Corroboree

by Graham Masterton

  Eyre said, ‘Minil, the girl. Is she all right?’

  The young man grinned, revealing several missing teeth, and pointed towards the far side of the fire. There, covered up by blankets, Minil was sleeping; watched over by an old woman.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Eyre.

  ‘Thank God,’ the Aborigine repeated.

  Eyre pointed to his lips. ‘Do you have any water?’

  The young man grinned again, and produced a shaped wooden bowl, filled with muddy-looking water. Eyre took it, and finished it in three large swallows. It wasn’t enough to quench his thirst, but it seemed impolite to ask for any more, particularly since the families may not have had very much to last themselves the night. Muddy water meant there had been hours of painstaking digging at water-holes. That much he knew from experience.

  Soon the elderly chief who had first greeted him came over, and shyly shook his hand. He gave a long speech, occasionally turning towards the fire, and pointing towards the roasting kangaroos, and Eyre understood that he was being invited to stay for a while, and share in the meal. ‘You’re very kind,’ acknowledged Eyre, nodding and smiling. ‘I have been trying to reach the sea. Fowler’s Bay, perhaps. Yalata, isn’t that what you call it?’ He made his fingers walk across the kangaroo-hide blanket, and said, ‘Yalata.’

  ‘Ah, Yalata!’ said the old man, beaming back at Eyre, and clapping his hands. Then he pointed towards the south-west; in a far more southerly direction than Eyre had imagined that Fowler’s Bay would actually lie.

  ‘Thank God,’ the young man repeated.

  The old man placed his hand over his bony chest, and said, ‘Ngottha… Winja.’ Then he said, ‘Winja,’ again, and beamed some more. Eyre took this to mean that his name was Winja; and in return laid his own hand over his chest, and said, ‘Eyre.’

  For some reason, this caused great hilarity, and the young man fell on to his back in laughter, and kicked his legs. Even old Winja cackled uncontrollably, and had to wipe his eyes. He called out to the rest of the Aborigines there, and tapped his finger on Eyre’s shoulder, and said, ‘Eyre.’ And there was even more laughter, and tapping of sticks, as Eyre’s name was repeated all the way around the encampment.

  The younger man recovered his composure enough to point to his own chest, and announce himself as ‘Ningina.’

  Ningina brought Eyre another bowlful of water, and watched him carefully while he drank it. It was only then that he decided that Eyre was fit enough to come across the camp and see Minil. He held Eyre’s elbow solicitously, and talked to him all the time, as if he were a child taking his very first steps. In fact Eyre’s knees felt so watery that he was glad of the encouragement. He squatted down beside Minil, and reached out to touch her forehead.

  Minil stirred, and opened her eyes. Eyre suddenly felt overwhelmed with affection for her, and gladness that she was alive; and by sheer relief that Winja and his people had saved them from the desert. His throat tightened, and the first tears that he had been able to cry since they had started out on their expedition burst into his eyes.

  ‘We’re safe,’ he told her. ‘These people have saved us.’

  Minil closed her eyes again and slept. Eyre was led back to the fire, where a buka was draped around his shoulders, and he was given some of the first of the kangaroo meat. He ate it very slowly; watched all the time with unblinking intentness by tribespeople all around him, who appeared to regard every movement of his jaw as being of almost magical interest. The meat was fresh, and well-cooked; and although Eyre’s stomach had shrunk during his days without food, he forced himself to eat as much of it as he was offered. He remembered what Dogger had told him about surviving in the outback; and he had been through too much hunger to want to suffer like that again. He even sucked the grease from his hands.

  Later that evening, Minil woke again, and one of the women fed her with dried quandong fruit and kangaroofat mixed with ground grass-seed into little flat cakes, and gave her repeated drinks of water. She came and sat by the fire with Eyre, tightly wrapped in a blanket; and Winja and Ningina soon came to join them, noisly chewing pitjuri leaves blended with ashes. Minil was a Nyungar, and could not translate everything they were saying, but they managed to communicate haltingly; and Winja’s natural good humour filled most of the gaps in their conversation with nods and smiles and cackles of laughter.

  As she spoke, Minil repeated everything she said to Eyre, so that he could pick up as many Aboriginal words as possible, and occasionally join in. Both Winja and Ningina seemed to think that Eyre was irresistibly comic, and whenever he spoke they would hiss with suppressed amusement, and clutch their hands over their mouths to stop themselves from laughing out loud. Winja explained to Minil that they were not being disrespectful, but there was a long-standing joke in their tribe that somehow involved earea bushes, although they couldn’t make it comprehensible to a white man. Minil tried to explain the joke to Eyre by saying that his announcement when he had first spoken to Winja was roughly the equivalent of having said, ‘You, Winja, chief of your people—me, small bush.’

  The conversation grew more serious, however, when Minil told Winja about Yonguldye, and what had happened at the Yarrakinna corroboree. ‘Yonguldye is not dead, not as far as we know, and he is still following us with the kurdaitja shoes… his people have already killed Mr Eyre’s good friend, and one of his black trackers. This is why we are travelling westwards. Partly, to find a new road to the west. Partly, because we cannot go back.’

  Winja said, ‘There is no road to the west.’

  ‘You are travelling west,’ said Minil.

  ‘We are following kangaroo.’

  ‘Somewhere, there must be a road to the west.’

  ‘We have never seen one. There is no water until you reach Gabakile.’

  ‘How far is that?’

  Winja spat pitjuri juice, ‘A whole lifetime if you die on the way.’

  They talked well into the night. Winja had heard the ancient story of the djanga who returns from the land beyond the sunset, although the version he knew was slightly different; in that the djanga assuaged his guilt by asking the medicine-man to bring the boy back to life, and whispering all the secrets of death in the boy’s ear. He gave the story one more twist, however, which may have explained why Yonguldye had been so determined to track Eyre down. In Winja’s version of the legend, the djanga had to be prevented from returning to the skies, because then he would have told all the other spirits that mortal men now knew the secrets of the dead, and the other spirits in jealousy and anger might well have hunted down as many men as they could find, and kill them, as a punishment. ‘The spirits will say, “if these men know the secrets of the dead, then let them die also.”’

  Eyre said, ‘Do you believe that I could be the djanga?’

  There was more laughter, and thigh-slapping. ‘You! You are a bush! How can you be a djanga!’

  But then Winja said, more seriously, ‘You are a white man; not a djanga. We live well with the white people. We travel from the Murray River to the Swan River, to meet our kinsmen and to trade skins and flour. We also trade with the white people. We do not want any difficulty with the white people. Last year, two of my people were wrongly accused of burning a house; one of them was hanged. I do not want this to happen again. From what this girl says, you are an important man in Adelaide; therefore, we will take care of you, and make sure that Yonguldye does not harm you. I understand about the legend of the djanga; but life is changing. I do not believe that the black people can ever stand up against the white people. That is a lost dream. The best we can hope for is that we can live together side-by-side and that the white people respect our hunting and fishing places, and our sacred grounds. Already they have destroyed many of my kinsmen’s fish-traps. Already many of our sacred places have been occupied by farms and settlements. But, we wish only to live our lives in peace.’

  That night, Eyre and Minil slept together under a hide blanket close to the fire. They did not m
ake love; they were too ill and too exhausted; but they held each other close, and kept each other warm, and when dawn came they were both much calmer and more collected, and they greeted each other with a kiss.

  ‘I am beginning to see who you are,’ said Eyre.

  ‘Yes,’ said Minil.

  ‘You and I are just the same. I didn’t understand that at first. We both went out into the wilds to look for ourselves; for what we were. You went to look for your people and I went to look for glory.’

  Minil kissed him again, his lips, his cheeks, his closed eyelids.

  ‘What do you think we found?’ she asked him.

  Eyre stroked her bare shoulder. ‘I think we found that there is more than one truth. The truth of the desert is quite different from the truth of the town. All of the myths and the legends are alive out here; they all have reality and meaning. But back in Adelaide they will be nothing but traveller’s tales. When you return to New Norcia, and put on your pinafore again, will Mrs Humphreys believe that you lived with Yonguldye, the terrible Mabarn Man? Will she believe what happened here, in the desert? Magic can only exist where people believe in it.’

  Minil smiled. ‘I do not understand you when you talk like this.’

  ‘No,’ said Eyre. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’

  Winja happily agreed that Eyre and Minil could travel with his people as far westwards as they wanted to go. He declared that he was not at all frightened of Yonguldye; and that if Yonguldye and his warriors caught up with them, there would be a great pungonda, and that Yonguldye would be sent back to wherever he had come from. Ningina in particular seemed to relish the idea of a pungonda, and showed Eyre his axe, which was made of hard stones stuck to a kangaroo-bone with gum, and hung ostentatiously around his waist in a belt of oppossum-fur.

  ‘Bong,’ he said, and demonstrated the axe’s use with a mock-blow to Eyre’s head.

  After gorging themselves with cold kangaroo-meat, the small tribe set off towards the south-west. Winja and Ningina led the men out in front, with their spears and their clubs, looking out for game. The women followed behind, carrying on their heads and on their shoulders their dilly-bags and wooden bowls, and digging-sticks, and the children who were too young to walk.

  They were a strange but beautiful group. As they crossed the scrubby plains, Eyre rode behind them and admired their unselfconscious elegance, the dark curves of their bodies, the easy movements of their buttocks and legs. And the women walked with impeccable balance, even though some of them had bags and bowls and children to carry; their bare breasts pendulous and their stomachs protruding, but graceful beyond anything he had seen at an Adelaide ladies’ tea-party.

  For Eyre’s sake, and Minil’s sake, Winja ordered his families to rest halfway through the day; and they drank a little water and ate lizards and a paste of green ants. Eyre was too hungry to be squeamish. Last night’s heavy meal of kangaroo meat had begun to restore his stomach to working-order, and it was demanding more. The lizardflesh, singed over a small fire, was quite tasty. Firm, and slightly nutty, like smoked chicken.

  That night they reached a water-hole, and made camp. Ningina had been unlucky, and had caught only a stray joey; but the women had brought in a collection of hopping-mice and lizards and a mallee fowl with a broken wing.

  And so for three days they travelled this way, slowly heading south-west; while Eyre and Minil became gradually more accepted into the family, and Eyre began to speak a hesitant version of Winja’s language.

  On the morning of the third day, however, Ningina crawled into their shelter and said, ‘We have caught sight of the warriors who are following you. They are less than two hours away. Soon there will be a great pungonda.’

  Thirty-One

  It was well past eleven o’clock before Eyre caught sight of them clearly. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them, well strung out, walking swiftly and with great deliberation. Soon he could see their spears, balanced over their shoulders, their hardwood shafts catching the high sunlight. Then he saw the great head-dress that belonged to Yonguldye, the Darkness, and he knew that his nemesis was at last going to catch up with him. He might have cheated death on Christmas Day, but sooner or later he was going to have to face up to Yonguldye.

  Minil, sitting on her horse in a kangaroo-hide buka decorated with ochre, said, ‘What can we do? We can’t let Winja and Ningina fight our battle for us.’

  ‘They want to,’ Eyre reminded her. ‘It’s a question of honour. Well, I’m not certain that honour’s the right word; but it’s certainly a question of pride.’

  ‘It seems terrible, to risk their lives.’

  ‘I can give myself up.’

  Minil stared at him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’ll kill you. I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘Then we have no choice but to protect ourselves as best we can. And when I say ourselves, that means Winja and Ningina and all of their people.’

  Eyre rode forward, between the walking women, and caught up with Winja.

  ‘I wish to ask you a question,’ he said, in Aborigine.

  ‘Ask it,’ said Winja.

  ‘Do you truthfully wish to fight against Yonguldye, just for me? There is no thought in my mind that you are a coward. I wish only to protect your women and your children.’

  Winja looked up at Eyre narrowly. ‘You still do not understand, do you?’

  ‘I do not know what it is that I am supposed to understand.’ He stumbled over this phrase, and had to say half of it in English.

  But Winja said, ‘We found you; and saved your life. Your life therefore belongs to us, and the choice of whether to protect it or not is ours alone. We have decided. We will protect you; and the girl Minil. Some time in your future life you will return the favour. But for now, be prepared only to fight alongside kinsmen.’

  Eyre shaded his eyes against the sun. ‘There’s some cover up ahead; a few rocks. Not much, but enough to give us some advantage. He translated what he had said into Winja’s language, as best he could, using the word bojalup, which meant ‘place of rocks’, and ducking his head to illustrate ‘cover from spears’.

  The rocks were very sparse; only a scattering of limestone spheres littered across the scrub. They looked as if some giant god from the dreaming had tired of playing marbles, and thrown his handful across the desert. In fact, they were the remains of a ridge that had been undermined by water and by gritty wind. Winja and Eyre gathered the women and children as far behind the rocks as they could, with Minil to supervise them; and then they went to the front of the outcropping to arrange the men, with their spears and clubs.

  Eyre said, ‘Look—we will stand here, right out in front of the rocks—then, when Yonguldye and his warriors begin to throw spears—we can run back.’

  ‘Run back?’ frowned Ningina.

  ‘Not out of fear. Out of wisdom. They will run after us in among the rocks, and then we can trap them, and kill them.’

  ‘I do not want to run back,’ said Ningina, pouting. ‘I have never run back from my enemy.’

  Winja glared at him. ‘You will run back when you are told to. Are you my ngauwire, my son?’

  ‘Yes, ngaiyeri.’

  ‘Then you will run back.’

  Eyre loaded his rifle while they waited for Yonguldye to catch up with them. He would probably only have time for one shot; but this time he hoped he would be able to hit Yonguldye somewhere fatal. It was a miracle that Yonguldye had already survived what must at the very least have been a severe powder-burn, and then a glancing rifle-ball to the side of the head. Perhaps there was something in his magic, after all. Perhaps, like the fabled Mabarn Men of the past, he was invincible, and possessed of eternal life.

  The sun began to fall to the west; and this to Eyre was another advantage. Yonguldye and his warriors as they approached would have the glare of the early afternoon in their eyes, as well as a quarry that was going to behave completely uncharacteristically, and run away. Running-away was not a recognised tactic in
Aborigine battles; the tradition was to stand firm with club in hand and fight blow-for-blow until you or your enemy dropped dead.

  Yonguldye looked unnervingly threatening as he approached. His huge black emu-feather head-dress dipped and blew with every step he took; and he walked with a long, awkward limp that must have been caused either by the two shots that Eyre had fired at him or by the exhausting length of his pursuit. At first, because of the rippling heat, Eyre was unable to see his feet; but as he came nearer, only a hundred yards away, he could distinguish the dreaded kurdaitja shoes, of emu feathers and human blood, the shoes which unerringly guided a Mabarn Man towards his victim. Yonguldye had followed Eyre for hundreds of miles now, through the heat and dust of high summer; and he had found him.

  Eyre stepped forward with his rifle raised. Winja caught his arm, but Eyre said, ‘No. Let me speak to him.’

  Yonguldye stopped, and raised one hand in the sign that meant greeting. He was wrapped in a kangaroo-skin buka, the fringes of which were tied with coloured threads and rows of tiny bandicoot skulls, which rattled as he walked. The rest of his skulls and magical apparatus were being carried by two young boys who stood at the back of the group.

  Eyre could see now that Yonguldye’s face was scarred on the left side; a half-healed bullet wound which had tattooed his skin with black powder. The powder burns which Eyre had inflicted on him at Yarrakinna were presumably concealed beneath his buka. Yonguldye’s expression however was haughty and disdainful; the look of a man of power and influence. A man who had proved himself to be the greatest of all clever-men: unstoppable and impossible to kill.

  Eyre called, ‘What do you want, Yonguldye?’

  Yonguldye kept his hand raised. Some of his warriors shifted uneasily around him, and one or two of them lodged their spears into their woomeras. Behind him, Eyre could hear Winja’s men moving forward a few paces, to protect the white man whose life they now owned.

  Yonguldye let out a great harsh crowing, which made Eyre’s back tingle with alarm. Then he spread his arms wide, and came out with a long screeching chant, punctuated by raucous and repetitive cries, which sounded like an imitation of a red-tailed cockatoo.