The Flyer (12 page)

Helen transferred her bag from one hand to the other, the weight of it pulling on her shoulder. “It’s hard to believe the world has changed at all when one comes here. I’ve seen your father in Port Hedland, so I’m sure he must be familiar with the ways of things.”

“Oh, he’s aware. Too aware, most of the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is a mystic. A medicine man? I don’t know what you’d call him. Witch doctor, perhaps. He’s always been able to see things, to tell the future by looking at a sunrise, a sunset, a rock, or a tree. It’s strange, but he’s rarely wrong. I think he’s making up a story about my supposed marriage to Nanara just so I’ll go through with it.”

“You don’t like Nanara?” Helen couldn’t help the frown that pulled at her lips. Djuru looked far less opposed to the girl as he did to marriage in general. She’d found the same to be true among most men.

“Like her? Sure, I like her. We grew up together. But that has nothing to do with the fact our oldies decided we’d be married before either of us were even born.”

Helen gasped. “You must be joking. An arranged marriage? I didn’t think such a thing existed anymore.”

“Oh, it exists.”

“Obviously, some of you don’t like it.”

Djuru’s expression fell. “Some of us. Those of us who don’t like the old ways, leave.”

“Like you.”

“Too right. I’ve been living in Sydney for almost five years, since I was something like seventeen years old.”

“You left because you wouldn’t marry Nanara?”

“It’s not important.” Djuru waved one hand and squinted into the sun.

“It certainly seems important.”

“You’re a bit on the nosy side, aren’t you?” He smiled, removing most of the sting from his words.

Despite the good-natured tone of his voice, however, her stomach clenched. “I don’t mean to be. I was just curious. All of this is quite foreign to someone in my position, you see.” She paused. “So, the tribes still practice arranged marriages. I didn’t know that.”

“And polygamy. You’ll be pleased to know that Nanara is only the first of several girls I should marry before long, I reckon. The elders have it all worked out, like some mathematical conundrum. This clan marries that clan. The other clan bears the children who will marry that clan over there. It’s a bloody mess, is what it is.”

“It’s surreal.”

Paul suddenly appeared at her side, taking the bag from her and hoisting it over his shoulder. She hadn’t expected him to come with her, and a tiny spark of something hot and molten raced from her shoulder, where he’d barely brushed her, to the pit of her stomach. “Not so surreal. It’s been like this for thousands of years. A boy meets a girl, marries her, they have babies. Simple.”

“Sure, simple for you, mate. You don’t have a swarm of oldies planning out which ones, and how many, now do you?”

Paul laughed. The sound was warm and friendly, despite the obvious seriousness of his friend’s situation. When they arrived in a shaded glen a few feet away from the water’s edge, Paul sobered. “Your next patient, I reckon.” He pointed to an old woman sitting beneath a tree, her left eye swollen shut.

Helen had already seen her and approached carefully. “I’m Dr. Stanwood. May I have a look at your eye?”

Djuru knelt beside the woman. “Call her mother.

Everyone does. Every women here is your mother, and every older man, your father. Those in your age group would be more like cousins, but you get the idea. She’s an elder. You could call her grandmother, if you like, as well.”

“Mother,” Helen whispered, more to herself than anyone.

Her would-be patient lifted a crippled hand and brushed several flies away from her injury. She mumbled something Helen couldn’t understand, piercing Djuru with a lethal stare.

“She says you can look, but she’s old and has no desire for you to treat her. She hopes the infection will take her to visit the Ancestors soon, and wishes her husband had left her behind at their last encampment.”

“It’s a simple infection to treat. Hardly life threatening. Can you explain that to her, please? Once the infection has cleared, she may feel better about things.”

Djuru translated, and the woman sighed. She would allow the treatment, even though she wasn’t happy about it. Helen opened her bag and withdrew a vial of antibiotics, a syringe, and a roll of gauze. “Who is her husband?”

“A man named Thomas Becky, if I’m not mistaken, but it’s been a while. If he’s passed, she’d be married to one of his brothers.”

“Thomas is still alive and well. Should I get him?” Paul asked.

“Yes, please. I’ll need to show him how to drain the infection for the next few days.”

“I’ll fetch her daughter then. Thomas would have no part of that.” Paul jogged to a group of young women, naked above the waist, who sat in a circle around a small fire while they ground something with stone mortars and pestles.

Now that Helen had had the opportunity to see more of the encampment, the entire scene seemed almost prehistoric. If it weren’t for the fact many of the younger Aborigines, like Djuru, spoke perfect English and wore modern clothing, she would have thought she’d stepped back in time. Primitive tools and weaponry surrounded her everywhere she looked. In a clearing to her left, a gathering of men practiced with spears. Most of them were naked, or close to it.

She forced her attention back to the old woman. “Will you tell her this might sting a bit?”

Djuru spoke in his odd language, and the woman tensed. Without giving her time to refuse, Helen plunged the antibiotic syringe into the muscles of the woman’s fleshy, bare upper arm. The woman cried and swatted Helen’s hands away.

Just then, a young girl knelt and tossed long, neatly braided black hair out of her face. She was exotically beautiful, with wide, expressive features and eyes that reminded Helen of the ocean at night. Helen turned to Djuru, intending to ask him to translate for her, but he’d vanished. Scanning the area, she found him among the men with the spears. He glanced over his shoulder, then quickly averted his gaze.

The girl tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m Nanara. Paul said you needed me?”

Helen grinned. So that’s why Djuru had run off as if the hounds of hell were chasing him. As far as he was concerned, they were. “I’m Dr. Stanwood. Helen. This is your mother?”

Nanara nodded. “One of them. I’ve been meaning to come by and see you. I’d hoped you could give me something for her eyes.”

“Come and see me? You live in Port Hedland?”

“Not quite that far, but my employer was going to bring me with him on his next trip. I’m a Jillaroo on the Castle-Winters Station outside of Marble Bar. So, is there something you can do for her?”

Helen taught Nanara how to wash her mother’s eye with clean water, apply an ointment, and wrap the gauze snugly around her mother’s head.

“You have a nice touch for this sort of thing, Nanara,” Helen commented.

“Thanks, ma’am. I suppose I’ve had a fair bit of practice. When the jacks need tending, they all seem to come to me.” She shrugged, her long hair brushing her shoulders.

“Have you ever considered nursing?” When Nanara pulled the wrap too tightly, Helen added, “Not quite like that. Loosen it just a little … that’s right.”

“Nursing? Do you think I could? Being a blackfella and all? I don’t know of many whitefellas who would want me to do anything like that.”

“I suppose you have a point. But in a settlement out here in the bush, I can’t imagine anyone caring too much. I could really use the help.”

“I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“Please, do. And I could definitely use your help for the rest of the day here, in any case.”

“I’d be happy to.”

When they finished wrapping Nanara’s mother’s infected eye, Helen and her lovely new assistant moved on to a little boy with an infected gash on his leg, and several others with minor injuries. At some point, a line had formed, and her patients came to her, more out of curiosity than injury, she surmised. As the hours passed, she met more people than she could ever hope to remember. Finally, the line dwindled, and all that remained was a girl, no more than fourteen years old, who stood with a tiny baby in her arms. Not nearly as dark as her mother, the infant had been covered in some kind of substance Helen couldn’t identify. “Do you need my help?”

The young mother nodded. “She cries. All the bleed in’ time.”

“Well, she’s a baby.”

“She cries
a lot”

Nanara stood quietly, placing a few items into Helen’s medical bag and picking up the sack of waste. “I’ll just burn this for you, Helen.”

“Thank you so much, Nanara. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”

The native girl smiled and hurried to take care of her self-assigned chore.

Something rustled to Helen’s left. Almost at the same time, she caught a glimpse of Paul from the corner of her eye. He paused, then leaned against a tree, obviously affording her patient a measure of privacy. He had such a knack for knowing what to do and when to do it. It was instinctual for him, she realized. Too bad she’d been born with such poor instincts herself. There was no helping it, however, so she turned her gaze back to the young girl and her child. Helen patted the ground beside her and waited for the girl to sit.

“Being a mother is a hard job,” she offered.

“I had a baby last year, but she died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Helen swallowed the sudden rise of tears. She must learn to control her emotions. She couldn’t be a good doctor if every time she heard a sad story, she failed to function logically.

“The others are good mothers.”

“I’m sure you’re a good mother, too.”

“What makes a good mother?” She shifted the baby to her breast, and the infant latched on with vigorous suckling.

“Are you worried you won’t be a good mother?”

“I told you. She cries so much. I don’t think she loves me.”

“How old is she?” Helen leaned over the feasting babe and ran the tip of her finger over its bare foot. The newborn immediately curled her knee upward in positive reflex. Helen’s heart matched the jerking movements of the infant’s leg.

“Four days. She came on the journey here.”

“I see. Well, she’s been through a lot in four days, I think. She’s been used to one environment, all warm and cozy in your belly. Now, she has noises and people, traveling, and all sorts of things that frighten her.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep her close. Now that you’re here, find a place to lay her down to sleep where no one will disturb her. Give her lots of hugs and kisses.” Helen’s voice cracked.

“I can do that. What else?”

“Feed her when she’s hungry, but I think you have that down pat. Hold her when she skins her knee. You have a lot of friends and family to help you. Don’t be scared.”

“You must be a very good mother.”

“Me? Heavens no. I’m not a mother at all.” More than likely, she never would be. The thought formed a lump in the back of her throat, like a brick made of self-pity and ruination.

“Then you had a very good mother to learn from.”

Helen couldn’t decide if she should laugh or cry at the comment. Instead of either, she packed the last of her effects into her bag and stood. “You’ll be a good mother. Just love her as much as you possibly can.”

“Are you ready to go, love?” Paul approached Helen at Blue’s campsite.

She sat on the dusty earth near Blue’s cook fire, her legs crossed in front of her, resting back on her arms. He’d never seen a woman look more radiant with her hair in a tousle of unkempt curls. Perhaps it was the way her eyes danced in tandem with her smile. Or the way the dappled bits of light filtered through the trees to highlight the smudges of dirt on her cheeks. His chest swelled with pride he had no right to claim, yet everything she’d done today, from helping Jayla and her family through their loss, to plying the children with foul-tasting medicines, made him proud of her. Proud to even know her.

At his question, she looked at him. The smile vanished, and her body tensed visibly. In a flash of arms and legs, she scrambled to her feet while she dusted off her strides and smoothed her hair. “Yes. We can leave any time.”

The cast-iron shell she often retreated into was back. It seemed as though she were incapable of completely relaxing around him. Small glimpses of herself came through from time to time, but he suspected only because her personality was so forceful, even she couldn’t keep it tied down for long.

He forced a smile and helped her gather her bag and supplies. “You’re not too tired to walk back to the landing strip, are you?”

She literally bristled. “Of course, I’m not too tired.”

“Too right. Let’s be off, then.”

Nanara raced from the shoreline where she’d been helping some of the other women tend the children. “I was hoping to catch you before you left.” Her expression was heavy, as though she couldn’t bring herself to smile to save her own life.

“Is something wrong, Nanara?”

“No chance of that, Paul. I just need to talk with the doc for a bit.” She took a breath, worrying her fingers in front of her waist. She turned her full attention on Helen. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”