That Deadman Dance (8 page)

When Bobby Wabalanginy told the story, perhaps more than his own lifetime later, nearly all his listeners knew of books and of the language in them. But not, as we do, that you can dive deep into a book and not know just how deep until you return gasping to the surface, and are surprised at yourself, your new and so very sensitive skin. As if you’re someone else altogether, some new self trying on the words.

A most intelligent curiosity

Wunyeran has a most intelligent curiosity,
Dr Cross wrote. It was a characteristic they shared.

Cross and his superior agreed their colonial outpost needed to build strategic relationships. We are outnumbered, they said. It is their home. And we do not know what is planned for us or how long our colonial authorities require us to remain.

Dr Cross’s conclusion that sealers were responsible for the stranding—and therefore the spearing—was confirmed when he met with a group of young men and boys on one of his regular walks. He stood his ground, couldn’t outrun them and might have got a spear in his back if he tried.

Wunyeran, he said. The only word of their language he knew.

They smiled and put their hands upon his shoulders. He thought they might still be angry at their companion being stranded on the island, and at the treatment they’d received at the hands of the sealers, but no, the spearing of the carpenter had appeased them. They did not seem to mind him or the camp upon the beach and—not at all frightened—were friendly and curious. The colour of his hair intrigued them, as did the nature of his clothing.

Womany? they asked.

He showed them otherwise, that it was only clothing, then stood, smiling, arms open, as they touched his hair, felt his buttons. He sat at their fire and took off his hat and boots. Then, standing and re-dressing himself, he turned and returned the way he had come.

Wunyeran was not the only one who knew some English and French. Nor was he the only one who’d been on ships, but it was Wunyeran who began to visit Dr Cross and accompany him on his walks. His English improved at an astonishing rate. Dr Cross was an enthusiastic tutor, Wunyeran a capable guide.

Like other learned men sailing the southern hemisphere, Cross had read the journals of Flinders and Vancouver, and references to friendly encounters here. Apparently, there had even been rudimentary trade. Sealers, too, were obviously familiar with the benefits of the place; in addition to the seals which sometimes made the rocks seem a thing of rippling fur, there was fresh water and sheltered anchorages. And it was sealers who’d stranded the man on the island some days before their own arrival, and stolen the women. When their man was speared, Cross and his Commander discussed whether to retaliate and agreed they must continue to demonstrate the difference between the sealers and themselves.

Cross guessed Wunyeran was in his early twenties. He wore a fine bone through his nose, a cloak of kangaroo skin across his shoulders and the belt of woven hair around his waist usually held a small axe or club. Sometimes he wore feathers in his hair or in a band at his upper arm, and he was inevitably coated in grease or oil. It must, surmised Cross, protect him from insects and cold weather.

Cross showed Wunyeran his books and journals, his samples of flora and fauna and his surgical tools, and Wunyeran and some of the other young men began to sleep in the crude hut Cross had constructed with the help of the prisoners. He enjoyed their stumbling conversations and Wunyeran’s playful spirit drew him out of himself.

The natives, who give themselves the name Noongar, are particularly delighted by music
, he wrote in his journal, surprised that he was using his violin more than he had for many a year.

Cross formed the habit of a morning stroll to the hilltops above the camp to take in the view: he looked south over the harbour and, turning slowly to his left, saw the harbour enclosed in the east by an isthmus which ran toward him from a rugged ridge extending eastwards into the open ocean and ending at a granite domed headland. He continued moving his gaze left: two islands at the wide mouth of the huge bay, then again a rocky coastline. His eyes followed that coastline back westwards to another harbour, with an equally narrow entrance only three or so hours walking from where he now stood—the Shellfeast Harbour referred to in the basic charts. He could see the two rivers draining into it and a very small island near its centre. Beyond it stretched dreary grey-green scrub until, in quite startling contrast, a mountain range rose. Perhaps it was two, one behind the other.

Dr Cross imagined their military outpost as a dot on a map; although indeed any map of this part of the world was still most vague. Their settlement—its tiny population, its handful of huts, its barracks of mud and twigs, its canvas shelter for the shackled prisoners—nestled between two hills beside this very sheltered anchorage. At this time of the year, the sun rose between the two islands like a golden coin.

They were surrounded by … how many natives? Cross couldn’t answer his own question. And they themselves were what? Barely fifty-odd people, almost half of them soldiers, and an almost equal number of prisoners. Three of the soldiers had their wives with them, and there were a handful of children.

Wunyeran often slept in Dr Cross’s hut. They ate together, walked together, but even so their communication was rudimentary, and so not until after he had met Menak for a second time did Cross realise Wunyeran had been preparing him for the meeting for several days; was perhaps performing some piece of diplomacy.

They were walking together when Wunyeran put a hand on Cross’s arm and pulled him up. Menak stood perhaps twenty paces away in a small clearing.

A physically impressive specimen, thought Cross. Middle-aged, perhaps much the same age as himself. His hair was gathered in a knob at the back of his head, and a tightly wound band circling his skull held a bunch of white feathers. Bands around both upper arms held similar crests and raised scarring patterned his chest.

Dr Cross hardly realised he was being manoeuvred toward Menak until they were very close to one another. Wunyeran playfully pushed and pulled Cross with an infectious good humour, while Menak was a picture of indifference, looking away as the two of them approached.

Then Menak turned from his view of the huts and tents scattered at the edge of the wide harbour to face Cross. The heavy scars on his chest seemed to reach out, his crown of feathers to shade them both as he held a hand across the shrinking space between them. Cross grasped it and Menak immediately pulled him into an embrace. He then lifted him from the ground and with his arms around Cross’s waist turned a full circle. Eyeball to eyeball: one man in a cloak of animal skin, a hair belt, and with mud and grease smeared over his skin; the other with only the flesh of his face and hands exposed.

Menak released him and stepped back. A beaming Wunyeran gestured for Cross to remove his jacket, then he unclasped Menak’s cloak and slid it from his shoulders. He handed each man the other’s attire.

Cross settled the kangaroo skin over his shoulders while Wunyeran and Menak struggled with the problem of sleeves. The difficulty was the tuft of feathers inserted in Menak’s armband. They unwound the band, and Wunyeran wrapped it around Cross’s shirt-sleeved arm, hastily adding the feathers. Perhaps Menak had lost some of his dignity by putting on the old coat. But then, what of Cross?

The surprisingly soft and pliable kangaroo skin hung easily from Cross’s shoulders, enclosing him in the smell of another man, a very different man, of course, but a man for all of that.
Noongar
, he remembered. The scent was not so much that of a body but of sap and earth, the oils and ochres and who knew what else of this land.

They walked together, a strange sight: black man in a military coat, white man in a cloak of kangaroo skin with feathers on his arm.

The man—Skelly—who Menak had speared all those weeks ago turned away from the sight, and again leaned into the upturned boat he was working on.

Convict William Skelly

William Skelly was trying to spread red gum along the whaleboat’s keel. He normally used pitch, but there wasn’t any. Gum wasn’t as good; the first batch he tried had turned brittle and not lasted long at all. It had been Dr Cross’s idea to use it.

The Indians use it, he said.

As if everyone didn’t know that already, seeing as how they’d all traded food for native hatchets, and knew how the stone was joined to the wooden handle. Same with their knives. Some reckoned their spear throwers had a tooth held in place with red tree gum. A human tooth, Skelly had heard; others reckoned it was from a kangaroo.

Skelly hadn’t ever seen a spear-thrower up close, but knew their spears better than he liked.

Pausing in his work, he fingered the scar on his thigh. Had
that
spear been launched by a human tooth? It still made him wild that he—a man innocent of any crime against the blacks—had been the one speared, and that his own country’s fighting men had done nothing about it. But Skelly had to admit it had turned out well enough. They’d since had no trouble. Maybe this place would be even worse if they weren’t here, with their parrots and jabber and nakedness.

But where were their young women?

William Skelly’s sacrifice, his acceptance of pain and willingness to let bygones be bygones had created the friendship of white and black here. Even the Captain thanked him for his forbearance. You could tell they didn’t expect such behaviour from a convict. Not that he’d be one for much longer, because his term was almost up.

Skelly believed Dr Cross, for all his funny ways, was a just man, and he’d listened as Cross tried to explain: the blackfellow’d been kidnapped, his friends killed and their women raped. And then they stuck him out there on that island. Of course he wanted revenge. We must all look the same to them. So William Skelly’s forgiveness allowed peace. A convict turned the other cheek.

He had been like a Christ not only for these savages but for this entire community. Mind you, he’d still like to drive a spear through the thigh of the man who speared him. He and the good Doctor were on the best of terms these days, if Skelly could believe what his eyes and ears told him.

Of course, Jesus Christ was a carpenter, too. But William Skelly would bet Christ never worked with kangaroo shit, because that’s what made the red gum easier to work and less brittle when it dried. The young Indian fellow that hung around all the time had shown him how to mix them together. He liked watching you work, that fellow. He liked
working
, and he kept coming up with good ideas. Because he did more than watch: at first he helped Skelly spread pitch, then manufacture a gum to spread across the bottom of the boat. Skelly was learning from him. The gum was still inferior to pitch, though, even with a pinch of kangaroo shit thrown into the mix.

Yesterday, when the soldiers brought back the boat, Skelly noticed it had taken in more water than expected. Still, it was doubtful that even pitch would’ve helped this boat after the beating it took. Skelly’d done a masterful job, even if he was the only one who knew it.

He was proving himself a useful man here, was William Skelly. Anyone can wreck the boats, but who fixes them? Who here could build a house? Shoe a horse? Bill Skelly was a long way from the world he grew up in, but he’d be a free man soon, and then … who knows? Maybe he’d stay hereabouts. Lord it over these Indians. A harem and everything.

When you stepped into the water of the harbour, fish rose to meet you. The seine net caught more than anyone could eat, and so they divided it up: soldiers, prisoners, and plenty for the blacks, too, and they made sure some got back to their camps. Wunyeran and some of the others helped the prisoners haul the net in—the joy and energy they brought to it caused even some of the soldiers to lend a hand—and learned to row the boats. They were good at it, too. Young men, see? Life bursting out of them.

Captain even let them use the boats themselves. All of which meant more damage and, in the long run, more work for the likes of Mr Skelly.
Mr
Skelly. Not a convict much longer.

They think they have a better life, the blacks. Not that they’re slow to appreciate what we offer.

River expedition

The first commandant was replaced, and then his successor. They were not interested in a place like this, and allowed their ambition and the detail of paperwork and administration—even in a tiny outpost—to preoccupy them. Cross’s load was light; the men’s health was good, only threatened by their excessive reliance on rum. There were few prisoners, and if they escaped where would they go, anyway? The soldiers’ boredom fed their fondness for the grog.

Meanwhile, Cross’s own authority grew. He arranged it so that Wunyeran and his brothers not only had use of a boat, but men to accompany them, too. Ever lively, Wunyeran and his brothers took their turn rowing and even mastered the sails. Only Menak preferred to sit, staring at their destination with a telescope whenever one was available, allowing others to oversee the mechanics of arrival.

The boat left the harbour and headed toward the great bald dome of granite at the end of the headland and, watching, Menak saw the smoke of their hunting drift toward the islands and colour the sunlight, merge into the blue sky, the sea, become part of the salt haze …

Wunyeran returned at day’s end with fresh meat for Cross, and for the soldiers and prisoners, too. Rum-fed, the red eye and scurvy skin of salt beef and ship’s biscuits damned them in a land of abundant good food. Fretting for their diet, Cross recognised that Wunyeran’s people were physically fit, supple and strong. And if their tools were less developed, their ability to adopt anything new was obvious.

In return for lending the boat, Cross gained fresh food and a sound relationship with several Noongar individuals. The garrison sat upon their land, but Cross knew of no adequate authority structures to allow a negotiation between nations. And those were not his instructions—that was not his business—he believed the garrison was no more than an insurance card against the French, and would very likely be abandoned.

Dr Cross planned an exploratory expedition along one of the rivers which very likely led to the mountains he could make out from the top of the hills shadowing the garrison. Wunyeran suggested they take the whaleboat around the coast to that second landlocked harbour into which both rivers emptied. Cross had looked over the land between, but had not in fact actually walked it.

They slipped from the narrow channel of the first harbour and, with a fine southerly wind, were soon in the equally narrow entrance to the second harbour, with its white sandy beaches all around. Cross had pored over the journals of maritime explorers of earlier decades, and Wunyeran had recounted going aboard ships. Now he pointed out the bountiful oysters that had so pleased the sailors, laughing again at the thought that people could eat such things.

Yes, he agreed, the sailors chopped down trees for their ships. He pronounced the last sentence proudly. The sound ‘sh’ still occasionally gave him trouble. ‘S’, too, was awkward.

Shellfeast Harbour was extensive and shallow, fed by two slow and meditative rivers. The relatively deep water of its entrance tortuously wound its narrow way to the river mouth, at times barely deep enough to keep them afloat. They rowed leisurely, surrounded by very shallow water. Stingrays glided away from their approach and merged with other dark shapes beneath the ripples. In the distance across the wide basin of yellow and blue water, a man stood motionless, spear poised. No one in the boat commented.

The expanse of water began to narrow and, despite the rising tide, several intricate, interlocking lines of stone clearly reached from the sandy shore to their right—the fish traps reported in the ship’s journals. A few black figures stepping within the rocky pattern raised their hands in answer to the wave of those in the boat. Cross asked Wunyeran about them, but his answers seemed curt—dismissive of either the question or the individuals searching the traps—Cross was not sure which.

Nighttime, plenty fish.

They had entered the river, at first so wide that the trees could not shade its entire width even early or late in the day, but it soon narrowed and the trees closed and the water grew dark. They came to a stone weir beyond which the boat could not continue. Cross examined it carefully. Man-made? There was a path on either bank, each side of the stones. Cross decided the boat could return to the garrison, and that he and Wunyeran would continue on foot and follow the river or these paths and return over land within a few days.

The soldiers rowed away, and one of them kept his eyes upon where Wunyeran and Cross had been only a moment before.