Corroboree (50 page)

Eyre looked all around for any kind of cover; any slight hillock or outcropping of rock where they could dismount and make a stand against Yonguldye. But the salt-lake's surface remained relentlessly flat and featureless, swirled with pink and grey; and he began to realise that if they were going to fight, it would have to be man-to-man, and face-to-face, and that they would unquestionably die. He muttered a prayer under his breath, and then part of the 59th Psalm: ‘Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; set me securely away from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from those who do iniquity; and save me from men of bloodshed.'

Yet still, throughout the grilling afternoon, through the whiteness and the heat and the saline dust, Yonguldye and Joolonga followed him, guided by their native instincts and by the bloody
Kurdaitja
shoes, emu feathers stuck together with human blood, perhaps Yonguldye's own blood, or the blood of a tribesman who had been especially slain for the purpose.

At last, as the sun began to glower down through the crimson dust of the day, Eyre and Dogger were able to see their pursuers without using their telescope; and the trail of dust that the Aborigines left hanging in the air behind them was like the red steer, which was what the bush settlers nicknamed a bush-fire.

‘They're going to catch us,' Dogger said, philosophically.

Eyre pulled up his horse, and sat in the saddle for a long time, looking behind him. At last he said, ‘Could a man walk across that swamp, without sinking?'

‘I haven't a clue,' said Dogger. ‘You want to try it?'

‘Yes,' said Eyre, and dismounted. He sat down on the ground and tugged off his boots, and then he began to
walk due north, feeling the crusted ground gradually giving beneath his feet. He was able to walk nearly a hundred paces before the crust broke, and thick grey mud began to squidge up between his bare toes.

He walked further; and the salt crust broke again and again, until he was up to his knees in mud. At last he was floundering, and unable to walk any further. He fought against the warm mud clinging to his legs, but the more he struggled, the more deeply embedded he became. At last, panting harshly, he managed to drag himself clear, and crawl on his hands and knees back to firmer ground.

‘You are so dirty,' smiled Minil. ‘You look like the Mud-Man.'

‘You certainly do,' agreed Dogger. ‘And what have you proved? Yonguldye's only about a mile away now; they'll be with us in ten minutes.'

Eyre said, ‘Don't argue, just listen to me. We'll ride on a little further, until we reach a place where the ground's unbroken; then I'll tell you what to do.'

They rode on for another half-mile, even though their horses were exhausted and stumbling. Then Eyre told them to draw up, and dismount, and unbuckle their saddle-panniers. Dogger frowned, and shrugged, but did as he was told. Eyre took their rifles, and their ammunition, and as many water-bottles as he could carry, and shared them out between them. Then he said, ‘We have to buckle the saddle-panniers on to our feet, like big flat shoes.'

Dogger stared at him. ‘You haven't got sunstroke, have you, chum? You want us to buckle these things on to our
feet
?'

‘That's right,' Eyre nodded. ‘Look, just watch me,' and he sat down and strapped one of the wide leather panniers to his right foot, buckling it tightly.

Dogger rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I've seen some lunatics in my time, but this just about takes the biscuit.'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' said Eyre. ‘I got this idea from one
of my father's parish magazines. We can walk across the salt swamp without falling through.'

‘Like Christ walking on water?'

‘No, of course not. Like Eskimos walking on snow-shoes. The Eskimos wear wide flat shoes to spread their weight, so that they don't sink down through the snow. We can do the same on top of the salt swamp.'

Hesitantly, still sniffing and grumbling, Dogger eased himself down on to the ground and strapped his panniers on to his feet. He stood up, and danced a little shuffling trot, and said with distaste, ‘I feel like a duck. What are my mates going to say if I die with a couple of satchels on my feet?'

‘They'll say “clever, but unlucky”,' Eyre replied. ‘Now, let's walk out as far as we can.' He took Minil's bare arm, and began to guide her out on to the crust of the salt swamp.

The sun had turned bloody now, and was almost gone. They walked clumsily across the salt swamp, tiny figures in a red-and-purple panorama that stretched as wide as any of them could see. Eyre felt the ground give beneath his feet as he dragged his panniers along; but it didn't break. Soon they were more than a half-mile out on to the crust, in an evening that had now turned to boiling plum.

The wind smelled of brine, and dry dust, and distant mountains. The last vultures of the day spun lazily over their heads, looking for any stray creatures that might have died on the salt-swamps just before nightfall.

Eyre slowed down at last, and stopped, and said, ‘Here. This should do us.'

Dogger looked around. ‘This place is as flat as any other place; and any other place is as flat as a churchwarden's pancake.'

‘Didn't you feel those last few hundred yards?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Didn't you feel how soft the ground was?'

Dogger peered back. ‘Yes. I suppose it was. But what does that have to do with anything at all?'

‘Watch,' said Eyre. ‘They're coming.'

Already, Yonguldye and his warriors had reached the edge of the swamp, where Eyre and Dogger had tethered the horses. Now, with Yonguldye leading them, his huge head-dress bobbing and waving in the evening light, they were running due northwards, to catch up with their magical prey. They wanted the
djanga
for their sacrifice. They wanted Yonguldye to have Eyre's brains, and devour them, so that at last they could stand equal to the white man, and keep him away from their sacred
corroboree
-sites, and their
bora
-grounds.

Eyre and Dogger had four rifles between them, all loaded. Eyre said, ‘I'll fire first; then, when I'm reloading, you fire. And so on. But we may not need to kill very many!'

‘I'm glad you're so confident,' said Dogger.

The sight of the Aborigines running towards them in the twilight was mystical and frightening. The tribesmen's eyes were surrounded by huge circles of white pipe-clay, and their bodies were outlined like boogie-men. This evening, too, they were completely silent, except for the clattering of their spears and the slapping of their bare feet on the salt. No fighting cries; no anger; no chants. Just fifty of them, running nearer and nearer; a dark and complicated outline of spears and head-dresses and running legs.

Eyre touched his cracked lips with the tip of his dry tongue, and lifted his rifle to his shoulder. He took aim at Yonguldye's head, and held it as best he could. Yonguldye was taller than most of his tribesmen, and so he made an easier target; but all the same he was bobbing and weaving as he ran, and Eyre knew that he would be very difficult to hit. ‘Save me from men of bloodshed,' he repeated to himself.

Dogger said, ‘God almighty, Eyre, they're going to murder us.'

Eyre, at that moment, felt equally frightened. The back of his neck prickled coldly, and he found it almost impossible
to maintain his aim on Yonguldye. Any second now, he thought numbly, it's going to be the death-spear through the ribs, or into the belly; and after having seen how poor Midgegooroo had suffered, he knew what he would do next. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle into his own mouth, and pull the trigger. At least it would all be over in one catastrophic blast.

A spear whirred overhead, then another, and a third landed crisply in the salt soil not five feet away. Eyre fired; and his gunpowder flashed brightly in the gathering darkness; and he saw Yonguldye's head-dress collapse out of sight. Then Dogger fired, so loudly that it made Eyre's head sing, and another Aborigine went down.

Eyre took another rifle, and lifted it up; but at that moment he heard a cry from two or three of the Aboriginies; then more cries, and shouts of panic. Their running feet had broken through the crust of the salt-swamp, and they had staggered headlong into the mud. Eyre fired at a knot of them who were struggling to free themselves; hitting one of them in the shoulder, but causing shouts of terror that far outweighed the value of the shot. Four or five more spears whistled around him, but now Dogger fired again and Eyre began to reload; and the Aborigines began to turn back in confusion.

For a few minutes, it sounded like a major battle. Six or seven tribesmen were stuck waist-deep in the mud, while at least twenty others tried to drag them out. The rest were running away; while Dogger and Eyre fired their rifles into the air, and screamed and yelled and shouted. ‘
Bunyip! Bunyip!
and ‘
God Save The Queen!
' Even Minil joined in, dancing and shrieking and banging two ramrods together.

Quickly, fearfully, the last tribesmen slithered out of the salty mud and ran away; grey ghosts in a thickening night; until only three of them were left. Yonguldye, lying flat on his back, his mighty head-dress plastered with blood; a young warrior whose spears remained unlaunched; and Joolonga.

Eyre and Dogger and Minil shuffled back across the salt,
with their saddle-panniers on their feet. Joolonga stood by their horses and watched them with arms folded.

‘Well, Joolonga?' said Eyre, unbuckling his panniers.

‘Well, Mr Walker-sir. It seems you were wiser than I first imagined.'

Eyre nodded towards the last of the running tribesmen. ‘Will they be back?'

‘I don't believe so, Mr Walker-sir. Not without Yonguldye the great Darkness to guide them.'

Dogger kept his distance from Joolonga, his loaded rifle over his arm. Minil crouched down and began to scoop a pit in the sand where they could light a fire.

‘You deceived me, didn't you?' Eyre asked Joolonga. ‘You knew that Yonguldye wanted to put me to death.'

Joolonga said nothing, but took off his midshipman's hat, and nodded.

‘Did Captain Sturt know about this?' asked Eyre.

Joolonga closed his eyes, and swayed a little. ‘I am wounded, Mr Walker-sir.'

Eyre handed his rifle to Minil, walked up to Joolonga, and opened the Aborigine's decorated coat. There was blood all over his chest; like a waistcoat of scarlet silk, and with each beat of his heart, there was more. Eyre looked straight into Joolonga's eyes. ‘You'd better lie down,' he said, quietly.

Joolonga half-smiled. ‘No need, Mr Walker-sir. Quite soon, I shall fall down.'

Eyre was silent for almost a whole minute. He glanced towards Dogger but Dogger could only shrug. He turned back to Joolonga, and repeated, ‘Did Captain Sturt know what would happen if we found Yonguldye?'

Joolonga closed his eyes. ‘Nobody knew, Mr Walker-sir; not even I.'

‘But Minil heard you talking to Yonguldye about sacrificing me, and eating my brains.'

‘Minil?' frowned Joolonga. His voice slurred; and his lips were sticky with blood.

‘This girl; Yonguldye's protégée.'

‘I shall have to sit down,' said Joolonga. Eyre took his arm, and helped him into an awkard sitting position, one leg raised, his back propped against one of their saddlebags. He lowered his head for a while, so that his chin was resting on his blood-soaked tunic; and he snored blood-clots through his nose. Then he raised his head again, and said, ‘Yonguldye wanted only your knowledge.'

‘By killing me? By eating my brains?'

Joolonga shook his head. ‘This girl does not understand Wirangu well, Mr Walker-sir. There are words which sound like Nyungar words, but have different meanings. Yonguldye would not have killed you, Mr Walker-sir; he was going to initiate you into the brotherhood of his tribe, so that he could share your mind. He did not say “eat your brains”. He said “devour everything you knew.”'

Eyre said tauntly, ‘Are you sure?'

Joolonga nodded.

‘You're not lying to me? Because, by God, if you are—'

Joolonga lolled his head back and looked up at Eyre with glassy eyes. ‘Why should I lie to you, Mr Walker-sir? I shall soon follow Ngurunderi to the place above Nar-oongowie, the island of the dead.'

Eyre glanced over towards Minil, who was deftly rubbing a fire-stick in order to start up their evening cook-fire. He said to Dogger, ‘Give her a chuckaway, would you?' Then, to Joolonga, ‘You lied to me about Arthur Mortlock. Why should I believe you now?'

‘Mr Mortlock, sir? I said before. It was necessary for him to die; otherwise we would have been cursed by Ngurunderi. It was my fault, for burying those two bounty-hunters according to Aborigine custom. I am to blame. As it was, I think I was too late to save us.'

‘But you poisoned him.'

‘No, Mr Walker-sir.'

‘You must have done. He died because he was given corrosive sublimate.'

‘No, Mr Walker-sir. All I did was to point the bone.'

‘How can a man die, just because you pointed your bone at him? Come on Joolonga, you're far more civilised than that!'

Joolonga coughed, and a great black gout of blood splashed out on to his gold braiding.

‘Am I, sir?' he asked, in a gluey voice. ‘I pointed the bone at him, and he died. Is that not proof enough?'

A billow of aromatic smoke engulfed them for a second; and an ash blew into Eyre's eye. Rubbing it with his finger, he asked Joolonga, ‘You're serious, aren't you? I mean, you believe it. And did you really believe that I was the
djanga
?'

Joolonga's head fell forward again. The blood was so thick in his lungs that it was almost impossible for him to breathe. But after a moment or two he raised his head once more, and said, ‘Whether you believe you are the
djanga
or not, Mr Walker-sir; you are the white man who came looking for Yonguldye because you wanted to atone for killing Yanluga.'