Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [24]
The white children looked at the bush boy in astonishment. But neither went to him: the boy because in the last few days he’d witnessed so many incomprehensible changes of mood he’d come to disregard them; the girl for reasons of her own. Soon both brother and sister slept. But the bush boy didn’t sleep. Not for many hours. He lay close to the warmth of the fire, but he couldn’t stop trembling. And quite frequently he sneezed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT was obvious, next morning, that the bush boy had caught Peter’s cold. His nose was running, his eyes were heavy, his muscles ached. Long after sunrise he was still sitting beside the dying fire, too lethargic apparently to think of breakfast. Peter and Mary tidied up the camp, replenished the fire, cooked the last of the yarrawa and offered the bush boy a share –but he wouldn’t eat. Then they waited: waited for him to move.
But he just went on sitting; hour after hour.
‘Say, Mary!’ The little boy was worried. ‘I guess he’s ill.’
‘He looks O.K. to me.’
‘Reckon HI ask him.’
Peter went up to the bush boy.
‘Hey, darkie! You O.K.?’ He eyed him anxiously. ‘ ’Cause if you are, let’s get shiftin’ for Adelaide.’
The bush boy blinked: came suddenly out of his trance. He saw the lubra and the little one looking at him anxiously, and remembered that the valley-of-waters-under-the-earth was still five sleeps away. He got to his feet. Slowly. And without a word struck southward, through the scrub.
All that morning they walked in silence.
A little after noon the bush boy started to cast around, as if unsure of the trail. Twenty-four hours ago he’d have explained to Peter what he was looking for; but he was too preoccupied now. He soon found what he wanted: the claw marks of a food-searching bird. He followed the marks up, picking out a trail that the white children never even saw: a trail of toe-scratchings, odd feathers, and droppings: a trail that led at last to a circular hillock, three feet high: a hillock built by the talegulla (bush turkey) out of earth and decomposing leaves. Inside the hillock, the bush boy knew, would be eggs: the eggs of the bush-turkey: the fowl that knows no broodiness: that lays its eggs and wanders off, leaving the warmth of the decomposing leaves to hatch its deserted offspring.
There were fourteen eggs in the mound, each partitioned off from its neighbours by walls of decaying leaves. One by one the bush boy unearthed them: steaming, pink-tinted, and the size of golf balls. The children roasted and ate them. The firm, nut-flavoured flesh was nourishing; it satisfied their hunger, but sharpened their thirst. Of water there was no sign.
The midday rest was longer than usual; and once again the white children had to coerce the bush boy into making a start. His cold was coming out now; his nose was streaming, his eyes were heavy, his sneezes were interspersed by an occasional cough. When at last he did start off, his pace was slow: as if every step was an effort.
Peter tried to cheer him up, but without success. The Aboriginal had gone into a semi-trance; he moved like a sleep-walker: lost in a world of his own.
‘Say, Mary!’ The little boy was worried. ‘He ain’t well. You do something.’
‘He’s just got a cold, Pete. Like you had. Nothing to fuss about.’
‘But look at his eyes. They’re all queer an’ starey.’
But the girl wouldn’t look at the bush boy’s eyes.
‘He’s O.K.,’ she said. ‘Don’t fuss.’
They walked all afternoon, all evening, and a little way into the night – for the first water-hole they came to had dried up. In the second well the water was brackish and faintly salt, but the children drank it: greedily.
The bush boy wasn’t going to bother over a fire; but Peter and Mary, tired as they were, collected wood, and persuaded the Aboriginal to help them get it alight. Then the three of them, utterly exhausted,