A massive square-cut diamond glinted on the woman’s left hand, and Jo fantasised about turning into Captain Thunderbolt. She had a vision of whipping an old-school musket out from behind her back, demanding the ring and then galloping off into the safety of the World Heritage with it stowed in her saddlebag. All’s fair in love and war–
‘Oh! Hold still! Can I take your photo?’ the woman cried suddenly, iPhone already up to her eye, and her perfect white teeth bared on display beneath it. Jo scowled at this intrusion.
No. Fuck off. You’ll steal my soul.
‘Go on,’ she muttered. The woman promptly clicked three or four times.
‘Aamaal – can we go?’ the husband said, looking embarrassed.
‘Oh! That’s a fabulous shot!’
The woman beamed at the tiny screen and held it up for her husband’s inspection. Then she wound the window back up – without speaking to Jo, let alone offering to show her the photos.
Hello? Have I dematerialised or what, she thought in astonishment.
The coupe accelerated and promptly disappeared around the next bend, leaving Jo mired in disproportionate rage. She heeled Athena forward, snorting with hostility.
A fabulous shot. Akubra, stockhorse, tan skin: yep, I’m the woman from Snowy River alright. But come home with me, Mercedes lady, come and take a photo of my unpaid rates notice stuck on the fridge. Or of the magic Toyota that runs on nothing but petrol fumes. Better yet, come up to Chris’s place and frame an artful fucking shot of the tomato sauce sandwiches she’s having for dinner.
Jo rode furiously, wishing that she was an old cleverwoman. She would curse the tourists and their sports car. She’d make it break down, she’d make those fuckers run out of petrol instead of waltzing around on her land with no thought for anyone except themselves. She’d make them career off the road into a nice solid gum tree, see the Mercedes explode in a fireball of plenty of petrol and plenty of money and plenty of fucking bungooed privilege that doesn’t see anything past its own narcissistic arsehole–
Your anger is buried so deep, Therese had lectured her once, you don’t even know it’s there.
Jo shortened her reins and steamed as she rode on. She recalled Twoboy’s jokey threat at the Billi pub the night they’d met: I’ll be on the phone to Al Qaeda mob, onetime. For the first time in her life, Jo felt she was within touching distance of the anger that would make someone say those words and really mean them.
From the corner of her eye she suddenly noticed something watching her. Someone. It was Bluey, lifting now from one of the big bottlebrush trees beside the creek.
The heron flew towards her and landed on a fencepost not five metres away. It stood there on its scaly yellow legs and regarded her balefully. Jo pulled Athena up, the horse fidgeting and tossing her head with impatience to canter. The dogs watched with alert eyes and pricked ears.
What is it, mulanyin?
The bird didn’t move, but continued staring at her. After a minute of intense avian scrutiny Jo began to feel as though she had something to atone for. She looked around. Without any word from her, the dogs had both – oddly – sat down on their haunches facing the heron, as if waiting for instructions.
What the hell?
To Jo’s horror, Bluey flew down from the fencepost to land, this time on the narrow bitumen road directly in front of her, where the dogs could easily rush it. She kicked her feet from the stirrups, ready to jump down and defend her bird from the mutts. But Warrigal and Daisy continued to sit humbly and merely observe. The world’s least imposing sentry, mulanyin stood there blocking her path forward on its impossibly frail legs, apparently not bothered by the dogs nor by Athena looming hugely over it.
What the fuck is this?
The heron raised its slender grey neck and released a harsh croak at Jo. Athena lowered her head almost to the road and blew her nostrils out warily at the intruder. Jo, too, breathed out in astonishment, wondering if this was a sign. Was there a disaster waiting for her if she kept going along the road? Should she turn back and go home? Was Ellen in some terrible trouble?
With a last guttural croak, Bluey lifted again and flapped its way to a nearby quandong. Jo eyed it uneasily. She felt marooned in the middle of Tin Wagon Road, warned off going forward, and yet unwilling to go back home so soon. Warrigal and Daisy stood up and turned into dogs again. Athena began to fuss and fidget beneath her, throwing her head up against the pressure of the bit, and prancing on the spot in a thoroughbred high step of impatience. Okay, okay, settle petal. Jo threw another glance at the heron, which was winging away from her now, headed towards Bottlebrush. She glanced down at the dogs, and decided to keep going, cautiously.
Five minutes later, Athena was puffing with unaccustomed effort and too much grass. Jo drew in her left rein and turned up a fire trail, almost opposite Chris’s track. The mare’s hooves crunched sharp gravel underfoot as they climbed the slope away from Tin Wagon Road. Jo kept a careful eye out for pointed stones that would lame Athena and mean a long walk home. After riding for a while through a heavily forested stretch, she reached flatter, more open country. The trail was lined by paddocks on both sides, and purebred grey Brahmins dotted the landscape. In this clearer country, without the trees acting as a soundbreak, Jo could suddenly hear the rushing of Stony Creek, surprisingly loud from halfway up the ridge. In front of her, rainforest clustered thickly around mossy boulders that made Jo think of scrub turkeys and brown snakes. In the sky above the forest flamed a spectacular red and purple sunset.
As she enjoyed the spectacle – red sky at night, shepherd’s delight – Jo felt the old tug in her gut return. Go west. There was still something waiting for her in the sunset country, something important. Things don’t go away just because you ignore them, it seemed. This must be how Ellen feels, Jo thought, when she knows something’s about to go wrong. Only in Jo’s case, it didn’t seem like bad news that waited. More like important information.
It was unsettling, though, and unwelcome, too. And what, she suddenly thought in alarm, if it has to do with that bloody talga?
With this thought Jo pulled Athena up abruptly. Twoboy was desperate to hear the voices, to get the talga down on paper for the tribunal, to prove once and for all that he owned the true song of the country, and not just his father’s stories about Grandad Tommy Jackson. He had kept at Jo since the day she fell off, nagging her to return to the fallen gum with him. To Twoboy’s bewilderment she had always refused. That hidden part of the culture, Jo shivered – no, he could keep it. If there were secrets in the hills, mooki, ancestors holding sacred knowledge and secrets, well then let them stay where they bloody well were. Life was hard enough without inviting that kind of trouble in. It wasn’t as if any white tribunal was going to believe they were there anyway. Twoboy was cracked, totally bloody womba, if he thought they were.
Sitting on the big old mare as she faced the setting sun, Jo realised that her pulse was pounding hard in the side of her neck. It gradually dawned on her that, distracted first by the tourist’s rudeness and then by the intervention of mulanyin, she’d turned away from Chris’s gate ten minutes ago without thinking, and had – for no good reason at all – headed west when her intention had been the complete opposite. A shiver of alarm ran through her, and she quickly turned Athena around to head downhill, back where they had come from. Gravel again crunched underneath as she rode the horse forward. A few small stones dislodged and went bouncing down the steep dirt track in front of her.
To Jo’s horror, after they’d gone no more than a dozen steps downhill, she heard it again. The indistinct sound of a distant motor.
Leave me the fuck alone, will you? Sing to Twoboy, who actually wants to hear it!
She gave a sharp yip of alarm, wishing that the track was wider, safe to trot or, better yet, canter down. Instead, they were forced to pick a way downhill through the gravel, at a rapid walk. The sound followed almost the whole way, finally fading as the bitumen came into view. By the time
they reached the safety of the road, Jo was sweating beneath her jumper, and cranky with anxiety and confusion. She could feel the beginnings of a headache starting up at the base of her skull. It was all too much.
Bloody ignorant tourists.
Mulanyin acting like a crazy bird.
Mooki trying to sing her songs she didn’t want to know about, in a place she had never meant to go.
Thoroughly spooked, Jo abandoned the idea of visiting Chris. It would be better just to get home to the safety of her own place, where mooki and mulanyin and rude-fucker dugais couldn’t intrude, and where she could think in peace about what all these events might mean.
But Athena had sensed her rider’s edginess and in typical horsy fashion began to share it. Agitated, and pointed towards home, the mare could see no good reason at all not to gallop at full pelt, away from the inchoate danger in the hills. Jo had to fight her for control. Being on a bolting thoroughbred was hardly more fun than being surrounded by chanting mooki on a lonely ridgetop. Denied her gallop, Athena jigged sideways in uncomfortable rebellion, throwing Jo roughly around in the saddle. The horse’s agitation took hold and stuck until, finally, after ten minutes of painful struggle, Jo lost her temper with the mare. Swearing loudly and leaning far forward, she smacked Athena’s neck hard with the flat of her right hand. The horse jerked away violently, showing the whites of her eyes, and half-rearing. The dogs slunk near Athena’s hocks with their tails tucked low, sensing that they, too, were only moments away from assault. For a brief minute, Jo hated herself and Athena equally. Then, as they jigged towards the final creek crossing before home, and as the road narrowed to one lane for the last time, Jo heard a car coming up fast from behind her.
‘Get off the road,’ she yelled in fury at Daisy and Warrigal, ‘you stupid fucking dogs.’ She reefed at the reins again and Athena nosed the sky in protest. Jo pulled her roughly onto the skerrick of footpath away from the vehicle – which was, thankfully, slowing as it drew near. Don’t rear, Jo prayed, for Christ’s sake don’t rear up with a car right on top of us.
She glanced anxiously around and discovered Rob Starr’s yellow ute drawing near, with young Sam Nurrung in the passenger seat, and a chainsaw sliding noisily forward in the tray as Starr hit the skids. Hearing the racket of metal scraping on metal, Jo was momentarily grateful to be on Athena and not on Comet, who would definitely have freaked.
Slowing some more, Starr lifted his right forefinger to Jo in the classic country salute. As she fought to keep Athena and both dogs off the bitumen, and hoping desperately that Starr hadn’t seen her slap the mare’s neck, Jo didn’t respond – she couldn’t have responded if she had wanted to.
Later, dismounting at home, stroking Athena’s neck in a useless gesture of guilt and regret, Jo slowly put two and two together.
By going up the fire trail directly opposite Chris’s place, Jo realised, she must have strayed over near the far top corner of Starr’s property. There had been cut timber in the back of his ute. Fresh cut branches and an orange Stihl chainsaw, yellow sawdust on the tray. He had clearly been cutting wood at the top of the hill, not far from where she’d halted Athena on the trail. Either that, or the arsehole was illegally harvesting rainforest timber out of the World Heritage. Either way, that orange Stihl chainsaw was almost certainly the sound that she’d heard.
There was no need, after all, for superstitious panic about mooki and ridge singers.
The relief Jo got from this revelation was huge. She unsaddled Athena with a far easier mind, putting extra molasses in her feed, and brushing her gently until the mare eventually settled.
Losing your temper’s not the end of the world, Jo told herself guiltily as she went inside. Horses in the wild have violent, fear-ridden lives. Mares regularly fight each other for dominance, not just the stallions, and a boss mare constantly has to prove her position to the lesser members of the herd. Athena probably just thinks I’m showing her who’s in charge. And anyway, horses live in the moment. You haven’t forgotten about hitting her, but she has.
‘How’s Aunty Chris?’ Ellen asked from in front of World of Warcraft. Telstra must be having a rare good day, Jo observed.
‘Dunno. I got distracted and ended up on the other ridge,’ she said slowly. ‘And is your homework done?’
‘Yep,’ Ellen lied cheerfully. ‘Annie Bowden rang to see if you’re still coming over.’
‘She must really want to sell me a stockhorse,’ Jo answered, buttering slices of bread with the last scrapings of the margarine container. ‘Maybe she’s taking lay-by. Fifty cents a week for the rest of my life.’
‘Can I come too?’ Ellen asked, looking up. If there were new horses to be bought, she wanted to be there.
‘Yeah, but don’t get excited. It’s not happening.’ Jo shot Ellen a look, remembering how desperately hope outweighed rationality at thirteen. She pointed to the bright red rates notice on the fridge. ‘That’s how much hope there is of me buying a registered stockhorse.’
‘My paintings’ll sell for megabucks one day,’ Ellen promised, making Jo smile sadly. Ah, if only. The jahjam hadn’t yet realised that the world didn’t want Aboriginal art by pale Goorie girls on the east coast. Buyers wanted exotica, dots and circles, red dust and people of Twoboy’s colour – the real Aboriginals, cos they, the dugais, said so.
Sitting in front of the ABC news with a cheese jaffle, Jo suddenly remembered that young Sam had been in Rob Starr’s ute. The kid seemed to spend his life hitchhiking around the shire ... Had he simply accepted a lift from Starr? Denied the chance of dancing with DJ’s troupe, she mused, a fatherless lad might have latched onto Starr’s redneck toughness instead. And if a harsh, judgemental Christianity at home makes for a lonely, wandering teenager, then the uncomfortable question arose: Just what sort of middle-aged farmer wanted to take a young boy out into remote bush paddocks in the late afternoon where there was nobody else around to see or hear?
Jo hoped she was wrong, but there had been something in Rob Starr’s bearing as he drove past that spoke to her of a hidden darkness. A shying away from scrutiny. This line of thought, and the difficulty of saying anything useful about it to anyone, had her tossing uneasily again before she slept that night.
Jo wandered around the makeshift art gallery inside the high school hall, and quickly realised why Granny Nurrung and not Aunty Sally Watt was doing the honours on the judging panel. Fully a quarter of the exhibits were signed by Watts, Bullockheads or Browns. Nervous at this unwelcome discovery, Jo looked around for the owners of these dangerous surnames. Yep, there was Oscar’s missus, sitting with Johnny and a scattering of teenagers she didn’t know, Byron and Piccabeen High kids no doubt, over on the far side of the basketball court. No sign of Sally yet, though, nor of Uncle Oscar himself. Maybe an art show inside a dugai institution was too much of an ask for the big culture man. It had certainly been too much for Twoboy, who reacted to any mention of mainstream schools as though Jo was pressing him to pick up a brown snake and begin a polite conversation with it.
Jo felt that the pivoting heads and low unimpressed mutterings of the seated Bullockhead mob probably had something to do with her. She turned her back on them coldly, and went in the opposite direction to where Ellen, Chris and Uncle Pat were parked next to a barefoot DJ. A high school auditorium jam-packed with dugais wasn’t somewhere that trouble was likely to start – but then again, with a mob who carried weapons in their cars, who knew? Jo felt a lot less vulnerable standing beside the calmly neutral Wiradjuri presence that was DJ.
‘What’s the verdict?’ Chris asked as Jo came up.
‘Some of them are really good, eh.’ Jo nodded in affirmation. Ellen’s eagle was the standout, but a few of the other students were talented as well. There were the inevitable black hands grasping white ones in friendship, but there were also several excellent renditions of Chincogan in oils and in charcoal. One older boy had produced a fine painting that drew heavily upon his Yamatji ancestry on the far side of
the continent, and this framed picture already bore a bright red dot of success. Ellen’s painting bore a sign saying Not For Sale, and Jo had proudly heard more than one punter stop and wish that it was.
‘You’ve done well with em, brother,’ Jo told DJ as she kissed him hello. ‘We all know how much work you do with our jahjams,’ she added – then he was mobbed by his adoring dancers and dragged away to perform the opening.
‘Lot of the blokes are real jealous of him, eh,’ Chris told Jo, ‘cos he actually lifts a finger to help the boys.’
‘Typical,’ Jo said. ‘It’s a lot easier to run other Goories down than to get off your arse and do something. I wish we could clone him, we need about fifty DJs.’
The mike squealed and squawked from the stage, demanding attention. Jo, Chris and Ellen turned to face the head, who stood alongside the three judges. DJ’s boys danced, uncertain at first but finishing stronger, to loud applause from the parochial crowd of two hundred. Then Granny Nurrung stepped up to do the welcome to country.
Behind her, DJ and his boys stood semi-naked, painted in white ochre, and with bright scarlet lap-laps around their hips. Most of the boys had scarlet headbands on, proudly stating that they were youths on the way to manhood, and several had bright red, black and yellow beads on arms or neck, too.
‘Geez, get some jumpers on them boys,’ Jo whispered to Chris, ‘before they all catch bloody pneumonia. And if that old lady makes us pray for the Lord’s guidance, or tells us that the fucking children are our fucking future, I’ll scream out loud right here on the spot.’
Chris stifled an irreverent giggle.
‘Welcome, everybody,’ said Granny Nurrung in a high strong voice that made Jo wonder if she was a lay-preacher. ‘I’d like to welcome you all here to the combined art show, by our very talented Goorie children. I want to begin by acknowledging that we are on Bundjalung land here today, and I really do also want to thank our Lord Christ Jesus for bringing us together here on this occasion. I’m sure you’ll all agree that our young ones have been blessed with a great lot of talent, as you can see. I’d like you to give them all a big round of applause, one and all, whether they’ve won a prize for their art tonight or not. God bless.’
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