Corroboree (53 page)

‘Guns,' said Eyre, and handed Dogger's rifle back to him. They drew up for a moment while they loaded with powder-and-ball; and then Dogger said, ‘Ready, let's give them a go.'

They rode towards the running tribesmen at a fast walk;
Dogger and Eyre and Minil and their two remaining packhorses. Two or three spears were flung up towards them, but they fell short. As his first target, Eyre picked a warrior right in the middle of the crowd of tribesmen, lifted his gun to his shoulder and fired at him. He missed the man he was aiming for; but another warrior off to his left fell flat on his back in an explosion of blood and lay on the ground spreadeagled.

Now Dogger fired, and another Aborigine cried out, and dropped to his knees. Then, before they knew it, they were riding through them, with spears clattering all around, and Eyre grasped the barrel of his rifle and swung the stock around him like a club. It connected twice: once with another club, jarring Eyre's shoulder; and once with a warrior's jaw, smashing out his teeth with a noise like a breaking plate.

Their second pack-horse was brought down by four spears thrown almost simultaneously; one clean through its neck and the others bristling into its flanks. Most of their ammunition was strapped to this horse, and Eyre turned and watched it collapse to the ground with a feeling of alarm and helplessness. But there was no possibility of riding back to salvage anything; as it was, they would be lucky to escape with their lives.

One spear struck a glancing blow against the croup of Eyre's horse, and slid underneath the back of his saddle, piercing the leather and grazing his thigh. A second missed his head by less than two inches, and fell noisily in front of him, almost tangling his horse's legs and tripping it up.

But then, ‘We're clear!' cried Dogger, and whooped, and waved his hat.

Minil was already well away, fifty yards off to Eyre's right. She was far lighter than both of them, and her horse was fresher. But all of them had passed through the gauntlet of Aborigine warriors unscathed, and as they turned around, it seemed that the tribesmen were reluctant to run after them.

‘I think they've had enough lamb-and-salad for one day,
don't you?' shouted Dogger. And he lifted his hat again, and crowed, ‘Brayvo, Hicks!'

As he did so, a heavy death-spear arched high through the air, seeming to travel so slowly at its zenith that Eyre glimpsed up and saw it hanging suspended. But then it appeared to accelerate, and by the time it reached them it was travelling so fast that Eyre turned his head too quickly and lost sight of it. It was only when he looked back again, perplexed, that he saw that it had pierced Dogger between the eyes and impaled his head, and that Dogger was sitting upright in the saddle with both his arms raised in a kind of stunned supplication; like a martyred saint, or a strange variety of balancing-act at a circus.

Eyre couldn't even speak. His horse carried him on; but Dogger remained where he was, his arms still raised, the spear still growing out of his forehead. Eyre thought:
Constance, oh God. What am I going to say to Constance
? And then he saw Dogger topple and drop to the dust, and the Aborigines running towards him, waving their clubs and their boomerangs.

His first angry temptation was to ride back, and swing his way through the tribesmen with his rifle-stock and his knife. But that would mean certain death for him, too; and apart from the plain fact that he didn't want to die, who would be able to go to Constance and tell her how Dogger had fallen? And how courageous Dogger had been; and how consistently reassuring, and what a friend could really be, when you really needed one; a mate; out beyond the black stump.

They rode westwards now with their single pack-horse and the sun behind them. Minil said nothing to Eyre and Eyre remained silent with shock and grief. But Minil seemed to know roughly the direction in which the water-hole called Mulka lay, because she walked her horse ahead of him west-north-west, and she kept her eye on the sun as the day progressed.

By noon, they were far out over a dry lake, shadowless, under a crucifying sun. Minil stopped, and climbed down
from her horse, and shared out between them a few dry biscuits and a half-mouthful of water, which was all they had left. The horses shivered and sweated, and flared their nostrils at the scent of moisture, but if Eyre and Minil were to survive, there was to be none for them.

Eyre stayed in the saddle, slowly and dryly chewing his biscuit. Minil stood beside him, in her scarf head-dress, with Eyre's shirt tied around her shoulders. She said, ‘Will you say a prayer for your friend?'

‘A prayer?'

‘He always told me that you were a man of God.'

Eyre wiped the sweat away from his face. ‘He told you that? When?'

‘One evening, when you were sleeping; and we were awake.'

‘Well, you could hardly call me a man of God. Especially not now.'

Minil traced a pattern in the fine white dust that clung to Eyre's riding-boot. ‘He said that he envied you.'

‘He didn't have any reason to do that.'

‘Oh, but he did, He always envied you. He said that you were the kind of man who makes days begin and years go by; whether you want to or not.'

Eyre coughed, and almost choked on his biscuit. ‘Well, I don't want to, as a matter of fact.'

‘What are you going to do now?'

‘Go on,' said Eyre. ‘Go on until we reach the water-hole. Then, drink.'

Minil smiled. ‘Dogger was right. You are becoming a bushman.'

They rode on, and gradually the sun descended in front of them to scorch their faces and blind their eyes. By five o' clock, however, they reached a series of deep water-holes in the bed of the dry lake; and there they tethered their horses, and let down their water-bottles and water-bags on lengths of bridle and twine, all knotted together, and brought up gallons of water that was fresher and cooler than any that Eyre had tasted in weeks. They drank
until the water poured out of their noses, and they felt as if they would drown in the middle of the desert. Then they watered the horses, and splashed their coats with hatful after hatful of fresh water, and rubbed them, and patted them, until at last the horses shook themselves, and stood calm and refreshed. There was even a scattering of tussocky grass around the edges of the water-holes for them to eat; but Eyre made sure that they were well-tethered before he let them graze. The water-holes were sheer and very deep, and if a horse were to fall down one of them, they would never be able to get it out again, even if it survived.

His caution proved itself only a few minutes later; for an emu came to the water-holes to drink; and while Eyre and Minil were sitting watching it, it toppled with a feathery squawk of fear and annoyance into one of the narrowest of the holes. It thrashed and cried, but couldn't extricate itself. Eventually, when it sounded as if it had grown tired, Eyre went across to the hole with his rifle, and shot it. Smoke rose out of the limestone well like a magic trick; soon to be followed by a dead female emu, dangling from the end of an improvised lassoo.

They had a feast that night. Eyre said it was for Dogger; a last offering from the mortal world. Minil dug a deep pit in the hard ground with a stick; lined it with brush and twigs and burned the wood until it glowed. Then she dragged the emu into the hole and buried it, leaving only its neck and its head protruding. Two hours later, steam began to puff out of the emu's beak, and Minil pronounced the bird cooked. Actually, it was half-raw; but they were ravenous, and ate the whole breast between them.

They made love that night, too, out in the open, for they had lost their
umpee
. And it was love, rather than coupling; warmth and companionship, rather than erotic excitement. Both of them were naked in the warm night air; with nobody around them for miles amd miles; only the scratching of the night-creatures for company, the Kowaris and fat-tailed dunnarts, searching for insects and
other small mammals; and the explosive constellations of southern stars over their heads.

Afterwards, as they lay cuddled together under their horse-blanket, Eyre said, ‘Was it true, that Yonguldye was going to kill me?'

Minil stroked his face with her fingertips, tracing the outline of his lips, and his nose, and his bristly chin. ‘Did Joolonga say that it wasn't?'

‘He said they wanted only my knowledge. Only what was inside my brains not the brains themselves.'

‘And what do you believe?'

‘I don't know. There doesn't seem to be any way of telling, not for certain.'

Minil kissed him. ‘You are in the desert,' she said, softly. ‘There is nothing certain here; only thirst.'

‘Who are you?' he asked her; not for the first time.

‘I am someone looking for something that is probably lost for ever,' she said.

‘Yes,' he answered her. Then, ‘Yes', again; because at last he began to realise what she meant. There would be no peace for the Aboriginals now; their innocent centuries of living alone in Australia could never return. All that lay ahead for them now was retreat; retreat from their old fishing- and hunting-grounds, retreat from their sacred places, retreat from their magical and mysterious way of life, even a backing-away from their own souls. No wonder such an electrified ripple of excitement had run through the Aborigine community when Captain Henry had announced that the
djanga
had at last arrived. Eyre had been seen as their very last hope against a bewildering and increasingly destitute future.

Whether Yonguldye had really intended to eat his brains or not, Eyre very much doubted whether he would have escaped from Yarrakinna alive. For when he failed to give Yonguldye the great knowledge and power of the white invaders, as he inevitably would have done, the wrath and disappointment of the Aborigines would have been catastrophic, especially for him. In one way, perhaps it was
better for the Aborigines themselves that he had escaped, because as long as he remained alive, their hope of standing up against the white man would remain alive with him.

Eyre slept. When he awoke, there were dingoes prowling around their camp attracted by the smell of the half-charred emu. He called, ‘Dogger?' and almost at the same time remembered that Dogger was dead.

Still, he said it again, a whispered name in the vastness of the cold Australian night. ‘Dogger? Can you hear me, Dogger?'

But of course there was no reply.

They had no.choice now but to strike out west. There was little doubt in Eyre's mind now that Yonguldye was following them; and that it had been Yonguldye and his tribesmen who had destroyed Christopher's provisions. So if they tried to return to the water-hole at Woocalla, and then make their way south to Adelaide from there, the risk of running straight into Yonguldye would be dangerously high.

They knew of no more water-holes beyond Mulka, but Eyre could see that the ground was rising ahead of them; and in all probability they would be able to find an
aroona
, or a water-pool.

They rode for hours in silence across miles and miles of dry mallee scrub; and as they rode they were smothered in grey sand-flies, in their hair, on their faces, crawling inside their clothes. Eyre tried at first to keep them out of
his mouth by tying a handkerchief across the lower half of his face, but the flies always found a way of working their way underneath it, and time after time he would snap it away from his face in disgust.

When they stopped at a little after one o' clock to eat as much of the emu as they could manage, and swallow a mouthful of water, Eyre found that he was crunching mouthfuls of flies as well as meat, and spat his food out on to the ground. But Minil seemed to be quite unperturbed by the glistening, clustering insects that clung around her lips; and giggled at Eyre for being so sensitive.

They rode on and on; Eyre using his compass to tend slightly southwards in the hope that eventually they would reach the coast. He estimated that if they continued on this bearing, they would probably see the Indian Ocean within four or five days, at Fowler's Bay, or Cape Adieu, or fairly close by; and with any luck at all they would be able to camp there and wait for a whaler or a merchantman to pass, and pick them up.

Minil said, ‘If we ride westwards, we will come to my home.'

Eyre wiped the sweat from his face. ‘Home? You mean New Norcia? That must be a thousand miles. I don't have the slightest intention of riding for a thousand miles.'

‘I walked a thousand miles, when I came to Yarrakinna with Yonguldye.'

‘You walked all the way across this desert?'

Minil nodded. ‘There are many places to find water, for those who know.'

‘All I want to do is find a ship,' said Eyre.

‘You really want to go back?'

‘Is there anything wrong in that?'

‘I don't know. It doesn't sound like you; to give in.'

Eyre slapped flies away from his mouth. ‘What are you talking about? Give in? You saw for yourself that we couldn't ride any further northwards through those salt-lakes. And if we couldn't ride through them, certainly
nobody could ever run a road through them, or a railway-line, or drive stock through them.'

‘But what about
this
way?' asked Minil.

‘What about this way?'

‘You could drive stock this way perhaps. Or just a road.'

Eyre stared at her. Her bright eyes were giving nothing away; no clues about her seriousness, nor why she was provoking him into thinking about carrying on westwards. But perhaps she saw in him something that he couldn't see in himself; a stamina and a sense of persistence that only needed the right cause, and a great enough inspiration.

‘You can go back to Adelaide with nothing,' she said. ‘Or, you can go back with a new stock-route to the west. Isn't that what you told me? That the farmers of Adelaide need to send their sheep and cattle to other parts of Australia, so that they can survive?'