Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [13]
As the sun sank under the rim of the desert, a lazy spiral of wood-smoke rose into the evening air.
The bush boy’s hands twisted faster. This was the skill that raised him above the level of the beasts. Bird can call to bird, and animal to animal; mother dingoes can sacrifice themselves for their young; termites can live in highly-organized communal towns. But they can’t make fire. Man alone can harness the elements.
A blood-red glow suffused the resin. The glow spread; brightened; burst into flame. The boys piled on the sticks of yacca. The fire was made.
The bush boy collected the wallaby; held it by tail-tip over the flames; scorched it down to the bare skin. Then he laid it in the hollow. After a while he picked up a stick and started to lever the fire-heated stones on top of the carcass. Then he banked up the hollow with earth and ash. The rock wallaby baked gently.
An hour later they were eating it, watched by a single dingo and a thin crescent moon. It skinned easily; the flesh was succulent and tender; and there was enough for all.
Before they settled down to sleep the bush boy scattered the fire; stamped out every spark, smoothed out every heap of ash. Then, like a blackstone sentinel, he stood for a while beside the loop of the billabongs, gazing into the desert, interpreting sounds that the children couldn’t even hear. Eventually, satisfied that all was well, he lay down close to the others on the slab of sandstone rock.
A veil of cumulus drifted over the moon.
After a while the dingo crept out of the bush and on to the ledge of sandstone; warily he nosed through the ashes for bones; but he found none. A pair of flying foxes flip-flapped down to the billabong. Little folds of mist moved softly round the hill-that-had-fallen-out-of-the-moon. And the children slept.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE girl woke early: in the whiteness and stillness of the false dawn: in the hour before sunrise when the light is very clear and the earth peculiarly still. She lay on her back, watching the stars die and the sky pale. Was heaven there, she wondered; somewhere beyond the stars and sky? If it hadn’t been for the bush boy she’d probably know by now. She rolled on to her side and looked at the naked Aboriginal, then looked quickly away. If only she, too, had been a boy!
She tried to think calmly, logically. One thing she was certain of: the bush boy had saved their lives. He was used to living in the desert. That was obvious. So long as they stayed with him they’d probably keep alive. But they’d still be lost. Could they, she wondered, persuade him to take them all the way to Adelaide? But perhaps he didn’t know where Adelaide was… She wondered what he was doing, wandering the desert alone, far from family or tribe. It was all very puzzling.
A few weeks ago she’d have known what to do; known what was best. But here in the desert most of the old rules and the old values seemed strangely meaningless. Uncertain, unsure, she fell back on a woman’s oldest line-of-action: passivity. She’d simply wait and see.
The decision brought immediate relief. Now she’d relinquished her leadership and all its implied responsibility, much of her keyed-up tension ebbed away. Rolling on to her back she closed her eyes and fell almost at once into a deep refreshing sleep.
She woke, a couple of hours later, to the sound of laughter and splashing water. Sitting up, she saw her brother and the black boy bathing in the billabong. They were ducking each other beneath a miniature waterfall that cascaded down from the rock.
‘Come on, Mary,’ her brother shouted. ‘In with us.’
‘Come on, Mary,’ the rocks re-echoed. ‘In with us. In with us.’
She waved cheerfully.
‘Later,’ she shouted. ‘When it’s warmer.’
Peter opened his mouth to remonstrate; but his mouth filled suddenly with water; the bush boy had ducked him again. Peter flailed his arms. Like a miniature waterspout he rushed his assailant. The bush boy feigned defeat; in mock terror he fled across the billabong; splashing through the shallows,