“Why have you divided all the skins into three piles, and why is mine so small? Why is this pile the same as this other pile? What game are you playing, Ngala?”
“Well, until this morning when I found myself in this unusual situation, you would have had all the skins, except for the few I keep to trade with. But seeing you have bought yourself a new husband, I fail to see why I should do that. If
you don't have enough to trade with, I suggest you send out your other husband to provide for you. I am as familiar with your marriage laws and the husband's duty to provide as you are.”
“The law says that a husband must provide for his wife, for her comforts and her needs.”
“But that is for one husband, one wife. When there are two husbands, the need to provide is equally divided between them. Therefore Goodji, I need only provide you with a third of the game from now on. Your other husband has to provide a third for you.”
“But, he is nothing more than a boy. He is not skilled at hunting, he doesn't know this country as you do. Teach him some of your skills.”
“Then it seems you have the bad fortune to have married an idiot. Tell me, Goodji. Why have you taken another husband?”
“Ever since you left my bed I have been thinking on this thing. I know that sooner or later, you will leave here for good. So I need a replacement. Someone young and healthy. Someone I can hold onto, who will look after me now and into my old age. Teach him your skills”
“Do you take me for a complete fool?”
“I know you don't trust me, but a person can change, you know.”
“No, Goodji. A snake sheds its skin, but markings that tell us whether it is a viper, a python, or an insect feeder never change.”
“Believe me, it is so. I looked far and wide, and Baa-loo is the best that I could come up with. You train him in the skills of hunting, show him where you hunt, how you preserve the skins and keep the good ones soft and supple. When that is
done, I will gladly free you for your woman of the plains. What do you think?”
“What if I don't want to be free? What if I don't want to be tied down to a woman and her screaming kids? Why should I train anyone to take my place? Train him and then be free? Free me with no ties attached, and I'd think about it.”
“But surely your greatest wish would be to be free from all these husbandly duties, to be able to join your Lowland family and wander the Great Plains with them?”
“Goodji, you know nothing of raising children. Who would opt for a life caught up with a bunch of bawling, scrabbling kids? Sure, I enjoy the small time I spend with them, but even that tires, and I long for the Tall Trees and the cool shade. I have been free too long; my life here suits me well. All I have to do is to provide you with meat every second day, not as much as I used to. The rest of my time is free, I can come and go as I want. I follow the Big Reds by myself, and don't have to worry about another idiot blundering around spoiling my hunt. I take what I want, when I want. You think I would willingly change all this?”
“That's not what my spies tell me. They say you enjoy your life with your other family, with your children, that once you are in camp you never leave it. That the women provide for you, and all you do is to play with your children. Who am I to believe? I am offering you a way out.”
“Let me think on it, Goodji. I have never known you to make an offer that doesn't have something hidden attached. I will need time, and there is a great deal of time between now and the winter season when they return.”
“Then don't let me starve while you are doing your thinking. Baa-loo, my other husband, will need nourishment as well.”
“Then tell him to get out into the world and learn the trails as others do.”
“Listen to me, Ngala. I have given you my offer; take it or leave it.”
The storms with their crashing thunder and great bolts of jagged lightning were starting to die. Then came the rain in great torrents, day after day. It seemed as though the world would be washed away. But soon these rains would slow, then would come the new season.
Life in the tribe went on. Ngala went his way as he would. When sufficient time had passed, when the people were no longer asked to track his every move, when his friendship with Ludo and others in the tribe became common knowledge, then did he approach his wife. His latest hunting acquisition hung glistening around his shoulders, the coils still showing the faintest signs of life. Two long-necked turtles dangled from his hands. Goodji's pleasure at the sight of the huge water python and the turtles set the mood for placid discussion.
They sat in the shade and negotiated their future; the smell of cooking food wafting through the camp, reminding her that she hadn't eaten so well for a long time. There were no tantrums. She was the cool, calculating woman that he had always known. He, more gracious than she had ever found him.
“Then it is agreed,” Ngala concluded. “I try to teach Baa-loo the most likely places to find food and game. I take him with me to the Lowlands, to show him where and how to hunt the Big Red, but mainly how to reach the place where he will collect skins for the next five seasons.” He paused. “And when I leave on this trip, it will be for the last time. My
freedom then takes effect. Are you sure that we are finished, that we are in mutual agreement.”
“Yes,” Goodji asserted. “Agreed.”
As the cooling winds of the world swung once more in their cycle of change, dragging with them freshness and the chill of the coming winter, Ngala gave a final, parting farewell, left his wife an abundance of lily roots and yams, a couple of the fat, long-necked turtles he knew she loved, and barramundi for her evening meal. Then he walked out of her life.
Baa-loo trudged wearily in his tracks. Others, grinning from ear to ear, passed them by, shaking their heads in sympathy for the man that most of them recognised as the best hunter to ever walk their lands. At last the Tall Trees started to thin and soon opened to the great plains. Here they made camp, making the racks and the pegs they would need to dry and tan the hides; the boys strength, drained to exhaustion point.
Ngala showed him the ways of the Big Red hunter. He led him slowly in the art of stalking; how to cast a single spear throw, which would bring death rather than a long hunt to finish the kill. He showed him as he would a child: how to skin the animal, peg it out to dry, scrape away the membranes, and lay bare the raw hide that would in time be tanned, using the juices of the the tree bark. He showed him how to collect the bark of the ghost gum and cook it to obtain the fine white powdered ash to roll in the newly scraped wet skin.
He showed the boy, who now stood tall and proud, how to tie the bundles to a couple of long poles and balance them across his shoulders, how to use the swing of the load to help his walking, and how, if he broke his load and moved in staggered turns, he could carry far more.
When the winds bit deep into his flesh, telling him his family was on their way and it would be only a matter of days before he was with them again, he turned to Baa-loo and announced it was time for him to leave.
Ngala helped the boy with his load to a place that he had chosen for future pick-ups. He told Baa-loo that if he was wise he would keep to himself the knowledge he had given him, and if he had any sense, he would do his hunting alone. The boy asked where he would go. Ngala knelt in the sand as he had done for his own son, and drew the cleft in the hills, the Tall Trees and the billabong his family called home. Then, he gripped the boy by the shoulders and pointed away to the south-west.
“Over there is our home.”
“Will you be here when I come again?”
“There is no need. The skins will be here, cleaned and dressed, and wrapped ready to go. Just pick them up and go back to Goodji.”
“Then that will be my great sorrow. You are the big brother I never had. I have enjoyed this past moon with you. No one, not even my fathers, have taught me as much as you have. I was hoping that next year we might hunt again together.”
“I could not burden my Lowland family with such a promise, not now. Who knows where we may be next season. I make no promises, but there may come a day when we will again hunt as one. It would give me pleasure. I may even bring my eldest son.”
“Thank you, Ngala. I look forward to our next meeting ... I also have this to say. During our time together, you have treated me far better than you had need to. The time has also made me realise what this foolish great manthing that swings between my legs has done to my life. I thought you were the world's greatest fool, throwing away all that wealth, now I
know who is the fool. I'll have to wait for Goodji to die before I'll be free again; I don't have the strength to walk away from her as you have done. Go in peace, Ngala.”
“It took a man to say those things. It is time to go, I can feel the pull of my loved ones. Take care, Baa-loo.”
“Well, Mother? Why the silence?”
“I don't know, my son. Something is wrong with your story, something just doesn't sit right in my gut. I can't accept the fact that she gave in so easily. I admit her new husband has weakened her bargaining position and seemingly strengthened your hand, but she has given in too easily. I'd like to think you are free, that you don't have to return. I want to accept it, my heart says accept it, my head says accept it, but something else whispers I should not. I'll say this to you now, my son, stay alert.”
“I too have that feeling. I know it goes against her character. Still, you must admit, I'm here, I'm free, and I do not have to go back. I feel sorry for young Baa-loo, knowing what he will return to.”
“Yes. His pain means your release. All the same, I think we will sleep very light for the next few seasons.”
“That much I have already decided. We'll keep the children closer to us as well. I have decided to take the family to the new lands, towards where the sun rises. Gullia and Nwunta are coming with us. Will you join us?”
“Thank you, but no. I would like to do the cycle just one more time, before I start going off to strange new places. I have known no other life, no other road. There are memories and places that I would like to visit one more time on my own.”
“But Mother, we could always return to the Way.”
“Maybe you and Imagen and the children could, but I don't think I ever will.”
“Are you so old? Do you think your time is coming?”
“No, silly boy. I think that when we meet again in the next cycle, you'll carry these poor old frail legs so far towards the sun, that by the time they have finished their journey to see the new lands, they will have done enough walking for the rest of their lifetime.”
Ngala smiled. “You gave me a fright there. I thought you were thinking of dying on us. Now that I know different, if that is your wish, I think it will do you good, and be good for us as well. We have never been anywhere without you. It will give us a chance to find out how we fare without your guidance. As for you never settling down, is that how you really feel?”
“I have been giving it some thought since you mentioned it last time, before you returned to the Tall Trees. The more I think of it, the more appealing the idea becomes. One more cycle for old times sake, then go with your kids on your new cycle, just so I know where you take my grandchildren.”
“But where would you stay here?”
“I'd like to set up a permanent camp in that big old cave you showed me. It is close to this waterhole, there is plenty of game on both sides of the river, and ample food grows all over. I'll have enough food to last me the rest of this lifetime. Here, I could wait for my children to return to me season after season.”
“And if we decide to stay and give up roaming as well?”
“I wouldn't complain. Not with having the best hunter that this tribe has ever seen. No, my son, you and your family will be free to come and go. I think as my grandchildren get older, they'll be glad to visit their grandmother each cycle, and be
just as glad to go when the time comes. It's human nature, son.”
“I don't know that I could walk away and leave you Mother, knowing that with the next coming you might not be here.”
“Of course I'll be here. I'll always be here for you and my grandchildren. There will always be food for you and yours in my camp.”
“Father! Are you busy?”
“If grinding spinifex seeds for your mother to make bread is being busy, then I'm extremely busy.”
“Aw, that's women's work.”
“I know, but times are changing. What is it that I can do for my eldest son?”
“Will you come to help me find this strange but friendly bird?”
“Strange but friendly? I've never heard of a bird like that. Surely, with all your new skills you should be able to find out?”
“That's just it, I can't. I try to sneak up on it, but it's gone when I get close. It calls from a new place and won't come out of the forest. At times it seems so close, and yet I never get to see so much as a feather.”
“Up in the tree tops?”
“No. That's the strange thing. I think it must be a pigeon or a ground bird, it doesn't seem to fly up into the branches. It always calls from ground level.”
Ngala felt a prickle of fear. “How long have you been trying to find this strange bird? One day? Two days? Three?”
“Oh no, since mid-morning. Mother said I could hunt some quail for her. There's plenty near where the tall trees
come close to the old cave. I was creeping up on some, when I heard the bird call ... so I went to find it.”
“Can you repeat the call for me?”
“Coo Coo Cooo-whiiiiittt!”
“Ah hah! You have it perfectly. It is the call of the Jewelled Dove, as we call it. You are right, it comes from the tall trees. And there is only one?”
“Yes. It went first in one direction, then came back.”