Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  ‘You’re the only other person I know apart from Jimmy I’ve seen do it. Do you know why?’

  ‘Not really,’ Cardinal said.

  ‘I’ll tell you. You do it to form an imprint of a face in your mind. You probably have a photographic recall of faces.’

  ‘I do!’ Cardinal smiled.

  ‘So does Jimmy. That’s why you must meet him. Those sketches may have been destroyed by Richardson, but I’m certain Jimmy will give you something.’ He leant forward. ‘You see, when an artist like him sketches someone he takes an interest in, the images stay in his brainbox forever!’

  Cardinal asked many questions about Jimmy’s background, but noticed a growing irritability in his host.

  ‘Anything the matter?’ Cardinal asked. ‘You look worried.’

  ‘I am,’ Burra said, reaching for another beer. ‘Tom Beena is up to something. It bothers me. We’ve always suspected he has been in Richardson’s pocket.’ Burra pushed his steak away. ‘I’ve got to win this one,’ he said, ‘otherwise that bastard will take over.’ He poured them both a beer. ‘That, more than anything, will kill my people.’

  ‘Guns!’

  Exuberant Aborigines worked the word into a chant. A wild crowd of Bididgee members had gathered and in Burra’s absence Beena had called on several speakers who wanted a violent confrontation with the police.

  When Burra returned, he sensed the ugly atmosphere immediately.

  He turned to Cardinal as he climbed from the ute. ‘I’m going to introduce you to Goyong after this,’ he said. ‘Just trust me now, okay?’

  Cardinal waited for an explanation, but Burra closed the ute door and hurried to the front of the crowd. He waited until the applause and yelling had died down.

  ‘I can guess what the speakers have been saying before me,’ he said with a knowing grin towards the group at the front near Beena. ‘And it’s what I would expect from some of the brainless ones among you who are forever . . .’he paused to punch the air and repeat, ‘forever going to be outsmarted by those truckies and people like Richardson!’ He turned so that he was facing Beena and his small group of supporters. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he said. ‘You are saying exactly what those bastards want! They want you to obstruct them. They want the police to fight you. They want a confrontation! Why else would that moron Malone be sent forward to set you up?’

  The noise fell away as Burra took command.

  ‘And do you know why? I’ll tell you. They want to destroy Brockman. And they’ll do it if you fight them, because once they get through to the mine with the law supporting them, they’ll have nothing to stop them. Everyone will be against us.’ He faced his people. Invoking the comradely ‘us’ was the beginning of his effort to turn the mob against Beena.

  ‘We outnumber them!’ one of Beena’s group cried. ‘We have nothing to lose.’ That brought a less supportive cheer than before, but there was still a residue of feeling, as another called, ‘If they destroy Brockman, we are finished!’

  Burra raised his arms. ‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about! And any fight will ensure that the drill will get through. They’ll start to mine under Brockman!’ He waited for protests to fall away. ‘There is a way to stop them! We must give the police evidence that our sacred sites have been desecrated. Then those trucks will not get on! I have a guarantee from Chief O’Laughlin!’

  Beena stepped forward. ‘Anyone going on Brockman for any reason,’ he yelled, ‘will mean desecration of the sacred site! So how do you propose gathering evidence?’

  ‘We are allowed to send a nominated party near the site,’ Burra said, ‘not on it.’ He turned to the crowd.

  ‘Let’s vote to let such a party near the site.’

  ‘Who can we trust?’ Beena yelled. ‘None of us are allowed there . . .’

  ‘A show of hands,’ Burra said. ‘All those in favour of someone going near the site . . .’ An overwhelming number was in support. ‘Then it’s done!’ he said with a triumphant wave of his hands. ‘We’ll meet here at six to judge the results.’

  The crowd began to disperse before Beena could address them again. Burra strode to the ute followed by a group of about forty.

  ‘We need a volunteer,’ he said to Cardinal who climbed out of the vehicle surrounded by the Aborigines. He now knew the pay-off for his promised meeting with the artist.

  ‘Wouldn’t a local field-officer or school-teacher be a better choice?’ Cardinal said to Burra. ‘They know the area better and . . .’

  ‘They would be considered biased,’ Burra interjected. Topfist, the taxi driver, emerged from the onlookers carrying a rifle.

  ‘You may need this,’ he said with a devious grin. ‘It’s loaded this time.’

  ‘I seduced him!?’ Rhonda said in astonishment to the Australian ambassador in his Embassy office.

  ‘That’s what the Palace claims,’ Gosling said, fidgeting behind his polished teak desk. He was short with a small greying beard that hid a weakish chin and the beginnings of another. His face was tanned and abnormally wrinkled for a man of forty. The sides of Gosling’s mouth turned down mournfully, and he had the unfortunate habit of not looking anyone in the eye when he spoke.

  Rhonda said, going white. ‘You believe that?’

  ‘He is the president!’ Gosling said, stroking his beard, ‘but I would like to hear your version.’

  ‘Version! Version?! Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Stay calm, Ms Mills,’ Gosling said. ‘What do you say happened?’

  ‘Try rape!’

  ‘Rape? Now Ms Mills . . .”

  ‘The nearest damn thing to it,’ Rhonda said and told her story. Gosling blinked and bit his lip.

  ‘There was one other thing,’ he said when she had finished. ‘Dalan has requested that you surrender the taped interview you had with the president.’

  ‘Stop dignifying that bastard by calling him president with such reverence! He is a dangerous, syphilitic maniac! And the answer is no. No, I will not surrender the tape to you or him or anyone except my producer!’

  ‘Dalan says Utun was not well last night,’ Gosling said, ‘and that, with hindsight, he regrets some things that were discussed. He claims they were off the record, anyway.’

  Rhonda struggled to contain herself. ‘What about some of the things that were done, Mr Gosling?’

  ‘None of this would be good for our relations with the Republic,’ he said with a worried shake of his head. ‘I have been asked to give assurances that the tape won’t be used.’

  ‘Am I going to be protected? That’s why I came here. I am worried that that animal Utun will do something to me.’

  ‘They will want the tape, Ms Mills.’

  ‘I planned to leave Jakarta today!’

  ‘Only if that tape is surrendered.’

  ‘Whose side are you on?!’

  Gosling reached into a drawer and pulled out a pill bottle, swallowed a couple. He took a few breaths and smiled feebly.

  ‘Blood pressure,’ he said, recovering his composure. ‘You see, with your reputation, people will say you might have been asking for trouble. Your past interviews have upset people in the area. I was high commissioner in Singapore when . . .”

  ‘Hold it!’ Rhonda interjected. ‘Let me understand this. I can’t leave Indonesia?’

  ‘I’m not stopping you. It’s the Indonesian government.’

  Rhonda stood up. ‘If I am forced to stay, I’ll file the rape story from here!’

  Gosling went puce.

  Rhonda grabbed his pill bottle. ‘Take the lot!’ she said, tossing them to him as she walked out.

  A three metre crocodile slithered into the water close to the road, and Burra had to fight the wheel to avoid colliding with it. They drove on to the escarpment and Brockman. The red dust disturbed the flocks of Magpie Geese, heron, ibis and the statuesque jabiru, and they scattered to safer ground.

  The escarpment’s rockface seemed to have changed from purple and maroon to dark brown as the
y came closer. They passed a herd of drought-ravaged cattle; their ribcages protruded.

  ‘Richardson implied that the legends about the area were baloney,’ Cardinal said.

  ‘It’s no coincidence that all the Bad Dreaming areas are where the biggest uranium ore-bodies are,’ Burra said.

  ‘That’s what Richardson said. He made out you had created the legend to cash in on the success of his yellowcake mining.’

  ‘Our legend dates back forty thousand years, maybe more,’ Burra said. ‘Where was the great man then?’

  ‘Is there a rationale behind your beliefs?’

  ‘Probably more than that behind your own. There is no trilogy of God, JC and the Holy Ghost. Our religion is earthy and pragmatic’

  Burra accelerated as they rounded a corner to a rough track to the escarpment.

  ‘One of our oldest legends says that something awesome happened right here,’ he said, ‘thirty or forty thousand years ago. An Aborigine witnessed the mysterious deaths of hunters. He was the only one to survive, but he was blinded. He told other members of the tribe. They speared him to death because they thought he had been afflicted by evil spirits. Then they went to the spot where the hunters had died. They had been horribly burnt. Even snakes in the area were dying strangely. Later, visitors to the area died terrible deaths.’ He paused, glanced at Cardinal. ‘That could be explained by a natural nuclear explosion. Geologists say they have occurred around here.’

  ‘So that’s Brown Snake Dreaming?’

  ‘That’s my interpretation.’

  ‘Richardson was most critical about the Boulder legend at Mount Brockman.’

  ‘The Green Ant boulders,’ Burra said. ‘I always thought them explained by the results of nuclear explosion. Perhaps there was some kind of animal mutation after one, which mystified the tribe. Who knows?’

  ‘Whichever way the legends developed, you’re saying that radioactivity once made the region a “no go” area?’

  ‘If some of the tribe died in the Bad Dreaming sites, it would be natural to make them off limits.’

  Cardinal nodded. ‘Another thing Richardson said got me thinking. If those boulders were to be disturbed, your tribe believed the world would be destroyed. Uranium mining would disturb the region, and uranium is used to make nuclear weapons, which could destroy not just the Aboriginal world but the planet.’

  ‘Now you do understand how basic and rational our beliefs are.’

  They came to a bend, and Burra changed gear. A roadblock was in view.

  That’s Checkpoint Charlie,’ Burra said, ‘the only road entrance to the mine.’ Three guards were at the entrance to a small wooden hut on the side of the road two hundred metres away. A boom barrier had been lowered across the road. The guards were ominously still, waiting.

  ‘They’ll report us.’

  ‘Beena would have told them?’

  Burra shrugged. ‘He wants a confrontation. So does Richardson.’

  They veered off onto a dirt track that was ridden with potholes and ran into a forest in front of Brockman. Burra was forced to use the front-wheel drive to negotiate a sharply winding path through tea-trees. Ditches and small ridges hindered their progress. They passed a shack in a clearing. Its rusty corrugated-iron walls and roof looked like a stack of cards about to collapse.

  ‘Jimmy lives in there,’ Burra said. ‘We’ll be in to see him later.’

  It took twenty minutes to reach the legendary boulders set in a small oasis, which from the plane had appeared as a rich green mirage. Cardinal found the cooler conditions a relief. Burra had been edgy, but it had nothing to do with the conditions.

  They reached a wire fence that ran to a small river at the foot of Brockman. A sign read:

  Green Ant Dreaming Area

  Sacred Site of the Bididgee Tribe

  No Trespassers Allowed

  By Order, Government of the Northern Territory

  Cardinal scanned the mountain in front of them and felt some misgivings. Burra was sitting at the wheel, as if in a trance and Cardinal smelt fear.

  ‘Perhaps we should forget this,’ he said. Burra’s hands were trembling and he was taking deep breaths.

  ‘We have no choice,’ he whispered, ‘but I cannot go closer.’

  Cardinal was reluctant.

  ‘Where’s the boundary to the sacred area?’ he asked. ‘Is it the fence?’

  ‘The boulders on the other side of the river,’ Burra said as he reached into the back of the ute and handed him a canvas bag.

  ‘We need anything that looks like core samples from drilling,’ he said. ‘Use this camera, but go around the Green Ants.’

  Burra took a polaroid from the bag and then reached for the rifle under the seat, but Cardinal shook his head.

  ‘It’s for protection,’ Burra said. ‘There are snakes. This is Death Adder country.’

  Cardinal hesitated. ‘Now you tell me,’ he said, but still declined to take the weapon.

  They both got out of the ute, and Burra used wire cutters to snip a hole in the fence. Cardinal crawled through and made his way down a slope to a stream. He used a fallen tree to balance his way across, and this brought him ten metres from the boulders. Cardinal looked back up the slope but could only see the top of the fence and not Burra. He began examining some of the rock pieces around him as if they were gemstones. He found a couple of cylindrical, narrow holes, which looked man-made. He photographed them and gathered some tiny pieces of rock.

  Cardinal stepped around the boulders and glanced back again. This time the fence was not in view. The isolation made him apprehensive, but this was compensated for by the oasis of palms whose huge fronds provided a green canopy around him. He could hear birds and the gentle rhythm of the water. There was no breeze and the place was still except for his movements and the sound of his sneakers crunching gravel stones as he fossicked about.

  He found a gorge that split the mountain. It was so narrow that it could not be detected from more than a few metres. Cardinal moved close to its entrance, curious to see where it led. He edged into the gorge about twenty paces and could see that the divide led to a plain, and beyond that, the escarpment.

  A few paces further on he found a cave. He stepped in. In the limited light he could just make out paintings on a wall. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness and then moved closer. He lost his footing and fell on his knees in a hole about a metre deep. He cursed, more from shock than pain, and heard his voice echo. He scrambled out and stood still. He thought he heard something but decided it was only lingering echoes from his movements. The cave was damp and cold enough to make him shiver as he stepped to the paintings. They were detailed studies of emus, kangaroos, and other creatures that Cardinal didn’t recognise. He found drawings of upright humanoids with large heads. He was examining them when he noticed a hole in the wall. It looked like the results of a blast, and it had destroyed some of the paintings. Cardinal collected pieces of the debris and left the cave.

  He was about to retrace his steps when he noticed another cave. He shuffled along to it. There was a hole in his path and in front of the cave. Neither was a natural opening. They had been blasted. His eyes fell on some debris. He stepped over the hole, which was about five metres deep. ‘Christ!’ Cardinal said as he noticed two broken sticks of explosive. He took photos and then put the explosives in the bag.

  Cardinal was close to the plain that led to the escarpment. He eased his way to the end of the gorge and then out to the plain. The grass was high, and he had second thoughts about marching through it because of Burra’s warning about snakes. He felt an urge to explore the escarpment, but it occurred to him that Burra might be anxious. He could make it in less than ten minutes if he hurried. He had only taken a few paces forward when he was stopped by a familiar sound. A helicopter hurtled skywards from behind the escarpment. Cardinal dashed to the gorge. Seconds later the chopper was hovering overhead as he scrambled along the narrow trail to the boulders. He zig-zagged
through them and heard the ping of a bullet. It ricocheted off a boulder close to him. He looked up. The chopper was above him and being angled so that a rifle could be aimed at him. There was no hiding place except in the gorge, which was forty metres away, so Cardinal had to risk a sprint for the fence. He heard another shot. It did not seem to come from the chopper. Cardinal ran for the stream and onto the log but lost his balance as another shot rippled the water beneath him. He fell to the other side clutching the bag. He got to his feet and hurled himself up the slope.

  Another shot zipped close to him. He could see Burra aiming at the chopper, which seemed to be coming closer. Cardinal threw himself at the hole in the fence, and Burra leapt into the ute and reversed it into the wire. The black pushed the passenger door open and changed into forward gear; Cardinal jumped in. The ute was gunned into tea-trees as the chopper swooped low. A volley of shots furrowed the ground around them.

  ‘The bastard is shooting blind!’ Burra yelled. They were camouflaged in the thick tea-trees and could hear the machine swooping low. Its shadow slid over their vehicle as it banked and dived before the sound of its rotors faded.

  Rhonda waited in a line of passengers at Halim airport who were coming through customs. She was apprehensive. Although she had filed her interview with Utun, she thought it was so innocuous it would probably not be used, especially as she had failed to get anything on film. Her producers had suggested she leave the country on the next flight. Garuda had a flight to Sydney at 4.30 pm and Rhonda had thrown her clothes in her suitcase and rushed to the airport by taxi.

  A woman in front of Rhonda was ordered out of the airline counter line, told to empty out the contents of her luggage. Four inspectors examined every item including a toothpaste tube, which was squeezed to see if anything had been sealed into it. Cans of hair-spray were shaken hard. They’re probably looking for drugs, Rhonda thought.

  Rhonda was asked to step up. The laconic official went through her passport. He smiled, and Rhonda thought she was through. But he nodded at her suitcase and pointed to inspectors. They opened the case.