Tracks (18 page)

We didn’t talk much on the way home. I did not know then that it was merely a rule of etiquette to give some little gift at the end of a dance. I felt it as a symbolic defeat. A final summing up of how I could never enter their reality, would always be a whitefella tourist on the outside looking in.

And so it dragged on, that gradual decaying of my little hopes and dreams. While Dookie’s shoulder began slowly to heal (I had diagnosed it by then as a torn muscle), I asked around Docker if any of the old men would like to come with me to Pipalyatjara. I wanted to cut across country for the next hundred and some-odd miles, but knew this would be through sacred country, dotted with sacred sites where women were not allowed to go. I could not do it without an old man. It would be the worst form of trespassing, but I desperately wanted to get away from the tracks. Without actually saying yes, they didn’t say no either, a common form of politeness amongst Aborigines called courtesy bias. I knew they didn’t trust me, even though I had no camera. I had found out from the irate community adviser what Rick had done, knew that I was an accomplice and found it hard to look at them. Taking photos of secret business was far worse than desecrating a church could be to the staunchest of Christians. The Aborigines there sorted travellers into two sections, tourists and people; I realized that to them I had become a tourist.

There were only half a dozen whites at Docker. They were good people. From the community adviser to the mechanics to the store managers, they invited me to barbecues, on picnics and out hunting, but they could not penetrate my gloom.

By the time I was ready to leave, it was decided that none of the old men wanted to come. That meant 160 miles of dirt track, which, although I could expect to see no vehicles, I did not look forward to. I didn’t know whether to continue. It all seemed rather pointless. I had sold the trip, misunderstood and mismanaged everything. I could not be with Aboriginal people without being a clumsy intruder. The journey had lost all meaning, lost all its magical inspiring quality, was an empty and foolish gesture. I wanted to give up. But to do what? Go back to Brisbane? If this, the hardest and most worthwhile thing I had ever attempted, was a miserable failure, then what on earth would succeed? I left Docker, more unhappy, more negative, more weakened than I had ever been.

A
S I LEFT THE SETTLEMENT
, alone, I was aware only of a flatness, a lack of substance in everything. My steps felt achingly slow, small and leaden. They led me nowhere. Step after step after step, the interminable walking dragged out, pulling my thoughts downward into spirals. The country seemed alien, faded, muted, the silence hostile, overwhelming.

I was twenty miles out, tired and thirsty. I drank some beer. I was about to turn off and make camp when through the beer-hazed afternoon heat came striding three large strong male camels in full season.

Panic and shake. Panic and shake. They attack and kill, remember. Remember now, one — tie up Bub securely, two — whoosh him down, three — take rifle from scabbard, four — load rifle, five — cock, aim and fire rifle. They were just thirty yards away and one was spurting a cylindrical arch of red blood. He didn’t seem to notice it. They all came forward again.

I was scared deep in my bones. First, I could not believe it was happening, then I believed it was never going to stop. My ears thumped, cold sweat stuck to the hollow of my back. My vision was distorted by fear. Then I was past it, not thinking any more, just doing it.

Zzzzt. This time just behind his head and he turned and ambled away. Zzzt. Near the heart again, he slumped down but just sat there. Zzzt. In the head, dead. The other two trundled off into the scrub. Shake and sweat, shake and sweat. You’ve won for now.

I unsaddled the camels and hobbled them close, glancing around constantly. It was getting dark. They came back. Braver now, I shot one, but only wounded it. Night came too quickly.

The fire flickered on white moonstruck sand, the sky was black onyx. The rumbling sound of bulls circled the camp very close until I fell asleep. In the moonlight, I woke up and maybe twenty yards away was a beast standing in full profile. I didn’t want to harm it. It was beautiful, proud. Not interested in me at all. I slept again, drifting off to the sound of bells on camels, peacefully chewing their cud.

Come dawn, I was already stalking, gun loaded and ready. They were both still there. I had to kill the wounded one. I tried to. Another cylinder of blood and he ran away nipping at his wound. I could not follow, I had my own survival to think of. There he was, the last young bull, a beautiful thing, a moonlight camel. I made a decision. This one of the three would be allowed to live until he did something directly to jeopardize my safety. Happy decision. ‘Yes, maybe he’ll tag along right to Carnarvon. And I’ll call him Aldebaran and isn’t he magnificent, Diggity, what a match for Dookie. I don’t have to kill him at all.’ I snuck around to catch the camels. He watched me. Now, last camel to catch, Bub. Off he galloped in his hobbles, the new bull pacing lazily beside him. I couldn’t catch him with the other bull so close. I tried for an hour, I was exhausted, I wanted to kill Bubby, to dismember him, rip his balls out, but they’d already gone. I took the rifle and walked to within thirty feet of the now excited and burbling young bull. I put a slug right where I knew it would kill him. It did not, and he bit and roared at his wound. He didn’t understand this pain, I was crying. I fired again into his head and he sat down, gurgling through his own blood. I walked up to his head, we stared at one another — he knew then. He looked at me, I shot him in the brain, point blank.

Bubby was puzzled. He walked up to the carcass and drank some blood. It was all over his nose, like clown’s lipstick, and he threw his lips around. He allowed himself to be caught, I didn’t hit him. I walked on.

I entered a new time, space, dimension. A thousand years fitted into a day and aeons into each step. The desert oaks sighed and bent down to me, as if trying to grab at me. Sandhills came and sandhills went. Hills rose up and hills slipped away. Clouds rolled in and clouds rolled out and always the road, always the road, always the road, always the road.

So tired, I slept in the creek and thought of nothing but failure. I could not even light a fire. I wanted to hide in the dark. I thought it was surely longer than two days, I had walked so far. But time was different here, it was stretched by step after step and in each step a century of circular thought. I didn’t want to think like this, was ashamed of my thoughts but I could not stop them. The moon, cold marble and cruel, pushed down on me, sucked at me, I could not hide from it, even in dream.

And the next day and the next day too, the road and the sandhills and the cold wind sucked at my thoughts and nothing happened but walking.

The country was dry. How could the camels be so thirsty and thin. At night, they came into camp and tried to knock over the water drums. I hadn’t enough to spare, I rationed them. The map said ‘rockhole’. Thank god. I turned off the track somewhere in that haze of elastic time and walked in. More sandhills, then a stretch of gibberflat, wide and dry and desolate with one dead bird, and two empty holes. Some string somewhere inside me was starting to unravel. An important string, the one that held down panic. I walked on. That night I camped in those sandhills …

The sky was leaden and thick. All day it had been grey, smooth, translucent, like the belly of a frog. Spots of rain pattered on me but not enough to lay the dust. The sky was washing me out, emptying me. I was cold as I hunched over my meagre fire. And somewhere, between frozen sandhills, in a haunted and forgotten desert, where time is always measured by the interminable roll of constellations, or the chill call of a crow waking, I lay down on my dirty bundle of blankets. The frost clung like brittle cobwebs to the black bushes around me, while the sky turned thick with glitter. It was very still. I slept. The hour before the sun spills thin colour on the sand, I woke suddenly, and tried to gather myself from a dream I could not remember. I was split. I woke into limbo and could not find myself. There were no reference points, nothing to keep the world controlled and bound together. There was nothing but chaos and the voices.

The strong one, the hating one, the powerful one was mocking me, laughing at me.

‘You’ve gone too far this time. I’ve got you now and I hate you. You’re disgusting, aren’t you? You’re nothing. And I have you now, I knew it would come, sooner or later. There’s no use fighting me you know, there’s no one to help you. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’

Another voice was calm and warm. She commanded me to lie down and be calm. She instructed me to not let go, not give in. She reassured me that I would find myself again if I could just hold on, be quiet and lie down.

The third voice was screaming.

Diggity woke me at dawn. I was some distance from camp, cramped, and cold to my bones. The sky was cold, pale blue and pitiless, like an Austrian psychopath’s eyes. I walked out into the time warp again. I was only half there, like an automaton. I knew what I had to do. ‘You must do this, this will keep you alive. Remember.’ I walked out into that evil whispering sea. Like an animal, I sensed a menace, everything was quite still, but threatening, icy, beneath the sun’s heat. I felt it watching me, following me, waiting for me.

I tried to conquer the presence with my own voice. It croaked out into the silence and was swallowed by it. ‘All we have to do,’ it said, ‘is reach Mount Fanny, and there is certain to be water there. Just one step and another, that’s all I have to do, I must not panic.’ I could see what had to be Mount Fanny in the hot blue distance, and I wanted to be there, protected by those rocks, more than anything I’d ever wanted. I knew I was being unreasonable. There was more than enough water to get by on to Wingelinna. But the camels, I’d been so sure they’d do a week comfortably. I hadn’t planned on the sudden dryness — the lack of green feed. ‘But there’ll be water there, of course there will. Haven’t they told me so? What if there’s not? What if the mill’s run dry? What if I miss it? What if this thin little piece of string that keeps me tied to my camels breaks? What then?’ Walk walk walk, sandhills for ever, they all looked the same. I walked as if on a treadmill — no progress, no change. The hill came closer so slowly. ‘How long is it now? A day? This is the longest day. Careful. Remember, it’s just a day. Hold on, mustn’t let go. Maybe a car will come. No cars. What if there’s no water, what will I do? Must stop this. Must stop. Just keep walking. Just one step at a time, that’s all it takes.’ And on and on and on went that dialogue in my head. Over and over and round and round.

Late in the afternoon — long creeping shadows. The hill was close. ‘Please please let me be there before night. Please don’t let me be here in the dark. It will engulf me.’

It must be over the next sandhill surely. No, then the next one. OK, all right, the next, no the next, no the next. Please god, am I mad. The hill is there, I can almost touch it. I started to yell. I started to shout stupidly at the dunes. Diggity licked my hand and whined but I could not stop. I had been doing this for ever. I walked in slow motion. Everything was slowing down.

And then, over the last sandhill, I was out of the dunes. I crouched on the rocks, weeping, feeling their substance with my hands. I climbed steadily, up the rocky escarpment, away from that terrible ocean of sand. The rocks were heavy and dark and strong. They rose up like an island. I crawled over this giant spine, where it emerged from the waves in a fuzz of green. I looked back to the immensity of where I had been. Already the memory was receding — the time, the aching time of it. Already, I had forgotten most of the days. They had sunk away from memory, leaving only a few peaks that I could recall. I was safe.

‘The mill will be easy to find. Or the rockhole, it doesn’t matter. There will be water here somewhere. Everything will be OK.’ Panic melted and I laughed at myself for being so absurd, an effect of emotional and physical exhaustion, that was all it was. I was all right. I was going to be all right. The threads bound together and I touched Diggity. ‘Diggity’s here, it’s OK. It’s too dark to find the mill tonight, Dig, but there’s a green patch of roly-poly here, that will make them happy, eh, little one? We’ll find the mill tomorrow, the birds and tracks will lead us to it. And I’ll give the camels a big drink, but right now I’ll make a roaring fire and have some tea and feed you, my little friend.’

I slept deeply and dreamlessly, woke early and rose as easily and cleanly as an eagle leaving its nest. There was no trace of the previous day’s fatigue, or the previous night’s enemy. My mind was rinsed clean and sparkling and light. Everything around me was bursting with life and vibrance. The colours danced and glistened in the crisp dawn light. Early morning birds, hundreds of them. My spirits high, I packed up quickly, expertly even, like a precision machine. I felt bigger somehow, expanded. I walked a hundred yards around the corner, and there was the mill. The camels drank, Diggity drank and I had a freezing, invigorating bath.

About half a mile from the mill, I walked slap bang into a herd of forty camels. The gun came out smoothly and quietly. I had watched them descend like quiet ghosts from their drinking spot high up in the hills. I looked at them, and they looked at me, sharing the same path. I knew I wouldn’t have to shoot this time, but play it safe, that’s the rules of this particular game. I smiled at them. They were more beautiful than I could describe. The big boss bull kept them slightly ahead, and glanced back constantly, to size up the situation. They stopped, I stopped — impasse. I shouted, hooted and laughed at them. They looked faintly quizzical. I waved my arms in the direction of the big bull and said, ‘Shoo …’ in a loud and authoritative shout. He looked infinitely bored. I fired some shot-gun pellets into the air and he recognized that sound. He rounded up his family, nipping at their heels, and they gathered momentum, until forty beautiful wild free camels were bucking and galloping down the valley into an echo and a vortex of dust, and then they were gone. I was remembering exactly who I was now.