The Shiralee Read online

  Dynamite did it, the old man said.

  Macauley was taken aback, but he saw the smile come on the face and it was turned in his direction.

  Tough luck, he said.

  Where are you making, boy?

  I don’t know yet.

  Tommy Goorianawa chuckled. He stretched out his long legs, leaned back, crossed his arms on his stomach and he said this to Macauley:

  Some men are like a wheel. They were made to go round. They rust if they lie still, and they fall apart. You’re like that. Some men, they can live in a box, but you’re not one of them.

  You’re right, I’m not.

  Yet such men are not always contented. They’re looking for something, but they don’t know what it is, and they often never find out. They climb up on the mountain and the valley looks sweeter below. They pitch their tent in the valley, and look up to the shining mountain. The man who lives in the box has what he wants and is content.

  Yeah, the poor mug, he can keep it, too.

  But there’s another man. He’s like a seed in an orange. He likes to be in the centre of the life that suits him encased by the skin and the rind. They hold him together. Without them he dies. His spirit goes and his body follows. You know what I mean? The sky is the rind of this man’s world and the skin the green skin of the earth. They belong to him and he belongs to them; all part of the one heartbeat.

  Macauley rolled his second cigarette. He could see the sense in what the old man said, but the talk was in the nature of a probing criticism that irritated him.

  Come close, boy. Let me put my hands on your face.

  The old man extended his hands, the palms pink and smooth as water-washed stones. The corded stringy wrists projected from the voluminous sleeves of the coat like saplings.

  Softly, gently the fingers moved over Macauley’s face, tracing the lineaments, feeling the strong jaws, the deep-set eye sockets, the firm cheeks, the resolute curve of the lips. Macauley felt a little foolish and, at the same time, a little uneasy. There was something uncanny about the old man and he sensed it. He felt the anxiety creep up in him as the translating fingers made their report. Macauley looked at the black face before him for some clue, but there was none. If the vision behind those sightless eyes saw anything, the face betrayed no sign of it.

  The old man withdrew his hands at last and dropped them on his lap. He was silent. Macauley felt as though he had just been overhauled by a doctor and was now waiting for the verdict.

  Well, what did you find out? he asked.

  You want to know?

  Sure, why not?

  A man like you, said Tommy Goorianawa, he either dies quick with a knife in his gizzard or he lives to be a hundred.

  Macauley was startled only for a moment.

  Which is it for me?

  I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did. But I’ll say this. You’re a man, every inch of you, and there’s a lot of good in you, but it’s buried deep and it’s twisted. It’s like a wild animal that needs to be coaxed into the light and tamed; an animal that does not come willingly because it is frightened for itself. It will have its challengers and will rise in you like a secret. Try and not smother it. It’s the stars and the wild wind for you, and the roads that tie the towns together, all right, but I’ll say this – watch out for big trouble. Don’t lead two lives or both will be unhappy; lead one and lead it well. And don’t be too hard on them weaker than you. That’s all I can tell you.

  Macauley didn’t say anything. He was blinking, the words still going through his mind. He couldn’t decide whether the old man had taken a liberty or not. Confusion brushed with annoyance in him. He noticed the pot-bellied old gin at the door with the waterbag in her gnarled hand, and he was glad of the chance it gave him to make the next move. He nodded his thanks, and picked up his swag. He still didn’t know how to get going. The wise old man helped him.

  Good luck, boy.

  Goodbye, Macauley said. That was all he could think to say. He stumbled across the paddock and got on to the road. He looked back at the humpy, a lopsided arrangement of corrugated-iron sheets and bag windows. There was a blue wisp of smoke curling from the tin chimney. The old man was huddled against the wall in the sun like a grotesque scarecrow. His head was down on his chest and his hands were in his lap. He was a black bundle like a twisted shadow; and that was the last he saw of Tommy Goorianawa.

  Macauley was furious, but he didn’t know why. He felt a burn in his face and a tautness in his nerves. There was steam in him and it couldn’t escape. He didn’t go on. He walked back the half-mile to the town, thinking of that old quack, that old black bull-merchant, Moses of the boongs; and a man should have hauled the cap off his head and chucked ninepence into it just to show him who was a wake-up to who: so that by the time he reached the pub Macauley was in a hurricane of a mood. He downed two beers, picked a fight, stretched out his man, and he felt a lot better.

  But the man he stretched out chipped bits off him and left him only one eye to see out of; and he was only a young fellow like Macauley himself, and not the one to hold grudges and keep a tight face when he liked his face loose. His name was Lucky Regan, and he came up to Macauley and put his hand out and in no time they were rolling round drunk together, looking for flowers in the street, and singing that parody, ‘It Was the Demon, Liquor,’ and sitting down in the auctioneer’s doorway fishing chips out of a hole in a lot of white paper.

  Lucky had the money to bail them out next morning, and they set off together. They were mates on the track and they shared that first experience. And it was this road from Bellata. This same road. They had ridden there in the backs of trucks, thankful for the lift when their feet became so sore and swollen they could do no more than limp like tender-footed horses, and the swags on their shoulders had put a ridge of aching stiffness right down the centre of their backs.

  Walking it now, Macauley was walking in yesterday. The vivid images shot into his mind like images on a screen. They couldn’t have picked a worse road to break themselves in on. Just like them in their rawness to drop on to the arse-end of Australia to start their maiden journey. They heard from every bone in their bodies, even bones they never knew were there.

  A great circle, like the lid of a tin, and nothing alive or dead on it. No friendly tree to take rest under, and no waterbag to take a drink from.

  We should have provided ourselves with a waterbag, Mac. But how were we to know?

  That’s right. How?

  If we had of, we could have boiled the billy now and had a nice cuppa tea.

  What would we use for wood?

  Yeah, that’s right. Not even a bloody skerrick of wood about.

  A pair of green swagmen, they were.

  The green swagmen plodded on, with the silence far and wide around, broken only occasionally by Macauley’s whine or Regan’s whinge. The sun fell upon them hot with the heat of metal. Thirst had become a built-in boarder with a grievance long ago. He threatened to get them down. Only their hearts kept them up.

  Then Regan saw the tremendous sheet of water that was a mirage, but he didn’t know it then and only kicked himself for a town lout later; so did Macauley, for he came in on the illusion, too. They doubled their pace and skinned their eyes. Their mouths felt like an ant bed. Water – they couldn’t get it out of their heads. They talked water for miles, and their thirst increased with it, and their mounting thirst made them talk more water; they thought with delight of puddles and rain, and conjured up with acute clearness rivers and streams, cascades and waterfalls, the waterfront, boats building and people about drinking, swimming, sailing. They were reminded of pleasant places abroad, and tried to picture other places they thought they had seen in the magazines.

  They even saw moving objects in that mirage, visionary shadows: sometimes a large army of people, other times moving vehicles, and once what looked like a big ship.

  Their knowledge of geography was so poor and their enthusiasm so great that they started to con
jecture excitedly as to what great river this might be. Macauley said he thought it was the Barwon, but Regan said he thought the Barwon was in Victoria. His pick would be the Swan or maybe the Murray. The Murray most likely, since it was the longest river in the world, so long in fact it met itself coming back. They plucked out of the geography of New South Wales all the names they had read and all the names they had heard, and Macauley finally settled for the Murrumbidgee. But Regan had changed his mind. It wasn’t a river at all. It was the great inland sea he had been hearing so much about. And his great worry then was whether it would be too salty to drink.

  Having come so far from where they first noticed the mirage it suddenly dawned on them that they hadn’t got a yard nearer the vast sheet of water. By now they were nearly dead for a drink of lovely water if only it could be, sapped by their torment, debilitated by the frenzy of their enthusiasm.

  Stumbling along, unable to talk and not wanting to, they were ready to drop when unexpectedly they came upon an artesian bore. Regan’s limbs behaved erratically. He dropped his swag, flung out his arms, and, standing in one spot, lifted his legs like a man pedalling a bicycle uphill.

  Look out, Lucky!

  Macauley pointed at the two large snakes. Regan’s legs worked again, only this time like a man pedalling a bicycle downhill.

  They let the snakes slide away to safety, as there was neither stick nor stone nor anything else to kill them with.

  Regan dipped the billy into the dam into which the water flowed from the pipe and rushed it into his mouth. He jerked, dropped the billy and sprayed it in all directions.

  It’s bloody boiling! He shouted. What the hell is this? Are we jonah’d or something?

  Macauley put his hand gingerly in the water.

  Ghost, she’s hot all right.

  Nearly scalded me gob off, that’s all.

  Macauley saw water running out of the dam along a bore drain. They followed it down some distance until they got it cool enough to drink. They poured bellyfuls of it over their heads. They gulped it greedily. In a while their bellies were leaden footballs. They belched and rumbled.

  God, Mac, that water – you don’t think it was poisoned?

  They use it to water the stock, I heard.

  Stock? What do you mean – rabbits?

  No, cattle, horses, sheep. That’s what them drains are for – they carry the water. That’s what I reckon, anyway.

  But Lucky Regan wasn’t convinced. They poisoned waterholes to kill rabbits. He knew about that. And it wasn’t long before he communicated his fears to Macauley.

  I’m getting twisty pains in the guts, he reported. You getting them?

  Yeah.

  Regan stood up, wincing, grasping his bloated stomach. His eyes were wild.

  I tell you, Mac, we’ve got a gutful of arsenic in us.

  By God, you might be right.

  Macauley stood up, too, grimacing, snarling, clutching his abdomen.

  Just like the way your bowels knot up after a feed of porridge, he said.

  But Regan wasn’t interested in further identification. With panicky resolve he was thrusting his fingers down his throat, gagging and retching until he was sick. Macauley did the same. Both of them stood bent over giving the bore drain back its water.

  After that, weak and wet-eyed, they lay down with their heads on their swags, their hats over their faces, and went to sleep.

  Macauley woke first with the chill of shadow on him. The sky was overcast, all in a yeasty motion of sombrous hues ever darkening the earth. The lightning jiggled, sharp and brilliant as a blind shooting up against daylight in a black room. The ground shook with the rumble of tumbling thunder. The wind whuddered across the waste, scattering the roly-poly not unlike a lot of sheep making a stupid run for it. The resemblance was made more real the way one or two of the polys blew over the top of another.

  Regan was awake now and surveying the cheerless environs with a look of incredulous disbelief.

  Strike a light, anyone’d think we busted a mirror over a black cat on Friday the thirteenth. I think it’s time I give my bloody name anyway.

  No good of stopping here, anyway. Come on.

  All they could do was keep moving. They must strike a town some time. The rain came with a few big drops, a hesitant rehearsal; then they heard it roaring over the plain, and saw it coming, a wall of grey between sky and earth.

  It was all right for a while. They joked.

  Who’s moaning for a drink now?

  Drink? This is no drink, Mac. This is a deluge. If I open me trap I’ll flounder.

  But they were soon in trouble. The road underfoot became greasy slime that changed to gluey sludge. It gripped their boots and plastered itself there in a cementy clog. It spread itself wide and thick on the soles and heels till they looked to be wearing mud snowshoes. Their feet grew heavier to lift, their walk became slower and clumsier. They were like flies on treacle. After a few hundred yards they were glad to stop and dig the stuff away with a penknife.

  The rain was gone now, the wrath of an hour, and the sky was clear with a dustless purity. The sun was still hot, but the black soil seemed to become more sticky as it dried. Macauley and Regan began to grow several inches in height. The growth was picked up more on the heel than on the sole and gave them a slight tilt forward, after the fashion of a tall woman in very high-heeled shoes. Their soles became pads again, twelve inches wide. It made walking an agony, then an impossibility until they freed themselves of it once more.

  Macauley was taking several hard kicks with the back of his heel against the toe of his other boot when suddenly the stilty mud heel, hard and pointed, came flying off and struck Regan on the shin-bone. It took the skin off and bled him. He gripped his leg with a curse and sat down. His seat dried like a black patch but with the stiffness of cardboard.

  ‘When are we going to have some dinner?’

  The same road, the christening road, the breaker-inner, but a pushover now; a pushover for a long time: and here he was walking it again seventeen years later with a kid of his own tagging along – a kid of his own tagging along like a bloody fish hook in his side. Who would have believed it? And what a ratbag situation, what a story to make the old hens in the giggle-house laugh.

  ‘I want my dinner.’

  ‘What the hell are you grizzling about?’ Macauley demanded.

  ‘I want some dinner.’

  ‘You’ll get it when I’m ready.’

  The kid didn’t say anything, and Macauley felt the tightness leave his jaws. He said gruffly. ‘You can walk a bit further, can’t you?’

  ‘All right,’ the kid said.

  Macauley suited himself. Another hundred yards was far enough to satisfy him, to show the child who was boss.

  ‘Okay, we’ll boil the billy. I’ll tell you what you do. See them thistles?’

  ‘Which? Them big ones there?’

  ‘Not them. They’re growing. See all those rotten ones on the ground? Well, them. But I want the biggest stalks you can find, see? Not the little stuff. Righto – and hurry up.’

  He dropped the swag, took out tin plates and tin mugs from the tuckerbag. He glanced up to see how his helper was getting on, and the kid had vanished. At least that was how it appeared. In his squatting position Macauley couldn’t see her, but when he stood up he saw the small figure lying on its stomach behind a four-foot-high clump of thistle.

  ‘Hey!’

  The cabbage-tree hat turned. ‘There’s a funny thing here dad; it’s got a striped jumper on and an awful lot of legs. Come and see it.’

  ‘What about them thistles?’ he barked.

  The kid stood up. ‘I’m getting them.’

  ‘Ah, you’re next to useless. I could have the billy boiled while I’m talking to you.’

  It took him only a few minutes to gather the biggest of the sun-dried stalks and stack a fire. The glare of daylight was so great that the flames were almost invisible, but they licked up after the fumous haze and
the hot dry wind fanned them. Soon he had a tight, low-set fire burning with gusty energy.

  The thistles were the wood of this wilderness.

  He opened the tuckerbag and took out a hunk of corned beef and a loaf of bread and some tomatoes. He sliced two rounds off the bread, stabbed each in turn with a long three-pronged fork made from fencing wire and stood them like hoardings against the fire. He buttered the toast and put the lid back on the jar, and put a piece on each plate with meat and halved tomatoes. The billy was singing, a little thrum, and the seething strings of bubbles were starting upwards.

  ‘Hey, I thought you said you were hungry.’

  ‘I am, too.’

  ‘Well, it’s ready.’

  The kid dawdled across the cakey ground, staring fascinated at her hand. She lowered it in front of Macauley.

  ‘Look, dad.’

  ‘It’s a caterpillar.’

  ‘Will they hurt you?’

  ‘No. But don’t go picking things up. You might get bitten by something.’

  ‘Can I keep him?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  The child’s eyes glowed with pleasure. She threw her arms round his neck and kissed his hat with exuberance. ‘Gee, thanks, you’re a good daddy.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ he grunted. ‘Get stuck into your tucker.’

  He threw a handful of tea into the boiling billy, and lifted it off the fire with the toasting fork under the handle, and left it to draw by his feet. The kid ate hungrily, absently watching the tea leaves floating and sinking.

  ‘What do you feed him on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The caterpullar. Do they eat bread?’

  ‘Leaves.’

  Macauley poured out the tea, the colour of syrup, and sugared it. He gingerly sipped. The kid waited for hers to cool. She had the caterpillar in the pocket of her overalls, and from time to time held it open to make sure that the grub was still there.

  While they ate in the hot sun with the bush flies getting in for their cut, too, an old bundle of a man came down the road from the west. Macauley watched him approaching and recognised him at once for what he was, a flat country bagman, a type on his own.