That Deadman Dance (28 page)

They must’ve heard us coming.

The men knew they were close. A gust of cold wind whipped at their clothing and tongues of flame lifted from the fire as they followed the trail. They would be upon the thieves in no time. But the wind sprang up, trees lunged, and hailstones pounded them as if they were under attack. The men scurried for shelter and, when the storm passed, the tracks they had been following were gone.

*

Some nights later, many small scattered fires and the smell of various foods roasting; thin smoke and tapping sticks and voices singing, and flame-illuminated dancers within a clearing surrounded by paperbarks. They wore jackets and trousers, feathers and white paint in different combinations, and in that flickering light people and shadows and gleaming trees shifted from one thing to another: tree person shadow, painted-skin tufted-bark flapping-clothing.

There were the old dances—hunting, ancestral beings, memories and legend—and they did the Deadman Dance, with its refined display of a gun and a fierce, strategic intention that people now understood so much better. And there were new dances—crowds of coughing bodies, hands brushing clouds of flies from around mouths, barking rifles and falling bodies and stiff limbs. Bobby was at the centre, the others falling back from him like always as he came alive in the Deadman Dance and gathered together all their different selves. So impressive, so unpredictable: what might he be next?

Bobby danced the sea, jumpy and barely restrained, and the surprise of a dolphin or whale bursting into the air, the sudden clear shape of a groper emerging from the depths, a salmon in a wave face. He offered them surprise and sudden revelations.

Bobby danced many of the people in the settlement of King George Town, and it was as if they had all come here to join in the festivity. Here was the quick-striding Soldier Killam, with that twist to his torso and the bad arm; the hulking Convict Skelly; Dr Cross (oh poor thing, remember him?); Chaine, bouncing up and down on his toes, throwing commands with his arms; Gov’nor Spender, nose up, hands going up and down, patting heads …

It was like Bobby
was
them, was showing their very selves, inside their heads and singing their very sound and voices:…
intelligent curiosity … delighted by music … extravagant prices of the necessaries of life … the natives the natives the natives
… He mimed playing a fiddle so well that everyone heard it, then the singers made the very same sound and tune. Bobby barked like a dog, and Jock joined in. Bobby could look through the eyes of anything. It made everyone unstable, surprised and hardly trusting, but everyone was laughing. Here was Bobby ballroom dancing on a ship’s deck as the swell rolled beneath it: one two three, one two three, ooh …

Jak Tar could not believe his eyes or ears. Fretting for his Binyan, he had come to take her back to their hut. She saw him slinking around the edge of the firelight, beckoned him, grabbed him, hauled him in among the dancers just as they began to deflate, to slow down, to hold one another, laughing at themselves. And pleased, secretly relieved that the terrible beauty of Bobby’s spell had been broken.

About a native gang

Governor Steeling Sir,

It is with great regret that I must inform you of several depredations committed by a number of Natives, led by two in particular, within the last month or six weeks and which Natives baffle every attempt of the constables in taking them. There are warrants for their arrest.

Allowing these natives to be at large only tends to induce others to become thieves and hardens them in their daring attempts.

There not being a Native Constable upon whom we can depend is a great drawback to the white constable of this place.

On the 18th of August Mr Chaine was robbed of sheep, and had his storehouse broken into while the native Bobby pretended to show him where the natives had been eating a sheep of his. The storehouse was broken into by digging under the foundations and 100 cwt. of flour stolen therefrom, and two bags of sugar, knives and axes were also taken away. The footmarks of Wooral and Menak (a very old man of hereabouts) were identified.

On the 26th of August Mr Killam’s store was broken into and taken therefrom one Bag of Rice and 20 lbs of sugar. The footmarks of Bobby, Wooral, Menak and others were identified, and when traced by the policeman who came on their fire at which they were boiling a part of the rice, and recovered the major part of a bag of rice but owing to heavy hailstorm he was not enabled to track them further.

On the 4th of September Mr Chaine’s storehouse was again broken into although every precaution had been taken to secure it, and taken from his premises were 4 cwt. of biscuit. On this occasion the footmarks of Bobby, Wooral and Menak among others were identified and the policeman tracked them for a considerable distance but was not enabled to come up with them owing to the Native he had with him refusing to go any further.

From the above I hope His Excellency will see how desirable it is this Gang of Natives should be broke up more especially as they are those who know our habits, and are more civilised for having been so much with the Europeans, and will therefore sanction a further contingent of police and soldiers experienced in these matters to be sent here for the purpose of taking the natives by whatever means are most expedient.

Yours … E Spender,
Governor-resident
King George Town

With friends like these we break apart

The Chaine family was camped inland from their homestead, Bobby heard, at Bandalup Pools, not far from Kepalup. Old Chaine himself, his missus and Christine and Skelly. Governor’s boy, Hugh, was with them, too, but not now. No sheep, no cattle, just their horses.

Strange. Not an expedition, then.

Several people had gone out of their way to tell Bobby this, and said they’d been camped many days now. Why? Waiting for him?

Bobby walked the coarse, dry sand of the creekbed barefoot, skirting the occasional pools that remained at this time of the year. Trees on either bank leaned and sheltered him from the sun and wind, soothed. Expecting to find the Chaines camped around the next pool, he slowed, listened, smelling their fire as he approached.

From among large boulders grouped almost like buildings, Bobby looked through a veil of leaves across the granite slope down which the creek sometimes ran. He recognised the boulders patterning the far riverbank, and the suspended thin slabs of lizard traps. Pools of water stepped down the slope, a wavering black line linking them.

The eagle was not in its nest.

Christine, cushioned by the cloth of her dress, was sunning herself on the warm granite beside a pool thick with green reeds. A fallen tree left by some past flood stretched its limbs toward her, so smooth and white and tiny-dimpled. Her mother was close by, reading. A small bird splashed at the side of the pool, tail held high and dancing. Christine turned her head, and her unseeing face floated to Bobby through a sparse cross-hatching of saplings, leaves and spider web. A sleepy racehorse goanna backed itself under some bushes not so far away. Must have just dug itself out of the earth. Another goanna was silhouetted on a branch against the sky. Bobby walked the rocky sheet of the creekbed to stand the other side of the small pool beside which Christine lay.

Mrs Chaine got up and came to stand beside her daughter, book firmly closed.

Oh, Bobby. You startled us. How dashing you look.

Bobby smiled. He’d taken care with his dress, adding boots and shirt to his costume not long after he smelled their smoke.

Mrs Chaine turned. Geordie!

But Geordie Chaine was already striding toward them, footsteps sounding on rock.

Bobby, my boy. Arms out in welcome, he paused to offer a hand so that Christine might haul herself to her feet. Geordie Chaine kept his eyes on Bobby, and his grin did not go away. He put his arm around Bobby’s shoulders as they walked back to the tent.

We needed a holiday, to get away from working all the time. You know what I mean, just to get out in the bush and have a good walk about. You’ve always been like a son to me, Bobby, you know that, don’t you? And oh, after the whaling season, coming into port, remember when they first come across that ship and we were dragging poor old Soldja behind us? Why, if Bobby liked to give people dresses and food and axes and knives he could do that by roo-hunting, or sandalwood cutting, or helping the police, even, and there’ll be another whaling season, for even without our Brother Jonathons we can take the Leviathan on our own …

Christine said he sounded like the Bible now, and wasn’t this almost like when they were children and Christopher was still alive. She stopped talking then and Bobby didn’t know what he could say.

A sip of rum, Bobby? Rum in your tea?

No.

Christine and her mother went to pick flowers.

Suddenly Soldier Killam was right beside Bobby, Convict Skelly, also. They held Bobby’s arms. Must’ve been watching from Mrs Chaine’s tent.

Chaine was very close, face to face, noses nearly touching.

I mean what I say, Bobby, but must make certain things clear.

There was a horse ready for him, and they let him ride but his hands were tied and the policeman’s friend who led the horse was no one Bobby knew or trusted.

*

Christine Chaine glided, felt like she was floating among the bright gleaming walls, the high ceilings, the paintings and furniture and the drawn curtains that spilled light and the trembling blue of the harbour into the room. The flung-open doors, the bright air moving through the house, so refreshing.

Poor Bobby was in prison. The ringleader maybe … She’d been surprised to hear he was so involved in all this trouble, and Papa was, too. A son, Papa said, he’d treated the boy like a son.

She’d been like a sister … Or had she? There’d been Christopher, herself and Bobby, but even when Bobby shared their lessons … Oh of course, they welcomed him into their house, treated him no differently than if he was family. The native girls they kept now, the servants, might almost be family also and yet one must—as Papa said—impose one’s will. They were forever laughing and playing without purpose, and it was almost impossible to get things done. To help and civilise them.

Common theft and disrespect, Papa said. The boy was capable of so much, had so much potential and remarkable influence over his own kind … He had fed his friends and family from our stores and enterprise and now his influence was so much the greater. What would happen to us if we allowed that to continue? Cross had begun this, he said. But Christine was not sure she could remember Mr Cross. He encouraged ideas of entitlement, Papa said. Not respect and a work ethic; not the necessary discipline to defray one’s immediate and short-term gain, and understand self-sacrifice …

Christine had rarely seen Papa so upset. He kept at it so long, on and on he went …

She was startled when one of the native girls interrupted (a relief, really) with a message from their visitors, who were almost immediately in the room. Really, this was of course rather more informal than one need be. She knew the man as Jak Tar, one of her father’s workers, and he had a native woman with him. Bold as brass they were. Christine may have blushed. She should not be here with him at all. Jak Tar had the good grace to look uncomfortable, but the woman—in gloves and a bustling dress quite ridiculous in this town—appeared amused. Jak Tar wanted to see her father. This business with Bobby. Something has come up that he must … that her father needs to know.

Fortunately, Christine was able to manoeuvre them to the parlour (this without the help of servants … those girls behaved more like guests) where they might await Papa’s return. Since they were so insistent. She was pleased to excuse herself. Really! As if they were a married couple. What if they were all to … what if she were to be with a black man? She imagined Bobby on the dance floor, sweeping her across the deck at one of the too-rare shipside balls.

Ridiculous.

But she could easily imagine him dancing, and dressed for the occasion.

Had Bobby really committed these break-ins and thefts, these depredations? He was brave, she knew that. Clever, as a boy at least. Not evil.

What on earth could Jak Tar have to say to Papa that was so important?

*

Not wanting Bobby’s court appearance to be in kangaroo skin or the rags the prison made available, Jak Tar had rushed to the prison with a set of clothes as soon as Binyan told him of Bobby’s capture. He’d found Killam at a heavy and roughly made desk, helping the constable complete the paperwork. The constable was barely literate. A small opening in the door showed Bobby’s face, his hands gripping the bars, watching the two men. Jak Tar had expected to leave the package with Killam for Bobby’s court appearance, whenever that might be, but Bobby called out.

Mr Tar, my good man.

Jak Tar knew how Bobby could move into performance, how he could give a recitation, foregrounding and mimicking the speech patterns of others. Jak Tar felt himself begin to tug his forelock, to bow to this voice of the ruling class. His reaction angered him. Was he bred to obey that sound? And angry with himself, he was also angry at Bobby. And he was Bobby’s friend. What would it do to others, such a voice coming from a black man?

Bobby’s hands were tight on the bars, and so was his face behind them.

Mr Killam, Constable, need I write that report for you?

The two men ignored him, and turned to Jak Tar who held up the parcel of clothes.

I fancy he’ll be a good witness, he said. The Governor presiding?

Yes. Governor Spender will adjudicate.

The men’s speech seemed particularly formal: Bobby’s influence, perhaps.

They brought the men out one by one to make their statements; Killam and the constable helped ensure they were brief. Eventually, it was Bobby’s turn. Jak Tar remained. Killam and the constable must’ve thought him an ally. Bobby tried to see what had been written, but could not. Yet he was not cowered, showed no remorse.

Yes, he said, I broke into Mr Chaine’s property on whatever that date you tell me it was, and I stole his sheep and I stole the flour and the sugar and the knives and all we needed.

Yes, he said again when it was put to him, yes, I took the rice and the sugar with me from Mr Killam’s place. He was smiling.

Yes, I took a lot of biscuit from Mr Chaine. Not all of it, because he has too many biscuit. But I took it and gave it to people who were hungry.

And—last time, yes—I speared some cattle and took some sheep and yes, the rice and treacle, too, and we all slept with full bellies.

Although he might bluff the constable and the gaoler, Bobby knew he was not the reader he pretended to be. Nevertheless, he could make out some of the long and twisted phrases scrawled across the pages:
depredations, break-in and stealing, impudent, native-gang …

Yes, he said. I did all that. Guilty. Yes, yes and yes again. And I ran from the gaol because I was frightened, see.

Why were you frightened, Bobby?

Almost immediately, Killam regretted the question.

I was frightened, Bobby said, because years ago I seen Mr Chaine shoot dead those two boys that came with Governor Spender and he might do it to me, too.

Jak Tar, watching, listening but not saying a word, saw Killam’s head lift. The pen stopped moving.

That is enough for now.

And Jak Tar got to his feet and rushed away to see Mr Chaine, probably for Binyan’s sake, really. Wanting him to think him a hero.

Mr Chaine listened to Jak Tar.

Mr Tar, you endanger yourself in speaking up for the boy. You are yourself an alien, are you not? One who jumped ship?

Jak Tar ignored the threat implied. He went to see the Governor.

Chaine, the Governor and Jak Tar met with Bobby at the gaolhouse. Killam and Skelly had agreed they might also withdraw charges if Mr Chaine saw fit. And charges against Bobby would be withdrawn when he signed the statement Jak Tar had collected from him:

In 1836 I left King George Town with Mr Chaine and Mr Killam on the boat and also two lads named Jeffrey and James belonging to some other country but come here with the Governor.

After we were shipwrecked we had to walk back a long way. We did not know the country and did not have much food and after we had been walking James and Jeffrey often told me that we should never get to King George Town as we would die in the bush and they wished me to leave Mr Chaine behind and go with them more quickly to my country and then to King George Town.

One night Jeffrey and James and myself were sleeping at the camp when Mr Chaine was away from us watching the horses which we used to take turns. I was asleep and then I woke up to the noisy gun being fired and I jumped up frightened and ran to Mr Chaine calling out ‘You hear a gun?’ but he was already running the other way to the sleeping place and said what was the matter?

We went to the tent and there was Killam lying on the ground breathing heavily and his arm smashed up from the ball that got him. We thought he might die.

James and Jeffrey were gone from the camp and took away with them dampers and some tea and sugar and water and two guns and some ammunition and also tobacco and pipes.

We left soon as we found what was done for King George Town. Next day James and Jeffrey were following us. Jeffrey had a double-barrelled gun and James had one also.

I heard them crying out for me like dingoes. Mr Chaine asked them to come with us but they ran away amongst the bushes and we never saw them again but kept on our road to King George Town. Anything else I might have said about what happened is not true.

Bobby looked at the page carefully, bluffing he had the gist of it. And, bluffing still because he had been practising this very phrase, wrote in his careful hand
I attach my signature to affirm that these are my very words
… But then stopped, lifted the quill.

I will only sign this, he said oh so very theatrically and looking around at those awaiting his signature. I will only sign this if …

Jak Tar was irritated; it was a foolish risk. But the conditions Bobby set did not seem onerous. And there was no dissuading him.

Chaine thought it pride, and Bobby often had this wilful, playfulness about him. Simplest to humour him. Chaine retained a genuine affection for the young man.

Bobby had wanted them to gather in the gaolhouse so that he might also have the other prisoners as his audience, but instead they brought him to Chaine’s house. It was the only condition on which Bobby relented. He would have preferred a larger audience, but he knew not all the townsfolk admired Mr Chaine and at least this way he had enough witnesses to ensure justice would be carried out.

The doors and windows of the largest room of Chaine’s new house were opened so that the light shimmered on the walls, and the air was raw-earth fresh. Bobby glanced around him: a coat-stand in the corner, with no coats on it; no furniture, no rug, the room so new and never used and our fresh white ochre on its walls. Bobby faced his audience: Mr and Mrs Chaine, and Christine, Soldier Killam and Convict Skelly. The Chaine women were seated together, but Mr Chaine had inserted his thumbs in his waistcoat, and was bobbing, rising up on his toes and dropping to his heels again. Skelly leaned against the corner of the fire’s mantelpiece, favouring his bad leg. Mr Killam looked about restlessly, clumsily plucking again and again at the back of his shirt.