Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [25]
Next day the sun had risen high before the children were on the move. They had no breakfast, and the bush boy was noticeably weaker. But at last they started off, heading south by west across the level plain. In the distance, heat-hazed and very far away, they could see a low range of hills. The bush boy pointed to the hills.
‘Arkooloola,’ he said.
And that was the only word he spoke until their midday rest.
But a little before noon he came – if only for a moment – out of his lethargy.
It was Peter who saw the echidna first: a pair of porcupine-like creatures scurrying between two clumps of yacca. He grabbed the bush boy’s hand.
‘Look! Food! Yeemara!’
The bush boy came suddenly to life. He snapped off a branch of yacca, and leapt after the echidna. They heard him coming; they tried to escape in the only manner they knew; by diving under the ground; by burrowing into the earth as if it were chocolate marsh-mallow. But the bush boy was too quick for them. With a thrust of the yacca he blocked their getaway; with the end of the branch he prised them up to the surface. He unrolled them, skilfully avoiding their quills, and set them down on the sand. In the pouch of the female he found a tiny replica of herself: a frightened, blinking pup, whose quills were soft as chickens’ down. Gently he put the mother down; set her free to tend her young; to raise the pup to a size more suitable for food. But for the male there was no reprieve. His death blow was mercifully swift; his body was tossed to the lubra. They ate him, when the day was at its hottest, casseroled in eucalyptus leaves.
For a long time that afternoon the hills seemed to come no nearer; then, quite suddenly, the children were walking into their shadow.
They found an idyllic place to camp; in the shade of an outcrop of rocks and close to a stream that meandered into a looping chain of billabongs. They drank deeply, kindled their fire and settled down in the shade of a boxwood thicket for the night.
The bush boy’s cold didn’t appear to be any worse; indeed if anything he was sneezing and coughing less. Yet he seemed weaker: increasingly preoccupied: and the children noticed that his coordination was beginning to fail – twice, while making fire, the yacca rolled from between his hands.
Peter was very solicitous. Seeing the bush boy huddled by the fire yet still trembling – he supposed with cold – he took off his shorts and tried to cover him up. And the Aboriginal seemed to be grateful. Peter looked at him thoughtfully: then at his sister. He had a sudden idea.
‘Hey, Mary!’ His cheerful shout echoed back from the rocks. ‘The darkie’s cold. Couldn’t he have your dress?’
The girl’s mouth fell open. For a second she stared at her brother in disbelief. Then she swung round and started to bank up the fire.
But the little boy wasn’t put off.
‘Gee, Mary! Don’t be a meany. He’s cold.’
The girl said nothing.
Peter looked at her curiously. Her face had gone suddenly pale; her eyes, once again, were frightened, hunted.
‘I think you’re scared!’ the little boy announced with unexpected relish. ‘Cowardy girl! Cowardy girl’
Mary turned away. She hid her face in her hands. If only he wasn’t so small; if only he was a few years older; then he’d understand.
She saw the bush boy looking at her: watching her. And she shivered.
The Southern Cross blazed out of a cobalt sky; the sundown wind faded to a whisper; and a pair of marsupial rats, their eyes aglow like luminous peas, hopped hesitantly round the camp site. Mary threw a branch of yacca into the flames. The sparks