Benang Read online

  The sudden coming to consciousness frightened Sandy One. He was being roughly shaken. The children stirred like larvae. Even in the darkness he could see the liquid of Fanny’s wide-open eyes. Again, the staring.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon get away from that gin for once. Come with us, we’ve got you a gun. There’s a horse ready.’

  It was dark, and cold enough for him to be grateful for the warmth of the horse. There were several men, all on horses, and all with guns.

  They rode without speaking. After a time they halted, and one man dismounted and disappeared into the night. He returned, and whispered for them to follow him.

  The gun metal was cold against Sandy One’s skin. He touched the barrel with his tongue, still tasted its bitter tang as he pressed the rifle against his shoulder. He thought he might fire upward, into the sky. Fanny’s words of ancestors—those bright and ferocious stars, isolated yet pulsing still—returned to him. Her warm breath.

  Now.

  Shots roared in the vast canyon of night the little hollow had suddenly become.

  Perhaps the stars had brightened; he could see figures leaping to their feet, helping one another up, running. And there were voices calling, calling. People fell, were shot. Were shot. A woman running at Sandy jerked, and was flung to the ground. In the little space between gunshots there was the sound of running feet, other bodies hitting the ground, screams and shouting. Small voices, too.

  Flame and explosions leapt from beyond the outstretched arms of a man beside him. A Winchester, almost the very latest thing. The man bent over bodies, lunging and hacking, faceless in the grim darkness.

  ‘They understand this.’

  In the glow of dawn, Sandy at first saw only his own breath, fogging his vision. But as a red stain spread upwards and across the sky the waxen faces of the other riders were bouncing all around him, seemed to be floating above their shadowless bodies. Small trophies of flesh were strung together and dangled from saddles. Sandy’s horse slowed. A darker face, beside him. Sandy kicked his horse after the others.

  When the wagon passed the tree the next morning, the bodies still hung from the tree. Crows sat on the shoulders. Some dingoes, licking the ground beneath and rearing on their hind legs, stared cheekily at the distant passage of my family.

  The shadow of that tree reaches toward us still. Its stain grows larger, darker; is deep in the earth.

  Even in darkness, and after, and even when it no longer stains the crusty skin, blood continues to seep down and down to water below. The paths we took have disappeared and been sealed, and yet at the very least we still skim, humming, along the scar tissue.

  That is not quite how I told it, then. But my two uncles were staring up at me, open-mouthed. Grandad’s eyes were closed.

  ‘How did you do that? How do you know that?’

  They shook their heads. The sticks around the glowing heart of the fire looked like thin limbs to me, like Uncle Will’s wrist even as he poked and rearranged them. The smoke rose, and I hovered within it, still awkwardly attached to the long scarf which held me to the log.

  Uncle Jack came back from having a piss. ‘Too much death; of course they were hemmed in by it. But tonight, we talked all the way west, then all the way east. We should stay here for a bit, for our stories. They came back here, anyway, when their children were grown-up. And Will was born, remember?’

  We drove back to our house the next day, and it was several days before we set off again. We rarely drove very far at a time, a few hours at the most, and Uncle Jack took us from camping place to camping place. We did this many times before he ever took me to visit my people.

  sandy two

  We went in among the trees and made a little fire, and smelled the sweet smoke, the salt in the air. We listened to the waves, and the leaves, whispering.

  I was thinking how when I was a little boy my father used to come home from his fortnight on the Main Roads. The first morning he was home we’d leave, come out this way.

  Uncle Will remembered it from his own childhood, and being here with Sandy Two. ‘Uncle Sandy,’ he said. ‘My mother Harriette’s brother.’

  ‘We been here forever, all along this coast. This is our country,’ said Uncle Jack, and then, turning to me, ‘For your family history, what story do we need next? Who do you wanna hear about?‘

  ‘My father, Daniel,’ said Uncle Will.

  ‘With all due respect, Will,’ Uncle Jack was looking right at him, ‘you never mixed that much with blackfellas, eh? Not as a man. Your father, Uncle Daniel, he was almost the same as Ern. No disrespect, you know what I mean.’

  Ern was with us, mute as always in his latter days, with that hangdog look he’d developed.

  ‘Even Sandy Two, what would he have told you? There’s things that are hard to say.’

  ‘Yeah, but Uncle Sandy, he was some horseman,’ Will said. There were things Will wanted to say, he wanted to be positive, he wanted to give praise. ‘An athlete; tall and wiry.’

  We used to yarn all night, then, me and the three old men. Well, it was Uncle Will and Uncle Jack, in their different ways, and me and Ern listening. Ern must’ve been learning all the time. I know I was.

  As we all relaxed I’d ease myself into the air, and hover like a balloon anchored by a fine line. I was more comfortable that way, but I feared to think what it meant: that I preferred to be let drift, and that it came so naturally to me.

  Drifting in the warm smoke, I looked down upon the fire far below me, its shape continually shifting. The moonlight showed paths leading through the dunes, and pale sand glimmering; that fine sand which holds the prints of anything, even a bird which might alight—just touching down, as it were—with one foot.

  The sea, like the fire, formed and reformed and out by the island—even at night—there was that blossoming; white, gone, white, gone white gone. Like what? Like ectoplasm, like breathing.

  Here.

  Here.

  Here.

  Sometimes the sky lightened so suddenly as the sun appeared out there that I felt as if my skull had opened, been peeled back, and I was gone, merged with that sky.

  Of course, a lot was empty vapid yarning. Familiarising ourselves. After all, I had brought them together after a very long time apart. But—this empty yarning—you might call it characterisation.

  So, Sandy Two? ‘Yeah, he was a horseman,’ said Uncle Will. ‘He was my hero. Is. Even when he was not much more than a boy he was better with horses than most men.’

  The teamsters gathered at Wirlup Haven. Sandy Two accompanied his father, and although just a boy he already worked the animals better than the old man. He had a ... a special skill. You could see it best when he was on horseback. His riding was more than the result of his athleticism. It was a measure of his sensitivity; he listened to the horse, and worked with it.

  When Mr Alexander Starr landed in Wirlup Haven with two fine buggy horses, and wanted them watered and exercised, he asked at the teamsters’ reserve.

  It was young Sandy Two’s job to drive the mob of team horses out to Done’s Swamp, and Starr opined that his horses should go also. They were expensive animals, he said, and he warned Sandy not to ride Maestro; the horse liked to chase kangaroos, and it would take the bit in its teeth and be away.

  Sandy, kicking an old Clydesdale along, glanced across at Maestro. The horse pranced, kicked, shook its mane. Sandy changed horses.

  They were almost at what had become known as Done’s Swamp when three kangaroos popped their heads above the scrub; they may even have winked before turning their backs and bounding across the sand plain. Maestro immediately took off after them, and what could Sandy do? The horse had bolted. Sandy Two laced his fingers in the horse’s mane, and—floating on its back—enjoyed the gallop.

  Sandy at last turned Maestro, sweat-drenched and winded, back toward the swamp. He took the horse into the water and washed it down.

  Old Alexander Starr was so pleased with the condition of his horses, and t
he care Sandy had apparently exercised, that he presented him with five shillings. A good day. At that time sixpence would buy a jug of beer, a packet of smokes or a good cigar.

  A Sunday. The teamsters gathered at the Wirlup Haven camping reserve. Horses munched at their feeders.

  Someone bet Sandy Two—in the way of people, when they gather and time is slow—that he could not put a bullet in a hat thrown into the air. While Sandy went to get a rifle, the others found a rock of the right size to tightly fill the hat. It seemed obvious, and they chuckled; a weighted hat would be much harder to hit than one gently floating to earth.

  At the report of the rifle the hat disintegrated. The exploding fragments of rock had blown it apart.

  The hatless one should have bought two hats, and given one to Sandy instead of just replacing his own. He complained that the boy wasn’t old enough to use a gun in such a public place. Isn’t there a law about them having guns? Especially here...

  Uncle Will used to yarn that way, trying the style of all the stories he’d read. All those westerns, those cowboy novels and the country and western music he’d immersed himself in, showed up again and again. It was what had failed him in his attempts at history, at helping Ern with the history. The impossibility of it. The difficulty of that style, his truth, and such a collaboration.

  I preferred Uncle Jack’s more circumspect tales. I knew of Sandy Two, from Hall’s Occurrence Books. I was particularly comfortable with the policeman Hall, because I knew his style and all his accounts were there on paper.

  Police Constable Hall, the very first policeman at Gebalup, liked to get away from the office. Office? It was a tent. I was ... He was ... It was all a bit intimidating, if you let it affect you. So he went out on the horse, on patrol. He intended to integrate that dutiful patrolling with some socialising. It was necessary to get to know people. And you never knew, it might be possible to pick up some tips, some hints, some advice; might even find some gold for his very own self.

  Of course there were not only miners living here. There were the old pastoralists: the Mustles, the Dones. There were the shopkeepers (why, there were more and more of them all the time, but the Starrs were still the shining lights). There was the telegraph office staff, and the harbour workers down at Wirlup Haven. And, of course, there were the indispensable teamsters, moving between here and there. Now, they really had to know the country. He’d met some, and he quite admired them. There were those twins, Daniel and Patrick Coolman. And an old man who dropped off a load of forage for the police horses (the Mustles had the contract); he seemed an interesting and likeable character with his kangaroo skin shoes, his clicking tongue, and that sandy-coloured hair and beard. The aptly named Sandy Mason. Or, Sandy One, as he appeared to be known. The constable would have to ask him about his relationship—his arrangement—with that half-caste lad who helped him unload. There might be trouble there. There had been new legislation hinted at which would require that he take out a permit to employ the boy.

  The constable did his rounds. He attended meetings in the town, and was occasionally invited to soirees, and various entertainments that genteel folk arranged. He did not, however, present recitals or such himself. It would not do, given his public profile and duty. After all, a certain distance is required for the proper exercise of authority.

  Secretly, however, he fancied that he might become a writer. He was practising the habits of a writer, with each daily entry in the Occurrence Book. In this, however, he was restricted to an official role. He wrote as the police constable, about the police constable. Constable Hall ... he would write.

  This strange third person, always present with any writer and reader.

  Whatever the intricacies of the writing and reading situation (Where and who were all these people when he re-read his own work?), it never failed to give him a particular joy to write Everything Correct and in Order. After public meetings he could not help but smile as he formed the words, a good number of persons were present and all past quiet and orderly.

  They were lovely words. At such times it was a lovely world.

  Of course he was lonely, and sometimes full of doubt. But it would not do to dwell on it. There was too much to be done. It was what they were all engaged in here, in various ways; taming, controlling, elevating the whole bloody country so that it might achieve its potential and become part of the civilised world.

  When he dismounted for an interview, friendly-like, or exited his hessian office, he would discreetly turn his hands so that his finger pads touched the cuff of his uniform, and he would give the gentlest of tugs, tidying its set on his heavy shoulders. He was like a cockatoo preening itself, adjusting its wings. And, it’s true, although the good fellow did not know it of himself, he did like to move his arms about as if he were flexing his wings, and he would glance about as he did so, tilting his head and looking along his nose at what captured his attention. His eyes were small and round, and rarely blinked. Constable Hall’s hair had greyed prematurely and his beard, despite being well-groomed and shaped quite square, always seemed rather dirty and stained. Perhaps it was nicotine, or the careless eating habits induced by solitary meals.

  He liked his rounds to include the public houses, especially the Federal, just out of the townsite and a staging point between Gebalup and Wirlup Haven. And he found that he liked to visit some of the teamsters’ camps.

  Sandy One Mason’s was furthest out, closest to the coast, and on the Mustles’ pastoral run. He got there infrequently, but it was always a novelty to listen to the old man. The old fellow’s voice clicked strangely, and he worked his tongue between his teeth whenever he paused for breath. Constable Hall was glad those Coolman twins had moved into town, although he worried there would be problems with their wives. Two half-caste sisters.

  At least Mason stayed out of town. A strange fellow. His woman was a full-blood.

  Constable Hall knew he had been posted to Gebalup as the first-ever policeman because of concerns about the enthusiasm with which the Mustles, Dones and others had dealt with the natives. Even he had heard of the zealousness with which they had gone about their licensed and official task of punishing resident natives after the murder, many years back, of one of the town’s pioneering brothers.

  There were very few natives in the area now, except for these women and their children. It was a worry, obviously; the potential nuisance of them.

  ‘My tracker’s done a runner,’ Constable Hall told Sandy One.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There’s no one else, not yet.’

  ‘Look,’ said Sandy One, ‘is it you I see about a miner’s lease, and whether I’ve made the improvements or not? Whether I can renew it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hall spoke slowly. ‘I have influence, that way.’

  ‘Look, take the boy. He can track as good as anyone around here. His mother and the mob at Dubitj Creek, they showed him how when he was a littl’un.’

  Constable Hall didn’t glance at Fanny but her image—dark, and featureless—came to him with the words— Fanny: Aboriginal—inscribed beneath it. His trained mind, see.

  ‘How much you pay?’ asked Sandy One.

  Constable Hall hesitated, which was very unlike him in the course of his duties. But this was a most novel situation.

  ‘Usually, trackers,’ he said, ‘well ... they’re black.’

  It was awkward, this reluctance to acknowledge that the boy was a black, like any other black.

  ‘So ... he gets nothing.’

  Constable Hall noticed the woman (Fanny, wasn’t it?) staring at him over the shoulder of her boy. What was she at? Even her stare was in a different language.

  ‘We’d like to help you out,’ said the old man. ‘Take him.’ He spoke from within that flamboyant beard. Hall could tell the man believed it was a generous act. ‘Take Sandy,’ and he gestured at the boy. ‘That’s his name, remember, same as me. We call him Sandy Two!’

  ‘I’ll be in in a few days, I’ll pick him up then.�
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  ‘We wanna help you out. He can go with you now.’

  The boy looked keen and seemed ready to go immediately. He moved away to gather a few things. He was about thirteen years old, the constable guessed. A wiry, thin boy. His hair was light, almost blond, but he was undoubtedly half-caste, whatever his father might claim. Still, it just showed you. How quickly they could adjust.

  See, with some things, Constable Hall was quite free of doubt and not at all alone.

  ‘It’d be good for the boy,’ said Sandy One, seemingly speaking to the constable. Hall guessed, however, that he also spoke to the woman and boy.

  ‘You might even learn something yourself.’ The old man broke in on Constable Hall’s thoughts.

  ‘Snails good ones for learning,’ said the woman. Constable Hall stared at her. Fanny. It was what they were all called. She held herself very straight and erect and returned his gaze, the constable thought, with defiance. Or something very like it.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, thinking, ‘What?’

  She dropped a piece of gristle into the fire, and crouched before it once again.

  ‘Morning time is best, when their trails are nice and glistening.’ She was smiling. At him? With him?

  The boy had rejoined them. He placed a small bundle behind the saddle of the constable’s horse.

  Constable Hall had an uncomfortable premonition. It was merely the uncomfortable part that registered with him at the time, and that only faintly. The boy might be difficult. He was not at all shy the way most of them were. A white boy indeed.

  He (Sandy ... Two?) was pointing to a group of trees. His finger was not quite straight, as if it were echoing the arc of a small throw.

  ‘Look, there, in the shade. See? You follow that one.’

  Sandy Two led the constable over to the spot. Constable Hall bent at the knees. Yes, he could see it, a barely opaque trail running across some pebbles and a few blades of grass. He followed the glistening line, moving very slowly, his eyebrows low with concentration. It was a tiny path all right, already losing moisture and fading. He had that sense of the excitement you feel when your perception is suddenly enlarged. The trail went this way, that, went among some small rocks in the still moist undergrowth beneath a tree. There were no further signs of it. The constable lifted a hand slowly, placed it upon the rock, and