Benang Page 18

  It was as if they had rehearsed. Each moved his gaze to the other’s face, and then, perfectly synchronised, Daniel and Patrick slowly and, yes—sheepishly—turned around.

  The boy. In a pose which echoed their own. The room of men roared, and cheered; they laughed as the boy was knocked down.

  The homestead was dark, and the roof low. Music bounced within the close walls like a vicious wind.

  Sandy Two thought he could smell each and every person, and the rum most of all, disguising the stale air of the room.

  A group of men sat tightly together, their charcoaled faces grinning starkly, with a sign— Black and White Minstrels—at their feet. His father was dressed in women’s clothes and had pumpkins stuffed down the front of his shirt.

  There was a photographer. You had to stay still, and not grin. Sandy One sat on Patrick Coolman’s knee, and they embraced like man and wife. Sandy swung his leg, and kept dropping his gaze, giggling.

  They sat in chairs arranged in a half-circle in front of the sign, Tavern, and the men had dressed in dinner suits. Charcoal-blackened faces showed their teeth, and rolled their eyes.

  Someone grabbed Sandy Two.

  ‘The kid. Sandy’s kid.’

  ‘Here, you.’

  ‘Give him a drink.’

  ‘C’mon, let’s whiten him up, eh.’

  Dressed in a man’s shoes and coat, ridiculously large on him, Sandy Two bent his shadow-thin legs akimbo, and—nestling the violin in beside his big grin—imitated the two violinists.

  ‘Crikey, keep the women out of the bloody photo but. Who let them in?’

  ‘No. Not youse, not now. Get out of it.’

  Someone snarled, and took a half-hearted swing at two women who had come into the circle.

  There was a piano accordion, and two, three violins. Sandy One, flaunting his huge breasts and lifting his skirts, danced. His son copied the gestures and postures of the two actual violinists so well they almost thought he played, too.

  Everyone is laughing, and the women at the doorway shriek and bend wildly at the waist.

  Sandy Two sounds the strings with his bow.

  Stark grins in blackened faces.

  The photographer hides beneath his black cloth. Five legs, one eye. Everyone is still, and the world whirls around Sandy Two; voices, laughter, music rushing away in a vast circle as the centre of silence grows and grows.

  A blinding flash, and they are set in motion once more.

  Over the next few days they did scenes for the camera again and again.

  The boss, with a holstered revolver at his hip, leans on a reclining camel and looks into the distance. He wears jodhpurs, and a pith helmet. Sandy Two, in loincloth, stands at the camel’s head, holding its reins.

  The men wanted photographs of themselves being attacked by the blacks, but the only possible male attackers on the station were very old and it was difficult to get them to participate, let alone look ferocious enough.

  A boss bathing in one of the granite pools. On the rock towering above him stands Sandy Two, and, at the very top, out of focus, his naked and charcoaled father, holding a spear, and with one foot reluctantly resting on the arch of the other.

  The homestead, what was it? Low, flat, stone and iron. There exists a surprising photo of the yard; timber stacked neatly, a stone wall in the background, three horses and a camel hitched to a flat wagon, upon which sits a dark boy. My Uncle Sandy Two.

  What makes the photo unusual for one of the era is that the figures in it seem caught unawares, and have not had time to strike a pose. Two women by the front wheel are laughing at one another. The boy has swivelled on his seat, and stares down the lens. Two definitely white men in the foreground, very shabby and dirty, glare angrily at the camera, and one of them steps toward us.

  And so it was with little Jack Chatalong, who was forever stepping forward, stepping up to have his say. He talked and talked, as he also did much later in his long life when he sat by campfires in those dunes, and came to say even the hardest of things, put them into words—his words. But we have met him as a tiny boy, and already explaining things...

  Patrick? Patrick Coolman? The man had gone, left his wife, in-laws, his twin brother as well.

  And Dinah would not let go of the dead baby.

  Sandy Two stayed with Fanny and the children at their camp, and the old man took the woman and dead child into Wirlup Haven. The medical officer sent them on to Gebalup.

  They had to lay her in the shade of a tree in the hospital grounds. Someone took the baby away. The Resident Medical Officer sent a woman to them with a tent.

  ‘It’s his own,’ she told Sandy. ‘He’s not supposed to treat people in a tent, but she can’t go into the hospital. It affects the other patients.’

  Sandy One erected the tent.

  ‘She’s not well, is she?’ said the woman. ‘I’ll look after her, and keep the doctor informed. Off you go.’

  Sandy One met his family before he got to the camp. They came together, under the telegraph wire, and Jack Chatalong was suddenly quiet. They were already so accustomed to his voice, his constant voice, that the absence of it was a shock, and a pleasure. In the new silence they heard the trees, and the telegraph wire whining in the wind.

  ‘We knew,’ said Jack, as we sat around a campfire so long after that event, but touching it because we shared the place again. ‘We thought she would die. Pop—Sandy—he complained to the Health Board, and we ended up making trouble that way. They wouldn’t let Fanny see her, even, and Harriette got there once, but Daniel stopped that, and well ... Dinah, my mother, she disappeared and I didn’t see her again until Mogumber.’

  to the chief protector of aborigines

  Sir,

  I think it would be advisable for me to inform you of the exact facts in the case of the half-caste woman, Dinah.

  When she arrived here I made efforts to obtain someone to look after her; she was in such pain that she could not go further than the site of the camp and it was not appropriate to take her to the police station. No one would undertake the nursing of her, save her mother, and the community here does not take kindly to that woman walking the streets by day. However a midwife here was good enough to say that she would supervise the mother’s ministrations, and ensure she did not loiter too long.

  There was really no one but myself took the least interest in her until it occurred to a man in the town that the hospital buildings could be utilised, and an outburst of vicarious charity was the result. I gave the woman my own tent. I gave her also a stretcher; the department has supplied her with a good mattress and sheets.

  When the matter was suddenly broached before the Gebalup Medical Board meeting at which I was accused I was annoyed to find the suggestion implied that the woman was not properly attended to, but I welcome a suggestion of someone appropriate properly nursing her (full-time); and I was most indignant when the members of the Health Board met and considered the matter. I would remind you that the treatment of Aborigines in tents was a definite instruction from you that doubtless you will remember I was not in love with. The complaints of the Medical Board, and the man Mason, I consider absolutely uncalled for.

  The procedure was improper.

  The woman absconded from the hospital grounds and has not been heard of since.

  Sir, I am your obedient servant.

  Walter Wigglesworth

  Medical Officer

  Gebalup.

  A note pencilled at the bottom of this document:

  We have her receiving rations at Kylie Bay.

  Cuddles

  Constable Hall received a telegram from Frederickstown:

  Jock Mustle’s store Yarramoup robbed Barney Cuddles suspected heading East keep watch stop.

  There was a comprehensive list of what had been taken:

  one twelve-shot winchester

  knife

  milk

  tobacco

  shirt

  rug

  one p
air of spectacles

  moleskin pants

  under flannels

  salt herring.

  An expensive telegram, thought Hall.

  Constable Hall went out to the camps, and to the mines. He noted that there were no natives camped. So far so good. He visited the homesteads, gathering information. Barney Cuddles had been born at one of the Mustles’ stations. He was trouble. Everyone knew that, said the Mustles.

  Sandy One passed on to Constable Hall the rumour that Cuddles had cleared out westward, along the coast. Constable Hall thought he had heard the same thing elsewhere. He asked for the use of Mason’s son, just this one last time. He felt confident it would stand the boy in good stead should he find himself in any sort of trouble, later. They both knew what young fellas were like. Hall could turn a blind eye.

  His tracker, that Cuddles, had cleared out on him. Yep, same name as the villain. Blood ties, maybe. He knew Sandy Two could track as good as anyone, and that he was a pretty reliable boy. Hall didn’t add that he’d been unable to find anyone else.

  And then there was the matter of the two children he’d found (what were their names? Kathleen? Jack?). Constable Hall felt that legally, they should be sent to an institution.

  ‘There is,’ he said, and then feigned his own reluctance to enact it, ‘you know, this new legislation.’

  Sandy One Mason was affected by drink even at this time of day. But he knew what Hall was getting at. ‘Yeah, well my Sandy is more than just a boy, you know,’ insisted Sandy One. ‘But yeah, he can do it. To help you out. But remember,’ he added, ‘he’s not one of your wild trackers.’

  Hall agreed, yes, with what Mason said. By Christ, he knew the young man could track. And he certainly needed someone.

  Constable Hall and Sandy Two met Jock Mustle before they reached his homestead. Mustle was a heavy man, with a dark beard sprouting from his ruddy cheeks and neck. He sat securely in the saddle, a rifle along his thigh. ‘Constable Stewart,’ said Mustle as he led them back to the station, ‘is waiting for you.’ He told them Stewart had set out from Frederickstown with a tracker, but the man had disappeared on the way. ‘It’s the way of these people,’ Mustle said, barely glancing at Sandy Two who had been forced behind the two men as they proceeded along the track.

  Jock said he’d known this Cuddles’ mother and, what’s more, he reckoned he’d known the father, some wastrel he’d once employed as a shepherd. ‘The worst sort of white man,’ he said, ‘a terrible drunkard; it’s the only kind who’ll live with these women. He lived with the mother for a couple of years. This Cuddles, he fancies himself. A bit of an education, from his father, and some ideas that he’s as good as, if not better than, anyone else.’

  Cuddles had tried to kidnap a girl from the homestead a couple of days ago. ‘One of the house girls. Of course she was screaming, she didn’t want to go with him. Luckily I was only as far away as the shed. I scared him off. But, I tell you, it’s no secret, he’s dangerous.’ Jock muttered, ‘He’s a mad, uppity bastard. I’ll shoot him if I come across him.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s alone,’ said Constable Stewart, as the two lawmen settled for sleep in the big house, ‘and that we see him first.’

  Jock Mustle had refused to let Sandy Two into the homestead.

  ‘Let him go down to the blacks’ camp. Or, what about the verandah? You won’t be held up in the morning then.’

  They would leave tomorrow, and hunt the man down.

  Over the next days Sandy led Hall and Stewart to various native camps. The two policemen lay on their bellies in the bush, watching, while Sandy Two cautiously circumnavigated the site. When the two policemen were sure Cuddles was not there, and that nothing was untoward, they went on their way.

  Once or twice, acting upon the advice of pastoralists, and sensing the value of surprise, they sprang upon camps in the dark of early morning, shooting into the air and shouting. Later, the constables laughed at the consternation they’d caused, and the cowardice they’d witnessed. It almost made up for the discomfort of having to get up so early. It was quite amusing, really.

  They found a sheep with its throat cut. Only the brisket had been taken. The men shook their heads over the carcass.

  Bah! Such waste. As was that Cuddles himself.

  The constables rode side by side, and their tracker behind. They were becoming great friends, and included Sandy Two in their games.

  ‘He’s a quiet one, isn’t he?’ said Stewart to Hall, as they watched Sandy pick up his saddle and self from where he’d fallen. Always the practical joker, Stewart had loosened the cinch.

  Sandy Two scouted ahead, looking for tracks. Sometimes he was away for half a day at a time.

  Flour, bacon, sugar, rum and ammunition had been stolen from a shepherd. There was the remains of a camp nearby; a cold fire, an empty bottle, and a pair of Jock’s trousers.

  At the occasional homesteads, heading west, people were very helpful. The country grew greener, the shrubs a little more above the earth. They reached yet another bay, where there was a telegraph station, and a ragged, windswept settlement. Cuddles had reportedly been sighted, and a horse stolen.

  ‘A Chinaman?’ the constables repeated, almost in unison. If not for the perpetrator they would not have concerned themselves. The victim had been camped with two Aboriginal women, and whisky, some gold cufflinks, a razor, and the belt from his trousers were taken.

  Cuddles had apparently yelled, ‘Ah Ling, I shoot you,’ and deliberately missed.

  Well, the constables agreed, the silly bastard had probably welcomed Cuddles in to help with the women. Serves him right. The policemen arrested him for being idle.

  ‘...and without visible means of support?’ suggested Sandy Two, smiling.

  ‘Yes,’ said the constables, nodding seriously at Sandy Two, as if noticing him anew. ‘Good man.’

  The policemen felt it would have been wrong to deny the women their primitive, but nonetheless gratifying, expressions of gratitude.

  The telegraph operator emerged from his tiny hut—which seemed to anchor the row of posts and wire which stretched away as far as they could see—and handed them a telegram. They were to return to their stations. Although the two men were relieved, they could not help cursing their inability to bring justice to bear upon this Cuddles blackguard. They consoled themselves as best they could before parting.

  ‘It should never have got this far in the first place.’

  ‘We need better laws to deal with these people.’

  ‘The trouble is too many do-gooders expecting too much too soon.’

  Sandy Two wanted to build a big and blazing campfire that night, but the constables prevented him.

  On the way back to Gebalup Constable Hall called into stations. It gave him some relief from the monotony of the trip, and he was still seeking information on Cuddles’ whereabouts. He shot a number of dogs at the camps, and felt rather coy with all those eyes upon him. Even where the pastoralists did not mention it, he enquired as to problems with dogs. It satisfied him, somehow, this punctuating of his return with dutiful bullets.

  Sandy Two left Hall at sunset, and an hour or two later the constable rode onto the potted and dusty street of Gebalup. He’d been almost two weeks camping in the bush, living like a savage, and now he wanted to bathe and shave. The previous night he had dreamt of a fresh-faced Cuddles, in coloured moleskins and glittering cufflinks, waving and grinning at him. It had been particularly unpleasant to wake up to Sandy Two’s sullen face across the ashes of a cold campfire.

  When he saw his tent collapsed in a heap, the sentimental would-be-writer Hall thought, my nest, my solitary little nest. He felt more let-down than the tent—not having appreciated how much he had longed for the familiarity of those canvas walls.

  He thought it must have been the wind, but the morning light revealed a small hole in the canvas, and confirmed that a revolver and some ammunition were missing.

  Having been deflated, Constable Hall no
w began to swell with righteous anger, and indignation. Cuddles had obviously been here while they were chasing an old trail through the sand, a couple of days away. Constable Hall felt quite violated and, although he couldn’t say it, not even to himself, he was hurt that no one had bothered to straighten things up for him. When he asked around, they all said they hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The tent had been up yesterday all right.

  And so when the telegram reached him: Cuddles seen Wirlup Haven stop; he did not stop at all but got both the horses and cleared out. Sandy One Mason was unloading his dray at the store, but he’d not seen his son yet, and so there was no help there. Hall turned to the son-in-law, Daniel Coolman.

  ‘Nah, haven’t seen the bugger.’

  It gave Constable Hall a little start to see Daniel Coolman’s woman (wife? Harriette?) brazenly glaring at him over a child’s shoulder. She was remarkably attractive, for a black. Her features unusually fine. The Chinaman’s women and the camps crossed his mind, briefly.

  As he was about to head out of town again the constable asked Sandy One about the whereabouts of the little children, the ones he claimed as grandchildren.

  ‘With an aunty. Their aunty’s looking after them.’

  Constable Hall told himself that he’d get back to that matter very soon. They couldn’t do that, just move their children wherever they liked. Legally they were wards of the state, and deserved every opportunity.