That Deadman Dance (19 page)

People’s attention scatters like sheep do too

William Skelly and Jak Tar began by following the river inland, driving the sheep before them. Months ago, Bobby had suggested it would lead to good grazing country. The river soon became more of a creekbed, really, a soft sandy track connecting pool to pool. Skelly grunted a grudging admiration when Jak showed him the bush Bobby (once again) had told him poisoned the sheep. And but for that poison, the men let the sheep graze where they would, penned them in rough bush fences of an evening and listened for dingoes.

They met up again with Manit, Menak and a couple of boys on the edge of adulthood. There were smiles, and the old couple had a fire going almost before Skelly and Jak were aware of it. Manit lifted her arm and pointed across country, then waved her hand at the sheep. An expressive gesture; the arm was old: ligaments taut, flesh sagging, the skin wrinkled and coarse at the elbow but her thin bent finger was so assured of its direction. It was easy going, and they maintained their way; why change course? They could return anytime.

Perhaps it was his seaman’s eye or perhaps it was his nostalgia for ocean, but one day Jak looked back from a granite dome he had spent some hours reaching, and saw other granite outcrops blue in the distance across a sea of mallee. They looked like islands, and the line of trees marking water courses showed him they’d moved across land from one river to its neighbour.

Even the taciturn Skelly found time to talk. And Jak Tar was a good listener. At first Skelly gave only instructions: how to build a bush shelter or fence, the dangers of dingoes. Occasionally the blacks, he added. Mr Chaine encouraged this sort of roaming, Skelly told him, so long as the sheep were well cared for. That old woman (Manit or something they called her) had been introduced to them by Bobby. The boy was a nephew of hers, or something like that. He’s got relatives everywhere and they’re useful enough, never been any trouble, but you hardly ever see a young woman among them, he said. It was obvious that Skelly would like to meet such a young woman, some female cousin of Bobby’s. The old men keep them; and he shook his head. They keep the young men under their thumb that way.

Skelly hated his own people, the ‘English’. My white people, he said with a grimace. And the blacks were beneath him; he made that clear. He was going to forge a different life for himself here. Had to, there was no going back. He was a convict, did Jak Tar know that? Had been. Jak Tar said nothing. Not much of a talker, is you? said Skelly.

They reckoned they must now be heading back toward the coast. Closer, they caught glimpses of the sea, and when the landscape suddenly opened up, Jak Tar was first to see the ship. He swore and rushed to put himself away from the view of any who might be aboard.

*

Menak stood waist-deep in water, close-up beside the whale and confident no shark would bother him. The whale’s eye dimmed, and yet still it reflected the campfire on the beach, the sky’s pale dome, and Menak, too, along with Manit and the young girl. Waiting.

Only in the old stories had Menak ever known of so many whales in the bay. There were old whalebones in the dunes, and sometimes you could walk from one to the other without touching the sand. He was deep in the whale story of this place right now, resonating with it, but there was some new element, some improvisation and embellishment of its well-known rhythm that distracted him, caught at his attention and kept bringing him back to himself, this specific now. Further around the beach something was being savaged by sharks and seagulls. A whale carcass, the inner part of a whale, but still fresh and with the head and thick skin stripped away. What had the ship done to it? And here was young Wabalanginy, rowing from that ship to shore along with the horizon men. Menak knew Noongars would be arriving over the next few days, but he hadn’t expected one from the sea. This boy coming to be a man, and bringing strangers with him.

He made an incision in the whale to release its spirit. It was something he’d once done with Wabalanginy’s father. But what man stood beside him now?

*

The ceiling was very close to Soldier Killam’s head, the air not good. He drifted in and out of consciousness; his misshapen, damaged limb ached insufferably. Perhaps it was the effect of being back on this ship, but the scars on his back were a net that kept pain close and small waves slapped the hull.

Stranded

From among the dunes, Jak Tar saw the boat rowing to shore. Is that Mr Geordie Chaine, Bobby? There was life in the stranded whale yet: a twitching fluke and he thought he saw something in the water move quickly toward a young woman in the shallows. Stingray? But no, it was gone. Bobby had waded into the deeper water to join Menak and the two or three men beside him, one of whom, with spear ready, scanned the water surrounding them. To keep the sharks away? Jak wondered.

Chaine was walking into the gap in the dunes, and Jak Tar, making sure he remained out of the ship’s sight, moved to meet him. Remarkably, a couple of nights’ sleep, the comforts aboard ship and the prospect of a business arrangement had restored Chaine to something like his best health.

That was your captain, I think? Chaine barely tilted his head in the direction of the ship. He seemed amused.

Jak Tar nodded.

I think we can ensure you two never meet, Chaine said, still smiling. But I’m onto something here, boyo, and it’s a fine coincidence you getting here with these sheep. The captain and his men will be happy for fresh mutton, though they’re more in need of vegetables. I’ve a mind …

Even as he spoke Chaine was inspecting the condition of his sheep and the rough pen Skelly was constructing to hold them. He bent to taste the water of the patient river, reacted as if it was some rare treat, and rose up and down on his toes the whole time he talked to Skelly.

Not that Jak Tar was watching too closely; he kept an eye on that ship, not keen to meet any of his old shipmates and certainly not the captain.

Bobby came up the dunes. Jak noticed how the sand was loosening already; the low-growing plants had a tenuous hold on the dunes and were not accustomed to so many feet. Like Chaine, Bobby was in high spirits and told Jak Tar that he was not going to eat this whale. He did not eat whale. Plenty people be here soon to do that, but.

Chaine told Skelly and Jak Tar to go with Bobby. He’d explain—or get one of the women to—how to gather and prepare the native foods around here, and he wanted to make some sort of mash for the captain and his men. You know, like those cakes the natives bake. Scurvy, he said. The ship surgeon reckons even if it tastes like muck they can mix it in with their biscuits. They’re soaking their biscuits anyway, most of them, lest they drop a tooth.

The old woman lit a fire, and before the men had time to gather their senses it had run away to the river’s edge, smoking furiously, and almost as suddenly died out.

Bobby told Jak Tar she was letting people know about the whale.

*

Next daylight released the scent of ash from that fire. Skelly and Jak Tar first gathered, then mashed and baked the seed and tubers. Chaine had hoped these might help the sailors, but the results were disappointing. Over the next several days, as more people arrived, Skelly observed it done more skilfully. See, said Bobby, easy! Is so very easy easy easy. Oh Bobby was proud of his English and the way he made that ‘s’ sound, and never more so than when in front of his Elders.

Skelly and Jak Tar noted that the natives did not take the same trouble to hide their women away as they did closer to King George Town. And weren’t there some fine beauties among them, too, smiling and bouncing and not a bit of shame?

*

Smoke streamed constantly from the ship’s try-works and soon there were four whale carcasses drifting in the choppy waters of the bay. Jak Tar had made a shelter high up where the old dunes met the granite headland, so placed that he could keep an eye on the ships and the bay. He had used some old canvas and ancient whalebones he had found way up there so far from the water and, protected from the wind and with the ship and its stinking smoke further downwind, it made a very respectable shelter for him and Skelly. Bobby, making one of his regular visits—and he usually brought a companion along—was impressed. He asked how it was made, repeated it all for his companion’s benefit.

Chaine offered Skelly’s help in manning the whaleboats. Said he could soon have another couple of men. And told Jak Tar to travel lickety-split back upriver to the Kepalup property, and come back with as many potatoes as the horses could carry.

*

Several days later, when Jak Tar returned to the inlet with horses and potatoes, he found his tiny shelter of bone and canvas had been taken over and enlarged by Chaine. A wee bit of a stench on that ship, his boss explained. He’d arranged for a boat to take him out to the ship whenever he wanted, and some of the sailors had been let ashore. Don’t worry, he said as Jak left to load the potatoes into the boat, they’re too busy to worry about you. The captain has given them a bonus of rum. He’ll have as much oil as they can carry soon as this last whale is boiled down. He was right to leave that one—tilting his head in the direction of the stranded whale—to the blackfellas, after all.

The captain wouldn’t return to King George Town, but he agreed to put them down in a whaleboat in the sound. Killam was recovering, and they could row him into the settlement. Oh, the whaleboat? I’ll keep that, said Chaine. And you know, I think we might move out here, permanent like. Why should these good ships go to King George Town when we here at Close-by-island Bay (he winked at Jak Tar) can take their money ourselves and put them up in comfort?

*

Twilight, or almost, since it was not so much that the sun had properly set but that it had dropped below the headland. Jak Tar sat in its deep shadow. Bone weary, he would’ve liked the rum and company of some of the crew, but not enough to risk ending up back aboard that ship. There were campfires along the beach starting to glow in the fading light: Noongar figures not far from the stranded whale and, further along, near the gap in the dunes where the river came to halt, sailors.

What with the smoke and the quality of light Jak could almost have been underwater. He saw the stranded whale melting, blubber and flesh falling away, and a long line of Noongar people emerging as if from its wide-opened mouth. No, not only Noongar; Jak Tar’s family, too. Naked they walked away and naked they entered the dunes, side by side. Now and then Jak recognised himself in the little pigtail some had tied their hair into. He saw people at the dune crest and also beyond the crest (as if he saw the dunes, yet saw through them), a long line of people disappearing to the inland horizon, all in conversation and attending to one another. And something in the curious light, and their nakedness, and that some had that little pigtail … It was hard to tell black from white. Jak Tar tried to call some of them: a son surely, but the boy did not turn his head, and was gone. He tried to call a wife and daughter, but had lost his voice. He wanted to run and grab them, haul them back to himself, but could not move. Son, daughter, wife? Jak Tar had none, not yet. They were faceless, these individuals, but he
felt
them as children and wife, felt the love, felt them as his own.

And still people continued to emerge from the tunnel of the whale’s ribs. Daylight was almost gone, but the cold sunset and the campfires showed a glowing membrane adhering to the bones, and people continued emerging from that pink and bony cave, quiet and serene and stepping toward Jak Tar on a red carpet of tongue … So many people.

He sat up with a start, that little pigtail of his quivering. The sun must have set. He had slept for hours. He got stiffly to his feet and walked toward the whale. The fires were bright. The great bulk of the animal, the people beside it, all of a kind, dark and glistening in the firelight, disappearing when the flames dropped.

Closer, Jak Tar thought himself a shy savage. Was he dreaming still? He recognised faces, one slicing a strip of the whale, rubbing himself with blubber. Figures feasting, whale fat bubbling from the fire, grease spitting from flesh skewered on a sharp green stick. Could not help but smell the whale blubber.

Dancing, singing. Young men and women glistened with whale oil, their muscles quivering beneath the skin. Pert young breasts, smooth buttocks and long thighs. Would have liked to be closer. Jak recognised an old fellow: Menak? He nodded, smiled, but the man turned away. Jak wanted approval and to be led across the vast space beyond which he was stranded; wanted to dance and sing, make those women laugh and toss their glances his way. Where were those sailors, his old shipmates, and their rum? But he could not risk meeting them, and someone informing the captain.

A little Jack Russell came running up to him, barking.

Bobby’s voice: Hey Jak, meet Jock! Oh you already met, unna?

Bobby came at Jak Tar, words rolling from his lips trying to explain something: old people passing, the whales, me them brothers come on the sand to woman return me properly.

Really, there was no following him when he was excited like this and spoke straight at you without adopting a voice like that of your own.

Jak Tar hadn’t forgotten how Bobby helped him when he jumped ship, and was constantly surprised not only at what the boy could do and his resourcefulness, but at the things he said. Jak Tar was a good listener, he was reflective (which was just as well, since he looked like spending a lot of time with only sheep and maybe the river for company) and he was observant. He was also lonely.

After a time he started to say, Boys and girls … A man and a woman, how do they marry, Bobby, among your people?

Old woman young man might go together, sometimes, Bobby explained, specially like when … and he searched for words, dancing, corroboree (he brightened for a moment at that word, but dissatisfied, moved on), party time, we all together, a spree!… But old men get all the young girls. He looked at Jak Tar suspiciously, and Jak said he wasn’t interested in any girl Bobby fancied, but his cousins and sisters maybe, who would their husbands be?

Bobby tried to explain how things worked, about promised ones. A man might bring food to the family of even a baby girl who will be his wife when she growed up; he look after them well and good. And when she’s old enough she go with him. The family want a good strong man.

You’ll have a great many lassies then, Bobby!

No. It was not so simple, because some men and women could not go together. And if a man died before his promised one was old enough, then she would be promised to some other man. Like Binyan, Bobby said, that one dancing down there, her promised man dead. See, lotta people die. Lotta people sick. Some sailor people kill them. And she ready.

So this Binyan, began Jak Tar, formulating the question as he spoke …

Before long Bobby was sated with food, and sleepy. Heavy eyelids, voice little more than a husky whisper, he could no longer follow Jak Tar’s questions. He curled up and was soon snoring softly, breath leaving the tiny tunnels of nose and throat in regular flurries.

Jak Tar built up their campfire and thought of its smoke, disappearing into the night sky and, somewhere there above, joining the smoke of those other fires on the beach. He listened to the singing, the voices. He’d made his camp on the headland, and at a height that showed the curve of the beach, but not so far away that he could not see the figures flickering among glowing fires and flame, dancing. Sailors and natives together; heavy-footed William Skelly, too, most likely. The sea glittered with the firesticks and moonlight, and he thought he could still discern the dark mass of the whale. Jak Tar looked back over his shoulder to the sleeping boy, and caught the arc of the whale jawbone that held their canvas shelter, and the crescent of moon in the sky. The echoing shapes of whalebone, moon, beach. And how many crescents of white sand stretched between here and King George Town?

The whale’s last exhalation was long gone, that forgiving eye had dimmed.

*

Jak Tar made it two days since the whaler had left, taking Chaine and Skelly with it. They’d be putting a whaleboat down outside King George Town Harbour and taking Killam ashore.

A crowd of people (natives, he had to remind himself despite their nakedness and present state) continued moving in and out of the cave of the stinking carcass. Though raised on haggis and sheep’s eyeballs, Jak Tar seemed the only one offended by the smell. He kept to himself, upwind and sheltered by whalebone, canvas and a gnarled old tea tree tucked among rock and sand.

The remaining sheep grazed on the green shoots sprouting on the patch of earth Manit had burned all those weeks ago. Jak and Bobby were to let them graze their way upriver to the homestead. As he went over the last of the dunes, Jak Tar looked back on the bay. Far around the beach a couple of shapeless whale carcasses trembled in the waves, attended by sharks and squawking gulls. Closer, people remained just upwind of the single stranded carcass.

The ship had long gone; now the sheep, and Bobby and that Jak Tar, too. Menak gathered up his goods, his
kitj
and
dowak
and
kerl.
Manit was already standing, ready to go with her possum-skin bag on her back and her teasing words about how stiffly he moved in his old age. They walked off together toward the creek, and the young woman Binyan accompanied them
,
hand in hand with Manit.

They took the opposite side of the river.