Carpentaria (23 page)

There was a further shorthand version spoken over the two-way radio: ‘The target was off course.’ Their voices sound confident: ‘Of course the target will be recovered.’ Whatever they do they are always confident. Why? They always have a strategy to keep the bad ball rolling. The technical men get back into their vehicles, then, as Will watches, the vehicles swing around on the main road, again the headlights pass over him standing in the bush, but he remains invisible. Will Phantom is mud.

At home on the sea, at home on the land…

So sang the windy night through the slender, bow-bent spearwood forest below where Will Phantom slept in the surrounding foothills away from the road. The ghost-white under-leaf of the wax-green foliage of the stick trees became a procession of spirits moving across the soft earth of darkness, protecting the country of the water people.

‘I will keep you out of the rain,’ he had promised the poor deceased Elias, carrying the body so light it hardly weighed a feather, hanging over his strong slender shoulder. Will had climbed higher into the hills, until eventually, he came to a large rock cave. Inside, the walls were covered by ancestral paintings telling stories of human history, made and remade by ochre paints, as the forefathers whispered the charter of their land. Will acknowledged their presence, touched the walls in places to embrace the timelessness of his own being. He felt humbled, honoured to be in the home of birds, animals and clans people of time passed. He had eaten the meat from a small wallaby he had caught off guard earlier and cooked; it had been a glint of silver eyes shining in the darkness, startled in its solitary cave, then its life was snatched with bare hands. All night he kept the old man warm, and when occasionally he stirred from sleep he stoked up the small fire made with dry twigs and leaf litter accumulated on the floor of the cave.

The rain stopped early in the morning, but far off to the north across the coastline, the dark clouds were building up again at sea. The hours would pass and Will knew it would be raining again before long. He felt cleansed by the refreshing air steaming off the damp earth as it lifted in pencil-thin columns of mist from the sodden bush. The atmosphere relieved him of his longing to return home after his lengthy, dry journey through a string of deserts with the Fishman. Now, in the context of having to look after Elias, he had time to adjust to the vicinity of home. He thought he needed to spend a few more days in the bush adapting himself to being alive again, to breathe in moisture from the frequent showers of the storms. The discovery of Elias was a clear reminder of the reality of what it meant, at least to himself, to be back in the Gulf country.

He sat outside the cave, killing time, wondering about the prospect of Elias killing time for eternity, while enjoying once again the sight of his country’s blue, green and red paintbox landscape, surveying the road from the northern tip, down to the southern horizon. He was surprised to see a vehicle, still a dot some distance away. It was the last thing he expected to see coming along the road which had overnight metamorphised itself into a long glistening snake river of muddy water.

He watched the dot grow larger as it ploughed through the red water, listened to the roaring engine, and even though it had been years since he had heard the particular sound of an eight-cylinder funnelling water, he knew the mud-covered vehicle belonged to the travelling priest. He turned to Elias and told him, ‘Some decent person around here is going to write to the Pope about him one day.’

The bohemian priest, whose mind was that of a sixties hippie, was driving his car like a bat out of hell up the flooded road. Every year he repeated the last minute journey with one challenge in mind – to beat his luck in the Wet just to confirm that God was on his side. In return, the black Valiant’s souped-up engine roared profanities throughout the pristine neighbourhood. Will pictured the big hippie priest, a red-skinned gargoyle with flowing white hair, settled comfortably back into his red vinyl bucket seat, basking in his Father’s glory, listening to the Philadelphia Tabernacle Choir singing in full throttle on the cassette player, occasionally taking in glimpses of the surrounding countryside, but taking no notice of the loose exhaust pipe rattling along in the mud. A gambler by nature, it was not just the Wet the priest loved to beat. ‘The priest must have heard the rumours, Elias.’ Will paused in his thoughts for a word to Elias, who was resting up against the wall of the cave
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‘What do you say Elias, do we or do we not know Father Danny?’ Will knew the priest was on his way to visit Norm, to compete with all of his godliness to win the old man’s devotion against the zealot Mozzie Fishman and his devotees.

As he watched the car edging closer, shimmering through the sacredness of the flowing water snake, gathering storm clouds, the divine nature of red earth, what came was a holy car from the pale blue yonder, as though sent from heaven to commence the journey of taking Elias home. Will thought how fate, although bewildering, was the nexus to hope. ‘You know Elias I could easily drive back later on from town to get you.’ Will was surprised by the hollowness of his words, spoken without thought while knowing, staring down at the road, it would be cut off by the rains for weeks.

There could be no question of leaving Elias behind, even though it would be easier to come back later on to fetch his body in a borrowed car, driving stealthily on some still night when men unknown to anyone in the world went about their business undetected. So easy Will could almost feel himself reach out and claim such a night for himself.

He watched the priest’s car ploughing along the glistening road across the claypans. Red-coloured water sprayed out from the sides of the car. It was now or never, Will thought, knowing he had to decide what was the best thing to do, deciding to leave Elias in safe care before he continued on with his life, and because he could not help himself, slipping in begrudgingly, ‘I don’t want to say it but I have got plans Elias, I have been away for two years you know, I have been putting my plans on hold for too long now, I think I am going to run out of time.’ Yet lingering still with the caution of a jack rabbit, he sniffed the air, resisting the temptation to start heading towards the road, to be ready to flag Father Danny down as soon as he was close enough.

Somehow on that day, instinct kept Will up in the hills, inching him back inside the cave as though gravity was working against him, and all the while watching Father Danny twist his way around the gullies, as the car climbed the road through the hills. It was just as well because Will heard the familiar droning coming from the distance in the east. It seemed that someone else had their eye on the red serpentine road as well, because, the drone grew increasingly louder, and very soon, the helicopter from the mine landed on the road just below the cave where Will waited for the car to arrive at the turn-off to the lagoon.

‘Where are you headed?’ the men in uniform asked solemnly.

The imposing bulk of Father Danny remained glued to his bucket seat, a feature which was deceptive to people who had not looked up to speak to his extraordinary six ten frame. He hardly moved an inch as he poked his head out of the car window, while in the true tenor’s voice of the Irish dales, and possessing an air of authority that did not go amiss when amplifying the voice he was renowned for boasting about, he announced cheerfully over the blasting Tabernacle Choir, ‘The Lord’s destination is Desperance, my good man.’

The two men respond in mock cheer, eyeing each other cautiously, by telling him he ought to go back to the mine with them because of the flooding along the road.
Abandon the car
– Father Danny envisages a stratosphere of riffraff and pillagers already spoliating cars galore in his mind’s fancy. Father Danny deliberately notes his face in the rear-vision mirror outside the car window, just to make sure that he does not look like somebody stupid or something, who leaves his car on a road out in the sticks for nothing. He was an old hand on people who spoke in veiled threats. He could count them all on his fingers and toes, and stayed put in his car, while eyeballing the two lean security men through his bushy eyebrows –
con men
. This was no sitting duck to be ordered around, so the mine men talk generally about the worsening weather. A mere trifling matter. The blasting music, not reduced one notch, continues to flow beautifully into the static of the surrounding saltbush, conveying the aura of the religiously spiritual in all worlds.

The priest smiled nicely, mentioning he understood their concern, and speaking in a firm voice, leaving no doubt about the authority of the Church, so he thought, said, continue he would. Sermon-like, he said the truth of the situation was, that he had raced through saltpan floods a thousand times in his life, and always arrived at his destination, purely and simply because he was blessed. Blessed be, to have driven through the path in the waters God’s holiness created for his servant. Could he, he asked, tell them the story from the Bible of the parting of the waters? This was the time when God drove the mighty sea back by a strong easterly wind, to let Moses lead the Israelites to safety from the Egyptians. Thousands of Egyptians were drowned when they had tried to follow Moses, did you know that? So let us begin to pray.

The priest begins, but the men interrupt him, first with apologies for being unbelievers of any – all religions in fact. They still insist he goes with them, because he cannot go forward or back –
The road’s blocked
. Father Danny’s speech continues, he has after all perfected the same routine thousands of times in the past for the unbelievers of the story of the Israelites’ dash through the parting waters. Next, in a sudden change of tempo, it was no longer a cordial conversation of well-wishers accompanied by sermon. Then came the vexatious shouting of who was going to make him leave his car sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere for all the useless, thieving scoundrels of the world to plunder
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‘Not me, not for no one at no time – get it?’ Sprays of spit for the helicopter to be removed from up the road.

‘You got no right to park that piece of rubbish in the middle of the road like that,’ the Irish voice, a far cry from its salicaceous lands, rose up the sides of the rocky hills coated in yellow blossoming spinifex in a clear booming tone, while down below, Father Danny was continuing to stir the morning heat with a folksy barrage of wharfside pub abuse imported from the Motherland’s sagas of wars and rebellion, now applied to a lead ore mine in the modern day – like they think they owned the place!

‘Father, Father,’ in between the shouting came the responsive soothing, water-off-a-duck’s-back tone of a uniformed man. He tried to be reasonable, his hands levelling the invisible weight of things in front of him in a gesture for calm. When the priest paused, he continued, ‘You don’t know how quickly these roads become impassable and once that happens, it is going to be months before anyone can get through. Father, we are sorry but we have been instructed by the police, so we can’t let you get stranded in an isolated area with the roads flooding.’

‘Don’t tell me what is or isn’t impassable, I have been travelling like a bloody donkey up and down these roads for years, so get that contraption out of the way,’ the holy voice rose. ‘Or I’ll be getting out of my car and be moving the contraption, holus-bolus darn it, off the bloody road, with my bare hands, myself, if I have too.’

The men steadfastly refused to take the helicopter up without him on board and the priest’s voice echoed through the hills for the Holy Ghost to deliver his church, be it but a humble motor car, to safety. Then Father Danny revved the vehicle until the engine was full throttle and roaring. Will, smiling down on the impasse, wished Donny and Inso were there to see their old coach having a go, in broad daylight, instead of sneaking around the bush at night. The helicopter pilot who had been standing across the road having a smoke, froze, his blood-drained face registering total disbelief, then turned, ran and jumped into the helicopter. One of the other men wrestled with the priest for the key to the car which he was trying in vain to pull out of the ignition. The other mine man, brandishing a knife he had taken out of the sheath attached to his belt, circled the front of the Valiant in a primordial crouching position, and slashed all of the tyres. Air rushed out of the wheels within moments, leaving the car sitting on the wheel rims. The two men tried wrestling with the pugilistic priest, now red-faced with anger, who had by God’s will, so he announced, been given permission to fight like an ordinary man.

The priest spoke in a grave voice to the two men circling him, one with the knife, saying he had no intention of leaving his car or ever to fly in a helicopter. ‘The only flying I was prepared for, before you desecrated the holy tyres of the Lord’s cathedral here, was rally car driving, and the final day when hopefully, I might lift off on the lightness of stored virtue if it pleases the Lord to fly to the kingdom of heaven.’

A little bit of local knowledge always went a long way, and it was considered as being respectful in these parts not to pick a fight with the priest. Father Danny was a prize of the Gulf. Locals knew his background as an ex-heavyweight fighter when he was young in his former diocese down South, in the big smoke’s poor streets in a formidable place like Sydney. If that was not enough for reverence, they also knew the kind of Irishman he was, because he had told them he had been bred on brine fish, and the sea winds, and a good fight on the Irish docks. He had in former times been an advertisement of triumph for the common masses, a poster of promise hanging on the bedroom walls of the country’s youth, the nation’s hope for Olympic gold. But the good Lord called him up right on the eve of the big fight and said to him, ‘Hey! Danny, I will be needing a strong man like you elsewhere.’

Well! Father Danny just dropped Ireland like a hot potato, and he cried out behind him, as he walked off, ‘Flame fame!’ In haste to be gone, he barely left enough time to say goodbye to his Mother, let alone farewell to the Motherland, before he jumped with the excited energy of youth onto the next ship sailing halfway around the globe. He travelled for six hundred days through numerous lands, soils and weather, impatiently asking the Lord if this or that was it, until he found the place of his calling. So it was, the late sunlight shining on the wide tussock saltpans in the bush diocese of the Gulf of Carpentaria was for the Irish pilgrim. If you watched Father Danny over thirty-odd years of teaching Christianity through the art of boxing, song and abuse, you saw for yourself that holy sacrifice could be given and received with joy, through the many good fighting Catholics Father Danny had created in the makeshift boxing rings from lines drawn on the beaches of the Gulf, through salt down in the salty claypans, or on the red soil with the spinifex shovelled away.