Chapter 10. The Experienced Stockman; and Not Being Overly Truthful
Twofoot Jack was just nineteen when his father died. Despite being the younger of Wagonwheel’s two boys he was the tribally designated heir and had, during the preceding year, received much instruction in the responsibilities of guardianship. The old man had done this because of a pain he’d suffered occasionally and a premonition he’d had, but in secret, as Twofoot was younger than custom approved.
By the time of his passing the old fellow’s sons were skilled and experienced stockmen. Each had started on MacDonald Downs Station aged fifteen, and both were soon regarded highly enough to be sought out come mustering time.
Then two years after Wagonwheel’s death came record rains. All through the first half of summer rank upon rank of towering clouds and great day-long downpours had marched across the land, inundating the vast Central Australian plains.
Nobody had seen anything like it. Creeks flowed where none were thought to exist. Windmills were felled, tanks and troughs were washed away, rivers overflowed their banks and roads, tracks and fences were obliterated. A few station homesteads were flooded, too, some quite unexpectedly.
Wagonwheel’s boys were working on Huckitta Station at the time. They waited there with their wives and extended families for the rain to clear, then after the waters had receded and the yards and fences were repaired (and with the weather remaining mild), they’d set off walking, first to Marpata Waterhole, then to Yam Creek and then down the Marshall River toward their spiritual home.
And life was good – clear trickling water, bush tucker everywhere, abundant game … and waterholes like small lagoons. There were even fish in the streams, unseen in living memory for this part of the country, not even mentioned in tribal legends.
But soon it was mid summer and with that had come change: week upon week of heat so relentless that the search for bush tucker and the men’s all-day hunting trips became acts of desperation. And when milder weather did finally arrive it lasted barely a month, swept away on the chill wind of winter, its ice cold nights and bone-numbing mornings.
Small game hid from the waterless frost; kangaroos drifted off to find better grazing. Yet such was the circle of life: when summer’s storms came again the cycle would start over.
—Except that no storms came. And by November’s end, when the really hot days returned, the waterhole was dry and the hunting was lean. Even then no one wanted to leave; the country here was their home and heartland.
Every day they’d go out digging lizards and yams and hope for rain, and every day life would become a little more difficult.
And not just for them. Last summer’s grass was now tinder dry and the hot days brought fat afternoon storms, all lightning and thunder and empty threats of rain. Storm-sparked wildfires ravaged the countryside, depriving all that survived them of food, from insects and bush mice to the topmost predators.
A few kangaroos still came in for water. Most had gone and many had died, while those still there were often weak from hunger. Some would satisfy their thirst then hop away listlessly to a patch of shade, too exhausted to go farther. And if Twofoot’s group had not kept the soakage open then more would have perished from lack of strength to do so themselves.
Sometimes the men would come on a kangaroo too weak to get up. The meat was dry and tough but all were glad to have it.
Then one day Twofoot told everyone they would soon have to leave. The skies would remain clear, he said, and too much delay could have dire consequences. They would follow the Bonya Creek upstream until the Jervois Ranges came into view and then strike north to Unka Rockhole. If Unka was dry they’d go to the mines, then on to Huckitta Station. At Huckitta they’d try for work but if none was available they’d go west to MacDonald Downs. There he and Walkabout could always find employment.
Then later that afternoon a young Aboriginal boy rode in with a team of horses. The adults recognised Sayd from when he was a child but Sayd did not remember them. As he pushed past the camp and down to the soakage they called his name and waved, and Sayd smiled and waved back.
Half an hour later Les McCullock and Wilbur Johns arrived in their old army truck, and the men went over to greet them. McCullock handed his tobacco tin around so they could roll themselves a smoke each, then told of hearing on the bush telegraph that they were at Marshall Bar. “We brought some extra supplies in case you’re going short of tucker,” he said, then explained about their prospecting plans.
While they were yarning Johns climbed onto the truck and handed down the provisions: two bags of flour, tea and sugar, dried salt-meat and a bag of excess oranges from the Lucy Creek citrus trees.
That night the families had a feast; the next morning McCullock and Johns rode south.
The old man stopped talking to cough a little. Cadney stood up and half filled his father’s mug with water. When he sat down again he slid it across the table. Twofoot took a couple of mouthfuls, cleared his throat then leant back in the chair and continued with his story.
Each day for a week the men rode out, then at sunrise the following day Sayd started homeward with the horses. McCullock and Johns soon followed, but first called at Twofoot’s camp to drop off the remainder of their provisions and say cheerio. Twofoot waited until they’d finished their smokes and were ready to leave before asking his question.
“Straight in my two eyes that old whitefella looked,” he said. “‘Nothing,’ he told me. ‘Just sand and spinifex.’ But what he said made no difference. I had to walk out there and see for myself if they’d found Appoota Mbulkara and the gold.”
It was a bad time to be going, with bush tucker nonexistent and the soakage pit dry. It meant having to carry a billy of water and some cooked meat and damper. He wouldn’t be there for long, though. He’d just confirm the matter one way or the other and head straight back. Walkabout could manage everything while he was away but it wouldn’t be for long.
That night Twofoot slept until midnight and when the moon came up he set off. Sunrise found him approaching the white quartz reefs; on reaching there his worst fears were confirmed.
The prospectors had found the gold and their tracks were everywhere. In a couple of places they’d dug into the seam and taken pieces of rock.
Next he checked the rabbit-hole cave. That was untouched; their special things were safe.
This was no surprise. Neither had shown much interest in their artefacts and there was no reason to dig there anyway. Heavy in heart Twofoot started back to Marshall Bar.
After going a short distance he came on McCullock and Johns’ horse tracks. The pair had been lucky; they’d found the gold riding back to camp on their last day out.
Good luck for the whitefellas, Twofoot thought bitterly. Bad luck for Appoota Mbulkara.
“I was proper angry, too,” he added. “All over our secret place they’d walked. Everywhere! And after everything ol’ grandad did to hide the gold they’d found it anyway. But they’d only taken a couple of pieces, and all I could think was that it must have been late and they had to keep going. Then they went back to Jervois because they were getting short of tucker.
“There was no way I was going to leave after that, of course, because I knew they’d be back – not that I could have done anything to stop them. But no one saw them go by. We were camped at Cockatoo Rockhole and only found their tracks later, horses first then the truck. ―Pack horses this time, too.
“McCullock and Johns stayed out there; by sundown Sayd had the team back and was watering them at the soakage.
“Ten days the weiye waited and the next day he was gone. Late afternoon they all were back again, pack horses, swags and everything. They camped at the gum tree that night then left for Jervois the next day.
“A couple of days later we-mob went too. I thought a really bad dry-time was coming and I wanted everyone closer to the station country. McCullock had said there was water at Unka Rockhole so we headed for there.
“Then
three or four weeks later the whitefella Johns disappeared. ―Just … vanished. Course pretty soon the Harts Range copper turned up with his tracker and started asking a lot of questions, then he had McCullock take him around all the workings so he could check the shafts and old trenches. They didn’t find anything, though.
“He had no idea about the gold, of course, and it would have been bad for McCullock if he had. See from what I heard later the copper was certain McCullock had killed him. McCullock swore that he hadn’t, though, and with nothing to prove otherwise it all eventually died down.
“In the end there were no answers, and nothing ever turned up later. Whatever had happened, Johns was gone. Never seen nor heard of again. —Same with the gold they took. Most likely he buried it somewhere.
“And talk about being wrong about the weather! Not long after he went missing some big storms came through and we moved back to Marshall Bar.”
Before Cadney could comment Twofoot closed his eyes and started singing again, so he held his tongue. He knew how immensely significant Appoota Mbulkara was to the old man, both in the spiritual sense and tribally, and realised how his father must be feeling in revisiting those events. But his voice sounded odd. There was a tremor to it he’d not heard before.
The singing abruptly stopped. “McCullock came back, of course,” Twofoot went on. “Twice he turned up at Marshall Bar, him in the truck with their gear and Sayd with some horses.
“But it was after the storms so all their tracks were gone. The country looked different, too; the spinifex seed was high and the bushes and trees were thick with new leaves. They could have ridden right past the place without even knowing.
“And we were back at Cockatoo Rockhole that first time and I missed him going past again. We were home when they turned up the second time, though. McCullock came over to say g’day, and while we were having a smoke asked if I knew of a hill out in the spinifex with two really white quartz reefs.”
Twofoot chuckled briefly then grew solemn again. “I did the same as him, just like that old whitefella did to me. I looked straight at him two-eye and said I’d never heard of the place.
“He wasn’t very happy about it. ‘I thought you blokes were supposed to know the country backwards,’ he said.
“‘Down there is just desert,’ I told him. ‘It’s proper perishing country! Who’d want to go down there?’
“And then McCullock asked me…” Twofoot fell back in his chair, suddenly laughing fit to cry. “… he asked … Would I ride out with them and help find it!”
Cadney joined the laughter. The picture it conjured was so ludicrous and until then Twofoot had been so serious.
Eventually the old man’s hilarity subsided enough for him to continue. He sat up again and wiped his eyes with a shirt sleeve.
“‘—Righto boss,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you want. Yes, I’m only too happy to help.’
“Course McCullock would have known the hill was some sort of special Aboriginal place because he’d lived out bush half his life. He wouldn’t have given it too much thought, though. Whitefellas never did in those days. To him it would have looked like an abandoned corroboree ground, like somewhere the old fellas danced a bit when there was bush tucker about. Nothing more than that.
“But as you know, Appoota Mbulkara is low and melts into the trees, even from halfway close up. Two times we rode past there not-too-far and McCullock never noticed. The second time we were going straight for it, too. I had to get cunning and turn him to one side. He saw our earlier tracks all right but he never got suspicious.
“Then back at Jervois after that last trip he fell down crook. The other miners thought he was going to die and got onto the Flying Doctor. They sent out a plane and took him to town.
“He got going again in hospital all right but he never really came good. And he couldn’t walk around much no more after that, so there was no way he could go back to Jervois. Instead they ran him up to Tennant Creek.
“That’s where he grew up, see. His father was a gouger there in the early days, on a little gold show. Turned out his sister was still living there and she agreed to look after him. But he only lasted three or four years they reckon. Chucked it in poor bugger.
“Anyway by-an-by another rain came. We were camped back at Unka Rockhole by then – we-all and two of my brother-cousins’ families. One day when the country had dried out a bit I walked back to Appoota Mbulkara to fix everything.
“I took the post-hole shovel and iron bucket that McCullock had given me one time. I didn’t have to carry any water, though, because all the quart-pot rockholes were still full from the rain. Instead I used the bucket to carry my tucker, but mainly I took it to carry dirt when I got there. And to avoid any questions I took off when everyone was sleeping.
“Two full days and half a night it took me. I just walked along steady and picked up bush tucker as I went. There was plenty of it around, too, after the rain.
“Once I was there I set to work putting everything back that McCullock and Johns had dug out – you know, fixing it up like ol’ Grandad had done, so it all looked natural.
“He’d hidden the whole thing, of course, but those two had dug cross-trenches to see how far the seam went. I know because I checked before filling them in. Up near the top it cuts out; down the lower end it disappears under the sand. Both ends are a bit skinny but only the bottom end has gold.
“The job was a lot bigger than I’d expected, too. Course they’d been mining the widest part of the seam and their pit was nearly shoulder deep, and where they’d been separating the gold was a proper mess. Everything from the hole had been dollied to sand and the waste had been dumped and walked into the hillside dirt.
“It was white, too, like ochre. I packed it down as much as I could but it wouldn’t all go in. The leftovers had to be scraped up and buried out in the spinifex, and any white still showing had to be covered with dirt from the other side of the hill. —It didn’t look too good when I’d finished, but I knew some rain would improve things – like when the grass and everything got going again.
“Next day I set off walking back to Unka, and a few weeks later I got a ride in to Alice on one of the miners’ trucks. That’s when I got the polio, see; that’s when they put me in hospital.
“I came good by-an-by but it half killed my leg. It was proper weak after that and I had to walk with a stick. I could still get around a bit but I couldn’t carry anything no more. And I could still ride a horse if I got a boost up. —As long as it was quiet.
“Later, when we went to Appoota Mbulkara for business, I used to stay behind for a while – you know, to brush a bit of dirt around and make sure everything looked right. The problem was, the others would always worry about me.
“They didn’t know what I was doing, see, and after a day or two they’d wonder if I’d gone lame properly and maybe perished half way.
“Walkabout didn’t know either. I’d never told him about the gold – or anyone else, for that matter. But he knew not to ask questions and he knew to do as he was told. He informed the others it was special Old Men’s Business and said not to talk about it.
“Then one day Walkabout came out looking for me. That was when I decided to give it up.
“It was probably just as well; I was getting a little bit ol’ man myself by then and my leg was getting worse. Hard ground was all right but it was a battle in soft going, even with my long stick.
“Your man-making was the last time I went out there. After that I had to use a crutch, and you can’t get through the spinifex with a crutch.
“…There’ll be grass and bushes all over it now, after rain,” Twofoot added wistfully, “and bush tucker everywhere.” He stopped talking for a moment and closed his eyes, remembering. Jack Cadney sat silent.
After a while he opened them again and went on. “The youngfella Sayd stayed at Jervois after they took McCullock to Alice, mainly to look after the horses, and when the station men heard what had happene
d they came looking for him.
“But Sayd wouldn’t go. He was waiting for McCullock to come back. And when he heard the old fella had gone north for good he realised something had to be done with all his gear and everything, and the horse team and truck.
“Then a lawyer bloke turned up from Alice Springs with some papers, and after Sayd had signed them he loaded up McCullock’s trunk and drove off.
“Sayd finished up with the rest. That’s what the papers were about. He really had some go about him, too, that kid – and him not even man-made. He decided to go contract mustering.
“I worked for him a bit at the beginning – you know, while he was getting started. I couldn’t drive the truck or do much on a horse no more, but I knew the job and I knew a few good stockmen so I went along as camp cook. Six months later I cut free, before I poisoned anyone like.
“He’s in the Alice now, old Sayd. On the pension and drinking himself to death, they reckon. It’s taking a while, though. He always was pretty tough.”
“And he never did anything about the gold?”
“Yeah; and he never will. I asked him about it once, after McCullock died – before Walkabout took him out for his man-making.
“You should have seen him! He just stared at me, terrified.
“It was like I’d told him he was going to be pointed. Course I don’t know what McCullock might have said to him and I wasn’t going to ask, but after that I felt pretty sure about Sayd Kaseem. He wasn’t going to be telling anyone about Appoota Mbulkara.”
Twofoot then informed his son how important it was he take the job. Cadney needed no convincing, however. Tyler and Watts had to be kept away from the place and the responsibility of seeing they did so would obviously be falling on him.