closely, with a peculiar look on his face.

  “Marty!”

  Marty wheeled.

  There stood Pop in the doorway. He strode down off the verandah, his eyes narrowed, and stood in front of his son. “I heard that. You’re not the same man who rode out there this evening. I can feel the change in you. You’re about to make a fearful mistake, bringing the blacks in on this. They don’t care about the subtleties of English law, nor even what’s fair. And they don’t—”

  “Neither do I anymore. Nobody comes onto my run and shoots to kill. They were closing in on him like a pack of dingoes, Pop. Cold-blooded. Deliberate. They knew who he was.”

  “The blacks will follow you to a point, but the minute they decide you haven’t gone far enough, they’ll cut loose without you. They’re unstoppable. You’ll be unleashing a bloodbath that won’t stop with your enemies. Once this thing starts, scores of innocent people will die—black and white, people you grew up with, people who’re supposed to be your friends.”

  “Jase would be dead now except for a twist of luck. The bloodbath has already started, Pop.”

  Pop glared, spewing anger. “Gimme back my gun.”

  Marty unbuckled his belt, never taking his eyes off his pop. He dropped his voice a few notches. “Remember that incident with Turk Moran years ago? Back then everybody called me a hero. The brave little boy who stopped him in his tracks. They toasted me in the pub. I wasn’t old enough to drink but I got toasted. Even you said you were proud of me.

  “Pop, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t even mean to shoot him. It just sort of happened. I was trying to protect Jase and got mixed up. It took Turk a week to die. I know, because I visited him at the hospital. He cursed me, not for shooting him but for spoiling his dream. They pumped him full of morphine but he suffered horribly anyway, and then he died.”

  Marty pressed the heavy holster and its pistol into Pop’s hand. “I was sure I’d never…I mean, even hearing a gun go off…Until a couple hours ago, I never thought I’d touch a gun again. You’re right, I’ve changed. I’m ready to fight now. And I’ll win any way it takes.”

  Pop stared at him. “I never guessed. You never said anything.” He drew an audible breath and let it out slowly. “You take Jason down to Muttaburra. I’m leaving at first light.”

  “Back to the Downs?”

  “Beyond the Downs to the railroad and up to Mossman. There’s one man who maybe can save us from war. I’m bringing him back here.”

  “Luke Vinson? How?”

  “I don’t know how. But the man’s got a line straight through to God, and that’s what we need. The blacks respect him, the whites respect him, and I never met anyone who knows more about what God wants and what He can do.”

  Pop started to turn back toward the house, then stopped. “My first reaction was ‘God help us.’ It still is. I figure it’s up to me to give the Almighty a hand.”

  Marty smiled in spite of himself. “Never ask for a handout if you aren’t willing to work for it.”

  Pop studied the dirt at his feet a moment. “Yair,” he chuckled. “That’s about it, ain’t it?” He walked back inside.

  Marty didn’t bother going all the way around the house. Instead, he climbed in the window to his bedroom. He lit the lantern beside his bed, opened the clothes press, and got down on his knees. He set aside the bootbox, all dusty-smelling, that held his crocodile boots. He got out the other bootbox, the one tied with string. He yanked the string. It broke with a twangy pung.

  Gently he lifted the lid. So many sordid memories lived in this box. He dug through tissue that had not been disturbed for over fifteen years. Then, with determination and a certain reluctance, he lifted out the gun that had killed Turk Moran.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Source of Power

  “When Baiame sent the first people out across the land, land that had never felt the press of men’s feet before, he did not send them out powerless. He taught important magic to the old men. Then he instructed the old men to pass their wisdom on.”

  After so many years, after his dream had long since gone dormant like bushes in a drought, Indirri was tasting of that wisdom. The power of a thousand centuries was beginning to seep into him at long last. With absolute joy he sat beside this little fire listening to a storyteller.

  The cicatrices on his back burned. They would be sore for weeks yet, for rubbing ashes into them like that slowed the healing process. It also made them welt up and stand out, bold marks that would forever tell the world of Indirri’s new status. He glanced across at Mungkala. Mungkala didn’t seem nearly so pleased to have become a man at last.

  The three other initiated men in this clan appeared in the muted light and settled on their haunches. The elder spoke. “We talked about your story. We considered your idea. Your heart is right. Also you have the old pride, the kind of pride we used to carry in the old days. So many young men, they don’t want the old ways anymore. They don’t want the pain. They say, ‘Why do this when we get no power anyway?’ We listen to your heart, and hear wisdom speak.”

  Indirri’s heart thrilled. Never had he been praised so grandly. “When I came to ask your help against an enemy who hates all blackfellers, I didn’t know about your old men. I didn’t know I could do this. You have made my life full.”

  “You saw our lubras. We have five ready to marry, and no young men for them. If you become one with us, we will fight for you. But you must marry with us.”

  “I have a wife and child.”

  “There is no place for them here.”

  Indirri glanced across at Mungkala; his cousin’s face looked startled, even frightened. Take a whitefeller’s crockery bowl and smash it. Now fit the broken shards together into a bowl again. That’s how he must piece together his many thoughts.

  Goonur. She meant everything to him. Bohra. His future, the part of him that would live even after Indirri had returned to the Ages. What would happen to them if he left them? Nothing much. They would remain at Pinjarra. Goonur would find another man, perhaps a better man. Indeed, if Indirri effectively removed this enemy, Goonur and Bohra would live much safer lives—particularly when on walkabout, for this enemy roamed onto Pinjarra’s paddocks.

  Another thought occurred to h
im. As an initiated man, Indirri in his dreaming could cast protective shields around Goonur and Bohra. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he decided Goonur and Bohra would be better off were he to join this clan. He thought only briefly about the pain of separating himself from them. If he dwelt on that too long, he would surely lose heart and return meekly to Pinjarra. He would never be a man then.

  The memories of that massacre boiled up fresh in the pictures of his mind, as if it had happened yesterday. With it came the hatred, fresh and new. The blood of all those innocent people of his clan cried out for vengeance with voices too shrill to be refused. Love and family must stand aside. For years he had yearned for revenge in a vacant way, for he was powerless to do anything about it. Now these other men, strong warriors, were agreeing to help him. He had their dreaming, and he was on his way to developing his own manhood. He couldn’t lose.

  After all these years, at last he had tapped a source of power.

  ****

  Marty scooped deep into the basin and splashed a double handful of water on his face. He let his face drip and carried the basin out to the garden. He dumped it on the nearest row—lettuce—and brought it back to the kitchen door. His face was nearly dry now, and much cooler. He gave it a hard rub with the towel and walked inside.

  “Eat in half an hour. Corky brought in a cow haunch—not dead long enough to smell bad, so you got beef for dinner.” Rosella chopped up what looked like cooked spinach. As little as Marty liked spinach, Rosella’s spinach with vinegar and bacon wasn’t bad.

  “Uncle Edward back yet?”

  “Don’t think. Didn’t hear him. And if you don’t hear him, he’s not there.”