Chapter 8. East Toward Queensland; and The Perfect Campsite
Two days after their encounter with Sayd Kaseem, Simon Tyler and Alex Watts departed Alice Springs and drove northward. During the interim Watts had serviced the Toyota and made general preparations for four or five days in the field, while Tyler spent time at the Department of Mines, talking to the people there and doing some research.
Now they were on the move. After travelling seventy-two kilometres they came to where the Plenty Highway commences; there they turned east, toward Queensland.
Their first stop was to be the Bonya Community, some three hundred kilometres distant. Bonya was the nearest settlement to their area of interest and they were hopeful one of the traditional owners would be available. With luck the Senior Man himself might live there, though anyone familiar with that part of the country would serve their purpose.
Their arrival at the settlement’s front grid occasioned a great deal of excitement amongst the dogs gathered there. They’d been waiting in the shade of a nearby tree for one or another of their owners’ cars to return from hunting expeditions, and their delight at having a big Toyota to chase was boundless.
As Tyler found his way to the Community Office and Store they followed, barking happily and brawling over which of them would next heel the unfamiliar vehicle’s rear wheels. He pulled up near the store front, a short distance from where two eight-year old boys were wrestling in the dirt over kicking rights to a half-inflated football. The boys immediately dropped the ball and ran across, pausing only to hitch up their raggedy shorts and grab some stones to throw at the dogs.
Tyler told Watts to go in and ask who they should see, but Watts was wary of the dogs’ scurvied appearance and relentless barking. Both were relieved when the boys suddenly appeared and let fly their missiles.
The dogs retreated a short distance and the barking abated.
Watts wound down the window and said hello. At the same moment one of the older Community women came out of the store with a bag of purchases in each hand. As she went by the wagon Tyler wound down his window and asked who might be the Senior Traditional Landowner there.
The old woman just pointed at one of the houses with her chin and said, “Ol’ Twofoot; halfway thataway.” Tyler then drove the short distance to the dwelling indicated, an open-veranda brick house midway along a side street.
By this time the dogs had lost interest and were drifting back to the grid, leaving the men to alight without concern. On the veranda they found two more dogs occupying a mattress on the concrete floor. As Tyler knocked on the door each watched the other pair warily. When it eventually opened he greeted the old man with enthusiasm.
Like many an elderly Aboriginal bushman, Twofoot Jack was as lean and wiry as a well used stockwhip. A withered leg now restricted him to walking with a crutch, however, something not apparent as he stood in the partly open doorway.
As Tyler made introductions he assessed the two. They’d be wanting something, he decided. What, he couldn’t imagine.
Introductions over, Twofoot took his crutch from behind the door and hobbled out onto the veranda. After evicting the dogs with it he sat on the mattress and waited for the visitors to explain themselves, all the while taking their measure.
The beefy one called Tyler squatted on one knee to bring himself down to Twofoot’s level. He was a big man, head seemingly joined directly to shoulders, hand lens hanging from where his neck should have been. He was also sweating freely, despite the day being mild.
The fellow seemed friendly enough, however, and perfectly sincere, yet Twofoot couldn’t help feeling he was working hard to achieve just that. But there was something else about him, something faint and intangible, as if the air around him held the whiff of primeval violence, all brutal and uncaring. Twofoot waved away some flies and looked beyond Tyler to his companion.
Watts was lighter and smaller than Tyler and younger by four or five years, his dark hair short-cropped where Tyler’s was pale and thinning. As he leant against a veranda post he was amusing himself by snapping a longish dry twig into ever shorter pieces.
Twofoot didn’t concern himself with Watts’ hands, though; his eyes were the more revealing. Dark and beady they were, like the eyes of a venomous little snake, darting everywhere and missing nothing. And when he flicked out his tongue to moisten his lips the old man almost laughed out loud – and remained wary. He knew bush-hardened men when he saw them and these men were not bush-hardened. They were hard men all right; hard and self-serving.
Tyler too had made an assessment. He’d realised the importance of gaining the old man’s confidence, whatever the meeting’s outcome. Watts was sent back to the Cruiser to retrieve the extra goods they’d purchased as a show of good faith: frozen meat, bread and fruit, biscuits – and some tobacco and papers.
“We brought you some tucker and tobacco,” Tyler remarked as Watts handed Twofoot the shopping bag. Then in a friendly and concerned manner he said: “So tell us, Mister Twofoot; what was the misfortune that afflicted your leg so badly?”
Twofoot thanked them, then explained how he’d been lame for years. He’d been taken ill in his younger days, he said, and had spent a long time in the Alice Springs Hospital. “I was really crook, too. Polio the doctors reckoned. I got better all right – bye-an’-bye, but I couldn’t walk around much no more.
“I’m all right now though,” he added “I can get along a bit.” No mention was made of his believing the lameness to be Spirit-punishment, brought about for failing a special tribal responsibility.
Tyler then explained how he and Watts were from Coober Pedy on a scouting expedition for their Company. They wanted to look around the country south of Marshall Bar, he said, watching Twofoot closely. No matter how slight, any reaction to a sensitive area there would add weight to Sayd Kaseem’s story. Yet the old man seemed indifferent to the suggestion.
It then occurred to Tyler that Twofoot Jack was not the frail old man he’d first imagined and decided he should seek the bushman’s services. To that end he started a conversation about the early days at Jervois and asked about the miners’ conditions. Then, at an appropriate moment, he mentioned the names of Les McCullock and Wilbur Johns.
Twofoot was surprised. “So you know about them old-timers? Yeah, they were there, on old Hanlon’s show in the Unka Creek, where he dug out all that silver. They got plenty, too.
“Tom Hanlon and his mate were the first whitefellas to find the Jervois copper. It’s Attut’thurra country, see; where the budgerigars come from – the Attut’thurra. In the Dreamtime they flew out of the caves there and left all the green from their feathers. My father’s people knew the place all right, they just never told the whitefellas.
“How very, very, interesting Mister Twofoot,” Tyler said dryly. Then, as if by way of passing curiosity, he asked had any gold been found around the place.
“There’s gold at Arltunga and around the Winneke country back towards Alice Springs,” Twofoot told him, “but Jervois country is copper country. Old Hanlon got plenty of silver from his show in the creek but he never found any gold.”
Tyler then invited Twofoot to join them on tomorrow’s trip. He could act as their guide for the day, Tyler said. They would pay him well and provide everything he needed. He wouldn’t even have to get out of the car.
Twofoot declined, adding: “My son Jack Cadney will go with you. He knows that country; he’ll take you to Marshall Bar.”
Satisfied with the result Tyler stood up again, legs aching from the restricted circulation. He flexed his knees a couple of times and rubbed them, then bid the old pensioner farewell.
“That’s my boy’s house over there,” Twofoot said, waving in the general direction of where Cadney and his wife Angelica lived. “I’ll tell him what you want. You go to his place in the morning.”
Tyler thanked the old man for his help. They’d be back at eight, he said. He and Watts then returned to the Cruiser and drove away.
/> As soon as the vehicle was out of sight Twofoot grabbed his crutch and hobbled over to his son’s house. On the front veranda he eased himself into one of their plastic chairs, then leant his crutch against the table and shouted for Cadney to attend him.
Cadney appeared at the door a moment later. “What are you yackaing about now, old man? Are those ratbag kids chucking rocks on your roof again?”
Twofoot assured him they were not and said to come outside, as there was something important he wanted to talk about. When Cadney sat down the old man explained about the visitors and their plans. “They might find our secret place,” he concluded anxiously. “They might drive up the hill and walk all about.”
“Appoota Mbulkara” the outcrop was called. It was one of the most significant sites in all their tribal homelands.
Cadney knew how seriously his father regarded the place and was aware of his feelings about trespass – a duty that would fall on his own shoulders when the old man died. But Northern Territory and Federal laws had been enacted to safeguard such areas and those plus Appoota Mbulkara’s isolation made any risk to the site fairly minimal. He also realised – given his father’s circumstances – that in this instance it was reasonable and appropriate for Jack Cadney to deal with the issue.