Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [28]
A couple of hours before sundown the white children went on another food hunt. This time downstream. And, more by luck than judgement, they found a cluster of the yams-with-foliage-under-the-ground. They rooted up three apiece and carried them back to the camp. After a good deal of difficulty they rekindled the fire, and covered the yams with, ash. An hour later they were eating them, while the sunset wind rustled the boxwoods, and flying phalangers zoomed from tree to tree.
Peter took one of the yams to the bush boy; but he wouldn’t eat.
He seemed to be much weaker; to have lost all interest in what was happening around him. Yet his cold was certainly no worse, and all trace of fever had vanished. He simply lay there, his dark eyes Becoming slowly more clouded, his body temperature gradually falling, and his pulse growing imperceptibly weaker. Resigned to the inevitable, he was willing himself to death.
For a long while that evening Peter sat beside him, holding his hand. There had always been a bond between the two boys – a mutual liking and understanding – and it was because of this that Peter now realized the bush boy was dying. He held his hand more tightly. After a while he noticed the bush boy’s lips; they were moving. He bent closer.
‘Arkooloolal’ The whisper was unmistakable.
Peter ran down to the billabong, cupped his hands, and brought back water. But the bush boy pushed it aside; he shook his head; with an effort he raised himself up.
‘Arkooloola.’ He pointed at Peter.
‘Me ?’ The little boy was astonished. ‘I don’t wanna drink.’
‘Arkooloola,’ the bush boy insisted. ‘Yeemara.’ He pointed first at Peter then at the hills.
It was some time before the white boy cottoned on; only when the Aboriginal scooped together a ridge in the sand to represent the hills, and traced a trail from one side to the other, did he get the gist of the message. Then he nodded. Gratefully.
‘Sure, darkie. I get you. Over the hills there’s food an’ water, Arkooloola an’ yeemara. That’s fine. Now you lie down.’
The bush boy’s eyes clouded over. He rolled on to his side, drew up his knees, and lay very still.
Peter took his hand; squeezed it reassuringly. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he got up and walked across to his sister.
She was sitting beside the fire – about two hundred yards from the mugga-wood – drawing patterns in the sand with a pointed branch. She looked up as Peter approached.
‘How is he?’
Peter was very matter of fact.
‘I guess he’ll soon be dead.’
‘Oh, no! No. No. No.’
She started to sway backward and forward, her hands over her face.
Her brother eyed her critically. Then he remembered what he’d come to ask.
‘Say, Mary! You reckon he’ll go to heaven?’
‘I don’t believe you.’ The girl’s voice was muffled. ‘He’s only got a cold.’
‘I reckon he won’t go to heaven. ’Cause he’s a little heathen. He’s not baptized.’
The girl got up: quickly. She started to pace up and down.
‘You sure he’s real ill, Pete?’
‘Course I’m sure. You come an’ see.’
For a long time the girl was silent. Then she said slowly:
‘Yes. I’ll come.’
They walked across to the mugga-wood: to where the bush boy lay in a pool of shadow. Beside him, the girl dropped hesitantly to her knees. She looked into his face: closely: and saw that what her brother had told her was true.
She sat down. Stunned. Then very gently she eased the bush boy’s head on to her lap; very softly she began to run her fingers over and across his forehead.
The bush boy’s eyes flickered open; for a moment they were puzzled; then they smiled.
It was the smile that broke Mary’s heart: that last forgiving smile. Before, she had seen as through a glass darkly, but now she saw face to face. And in that moment of truth all her inbred fears and inhibitions were sponged away, and she saw that the world which she had thought was split in two was one.
He died in the false dawn: peacefully and without struggle: in the hour when the desert is specially still and