‘Your net?’ asked Billy as he and Alphonse climbed into the back of the Hilux.
‘No. We got it from the mission, from Father Paul. Gun too.’
Milton drove, and Liz sat in the cab with him. Billy and Alphonse sat on the corners made by the upright sides and rear of the tray, gripped the uprights tightly, and planted their feet on the tray itself. Billy struggled to keep his balance and cushion himself against the shocks of the track. Sometimes they sped along. To Billy it seemed they went too fast for such a roadway. But, often, they remained in first gear as they crawled through washaways and rocks. Twice, Alphonse walked in front of the car through river crossings. There was one muddy patch in which the car sank. The mud was like porridge. Milton revved the motor and repeatedly changed between first and reverse, rocking the car. The wheels spun, mud spattered, the car stayed stuck. They had no tools, shovels or jacks with them. Billy thought of what the people at the mission would say when they heard about this, when they came to rescue them. How far was it back to the camp? Walkable? In this heat? Milton and Alphonse threw a dozen or more large rocks into the mud around the wheels. It seemed a miracle when they drove out.
Alphonse yelled out and pointed at a large goanna as it ran of into the scrub. Milton slowed and looked after it. They kept driving. ‘When you see him,’ Alphonse pointed after the reptile with his lips, ‘you say “Maa”, or some people whistle, and they don’t run. You just walk up to him slowly, and grab ’im!’
The next time they saw one, and were driving slowly, Alphonse tried a whistle. The goanna didn’t falter. ‘You whistle one way, it doesn’t work for me. Milton’s father can do it. Walanguh, some others. The old people, they knew how.’
Billy moved so that he was sitting on top of the net with his back to the cab.
They stopped under a boab tree just before the slope of the beach began. There was very little wind. In the silence of the motor’s absence they could hear the tiny waves lapping the beach. Liz twisted around to look at Billy. She was flushed and sweating in the heat.
Alphonse took the gun and Milton carried the net. They walked across the grey driftwood bundled at the high tide mark and down to where the mangroves began. The men were barefoot. Liz was pleased she’d worn light sandshoes because Billy found it uncomfortable walking in the shallows where the short mangrove roots stuck out of the sand.
Milton and Billy took an end of the net each. They dragged the net between them through the waist-deep water and Alphonse and Liz attempted to scare fish into the space between Milton and Billy. When one was trapped Milton pulled it to his mouth and, with his hands and teeth, broke its spine. He took it from the net and put it into a bag tucked into his waistband.
The shallows stretched a long way. They waded no deeper than their waists. Sometimes they scared a small shark, or a stingray and it darted about at incredible speed, the stingray like an alien spacecraft in some sci-fi film. Often Liz was screaming and trying to get the net between her and the frantic fish, while Billy tried to hide his own anxiety, and Alphonse fired the small rifle at their prey. Once one of the larger sharks cannoned into the net, and there was a ferocity of splashing and screaming before it broke over, or through, the net.
‘What about crocs?’ Liz summoned up her courage to ask.
‘Sometimes, maybe. This be clear water but. That’s why we got this rifle from the mission.’ Even to Liz’s inexperienced eye the rifle seemed too small for such a task.
There had been a small box full of bullets which Alphonse carried in his pockets, but he was shooting so often that they were rapidly being depleted. His targets, however, were quite safe.
‘Sight’s buggered,’ he said, squinting along the barrel.
It was tiring, walking through thigh-deep water, dragging the net, worrying about sharks, stingrays, the possibility of being shot. When they had maybe a dozen fish in the bag they headed back to the car, but first, on Milton’s suggestion, they tied the net at the mouth of a creek.
‘Fish swim in with the tide, we get them when the tide goes out again.’
They sat on the sand, in the shade cast by the car and the boab tree, and lit a small fire to cook the mullet.
‘Don’t take their gutses out, that’s nice fat there. Nice fat one.’ The mullet were thrown on the hot coals after the fire had died down. They ate the cooked fish gingerly because it burnt their fingers. The scales and skin came off with the ash.
Billy thought about a beer. They drank warm water from a plastic container Milton had brought. Liz thought about disease.
‘AIDS? That kills you, eh? Them American people get it and die?’
‘Like a horror film.’
‘I used to fish, with my dad, with a net, when I was a kid.’
‘You seen that video?’
‘Some of the songs the band was doing I never heard before.’
They fished with lines down by the creek for a while. The heat, among the mangroves and out of the breeze, was intense. The sand radiated heat. Liz wondered when they would be returning.
‘This be crocodile place.’
‘Grab your bait and just pull you in slowly, boy.’
‘Oh yeah, every afternoon nearly. Fatima likes to talk about the old days.’
‘My little boy, you know Cecil? He plays with a ghost. My sister I think. She died. I see him looking up, you know, like at a grown-up girl. Sometimes he’s frightened and he run to me and grab me and poke his tongue out back there. It’s all right. If I not there I might worry.’
‘Old people, they have black magic. They used to kill or destroy anybody. They send a shell through the ground, long way, and it come out and cut you. Or they fly like an eagle and just watch you watch you. Or they be a snake. Them old blokes here too, I mean Walanguh, them mob. But now they, they still have that magic but, they don’t see anybody that’s looking for trouble with them.’
It was late afternoon. The tide had not ebbed completely and was still higher than it had been that morning. They would have to go and get the net. They couldn’t just leave it. It was from the mission.
Liz stayed at the car. Alphonse took the rifle. There were two bullets left. They walked between a couple of thin mangrove trees and into the shallow water where the hard shoots stabbed at their feet, and headed for the creek mouth a couple of hundred metres away. When they were about halfway there they saw a frenzy of splashing at the net.
‘Big fish now.’ Alphonse and Billy talked excitedly. Milton was silent. The water was chest deep. They were about fifty metres from the shore, about twenty from the mangroves.
Suddenly Milton was shouting. ‘Gun! Crocodile! Quick give me the gun! The gun! Gun!’
Adrenalin took over. Alphonse’s eyes were big, his mouth open. Billy strained his eyes and saw a great crocodile, its head out of the water, swallowing. It looked jade-green in the rich light of the slanting sun, and the water on it sparkled. It was beside the net, facing out to sea. Billy looked at Milton. He was sighting the gun. He fired. With the echo of its report they saw the splash where the bullet struck the water beyond the crocodile. One bullet left. Milton looked at the gun as if he was going to throw it away. Alphonse was moving off toward the shore, walking as fast as he could in the deep water.
‘The tree, climb the tree, there!’
They scrambled up one thin tree which stood, relatively tall, among the mangroves, Alphonse first. Milton stood at its base shaking the rifle at the others, wanting them to take it from him so he could climb the tree. They climbed as high as they were able, the tree swaying with their weight. They looked down to where the net was. ‘Plenty fish anyway.’
Laughed in their excitement.
And waited for the tide to drop.
Milton saw Liz, back near the car, wading carefully into the shallow water. She looked pale and naked in the distance. Milton shouted a warning to her. She continued, staring straight at them. They waved and shouted together.
Liz entered the water. The mangrove shoots were difficult to walk among. Where were they? Where had they left the net? Was that shouting she could hear? Was that Billy in that tree? Where were the others? So hard to see them in the dark of the tree. She could see Billy, and, yes, the others now, waving at her. Puzzled, she waved back. She stopped. She understood, and turned and ran back to the shore.
They saw the tiny lacelets of water, the little splashes of water around her ankles as she high-stepped it out of the ocean.
In her mind Liz saw herself repeatedly running from the Hilux to the water’s edge and back again. She stood, looked at the car, looked to where the others were. Turned a half circle. Would she be able to drive back and get help? Could she take a shovel and wade out with it as a weapon? There was no shovel. She waited. Billy would, Milton would know.
Cautiously, the men climbed down. There were only puddles left between them and Liz now. There were a few dozen fish in the net. They picked it up between them and, constantly glancing around and starting, walked back. It was sunset. The sand was patterned in ripples of gold and blueblack, the puddles shining liquid gold. A cool breeze and they were walking into the sun.
Liz told them what she had thought.
Chattering and laughing, they took fish after fish from the net, the threads of which dripped and sparkled with pearls.
Beneath the high stars, with a breeze and bright grins, they bounced home through creeks and moonlight. Big glassy-eyed fish surrounded them. The trees waved them past.