‘Might be, brother,’ Justin allowed.
‘I’m a philosopher,’ said Heriot, in self-derision. ‘I’ll be silent now.’
And indeed he was silent almost all that day, and though they camped once again without water, and nausea welled up in him as he chewed the chunks of cold, cooked goat that Sam had given them, he had no complaint or comment. But he slept uneasily, tormented by the cries of dingoes, and on the next day he was weaker, and more tremulous of the hands.
‘I’ll walk now,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough riding.’
‘No,’ said Justin, ‘you stay on horse, brother. You tired.’
‘I’ll walk,’ said Heriot firmly.
But at midday, in the full heat of the sun, he stumbled among the rocks, and fell, and was unable to rise.
Justin, kneeling over him, sweating into his beard, pleaded: ‘Brother, brother, don’t you lie there. Get up now, brother.’
‘I can’t,’ Heriot said. ‘Not again. No, Justin, leave me here.’
‘You got to get up. There no water here, nothing. Come away, brother.’
‘There’s no help for it,’ said Heriot. ‘Leave me.’ The rocks burned him through his clothes and he closed his eyes. The sun glowed and then darkened through his lids, and he felt sleep coming.
But Justin, stooping, lifted the old man in his arms, and set him on his feet and supported him. There was not now any urgency in Justin, only a hopeless calm. ‘We go on,’ he said flatly. ‘I get you up on the horse and you sit there and I look after you.’
‘No,’ said Heriot feebly. ‘No.’
But he was bundled, unresisting, into the saddle, and sat limp and tired while the world passed in a blur of sunlight, and the sweat streamed from his back, and his tongue grew dry as canegrass with thirst, making it hard to speak. Yet he muttered to himself from time to time. ‘Why try to save me?’ he demanded. ‘Who cares? This world—this world’s a grain of salt. A grain of salt in an ocean. No microscope is strong enough to see me. No camera is fast enough to catch me between birth and dying.’
He looked down at the tangled hair of Justin and felt pity for him. ‘This earth hates us,’ he said gently. ‘It heaves and strains under our feet. Go home, Justin. You haven’t had your share of time.’
‘No,’ said Justin. ‘I not leaving you.’
‘The world wants us to prey. But I won’t prey on you, no, I’ll go against the world. Soon I won’t prey on anything. Not even the insects this horse crushes carrying me.’
‘That right, brother.’
Heriot shook his head, gasping in his dry throat. ‘Why do we have thirst? Because the world hates us.’
‘Might be.’
‘And hunger? Oh, God. Suppose you had an open wound. The maggots would be in it now, eating you up. That’s hunger.’
‘Yes,’ said Justin. ‘Yes.’
‘There’s some wasp that lays its eggs inside caterpillars. The grubs eat the caterpillar, but it doesn’t die. No, they keep it alive so that they can eat it longer.’
‘Yes,’ said Justin.
‘They keep it alive until it makes its cocoon. Then they finish eating it, they use the cocoon themselves. That’s hunger,’ said Heriot, ‘that’s what I mean by preying.’
‘Yes, brother.’
‘But I’ll escape it,’ Heriot vowed. ‘I won’t be party to it. No. Now I’m only the prey.’
And then he was silent again, choked by thirst, and sat and swayed in the saddle as brown man and brown horse plodded on over the hot rock. His smallness and his futility could not hurt him now, for he had no pride, had nothing, only his feeble body, and his thirst.
He was almost asleep when they came, after hours, to the country of caves, where bluffs and cliffs of rock were split with dark holes, and where, green and luxuriant, a gle tree reached out from among the boulders.
‘There water there,’ Justin said, on a long sigh. ‘Water, brother.’
‘Ah, benigna natura,’ said Heriot wryly.
They paused for a moment to rest their eyes on the dark foliage, so fresh among so much rock; and as they stood there, a small sound came from among the leaves, and Justin, stepping back, reached for the rifle, and loaded stealthily, and began to creep forward.
On a shelf of rock a wallaby sat, so soft in its grey fur that it might have been a toy, so innocent, with its big foolish ears and dark eyes, that nothing in all its life could have threatened it, thought Heriot, feeling with his eyes the tranquil heart beating in the side and the claws gripping stone. ‘Oh, my beauty,’ he said softly, ‘my handsome one.’ And the wallaby, turning its head towards him, started. And Justin fired. The perfect creature leaped and fell back, and died quivering on the flat rock.
Heriot closed his eyes.
‘Come here, brother,’ Justin shouted. But he shook his head and said nothing.
‘Water,’ Justin said. ‘Plenty here. Quick, brother.’
He moved wearily in the saddle, stirring the horse forward and allowing it to carry him on to the little rock pond beneath the wild fig tree. There was grass growing in the water, and a continual slow drip from the overhanging cliff far above. A drop fell stingingly on the back of his neck as he lay down over the rocks to drink.
Long afterwards he got to his feet again and walked towards the mouth of the cave close by the pond. And under hanging rock he saw the first of the paintings, the crude figure of a man without a mouth, his head outlined with a horseshoe shape like that of the rainbow serpent.
‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You are Wolaro. God. What does it matter what you’re named?’
He called to Justin: ‘Look, here is God.’ But when he turned towards Justin, the man’s eyes were wide and frightened, his lips were dry and he licked them.
‘Why,’ said Heriot, ‘you’re not afraid? Justin—’
Justin said hoarsely: ‘Brother—brother, don’t you go in there. Come back, brother.’
‘This is my house now,’ said Heriot. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
He stepped into the cave, and from all the walls the mouthless god looked down on him.
‘Hail,’ he said. ‘Ali.’
He moved, and something rolled from his feet. It was a skull. The floor of the cave was littered with human bones.
He was very tired. He lay down against the cave-wall and closed his eyes, quiet and cool. ‘I have come home now,’ he said. ‘This is home.’
11
Long afterwards Justin overcame his fear a little and came into the cave. But there was terror still in his eyes, and he, who more than any of his people had denied the old beliefs, had at last to acknowledge the powers of the dark upon his blood, and the strength of the dead.
The light of their fire washed the rough walls, illuminating the staring god, dancing in the sockets of the staring skulls. They could feel no hunger there, though the meat of the wallaby burned sweetly on the coals. Crouching close by Heriot, Justin piled on the fire more of the wood he had dragged in to keep back the darkness; and all night lay sleepless and afraid, the spirits haunting in and out of his brain.
‘What will become of me?’ asked Heriot, deeply and softly in shadow. ‘Where will I go, Justin?’
The brown man stirred beside him. ‘How you mean, brother?’
‘This is the end. You know that. And when I’m dead, what then?’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘But I must now, there’s need for it. Justin,’ said Heriot rebelliously, ‘I don’t want to die. No. Now why is that?’
‘You won’t die, brother, not now.’ But the man was struggling, and his voice showed it, against Heriot’s conviction. ‘Go sleep, brother.’
‘Will my spirit go back and wait to be born? I’d like that. Wait at Onmalmeri, in the water deep under the lilies, and when some woman came, enter her body and be a child again. Would that happen, Justin?’
‘No,’ said Justin sadly. ‘That don’t happen.’
‘Where will I go, then? Only to the islands? And wait
there forever, and be nothing? And never,’ asked Heriot, pleading, ‘never come again?’
‘No,’ said Justin, ‘you never come again. Never, brother.’ He was touched with grief.
‘What will you do with me? Put me high in a tree, and when I’m dry carry my bones away?’
‘No,’ Justin protested, ‘I bury you under cross and say prayer for you, and you go right to heaven, brother.’
‘Alunggur njarianangga,’ prayed Heriot. ‘Arung ada bram. Manambara balngi—’
‘Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth, as it is in heaven—’
‘That’s hell where His will is done as on earth.’
‘Don’t say that, brother.’
‘What reason not to say it now? Justin—I want my bones to be buried at Onmalmeri. Or left here. Yes, here will do, this old burying ground.’
‘Please,’ Justin begged, ‘please, go sleep now.’
‘My spirit can come back, for a little time. Can’t it? I can visit someone I love?’
‘They say—’ said Justin. ‘They say spirit come back to his brother, if he a man, or to his wife. Or might be hang around the bush and come if someone say his name.’
‘But you don’t believe that. You say dead people’s names, you’re the only one who does. You don’t believe in spirits.’
The light flickering over his face, with its dark lines running across the forehead and from nostril to mouth: ‘Yes,’ Justin said, ‘I believe.’
‘After so long—’
‘My old man was real clever old man. He could send his spirit from mission to town, brother, and sit in tree like a bird, and talk to the people there. They didn’t see him, but they heard him all right, talking to them.’
‘Say my name, Justin. When I’m dead, go out some night in the dark and say my name.’
‘One time his spirit bring tobacco for my brother from the town. Might be you don’t believe that—’
‘Promise you’ll say my name.’
‘I can’t say you name,’ Justin said. ‘And I don’t know all you name.’
‘My name is Stephen.’
‘Stephen,’ said Justin. ‘Real nice name, that.’
‘Call me that. Say: “I’ll call your name, Stephen.”’
Hesitating unhappily: ‘I can’t say that, brother,’ said Justin. ‘It don’t sound right.’
‘No,’ said Heriot wistfully. ‘After so long—but we’re always foreign. That never ends.’
The fire leaped in his regarding eyes. ‘I’m not so small as I was. No, I’m growing now. There are powers in me. I have love, and courage, a little of it, and reason of a sort, and compassion. And I’m a very beautiful machine, Justin, and so are you, although we’re so fragile. And if I’m going to die—well, my life has been pretty long by the standards of moths. Why, if I were as big as a tree and lived as long, I’d be proud, sinfully proud. But I’m not proud now, not with the eyes of all these skulls on me...’
‘Brother—Stephen—’ pleaded Justin. ‘You go sleep now.’
‘In the morning you must go,’ said Heriot.
‘I not going. Not yet.’
‘Think of Ella, Justin.’
‘I been thinking of her. And my little kids. Ah, my little kids,’ said Justin, ‘they be real glad when their daddy come home.’
‘Then go,’ said Heriot violently. ‘Why have you come so far with me when your children need you? That was selfish of you. Of you, not of me.’
‘You need me, brother—Stephen.’
‘I don’t need you now. Why, man, do you think I want you standing round when I’m dying? Go, tomorrow.’
His skin shining in the red light, the brown man turned his face away from the eyes of Heriot, and from the eyes of the painted god and from the holes of the skulls. He hid from them, pulling up the blanket over his tangled hair.
‘I going,’ he said, ‘Stephen.’
When Heriot woke Justin was gone, and he felt a sudden panic at the thought that there would be no chance to say farewell to him and thank him and send back messages with him to the world. But when he came out of the cave-mouth Justin was below, squatting by the water, and at the sight of the familiar profile, the heavy, wrinkled brow, flattened nose and black beard, Heriot sighed.
‘Justin,’ he said, ‘don’t go—don’t go without telling me.’
The dark man rose and came towards the cave, his face earnest and sad. ‘I don’t go yet,’ he said.
‘It would be futile, wouldn’t it, to try to tell you how much your companionship has meant to me. And how deeply it’s touched me to think that I—had a hand in turning out a man like you.’
‘You don’t have to say nothing.’
‘No. Because you know everything now, don’t you. We’ve become—close enough.’
‘I never forget you.’
‘Nor will I forget you,’ said Heriot. And they held each other by the eyes, words being of no use to them at the time of farewells.
‘There’s something,’ Heriot said, ‘something I wanted to tell you. Look after Stephen. Watch him, Justin. Teach him. Make him like you. He’s a good boy, I want him to be like you.’
‘I do that,’ Justin said. ‘I watch him.’
‘And there’s something more,’ said Heriot, fumbling in his pockets. ‘There’s Rex. I’ll give you these things, you see, my knife and this watch. There’s not much, but take them, and say they’re for Rex, and the rifle, too. I know you’d like them, and you’ve earned them, and you’ll have them, too, but say they’re for Rex.’
‘I say that all right,’ Justin promised. ‘But why you doing this?’
‘I want them to know I didn’t hate him. I didn’t, Justin. It was because I loved him—loved all your people—that I did—that thing I did. They’ll understand that. They’ll know there was never one of them I hated. They’ll remember, some of them, loving a woman and finding she was no good and wanting to kill her. And if they realized then it was love, not hate, that drove them, they’ll understand me and forgive me. Tell them all of that.’
‘I tell them,’ Justin said softly.
‘It’s my only defence. It’s the world’s only defence, that we hurt out of love, not out of hate.’
‘Yes, brother.’
‘It’s a feeble defence,’ said Heriot, with sadness, ‘and a poor reconciliation. But we’ve nothing better.’
‘No.’
‘Well—you must go, Justin.’
The brown man turned his face towards Heriot, and his mouth was stiff with grief. ‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave you.’
‘No,’ said Heriot, ‘don’t say that again. Think of Ella and the children. You’d be doing me wrong if you made me responsible for taking you from them.’
‘Leave you here, all hungry, and let you die?’
‘Hush,’ said Heriot. ‘You have the rifle.’
‘Yes, it down there.’
‘And how many bullets?’
‘Just one,’ said Justin, with an unhappy laugh, ‘just one little fella.’
‘I’m sorry. But you’ll find something. There’s always been something to kill.’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Go now.’
‘You go inside,’ Justin said, ‘just a minute, brother. Please.’
‘Why?’ asked Heriot.
But the man’s eyes pleaded with him, and he went into the cave and waited. And when the shot came, he knew why it was, and he groaned in his throat. A long time afterwards he came out again, knowing he would find the horse well dead and past all pain.
Justin was hacking at the carcass with Heriot’s knife, his face tense and still.
‘You loved that horse,’ Heriot said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘This is the last death I’ll cause. The last, I promise you.’
‘I know that, brother.’
‘I didn’t want food. There was nothing I wanted now.’
‘You got to eat.’
‘No, I do
n’t, now. That’s the beauty of it.’
‘Hush,’ said Justin, ‘you be quiet now.’ He came up to the cave with chunks of meat in his hands and laid them on a ledge inside. ‘Everything ready now, brother.’
‘Stephen.’
‘Stephen.’
Slowly Heriot stretched out his hands and laid them on Justin’s chest. ‘This is how to say good-bye,’ he said, ‘among your people.’
‘I can’t touch you, Stephen. My hands all bloody.’
‘All our hands are bloody,’ said Heriot bitterly. ‘Say good-bye.’
Then Justin laid his hands lightly on the old man’s breast, and they looked at one another, dark sunken eyes into strained blue ones. The air was full of farewells, but they stood in silence.
‘Ah, Justin,’ said Heriot, turning away, ‘you’re my good deeds, my salvation from myself...’
‘I never forget you, Stephen.’
‘Look after your children, for my sake.’
‘I do that, always.’
‘You must go.’
‘Yes,’ said Justin. ‘I go now.’ He walked away past the pool, stooping to pick up his spears and the rifle, and vanished finally behind an outcrop of rock. A little wind stirred sadly in the leaves of the gle tree; and Heriot, at the mouth of his cave, turned, and hid his face against the body of the painted god.
In the dimness of the cave, days ran together and lost themselves, so that Heriot, sleeping, eating, or disjointedly thinking, felt time confounded, a twilight without divisions, and himself a simple plant of the sea’s floor, waving and dying.
He had thought there would be much to think about in this last solitude, but his mind was placid and empty. Justin faded in memory even on the first day, and on the second the features of his face became impossible to recall. Only faces of the past, Margaret’s face, and Esther’s, drifted now and then across the screen of his eyelids.
And on the third day, late in the afternoon, with the flies humming drowsily around the rank meat, the cave became at last insupportable to him. He got slowly to his feet and went out into the failing light.
There was nausea in his stomach, and his legs shook. But he made his way carefully over the rocks to the nearest hill, and then down, and on again. The light grew fainter, but the moon rose early and was close to full, and he went on.
To the Islands Page 18