The Songmaster (57 page)

He should have talked to someone earlier. Ardjani’s words – ‘each man has responsibility for his seed’ – came back to him. He must also take responsibility for the death of the mother of his child and now the death of a man.

Susan had said something about self-defence, but he knew no matter what had caused the spill-over of his pent-up pain, he would pay for killing another human being. A man with a family. He began to sob.

In the landscape of mind and memory, whose geography is mapped by the heart, by whispers and fragments of vision, there sometimes arrives a knowing visitor. The visitor carries knowledge that bathes the shadowy land in bright light. There are no longer dim corners, unseen horizons, dangerous peaks or feared valleys. It is a knowing that gives clarity and peace, that gives answers, that reveals the paths that lead to tranquil waters. The Wandjina cannot pass through
walls and bars into small dark places, but the music of the Songmaster can travel here.

And so, in the confines of the small dark box where Barwon now lay curled on the floor, he listened to the knowledge the Songmaster brought, and was comforted.

In the still, dark early hours of the morning Susan awoke in the spare bedroom at the Jacksons’ homestead where she and Andrew had stayed to comfort Norma. She sat up, shivering. Andrew sleepily reached for her. ‘What’s up?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I heard something.’

‘Do you think Norma is up? Christ, she drank enough whisky to knock out a prize fighter.’

‘No . . . I can’t explain it. I know it sounds weird, I thought it was a deep, agonised cry, maybe a bird’s cry . . . such a sad crying sound. Not quite a wail . . . Oh, Andrew, I feel so sad . . . about Barwon and poor Norma, she has no idea what she’s going to do.’

‘She said she doesn’t want to leave Boulder Downs. But she Could hardly run it alone. It’s not a going concern anyway. She has children down south. Maybe she’ll go there.’

‘The way she was talking last night, though, they had such hopes the mine would come good, get them out of trouble financially. She said she could see the value in the Aboriginal culture, too, even if poor Giles couldn’t. She
really seemed to want to stay out here, that she liked the Kimberley . . .’

‘Listen, women like that who aren’t born to this life, never really adjust.’

‘I don’t agree. I can’t see her being happy back in some dreary suburb after this. And does that mean I could never live out here?’

‘God, no. I didn’t mean that.’ Andrew hugged her. ‘You’re strong, you can look after yourself, maddening though you can be at times. But Norma needs someone to tell her what to do.’

‘A lot of women are like that because they’ve never had a chance to try on their own.’

‘Many don’t want to do so, my love. Maybe you should try letting someone look after you a bit.’

Susan ignored the remark and gently pushed his mouth away from hers. ‘Andrew, I’ve just thought of what Mick said. About Boulder Downs and Bush University . . . about buying the place. Maybe that’s the way to go, buy this place. Maybe Norma could stay on, run the homestead as accommodation and . . .’

‘Susan, it’s too early to front Norma.’

‘Oh, Andrew, you’re right,’ she sighed, ‘but maybe some good will come out of this whole nightmare.’

She rolled into his arms and he stroked her hair, holding her tight as arrows of pale morning light cracked the dark sky.

At first light, the Police Air Support Services’ Cessna 310 took off from Derby with the chief pilot, Detective Sergeant Tony Spinoza, General Duties Constable Alec Buchan and Aboriginal Police Liaison officer Paul Wangerri, whose role it was to represent the rights of Aboriginal offenders.

‘You got all the forensic gear, Sarge?’ asked Paul Wangerri. ‘You going to video the interview with the suspect up there?’

‘Nah, has to be done back at the station. I’ve got camera gear to record everything at the scene, though. Wonder what happened?’

‘Probably drunk, an argument, someone grabbed a gun. Happened before this. At least there’s no other Aborigines involved so there’s no payback problem this time.’

Spinoza nodded. Payback, between Aborigines, where justice and punishment were administered by tribal law men and generally by spearing in the leg, was acknowledged by white law and, in some cases, condoned.

‘There’s a case recently they reckon was payback, but no one’s talking,’ said Paul Wangerri. ‘Young Aboriginal girl was promised to an old full-blood fella. The elders reckoned there was too much intermarrying, the colour was dying out. But she had a young boyfriend and didn’t want to stay with the old man. So the two young ones ran away. The law men went after them and the story is that the payback was a bit hard and the two of them were
killed by mistake. They just disappeared. Missing persons file.’

‘It’s scary when the law men come through,’ agreed Spinoza. ‘I saw them go through Halls Creek once. The young fellows who knew they were in for a punishment took off or tried to get themselves locked up. The old men got them though. They were painted up in full gear, feathers and grass, carrying spears. They just travel around to do payback law. The women and kids hide days before, going round wringing their hands, “de lor men comin’!”’

‘One way of dealing with crime, I guess,’ said Buchan. The men fell silent as they watched colour warm the sky and bring the land to life.

Down below, somewhere amid the rocks, in patches of palms, spinifex and waterlily lagoons, four men walked slowly abreast, heads down, following the meandering tracks of a woman. They only occasionally exchanged a comment, pointing at the tell-tale signs of Rowena’s path. Hunter, inexperienced in tracking, watched carefully and appreciated it when Ardjani pointed out the more obvious marks of her journey.

‘She not far away,’ said Rusty.

Digger pointed to the north-west. ‘Reckon she in the rocks. Over there.’

They scrambled for awhile between the rocky outcrops, her tracks hard to pick up, but
Ardjani soon confirmed from almost invisible markings on rocks that they were on the right track. ‘She’s climbed up there.’

The three Barradja men exchanged knowing looks and felt the same sensation – a deep concern, that spirits had passed this way.

In moments they found her. She was wedged face down between rocks at the base of a high outcrop, an arm and a leg jutting like awkward stick-insect limbs. Ardjani bent down knowing what he’d find.

The men spoke in language. ‘She’s been dead since yesterday, abouts.’

‘Fall off that rock?’

‘Yeah.’

Hunter, deeply shocked, broke in. ‘What are you saying? How come she fell down?’

Rusty pointed to the redness on her leg and the two small punctures. ‘Snake bite.’

They turned her over and Hunter knelt beside the American who’d hired him, a prickly, highly strung, unpredictable boss. But behind her brash and forceful personality, they’d all seen a confused, unhappy, sick woman. While she had brought him out here as the hired hand, he felt that he’d failed her, that somehow this death could have been avoided had he been more assertive in looking after her.

Gazing at her face, he suddenly thought she looked at peace for the first time since he’d met
her, as if she belonged here among red rocks and vivid sky.

They moved her to flat ground and cut bark from a tree to use as a stretcher and began the slow walk back to camp.

During her time in Australia, the sun had tanned Rowena’s skin so that she looked sucked dry, her juices gone, leaving it rice-paper thin. The intense energy that had driven Rowena had now been replaced by a calm, contemplative stillness.

Her death would be accepted as an accident. But Ardjani knew that retribution had come, not from one of the many dangerous snakes of the area, but from the fangs of the Rainbow Serpent, the guardian of the land bound by its coils that stretched from the Dreamtime to the present.

Veronica and Lilian first saw the men carrying the bark bier.

‘God, they’ve found Rowena. She must be hurt!’ Veronica went to rush forward, but Lilian laid a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Go over to your camp – tell everyone to come here.’

The tone of Lilian’s voice sent a shiver through her. Then she saw Rowena’s arm dangling, fingers dragging on the ground. ‘Oh Christ, she’s not . . . dead? Is she?’

Lilian pushed her gently and Veronica sprinted across the open ground to the camp where the group was finishing a late breakfast.

Beth crossed herself – a ritual she rarely observed. ‘Justice,’ she murmured.

‘She might only be hurt, we can call in the Flying Doctor.’ Billy made a move but Alan told him to wait.

Ardjani was coming towards them. The group, seeing the look on Ardjani’s face, knew the news was not good.

‘What in God’s name happened?’ asked Mick.

Ardjani gave them details, declining to include a judgement as to exactly how she died. The snake bite was mentioned without exceptional emphasis. ‘Hunter’s over there with her,’ he gestured towards the camp. ‘Must call the police people, eh?’

Arrangements were quickly made using the Oka’s facilities to contact the police in Kununurra.

Shareen broke the silence that she had maintained since seeing the corpse being carried into the camp. ‘Please ask the police if I can return with them. They’ll come by plane and I would like to leave then if they can fit me on board.’

The sight of the corpse being carried into the camp had shaken her. The drama over the stolen art, the tense discussions on political and cultural issues, the constant cultural differences she’d felt had made the past few days utterly exhausting.

The strange death of Rowena was the last straw. It was time to get back on more familiar
ground. She listened to the other whites speculating on the American woman’s breaching of the traditional taboos and she longed for a straightforward, simple explanation . . . like – ‘She was bitten by a deadly snake and died trying to get help.’ She was pleased no one said anything about her decision to leave the camp.

She looked up as Hunter walked towards Ardjani and handed him a large envelope.

‘I found this in Rowena’s room. And here’s a note that she’d started to write that was lying on top of it. It had been covered up by a towel or we’d have seen it earlier.’

Ardjani pulled a file of torn legal papers out of the envelope. He scanned it quickly and handed everything without comment to Alistair, who flicked through the papers. ‘It’s the copyright contract she signed with the Barradja,’ he explained to everyone. ‘She’s torn it up. It looks like she could have been writing this note when she must have decided to go for a walk. It says . . .

‘I had no right to do this. I’m sorry I let you down, Ardjani. I’ll get it right next time around.’

In the early dawn at Boulder Downs homestead, Andrew had prepared coffee and toast while Susan woke Norma Jackson from a sleep that
had been punctuated by tears and too much whisky. The two women talked quietly and Susan helped her find clothes for the trip to the mine site, and pack a bag so Norma could travel with her husband’s body back to Derby where she’d stay with friends.

Norma responded well to Susan’s company, the younger woman’s warmth and genuine sympathy giving her the support she needed to face up to the horror of what was to come. No matter how she accepted the fact of her husband’s death, she dreaded the moment when she would have to be there with him, looking down at his body on the red earth, made redder still by his blood. But she was determined that she had to go to him one last time.

The night rolled its swag and slipped away with sunrise close on its heels as the three of them drove away from the homestead. As features of the landscape became clearer, Norma Jackson began to talk. It seemed to Susan that by talking she was stopping her nerve from completely snapping. Sometimes she was talking to herself, at other times she was including them. It was a broken and rambling discourse on her marriage, her dreams, her differences with Giles Jackson. And it was about her sense of loss, not only of her husband, but also of what she suspected was inevitable, the loss of her home at Boulder Downs.

‘I don’t want to leave here, you know,’ she said to her silent companions. ‘I love this place, even though it’s been a terrible struggle. I never really shared Giles’ faith in diamonds or gold pulling us through. It just seemed so unlikely.’