The Devil's Eye (11 page)

Willie felt the tug on his lifeline. ‘Come up,’ Sam telegraphed.

Willie, his bag pitifully thin, was lifted rapture-like from the seabed.

The ascent stopped suddenly mid-water and, dangling again like bait on a hook, he forced himself to think of pearls.

It seemed incredible that Sam had found a pearl, just like that. It occurred to him that Sam
already
had the pearl; had found it earlier and kept it from him. Perhaps Sam had been living with the guilt, and knew he could not sell a pearl by himself and remain undiscovered.

Or perhaps it had indeed come from the last of the oysters he opened the night before. It seemed unlikely, but then finding such a pearl under any circumstances was unlikely.

A shadow passed across the seabed and Willie looked up, alarmed, but it wasn’t the crocodile; just another lugger coming alongside the
Zoe.

The glass face plate distorted the strange world of air and men. Willie would have preferred to stay behind the plate, but Sam’s face appeared, looking worried, as the helmet came off.

The strange lugger was on the far side of the
Zoe
, and Sam whispered harshly in Willie’s ear, ‘We have no pearl,’ just as Joe Harry’s grinning face appeared at his shoulder.

‘Kanaka,’ said Joe, nodding by way of greeting. ‘You look like a lucky man.’

Willie looked at Sam, who shrugged. Joe Harry was the devil after all.

Willie held up his shell bag. ‘You call that lucky?’

Joe Harry ignored the bag. ‘Everyone been talking about what a lucky man you are.’ He thrust a thumb over his shoulder to where a few luggers drifted in the current under jibs.

‘Let me get my breath,’ said Willie.

‘This boy pull you up fast? I saw him do that,’ and turning to Sam he said, ‘You should be more careful with your skipper, boy. Don’t want to lose such a lucky man, eh.’

Sam simmered. Two of the
Vision
’s crew were standing behind Joe Harry trying to look mean.

Willie said, ‘It’s always a lucky day when Joe Harry comes aboard.’

‘You dead right,’ said Joe Harry, happily. ‘Two lucky things happen to you, eh. Luck comes in threes, am I right?’

Willie looked at Joe Harry’s teeth and thought again of crocodiles.

‘You’re right about that.’

Willie stayed in his suit, and Joe Harry stood above him, looking around, enjoying the view as if he’d never seen it before.

‘You ever thought of going home, Kanaka? Where you from anyway?’

‘Tanna,’ said Willie Tanna. ‘Where you from?’ Although Willie already knew.

‘Rotumah. Beautiful girls there. Maybe I go home one day too. When I make money. But how do we make money working our bloody feet off for shell?’ He crouched next to Willie. ‘And then they rob us.’ Joe Harry shook his head, full of understanding for his fellow diver. ‘A man needs some luck. You know what I’m saying? You a lucky man, Kanaka?’

‘I’m a poor man, but I feel lucky.’

Joe Harry laughed at this and slapped Willie on the shoulder. He put his face close, ‘I know you got pearls, Kanaka. You sell them to Joe Harry, maybe you can go home soon.’

Willie licked his lips. Joe Harry’s smiled widened. Behind him, Sam rocked on the spot.

‘I don’t have any pearls. And if I did, I wouldn’t sell them to you.’

Joe Harry stood back looking genuinely offended. ‘Why not?’

‘You a Rotumah boy.’

Joe Harry’s grin faded horribly, but then he threw back his head and laughed, and that was worse. He was still shaking his head when he said, ‘I ask myself, a lucky lugger like the
Zoe
, so much shell every week, why they not open some oysters and look for pearls? Especially when everyone knows that from his shells come one of the most beautiful pearls ever found.’

Willie glanced at Sam. Sam seemed to be trembling. Joe Harry looked over his shoulder at Sam and then back to Willie.

‘You didn’t know?’ said Joe Harry.

Willie didn’t move.

Joe Harry looked disappointed and said, ‘You pretty stupid Kanaka. Even I ask myself, why would you want to rework this patch all week, when it isn’t getting much shell for the lucky
Zoe
? The only answer is because someone found pearls and is hoping for more.’

Joe Harry couldn’t see Sam’s face, but Willie could.

Willie tried to laugh. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong lugger, Joe Harry. We get plenty of shell here. We wouldn’t work a bed twice for a couple of pairs of shell.’

Joe Harry looked at Willie’s bag. ‘That’s a couple of pairs, isn’t it?’

‘Get off our damn boat,’ shouted Sam.

Joe Harry, still grinning, turned slowly.

‘I think you boys have got the wrong idea. I’ve seen that pearl you fished before. Thomas showed me. How much he pay you, anyway? If you have any other pearls like that, I give you more money. Why you think I’m here?’

Joe Harry turned back to Willie. He cocked a thumb over his shoulder at Sam. ‘I think this boy knows, but he not tell you,’ and he winked at Willie just as the marling spike cracked down on the top of Joe Harry’s head.

Unbelievably, Joe Harry didn’t fall. It seemed to Willie as if what happened next happened under water, slowly, heavily. Joe Harry raised his hands to the top of his head and his eyes creased shut, his grin now a grimace, and he staggered and turned towards his crew. They had their mouths open and were fumbling at their belts for their knives.

The
Zoe
’s crew recoiled and Willie felt disappointed in them. Only Charley took a step forward with the coffee pot in his hand, as Sam lunged again at Joe Harry.

‘No,’ shouted Willie, but Sam brought the thick end of the spike down on Joe Harry’s shoulder. He howled, and his crew, in spite of the knives, grabbed him and bundled him onto the
Vision.
Joe Harry collapsed slowly onto the deck, blood streaming down his face, his mouth open but not saying a word. The
Vision
’s
crew pushed away from the
Zoe
and unfurled the mainsail badly, in a panic.

No word was spoken. Sam waved the marling spike at the departing lugger.

Willie climbed out of the diving suit, saying, ‘Are you trying to get us killed?’

‘
Hell and destruction are before the Lord
.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That Joe Harry’s a wicked man and God will surely punish him.’

‘Well, let God do it.’

‘But I am God’s instrument,’ said Sam.

Willie wanted to ask God’s instrument what secrets he had been keeping from him, but he decided to wait until he’d calmed down.

‘Well, maybe Joe Harry will leave us alone now,’ said Willie, but as he said that, the
Vision
, three cable lengths away, turned into the breeze, lowered its mainsail and dropped its anchor.

The horses became skittish long before the native troopers led Constable Jack Kenny and Dr Walter Roth into Munburra.

Still two miles from the gold diggings, they could feel the deep boom of explosives and the industrial
thump
of a stamper battery.

The side of the track became littered with flayed kangaroos, smouldering garbage and finally, tumbling into the camp itself, an enormous mound of bottles.

Euro dropped back and said, ‘We call this place
yamiirtul.
That’s what we call it, but this is not our country.’

Kenny said, ‘Welcome to Munburra, Dr Roth. The lagoon of kangaroos.’

The goldfields of the Palmer were expelling their dying breath and Munburra, the last stand of the hopeful but hopeless gold miner, was succumbing slowly.

It was a place that made Kenny anxious and sad, a little like a hospital without Hope Douglas to take his mind off the misery.

A few children were running beside the rutted track, their laughter becoming one long squeal that made the men and the horses nervous.

Kenny looked down, seeing himself as a child, knowing their daily lives and dirt floors. Roth produced three oranges from his pack and tossed them over the heads of the children, who ran and fought for them in a tumble.

The men who stood watching the patrol did not wave. Each had some reason to be wary of the police, in Kenny’s opinion. The arrival of troopers was usually for a specific native problem, but a few men still scurried away.

Roth called out to one long-bearded man who was covered in white powder, ‘Excuse me. I don’t suppose you know the way to Mr Dick’s coffee plantation?’

The man took a step forward and spat into the dust.

‘No?’ prompted Roth, and to Kenny, loudly, ‘What a pleasant village. Let’s stay the night.’

The settlement was made up of tents and humpies with walls of bark and boxes, kerosene tins and corrugated iron. There was a slab store and perhaps ten shanties where you could get a drink.

‘We’re not stopping?’ asked Roth when there was no response from Kenny. ‘I thought you wanted to ask questions.’

‘No one here will talk to us. We’ll go on to the native camp down the river.’

They passed the garbage heaps that marked the town’s far boundary and rode on.

The police paddock was well away from the settlement, out of sight: neither the police nor the population of Munburra had wanted anything to do with each other. But eventually the Native Police had abandoned the camp altogether, and though it was still government property, the police paddock was now, ironically, another camp for the natives. The patrol rode beside the river.

The Starcke River was a series of waterholes linked by a dry river bed, but the police paddock and its native camp were near an estuary, where the river was tidal. Kenny could already smell the salty mud.

‘How do you know this was where our man arrived?’ Roth asked.

‘I don’t,’ said Kenny. ‘But this is where he must have been taken on board the boat to Cooktown.’

The patrol could see the smoke of campfires from a distance. They rode through a small thicket and emerged onto a flat paddock where termites consumed the remains of a sliprail fence.

On the far side of the clearing under trees was a tumble of bark lean-tos. As Kenny rode closer, he could see what appeared to be a steam engine with a black chimney.

There was a commotion and a pack of dogs ran yelping towards them; dark figures appeared under the trees and then ran away. The troopers spurred their horses to chase them, but Kenny called them back.

‘Why are they running?’ asked Roth.

‘They must have a bad conscience,’ said Kenny.

‘Does everyone you meet have something to hide?’

‘Of course they do.’

As they approached the camp, a few women herded a swarm of children into the scrub, but some of the children escaped and stood at the edge of the camp, watching fearlessly. The only other soul was an old man sitting under a tree, looking the other way.

The dogs, yellow and black, were running beside the horses now and silent. The steam engine revealed itself to be a large iron boiler and smokehouse.

‘Bêche-de-mer. A fisherman lives here,’ said Roth. ‘If we see any man who’s not a native, I want him arrested. And that is an order.’

Roth’s sudden change in countenance surprised Kenny, who told the troopers to search for the man who owned the smokehouse. The troopers rode off through the squalid camp, and the dogs went to sit in the shade.

It was a desolate place, but no more so than Munburra itself. Kenny dismounted and walked over to where the old man sat in the shade.

‘
Arrwala
!’ called the old man. Come.

Roth followed. Kenny stood over the old man, who stared up through milky eyes.

‘
Anggatha athu
,’ he said. My friend.

‘
Bama yalngaa-ngu
?’ asked Kenny.

The old man nodded. ‘I remember you.’

Kenny produced one of the packets he carried for such meetings. The old man tucked it away.

‘The Wind is coming, Kenny,’ said the old man.

Kenny looked around. It was dead calm. ‘Did a man come here some days ago, with a hole in his arm?’

‘That’s right. He smelt very bad. Frenchy took him by boat to Cooktown.’

‘Frenchy?’

The old man pointed at the smokehouse. Kenny told Roth, ‘Frenchy.’

Roth had lit a cigarette and said, ‘Must be that French negro I’ve heard about.’

Kenny asked the old man, ‘The man who was hurt, did he talk about another man in the bush? A mate?’

‘No.’

‘Did he say who speared him?’

‘He didn’t say anything. But he came from the north. Those bushmen up there live by hard laws. Sometimes people break laws without knowing, you know, but those bush blacks, they’re not reasonable. They spear you and you die. You don’t walk all the way down here.’

‘This man did. He had a hole in his arm.’ The old man shrugged.

‘Tell me where I can find Frenchy,’ said Kenny, annoyed that the old man might be disagreeing with him.

The old man shifted his head from side to side. ‘He’s gone to sea. Perhaps he won’t come back.’ ‘When did he go?’

‘Three days,’ said the old man, holding up five fingers. ‘Why do you want Frenchy, anyway?’ ‘He’s a bad man.’

The old man nodded. ‘He stole one of my wives. I’d like to spear him, but I’m an old man.’ He shut his eyes and after a while Kenny thought he might have fallen asleep. He kicked him in the thigh and the old man said, with his eyes still shut, ‘Why is he called Frenchy?’

‘I suppose it’s the name of his tribe,’ said Kenny. ‘He has another name.’

‘Of course, but what is it?’

Kenny said he didn’t know.

‘My name is Wurrey.’

Kenny said, ‘The man who was speared might be called Thomas. Did you hear anyone talk about Thomas?’

Wurrey said he didn’t know that that was the man’s name. He opened his eyes and, without seeing, nodded towards Roth. ‘Who is this man?’

Kenny said, ‘He belongs to the men-of-the-Queen.’

‘But what’s his name?’

‘Roth.’

‘Roth. He’s a policeman too?’ asked Wurrey. Kenny said in Koko-yimidir, ‘He’s the Protector of Aboriginals.’

The old man threw back his head and laughed.