Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [27]
The bush boy came walking down to the billabong. But at the water’s edge he stopped: stopped in amazement. For the lubra was snarling at him; was snarling like a cornered dingo, her nose wrinkled, her lips curled back, her eyes filled with terror. He took a hesitant step forward, saw the stone in the lubra’s hand and stopped again. Hatred was something alien to the bush boy; but he couldn’t fail to recognize the look in the lubra’s eyes. He knew, in that moment, that his body would never get its burial platform.
He felt suddenly weaker: much weaker. Things were happening that he didn’t understand: didn’t want to understand. He looked at the lubra’s frightened eyes and snarling mouth, and was appalled. The will to live drained irrevocably away.
Slowly he turned. He walked a few paces back into the desert; then he lay down in the shade of a mugga-wood wood tree.* The branches hung limply over him; the great puce-coloured flowers wept their tears of blood.
* The mugga-wood, to the Aboriginals, is the tree of sorrow, symbol of the broken heart; for its appearance is sad and drooping, and its flowers are perpetually wet with a crimson fluid, seeping out like blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE yacca wood burned quickly, and Peter had I a full-time job replenishing the fire. He couldn’t think what was keeping the others; but he hoped they’d come soon – before he ran out of firewood.
At last he saw his sister scrambling down the outcrop of rock. Even from a distance he sensed that something was wrong; and when she came slowly up to the fire and held out her hands to the blaze, he noticed about her an unnatural calm, an air of too carefully imposed restraint. For a while neither spoke; then the girl picked up a branch and started to draw ash over the flames.
‘Hey!’ Peter was indignant. ‘You’ll put it out.’
She nodded. ‘We don’t need it.’
‘Course we need it. How we going to cook for breakfast?’
‘There’s no breakfast.’
She followed the point up.
‘Listen, Peter,’ she moved closer to him. ‘There’s no food here. It’s no use staying. Let’s push off.’
He eyed her suspiciously.
‘What’s the rush? The darkie’ll get food.’
‘Listen, Pete’ – she was pleading now – ‘Let’s go by ourselves. Just you an’ me. We’ll be O.K.’
His mouth started to droop.
‘I don’t wanna leave the darkie.’
‘He doesn’t want to come, Pete. I know he doesn’t. I asked him.’
‘You sure? Cross your heart.’
‘Real sure. Cross my heart.’
He eyed her doubtfully: unconvinced.
‘How d’you ask him? You can’t talk darkie talk!’
She went on raking over the ash.
‘I tell you,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t want to come. I know.’
A week ago he’d have accepted her word; have fallen in with her plans. But not now.
‘I’m goin’ ask him myself.’ He strode off purposefully, heading for the outcrop of rock.
The girl made as if to run after him, to pull him back. Then she stopped; that, she realized, would do no good. She sat down, beside the dead fire. Her fingers plucked at the hem of her skirt.
After about ten minutes Peter came running back; out of breath.
‘Say, Mary!’ his voice was frightened. ‘The darkie’s ill. Real ill. He’s lying under a bush. An’ he won’t move.’
‘P’raps he’s asleep.’
Peter looked at her in disgust.
‘Course he’s not asleep. He’s ill. You come an’ look.’
‘No!’
The girl drew back.
‘No!’ she whispered. ‘I won’t go near him.’
They spent a miserable, frustrating day. Peter wouldn’t leave the bush boy; Mary wouldn’t go near him; and they had no food.
A little before noon the white boy went wandering off upstream, and his sister followed.
‘Where you going, Pete?’
‘I’m gonna look for fish.’
She came with him eagerly, hoping this was the first step in breaking away, in going off on their own. But Peter wouldn’t go far: after less than an hour he turned back, insisted on retracing their steps. They found no fish.
Peter spent most of the afternoon carrying palmfuls of water up from the billabong to where the bush boy lay motionless in the shade of the mugga-wood. At first the Aboriginal wouldn