Brumby Plains (9 page)

‘Well, that was the difficulty, you see. We didn't know who was involved at first. It looked a bit suspicious – a bird smuggling racket operating out of this area, and your station with money troubles. Wouldn't be the first time someone tried to get a bit of extra money on the side. And you did seem to know a lot about birds!'

He winked at George, and went on. ‘Turns out your neighbour Mr O'Dearn had an arrangement
with the loans manager at your parents' bank. I must say, I rather prefer your name for him – Stinking Jerry, I believe? Much more suitable! Anyway this loans chap put the squeeze on them to repay the money in the hope of forcing them to a sale. The idea was that Stinking Jerry would get the station on the cheap, and pay off the manager. Who, I might add, is being collected by the local constabulary in Darwin even as we speak.'

‘By the livin' Harry, I always knew that blasted O'Dearn feller was no good, but I never thought he'd get up ter somethin' like this!' Old Jock looked like he was ready to go and sort their neighbour out there and then.

‘But what's all that got to do with birds?' Darcy looked confused.

‘Well, your mate Stinking Jerry was approached by this Russell character to take part in some bird smuggling. Russell Burns, as he is sometimes known, organised the collection of the birds and was also illegally importing artifacts on the planes which took the birds out of the country. Jerry's son Nigel, and his mate Lenny Bates, were recruited to do the work, plus sell the artifacts through the
markets in Darwin. You ran into Lenny that time at the Parap markets, if you recall?'

Tess and Sam nodded, remembering the smashed crystal.

‘They needed to do the last run on your place, because the little spring on top of the ridge is a prime collecting site for our banded fruit doves. There's quite a good return for them on the black market. They got your parents out of the way with a call from the bank, but they hadn't counted on you lot staying behind, or that you'd be poking around up there in any case. Thought they'd have the place to themselves. By the way, just what were you doing up there anyway?'

Sam, George, Tess and Darcy glanced at each other.

‘Oh, just mucking around,' said Sam innocently.

‘But how did you know where we were?' asked Darcy.

‘Yes, and how come Vincent was with you?' asked Tess.

‘Ah, the marvels of modern communication! Vincent has been of great assistance to us. No one knows the country like he does. After I left Brumby
Plains last week, I went to see Vincent, and I've been based there since then, waiting for Burns to make a move. I was over at Vincent's camp when your strange message came through on the radio, Sam. I must admit I couldn't make head nor tail of it, but Vincent knew exactly what you were saying.'

‘But if you knew all this stuff, why didn't you just go and arrest those guys? I mean, they nearly got away with it!' Sam could still feel Burns' hands around his throat, and shuddered.

‘It's very difficult to get these people convicted, and we had to catch them red-handed, actually loading birds onto the plane. Certainly didn't expect them to start strangling people as well, but there you go. Lucky Vincent is such a crack shot with his throwing stick! Anyway, when we got the message from you, we headed off to find you. Nice touch with the shoes, by the way, excellent bit of trailblazing! As soon as we heard the plane come in, we got close enough to catch all the action. You did extremely well, Sam. Yelling out when you did and getting the pilot upset was the master stroke. And if we hadn't got your radio message when we did,
well, they would have got clean away. Burns was going to fly out with the pilot, you know.'

Sam flushed. He didn't think he'd been such a hero. All he could remember was feeling terrified. If only he hadn't done this, if only he had done that …

‘… and what's more,' Charles was saying, ‘you're probably going to be an even bigger hero, because it just so happens there is a rather large reward for the conviction of these criminals. Keep the bank off your backs for quite some time, I should think.'

The next morning, Vincent called by. After a cup of tea with them all he signalled to Sam to come outside. They walked across to the horse paddock, and stood there for a few moments patting the horses, who had trotted up to greet them.

‘So, you got something to tell me, my boy?'

Sam swallowed hard and looked at his feet. ‘I'm really sorry, Vincent. I know we weren't supposed to go up there. But it was so exciting,
finding the cave and everything.' He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling very ashamed, and his fingers wrapped around a smooth, warm object. ‘But I dreamed about the cave after the first time we found it. I dreamed that an old man inside the cave gave me this stone, and the next time we went there, I found it in the cave. There was a fruit dove in the dream too, just like the ones those men were catching in the nets.' He pulled the coloured stone from his pocket and held it out to the old man.

Vincent went very still. He stared at the stone for long seconds. He reached for it, his hand shaking slightly, and then he looked up and into Sam's eyes.

‘Was there anything else in this cave? You see any other thing there?'

Sam nodded. ‘There was – there was a skeleton in it, lying next to an old fire, and then on the other side, in the first cave, I saw a kind of parcel. Like something wrapped up, against the wall.'

‘Anybody touch this thing?' asked the old man.

‘No, no one. There wasn't time to look at it.
We just saw it when we went through yesterday, getting away from those men.'

‘I think maybe you and me better go to this cave.'

 

Sam and Vincent climbed up the ridge in the hot morning sun. They passed through the amphitheatre that had felt so old and sad to Tess. Vincent sang out a loud song to warn the spirits of the old people that he and Sam were coming.

‘We'll let them old people know we're coming here, so they won't be angry with us,' he said. His song was flat and eerie in the heavy, quiet air, but to Sam it sounded familiar and oddly comforting.

They traced their way up the worn steps beside the cave entrance and crossed to the banyan on the top of the ridge. Sam showed the old man the hole where the banyan root snaked down into the cave.

‘This is where George fell in, when we couldn't find a way into the cave. He was looking up at some birds and just slipped through this hole.'

‘What birds?' asked Vincent, suddenly still.

‘Those black and white ones, the banded fruit doves.'

Vincent nodded and looked very thoughtful, but Sam could read nothing from his face.

They followed the dry watercourse across the ridge to the top of the rockfall, climbed down it, and shone their torches into the second cave.

‘This is where I found the stone by the skeleton,' whispered Sam.

When they reached the bones and the piece of ancient cloth, Vincent began a soft wailing sound, a kind of immensely sad and haunting song. Sam realised with a start that it was exactly like the song the old man in his dream had been singing.

Vincent gathered the bones gently together, rolled them in a small blanket he had carried in with him, and carefully placed them in the centre of the cave. He shone his torch around the rest of the cave, lighting up the paintings on the sandstone walls. The old man studied them for a few moments, then motioned to Sam to go ahead. They moved further back to where the roof sank down low, and crawled through the space into the other cave. Up, up through the blackness they went, until they could feel the fresh air, and see the light growing.

‘There it is, over there by the wall.' Sam shone his
torch on a bulky shape on the floor of the cave. Now that Sam had time to study it, he saw it was a package wrapped in paperbark and tied with a twisted pandanus string. It looked ancient. Vincent walked slowly over to it, knelt down and laid his hands on it. Tears rolled down his face, and his old head bent to his chest. A high keening wail came from him again, and Sam felt tears spring to his own eyes, though he didn't know why.

Back out in the sunlight, Sam and Vincent sat silently up on the top of the ridge. The vastness of the flood plains lay around them, quiet and green, steaming in the damp heat. After a while Vincent began to talk. Once, he said, his people owned all the land from where Vincent now lived at Malarrimun, to the sea and along the coast for many miles. White men came into the country. The Munarrwing people tolerated them at first, thinking they were strange, wilful children but allowing them to live on their land.

The white men brought cattle with them, and strung barbed wire across the open land, and cut down the trees. The Munarrwing thought that the spearing of a few cattle to feed their families was a
fair exchange for the use of their country, but the white men felt differently. There were angry exchanges, and a black man was shot dead.

Munarrwing warriors paid back the violence in full, and it descended into a full scale war with people dying on both sides. Finally the white men rode down on the clan's camp one night and massacred most of the inhabitants. The survivors hid in a cave high up on the Arm for a while. Eventually even those few were hunted down, and finally the white men tracked them back to the cave, and blew up the eastern entrance with dynamite.

‘The rockfall …' breathed Sam, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

‘Everybody was killed in that cave, except only one old man, and two little boys,' said Vincent, staring out across the flood plains, his eyes not seeing the green grass or the clumps of pandanus and paperbark. ‘That old man told them boys to run away before the white man came back, but he had to stay to look after the sacred thing. He said he would put it in a safe place and then he would come after them and find them, but he never find those boys again …' His voice trailed
off, and Vincent sat for a few minutes without speaking.

‘But the white men saw those two little boys running, and they chase after them and shoot them. One boy dead, one boy just injured. That boy was me.'

The old man pulled back the sleeve on his right arm, exposing the long, ragged scar that ran from elbow to wrist, where a bullet had torn through his skin and flesh.

Sam stopped breathing for a moment. It seemed like the whole world held its breath. The birds were silent, the trees stopped rustling their leaves, even the wind paused.

‘You …?' he whispered finally, when he remembered to breathe again. It was incredible. This awful history Vincent had been telling him wasn't just a story from ‘the olden days', like when his parents were kids. It was real. It had happened to the old man sitting next to him, and it had happened right here on this sandstone ridge.

Vincent took a breath and went on. ‘When that other boy die, I run and run and run and run. I hide in the bush and I find Malarrimun people, and tell
them what happened. They look after me, grow me up with them. That old man in the cave, that his bones back there. He carried this stone because it's a story belonging to the sacred thing. Like a badge. Only the person who can touch the sacred thing carries this stone. And that bird you saw, that black and white bird, that his totem. Mine too. His spirit walking around in that bird now. He make you dream about everything after you been in the cave. Must be he wanted you to find this thing.'

He stood up. ‘Come on, my boy. We'll go back now. I got to think about all of this and talk to them old men back at Malarrimun, what we gunna do about all this.' He cradled the precious bark package, and set off down the slope.

 

The wet season was over. The ‘knock 'em down' storms had flattened the tall stands of spear grass and blown the last of the clouds and humidity from the air. The sky had a particular blue clarity about it that only the dry season brought. Sam eased the hat from his head and lay back on the warm grass. He could hear birds calling, wind sighing lightly in
the branches above him, and the chatter of the creek nearby. George, Tess and Darcy sat beside him, finishing the last of the lunch they'd brought with them. It was the Easter holidays, four months after the excitement of the previous Christmas, and the first time they had all been together since the end of the holidays.

This was also the first time they had been back to the Arm since the night they had been caught by the bird smugglers. Without even discussing it, they had all been of the same opinion about the cave – they were not going back to it. It was off limits now that they knew its dreadful history. Instead they had continued along the bottom of the Arm till they came to the little creek that ran beside it, still within sight of the shadow on the hill marking the cave entrance.

‘Sam, do you think much about that night?' asked Tess, eyeing him from under her hat.

Sam closed his eyes. ‘Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if Vincent and Charles hadn't turned up in time.' He shuddered involuntarily.

‘But those blokes are locked up now,' said George with relish. ‘And for a long time too.'

‘So how much was the reward in the end?' asked Darcy.

‘I dunno exactly,' said Sam, ‘but it means that we won't lose the station. And it must have been a fair bit, because there was enough for Mum and Dad to put money aside.'

‘Yeah,' snorted George in disgust. ‘For our
education!
Mum told me that there was enough money put aside to send the four of us to university. That's the thanks we get for saving the station –
school?
'

Tess looked up at the towering bulk of the Arm. She could just make out the shadow of the cave and the banyan above it, some distance away.

‘That story about Vincent, all those years ago – it's awful to think that it actually happened
here
,' she said, shaking her head. ‘Remember what he said about not being able to have proper ceremonies at Malarrimun? Norrie told me a few weeks ago that there was going to be a really important ceremony soon, one they'd never had before.'

‘Yeah, that's right. Vincent told us too. He said it's the first time in about seventy years that this ceremony has come into his country. But before that happens, they're having a special ceremony up on
the ridge, to quieten down the spirits of the old people, he said. He told me to listen out when we came here today.'

And as if in answer to Sam's words, the hollow sound of distant clapsticks and the low haunting tones of the didgeridoo drifted out across the trees. They could hear voices too, a vibrating and resonant chanting that rose and fell in time with the music. Vincent was laying the disturbed spirits to rest.

As Sam listened, he heard another note amongst the distant voices, and looked up into the tree above him. A banded fruit dove had landed on a branch just a few feet over his head, and added its soft deep coos to the song from the ridge. Sam felt as if the bird was speaking to him, and he felt his own spirit lift and lighten. Vincent had told him that the old men had decreed that this bird was now Sam's totem too, and that it would always look out for him.

The bird sat in the small tree for a few more moments, and as the song on the ridge died away, it flew back to the sandstone country.