Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  I still can’t quite believe it’s only Mount Buffalo we’re heading for. In my imagination I thought the tree must be some place far away. That we’d have to walk days and days and climb over towering cliffs and pass through rough country, mist-filled valleys and over snow-capped mountains, in and out of dark ravines, to finally reach some secret place known only to a Maloney. But no such thing. Mount Buffalo ain’t exactly the world’s best-kept secret and it’s hard to believe there’s some place on it no one’s been.

  Over the years Tommy and me have done this area a good few times and the Alpine Ash could have been reached on any of those occasions, no problem. So why has Tommy always avoided showing me? What’s he mean about me not being ready before now? I haven’t changed. Sure, I’ve got a bit older, but I’m still the same Mole Maloney. Seeing the tree now that I’m seventeen or seeing it at any other time, what’s the big difference? I sometimes wonder what goes on in Tommy’s head and I prepare myself to be disappointed.

  We don’t mess around too much this morning and only really stop when I shoot a couple of rabbits for our tea, a pair of big bucks, two clean shots through the head. They’re handsome fellas a doe would really go for, given half a chance, so I reckon I’ve taken a couple more bunnies out of the breeding cycle.

  In 1863 twenty-four rabbits, brought into Victoria by a homesick Englishman and held in a pen on his farm, escaped during a bushfire. By 1940 after good rains, you could pass by a paddock and it would move like tall grass blown in the wind, only it was rabbits. They covered every inch of the land far as the eye could see, this great bunny rug stretching to the horizon. Rabbits are randy all right, but myxomatosis soon took care of all that. It was released into the burrows along the Murray River eleven years ago and it wiped out ninety-eight per cent of the rabbit plague by making them blind, which is a pretty horrible way to die even for a rabbit; they now had to make love by feel. Tommy reckons they’re staging a comeback and that they’ll soon enough become immune to myxo and then we’ll find something else to kill them off with, which will probably get into the native creatures as well.

  I skin the two bucks and bleed them quickly, leaving the innards and the heads for the ants and the crows, and take a muslin bag out of my knapsack, drop them in and we’re on our way again. I’m carrying the empty lemonade bottles, no point filling them with water until we get to the mountain as we’re following Buffalo Creek all the way. Tommy can get a fair pace up if he wants to and, as I’m carrying all the clobber, I’m fair whacked by twelve o’clock when we finally get to the lower slopes of the mountain.

  We stop to boil the billy when Tommy points out Goldie Spur about a mile away. ‘We’ll have to climb that to get to the first of the Ash,’ he says.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ He swirls the bit of tea with the tea-leaves on the bottom of the mug, hurls them out and hands the mug to me. ‘Let’s push on, mate.’

  The spur is pretty steep and bushy but Tommy seems to know a way up, there’s no path but I can see he knows where he’s going. We’re climbing more or less parallel to a fall of water. It’s not exactly a waterfall, because it never falls that far without changing direction, and it’s not a creek either but I guess just a bit of water falling down the edge of the spur. Though there’s a fair bit of fern and water plants about, which tells you it’s been around a while and isn’t simply seasonal. Since everything’s got to have a name, I say to Tommy, ‘What’s the creek called?’

  ‘It don’t have a name, just a bit of water, a leak in the mountain.’

  ‘A leak in the mountain?’ I say, surprised at his answer. It’s not like Tommy to describe something like that, he likes to know where things come from, you know, cause and effect. What I would have expected him to say is that there was a bit of a catchment area above and why it resulted in this more than a trickle and less than a stream.

  ‘Wait and see,’ he calls back.

  We get to the top of the spur and we’re in among the Alpine Ash, big trees all right but nothing to write home about, I’ve seen as big as these before a few times. ‘This it?’I ask, the disappointment showing in my voice. Tommy doesn’t answer, instead we follow the little stream as it winds down among the Alpine Ash. Easy to see why the Ash are here, they like a bit of water and this little stream would suit them a treat. We follow the stream to the beginning of the spur and the point where the mountain suddenly starts to rise steeply. Another cliff to climb, I think to myself, though I know we’re unlikely to find Alpine Ash higher up. The spur we’ve just climbed onto is about max for them. They might not even grow this high if it wasn’t for the little mountain trickle they’re living off. Then I see what Tommy means by a leak in the mountain, the stream is coming out from under a large rock at the base of the sheer cliff facing us.

  ‘This is where it gets a little rough, Mole,’ Tommy announces. ‘What you got in the knapsack?’

  I tell him and he says to leave the two empty lemonade bottles, they could smash, that there’s plenty of fresh water where we’re going. ‘Give me the billy, mate, and the mugs, you’ll have enough trouble with the rifle.’

  I take the two bottles out and leave them where I can find them on my way back and hand him the mugs and the billy. He puts the two mugs in the billy, puts the lid back on, then fixes the billy to hang from the bottom of his knapsack. ‘Keep your knapsack flat as you can, nothing hard in it, is there?’

  ‘Nah, except a few .22 bullets and the rabbits.’

  ‘They’ll tenderise nicely on the way through,’ he says, casual as you like. ‘Okay, follow me.’ To my surprise, I see he’s got a torch in his hand. ‘Keep right onto my heels, shout out if you can’t touch me boots. Okay?’ ‘Yeah, but where are we going?’

  He doesn’t answer, instead he parts some fern and I see a narrow opening where the water trickles through. ‘Yiz’ll have to leopard-crawl to get through.’ He’s down on his stomach and starting to worm through the hole. ‘Wait on and hand me the gun before you come after me,’ he gasps.

  ‘We could leave it here, we’ve got our tucker for the night,’ I shout out.

  ‘Nah, bring it, never know,’ he shouts back.

  So I wait until he disappears and then push the .22 through the gap. I feel him grab the butt and pull it inwards. I follow on my stomach, which is immediately immersed in the icy-cold stream. I crawl forward and feel my knapsack and sleeping bag catch on the edge of the rock but by wiggling a bit I manage to get them through. I see what Tommy means by tenderised rabbit.

  Inside is a cavern only big enough for the two of us to sit in and it’s dark and because I’m wet it’s cold. Tommy shines the torch and I see the stream is coming from an underground passage that is so narrow I can’t believe Tommy expects us to crawl down it. ‘It’s only about a hundred yards but it’s gunna take us a good hour, air’s okay though, just take it easy,’ Tommy advises. ‘Shout out if you need a rest.’

  ‘I’ve never done nothing like this before, sure it’s okay?’ I ask him. Far as I can see, if I panic and want to go back or if something happens, like I break a leg or something, there isn’t any way we can turn around and get back, not in the part the torch shows anyway.

  ‘Not afraid of the dark, are you?’

  ‘Not when there’s plenty of space around me.’

  ‘You’ll be right, just take it easy, slow and easy, it’s like climbing up the mountain’s arse and the rocks you come across are its haemorrhoids!’ That’s Tommy’s humour, which is never very subtle and generally a bit on the nose.

  ‘Jesus, how’d you find this place?’

  ‘Didn’t, your great-great-grandfather did.’ He laughs.

  ‘The German bloke reckoned he was the first to climb Mount Buffalo. Got the credit for it in the history books. Which is bullshit, of course. In them days ordinary blokes didn’t get the credit for nothing. Old Patrick Maloney climbed it eight or nine t
imes. I can’t remember exactly. That was around 1840 when he’d first got his ticket-ofleave. The botanist bloke did it thirteen years later. Better get going, eh.’

  So there we are up the arse of the mountain and after a few minutes I realise Tommy wasn’t kidding. I bump against rocks almost every time I crawl a couple of feet forward and I reckon I’m bleeding like a stuffed pig; the stream must be running red with my blood. I’m effing and shitting until Tommy says, ‘Save your breath, Mole, it gets worse, just mind your scone and watch my torch.’

  Hah, what torch? I’m seventeen years old and I’m finding it difficult so I don’t know how Tommy keeps going with his crook shoulder and arm. It’s pitch-dark crawling up behind his boots and the gap is so narrow I only occasionally glimpse the beam of light the torch throws.

  After what must be at least an hour but feels like a bloody eternity we emerge from under a rock into quite a sizeable pool where we can stand with the water up to our knees. I see we’re standing on the wrong side of a waterfall. Again, that’s a bit of an exaggeration because it’s not exactly a cascade of water, but it’s coming straight down from some place higher up and looks like a fine lace curtain.

  Tommy motions me forward and we walk through the curtain of water and emerge on the other side. We’re in a kind of natural bowl with the walls too high to see over and the water is falling from a steep cliff that rises up on one side of the bowl. We’re both soaked to the skin and, I can tell you, Mole is not a happy little Vegemite. But Tommy grins, ‘Cheer up, mate, we made it, didn’t we? That’s the thing, once you’re in, there’s no turning around, if there’d been a sudden shower up top, we’d be dead meat by now.’

  I think about this for a moment. On a mountain like this, clouds can gather in a matter of minutes. Even out of a clear blue sky, you can get sudden rain on the summit and in a moment there’d be a torrent thundering down the cliff into the tunnel. We’d never know what’d hit us.

  I check the rifle and see that the front and back sights have been bent, but the bolt action still works. There’s a couple of nicks out of the stock but nothing to worry about. My knees and my elbows are bleeding and Tommy says I’ve got a cut above the eye which I can’t feel but it must have stopped bleeding because nothing is running into my eye.

  ‘Careful when you climb out of here,’ Tommy cautions,

  ‘it drops real sudden the other side.’

  I’ve got a bit of rope out of my knapsack I sometimes use as a sling on the .22 and I fix it to the rifle and throw it across my back and over the knapsack. Lucky I’ve bled the bunnies, they’ll be mince by now, good thing we’re having stew.

  I follow Tommy up the side of the bowl, which is a bit of a scramble, clinging onto bushes, holding on for dear life. I come over the top and I can’t believe my eyes. There’s a sheer drop into a ravine that’s got to be a thousand feet down, it’s a cleft in the mountain that’s no more than maybe two hundred and fifty feet wide and half a mile long, like someone’s just gouged this narrow slit into the side of the great mountain as if to mortally wound it. You might be able to see it from the air but it wouldn’t be observable from any point on the ground or even from the top of the mountain. About eight hundred feet below from where Tommy and me are sitting is the dark canopy of the trees growing in the cleft. ‘Shit, where’d that come from?’

  ‘Look closer, Mole, look at the canopy,’ Tommy replies. I scan the canopy, which seems pretty even and flat, looking down at it like we are. And then I see it. Standing maybe two hundred feet above the rest of the canopy is a single tree. ‘Holy shit, is it as big as I think it is?’I shout out.

  ‘Wait and see,’ Tommy says.

  I look at him, afraid, ‘No way! We can’t get down there, not from here anyway,’ I protest.

  Tommy shrugs. ‘There ain’t no other way, Mole, except maybe if you’ve got a spare pair of wings.’

  ‘You’ve done it before then?’ He knows I mean, has he done it since his shoulder, since he come back from the war, not just as a kid.

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’ He looks up at the sky, ‘It’s about two o’clock, must make it before five, it gets dark down there early.’

  Tommy and me have done a few difficult climbs, but nothing like this. ‘Is there a best way?’ I ask fearfully.

  ‘Yeah, if I can remember it,’he says, pretty nonchalant. I look to see if he’s kidding, but I can’t tell because he has started to move over the edge.

  I can’t describe the going down, except to say that if I hadn’t first come through that tunnel I would have shit myself. Almost every step I think will be my last, one slip and you’d fall all the way down. It’s a matter of grabbing onto bushes and digging a footing with the heels of your boots and clinging on to clumps of grass.

  Tommy’s a little bloke and pretty sure-footed, his legs are the only part of him that aren’t stuffed, but he’s doing it tough and I’m doing it tougher. If I had the time to think about it, I’d admire him. All I can think is, if this is bad, then how the fuck are we gunna get back?

  It’s going to take a full day’s climb just to get to the basin and the waterfall. We’ll be much too whacked to do the tunnel after the climb, that’s for sure. We’ll have to spend the night in the little waterfall basin. What’s more, there’s no way we’re going to be back home by Monday night, Tuesday night maybe. Nancy’s going to slaughterate me!

  Good thing I told Bozo we wouldn’t be back Sunday night, though I don’t know what he’ll do when we don’t show Monday or even Tuesday morning.

  In about three hours we reach the bottom of the ravine, which is the wrong word because there’s no outlet like a ravine should have, just this deep wound in the side of the mountain. We’re in among the Alpine Ash, all of which are big trees, bigger than the ones on the spur, and a couple we pass are at least two hundred years old. If Tommy had stopped at either one of them and declared we’d reached the big old tree, I’d have thought, fair enough. But he doesn’t and we press on. There’s been a fire through here maybe two years ago so the undergrowth isn’t too bad and we can make our way along pretty steadily. It’s twilight down here, even though it’s summer and it can’t be much more than about half-past five, with the sun not yet set.

  Then we come to a clearing and there it is, the biggest tree I have ever seen. It’s as though no other tree dare take any space around it, the trunk is easily fifteen feet across and the clearing in which it stands is quite light because the canopy of the other trees hasn’t crowded in and its own canopy is pretty sparse, so the light streams down from above like it’s an altar or something. This old fella has to be three hundred feet high! I stand gobsmacked. I can’t say nothing, this is the biggest growing thing I have ever seen and only a Maloney has seen it. This must be true, because if someone else had been here then they’d have said so. You’d have to skite about it. The only reason we haven’t is because to us male Maloneys this is a sacred tree, this is the God Tommy worships, and so did Tommy’s father and grandfather.

  I look over at Tommy, who is now sitting on a rock completely knackered. I’m young and the sight of the tree has sent my blood racing and, all of a sudden, I don’t feel the weariness in me. Now I see dark patches of blood through Tommy’s shirt. He’s also got a nasty cut along the neck and the skin on his legs is rubbed raw.

  I don’t know what to say, he’s done this for me when physically he was well past such a climb. ‘Thank you, Dad,’

  I say. Then I can’t help myself, I run over and take his head in both my hands and kiss him on the forehead. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ and I start to cry.

  ‘She’s right,’ Tommy says quietly, he nods towards the tree, ‘I did the same first time I saw it. But you’ve got to be ready, it’s not something you can see if you’re not ready.’ He doesn’t explain what he means and I don’t understand. Does he think the tree is invisible? You could easily think something like that, you know, you c
an only see it when things are right in your mind and soul? But it’s there all right, this mighty Alpine Ash has been standing here for at least four hundred years.

  Tommy has got his elbows on his knees and he’s looking at a spot between his legs. After a while, he looks up slowly directly into my eyes. ‘I’m that proud of you, Mole. You’re the best son a man could ever wish for and that’s why I’m gunna tell yer.’

  I knuckle back my tears, I’m his son even if I ain’t. ‘You mean, show me the tree?’

  ‘Nah, tell ya.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ I sniff.

  ‘Everything, mate. Everything what happened.’

  ‘You mean the Japanese?’

  ‘Yeah, them mongrels, Malaya, Singapore, Changi, Sandakan, all me mates long dead, Gunner Cleary!’

  I’ve heard of Changi but never of the other place, ‘Sandakan? Where’s that?’

  ‘Borneo.’

  I can see he’s exhausted, even deciding to tell me, spitting it out, has taken something out of him. There’s a stream nearby so I say, ‘Better wash them wounds, get the dirt out. I’ll make us a fire and boil the billy, we’ll have a cuppa, then I’ll make us a nice rabbit stew.’

  ‘You’re a good son, Mole,’ he says. That’s the second time he’s said it in a matter of minutes. It’s something he’s never said to me in my whole life.

  ‘Better wash them scratches in the stream, get the dirt out,’ I repeat.

  He gives me a tired smile. ‘It’s better than that, Mole.’ He points to a large rock about forty feet to my right and on the edge of the clearing made by the big old tree. ‘There’s a hot spring behind that big rock, I reckon we’re closer to hell than we know.’ I look over and see there’s a wisp of steam rising from behind the rock, then another. ‘What say you, Mole, we’ll have a cuppa, take it with us and have a good soak.’ I walk over to the little stream. Above the rock it’s icy cold and below it’s lukewarm. ‘The hot springs is what’s helped the great giant grow so big, kept its roots warm in the winter,’ Tommy shouts out.