by Peter Watt
The rape of the helpless Aboriginal girls was described in explicit detail to a wide-eyed and gaping young lad from England. How exciting that day must have been, he had thought with wonder. If only he could have the chance to stand heroically beside his comrades and fend off the savages. What stories he could recount when he was an old man sitting by a warm fire with his grandchildren gathered about his feet.
When they had finished the midday meal of cold boiled mutton and damper bread, the shepherds were careful to ensure that they had extinguished the fire by scattering earth on the glowing coals. Flood and fire seemed to be the two perennials of life in the Outback. Floods, fires, snakes . . . and myalls. All could kill you if you got careless.
Monkey swung himself into the saddle of his horse and shaded his eyes as he squinted at the hill through the early afternoon haze.
‘Never know, Young Joe, we might even find a nice set o’ bones for you to fuck,’ he said with a grin and a wink. ‘Or Old Jimmy can look after you tonight when you go to sleep.’
Jimmy leered at the boy with drool at the corner of his mouth and Young Joe shuddered. Monkey’s joke did not strike him as funny but the tough frontier shepherds were always ready to kid a ‘new chum’, as recently arrived immigrants from the Old Country were patronisingly called by the native-born.
Young Joe patted the butt of the carbine nestled in the saddle scabbard on his horse. ‘’E tries an’ ’e gits this up ’is arse.’ He was not smiling and his growled threat brought forth howls of laughter from the two older shepherds. Still laughing, they went in search of lost sheep.
They would not find the lost sheep but what they would find would forever change the life of Tom Duffy.
The crow flapped its shimmering black wings with insolent disregard for the two men approaching the mutilated body. It hopped a few paces before flapping into the sky with a lazy cawing protest at having been interrupted in its grisly work of tearing strips of bloody flesh from the body that lay huddled in a grotesque parody of final resistance to the killers. A clenched fist was still holding a digging stick. And eye sockets were plucked empty by a sharp and cruel beak.
The wallaby’s plump body fell from Wallarie’s shoulders.
Tom swore as he slipped the Colt from the holster and both men scanned the sea of scrub for warning signs of an ambush. But the killers were long gone and Tom stumbled towards the body in the grass. ‘Dear God! How could you let this happen?’ he wailed as he fell to his knees beside the bullet-riddled body of Old Biddy, who lay on her back staring at the cloudless blue sky through empty eye sockets. ‘Ah Biddy, you old troublemaker. Did you put up a fight before they slew you?’ he choked back as he lifted and stroked the old woman’s wrinkled and leathery hand in his. The same frail hand that had caused him the embarrassment of their first meeting, and the same hand that had touched his when she gave him the choice witchetty grubs.
No longer would there be the sound of her cackling laugh around the camp fire nor her incessant nagging of the men for their supposed lack of manhood. He felt tears sting his eyes. How could a harmless old woman be a threat to the might of the white man’s pastoral empires? Had not the dispersal been enough? There were no answers in the hush of the brigalow scrub and he shook his head for the senseless cruelty of the men who had brought obscene death to the harmless old woman. Her bullet-riddled body bore testimony to wanton and senseless murder by men who saw her as nothing more than a target for their marksmanship.
Wallarie touched him on the shoulder and Tom let her hand slip from his as he rose stiffly with tears of rage in his eyes. No words were said as he stumbled after Wallarie to the site that the Nerambura survivors had used as a camp.
Tom gagged and Wallarie shifted his eyes uncertainly from the grisly object spreadeagled over the now cold ashes of the camp fire. Such was Wallarie’s confusion at the white man’s need to inflict unnecessary pain that his mind told him what he was seeing could not be possible. He turned and walked to the edge of the scrub where he squatted and threw dust on his head, wailing a song for the spirits of the dead.
Tom broke into an involuntary sweat as he pieced together the last tortured moments of old Toka’s life. His skinny and frail body had been held by hands and feet over the fire while he was roasted slowly across the red-hot coals. The pain must have been terrible as the fire seared firstly at the flesh, then burnt away what little body fat he had, before muscle and sinew were charred into black leathery strings.
When he was finally able to bring himself to stare into the old Aboriginal’s eyes, Tom saw the last tortured moments of his life. Death had not come quickly. Only the pain had come instantly as he had screamed and struggled at the hands of his sadistic torturers in a futile attempt to escape the excruciating and lingering pain.
It was not the sickness of horror that came over Tom, but a rage of hate for the people who had committed this unspeakable act. He tore his gaze from the old Aboriginal and walked slowly over to Wallarie, who squatted in the dust chanting the death song. The Irishman’s grey eyes blazed with a fire that only blood could put out.
‘We have to find the others,’ he snarled and trembled in his rage. ‘And we have to find the . . .’ He was lost for a description to give a name to the bestial creatures who had committed the crime and although Tom had spoken in English, Wallarie sensed what his friend had said to him.
The boy and Kondola were missing but Tom held out little hope of finding them alive after what he had just seen. He could only hope their deaths had not been as obscene as that of Toka. But he held out some hope that Mondo might have been taken alive for the value she provided to the men’s sexual needs, although he also knew that there was a good chance they would kill her when they were finished using her body.
There were at least three men responsible for the deaths of Biddy and Toka, from the three sets of different bootprints he had been able to distinguish around the fireplace.
Gripping his spears Wallarie rose from the ground and skirted the cold fireplace refusing by tradition to look upon the dead. Nor did he want to remain in this hideous place of death, as the ground was now taboo to him.
Tom did not need to ask where he was going. He knew. And it did not take long before they picked up the trail of the three horses and the two sets of footprints mixed in with the horses’ tracks. Even Tom could recognise the prints as those belonging to the young boy and Mondo. At least Mondo and Young Billy were alive.
But neither man could find any trace of Kondola’s tracks outside the camp area. Inside, they were clearly displayed where he had gone about his daily routine, and it was eerie for Tom to see Wallarie puzzled. Had the wily old warrior covered his own tracks? Was his skill at evading his enemies better than Wallarie’s skills at tracking?
‘Kondola?’ Tom asked and Wallarie shook his head with a frown. Had the old man turned into a spirit to escape his hunters?
Tom guessed the sun would set in five hours and he knew that the daylight was vital to keep visual contact with the trail of the three men on horses with their two prisoners. He had no doubts as to what he would do when he caught up with the murderers of his Nerambura family.
The two men dodged the prickly low branches of the scrub as they loped through the bush. Tom was careful not to trip on the ankle-high termite nests that littered the scrub as they alternately jogged and walked. He suspected that Wallarie only broke into a walk for his benefit and his stamina amazed him. The warrior was all muscle and no excess weight as he jogged, trailing his three long spears and a stone axe. Tom carried his battered water canteen, Bowie knife and big Colt pistol with its powder flask and pouch for lead ball.
As Wallarie jogged, he used his spears as a balance to his loping stride and Tom felt awkward in comparison with the pistol holster and water canteen flapping at his side.
Just on sundown Wallarie slowed to a walk and gave the hunter’s signal to rest. Tom slumped to the ground, praying self-indulgently that they would remain there and sleep for the
night. He took long gulps of water from his canteen which he passed to Wallarie, who only took short sips. He had barely time to stretch and ease his stiffening muscles when Wallarie hissed softly in the lengthening shadows, ‘We go on. I know where the white men will be camped.’
Wallarie knew that all creatures in the bush sought a source of water at sundown and the only water ahead was a creek he knew they could reach before dawn.
Tom groaned as he struggled to his feet and gave Wallarie a grim smile to show that he was ready to follow him once again. At least they were walking and not running this time, he consoled himself, as he followed the broad-shouldered and naked black warrior ahead of him.
But even the walk was exhausting as they followed a star trail in the sky. To fight his tiredness, Tom forced himself to remember Biddy’s and Toka’s mutilated bodies. And there was also just the slightest chance that they might find Young Billy and Mondo alive if they kept up the killing pace.
It was just on dawn of the relentless trek that the two men were rewarded with the distant sound of snoring and the glow of a dying camp fire reflected off the trunks of coolabah trees by a muddy water hole. The last of the stars were leaving the night sky when the two men silently stalked the unsuspecting shepherds, sleeping soundly by the warm glow of the camp fire.
The attack was sudden and swift.
Wallarie’s spear hissed across the short distance between hunter and hunted and the barbed point caught Young Joe in the throat as he rose groggily from under his blanket. He had been disturbed by the whinny of his horse hobbled nearby as it sniffed the presence of the two strangers approaching.
The spear exited from the back of the young shepherd’s neck, cutting short any attempt to scream, and Young Joe had finally faced a myall warrior as he had dreamed he might one day, except that he never saw the warrior who had killed him.
In his death throes, he thrashed about wrapped in his blanket and crashed into Monkey beside him. Blood spattered the older shepherd’s face and when Monkey opened his eyes to curse irritably, he looked directly into the terrified and bulging eyes of the young shepherd, clutching at the long hardwood shaft projecting from his neck.
Monkey screamed in his terror. He grappled desperately for his revolver but froze when he stared up into the smoky grey eyes of the strange myall standing over him with a Colt levelled at his head. Turning, the Glen View shepherd saw the terrible spectre of a giant black man bring his stone axe down with a bone-crushing crunch on Young Joe’s head.
‘You have only two ways of dying,’ the strange myall said to Monkey, and it was only when he spoke that Monkey realised the myall was a white man. ‘Either I kill you in a relatively civilised manner, or I let my black friend over there kill you. And he’s not civilised.’
Monkey felt a wet warmth spreading in his crotch and Tom wrinkled his nose at the foul stench when the terrified man’s bowels also voided.
‘Please, matey, please . . .’ he pleaded as he grovelled towards Tom. ‘Please don’t kill me. I ain’t done nothin’ to no one in me life. I never done wrong by . . .’
Tom swung the barrel of his pistol at the side of the man’s face and the stricken shepherd howled his distress, falling back with blood oozing from a long slash over his eyes. He lay curled in a foetal position, whining like a whipped dog. ‘Please don’t hurt me, matey.’
‘Last time. Do you want a quick death? Or a slow death?’ Tom snarled. ‘Or maybe we might even give you the same death you gave the old man over the fire. Eye for an eye, the Bible says,’ he added casually and Monkey snapped out of his fear-induced stupor to seriously consider his limited options. He knew there was something worse than death. It was how you died.
‘You, matey. I want you to do it,’ he croaked as his crazed eyes flicked from side to side, searching for any slim hope of escape. But the gun, inches from his head, and the hard grey eyes of the man staring at him with such malevolence, let him know that pleading for his life was an utter waste of time. He held no hope whatsoever that he would live to see the sun set that day and was gradually resigning himself to death at the hands of the white man.
‘Well, now that you know that your death will be “civilised” I have some conditions,’ Tom said in a flat voice as Monkey slowly came out of his foetal position and sat up, shaking uncontrollably. ‘Then if you answer truthfully, I will honour the deal we have made between us.’
Tom squatted on his haunches and dropped the barrel of the pistol away from the trembling shepherd while Wallarie stood a couple of paces behind him, deceptively relaxed with the deadly stone axe swinging casually at his side.
‘Firstly, I would like to know where the third man, who was with you before last night, is now?’ he asked quietly as he fixed the shepherd’s eyes with his own.
‘Old Jimmy, the bastard!’ Monkey flared with a touch of ironic anger. ‘He took the gin and shot through just after we put our ’eads down las’ night.’
‘Where was he taking her?’
‘Probably up to the Balaclava ’omestead,’ Monkey answered carefully as he was acutely aware that Wallarie was standing behind him with the axe he had used to crush Young Joe’s skull. ‘The boss there, Mister Bostock, was looking for a nice bit of black velvet. An’ the gin wasn’t a bad looker for a darkie,’ he said tactlessly, but Tom kept his temper at the shepherd’s crude and demeaning reference to Mondo.
‘What do you know about a dispersal hereabouts?’ he asked. ‘Maybe half a year ago?’
Monkey hesitated. He was going to die anyway.
‘I was there,’ he mumbled and looked down at the ground. He dared not stare into the cold grey eyes of the man opposite him.
‘Do you remember if you saw a big white man with an old Aboriginal offsider at any time?’
Monkey’s narrow eyes widened with a sudden recognition. ‘You is Tom Duffy. I knows of you,’ he exclaimed as he lifted his eyes to stare at Tom, who was startled by the man’s knowledge of his identity. How could he know who he was? ‘Mister Macintosh told us youse might be alive,’ Monkey continued to babble. ‘He said there was a bonus in the pay for anyone who found you, even . . .’ he hesitated as he realised what he was about to say.
‘Even if what?’ Tom prompted.
‘. . . Even if youse was dead,’ Monkey replied in a hoarse whisper.
‘Jesus!’ Tom blasphemed. He had been right to avoid all white men in the area after the dispersal. ‘You mean I might have had an “accident”. Why?’ he asked. ‘Why was I to be killed?’
‘Because youse was helping the darkies the day we were tryin’ to clear them off the land,’ Monkey replied. ‘The day when Mister Angus was killed by them.’
Tom was puzzled by the shepherd’s explanation that he had been accused of aiding Wallarie’s people. Especially since he had been judged and sentenced by a man he had never met.
Monkey volunteered an explanation. ‘Your ol’ man ’ad us bailed up after some darkie speared Mister Angus,’ he said. ‘An’ your ol’ man gave the darkie the chance to get away. When we left to go after ’im, the darkies speared yer old man, and the nigger ’e was with.’
‘You are lying,’ Tom snarled. ‘My father was killed by a white man.’
Monkey appeared genuinely confused at his accusation, as the big Irish teamster had been in the custody of Lieutenant Mort when the shepherds had last seen him alive. Had not the trap reported that he had left the two prisoners chained to a tree and when he returned to pick them up he found them speared to death? There was furtive talk around the Glen View camp fires that Mort had actually done away with the Irishman. But few were stupid enough to voice their suspicions, not even when drunk, as it was not wise to bring the wrath of Mister Macintosh down on you.
‘If ’e was killed by a white man then it was by the trap, Mort,’ Monkey ventured.
‘Mort who?’
‘Lieutenant Morrison Mort of the Native Mounted Police,’ Monkey replied. ‘That’s who probably killed yer old man.’
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nbsp; Tom noticed that something had attracted Wallarie’s attention, as he had suddenly tensed then walked warily towards a stand of coolabah trees not far from the water hole where he froze, staring into the trees. As Tom watched Wallarie, he knew he had found something and he had a sick feeling he knew what it was. Monkey followed Tom’s gaze to where Wallarie stood among the coolabah trees and began to tremble violently.
Tom swung on him with a burning murderous rage and the shepherd instinctively cringed away. ‘I don’t want to go over there,’ Tom said in a cold and flat voice. ‘Because if I go over there, I will probably break my word and hand you over to my black friend who appears to be a bit upset at what he is looking at right now. So I am going to ask you. Is it what I think it is?’
Monkey had trouble finding enough moisture in his mouth to talk.
‘’E’s found the darkie boy,’ he croaked. ‘Old Jimmy decided to cut off ’is cock and balls after he fucked ’im last night.’
‘While he was alive?’ Tom asked with a deadly and controlled fury.
The shepherd could only nod his head as he stared bleakly at the ground between his feet.
‘I want you to look at me,’ Tom said quietly. ‘I want my eyes to be the last thing you see before I send you to burn in hell. Look at me, you murdering bastard.’
Slowly Monkey raised his head and tried to avert the grey eyes staring at him. But the voice was soft and lulling, almost hypnotic, and the last thing he remembered was that the young man’s eyes were like the big Irishman’s eyes that had bailed them up the day of the dispersal. Monkey was hardly aware of the sound of the gun or the lead bullet that tore a hole through his forehead as he pitched backwards into the warm ashes of the camp fire. His death was merciful as Tom had promised.
When Tom Duffy pulled the trigger, he had crossed from his own world and irreversibly into Wallarie’s. For now he was truly a white myall and one with the avenging spirit of the sacred hill of the Nerambura.