ANOTHER VEHICLE, A YELLOW Toyota, had come back during the night with a bleary-eyed Nipper Crankshaft at the wheel. Nipper was called that not because he was small; he wasn’t. It was because when the going got rough—and it was rarely smooth—he liked a little nip of the hot stuff.
He’d picked up a couple of hitch-hikers: his nephews, Benny and Bernie Crankshaft, both nursing monster hangovers. The car was in worse shape than its occupants; the tail pipe was hanging off, the petrol cap was a pair of undies.
Bernie came to, took a while to work out where he was. He was a town man these days, a tall, powerful fellow with a shock of black hair—a walking conkerberry bush. When he found out we were about to embark on a bush trip he immediately took charge in the inimitable Crankshaft manner.
He found his rifle among the rubbish, fired off a couple of test shots, scavenged a water bottle and a clasp knife, announced that he was ready to lead the expedition.
I noticed the flicker of a smile on Eli Windmill’s lips.
We set out soon afterwards, a convoy of three vehicles, maybe twenty people all up. Eli and Magpie ended up in the seat alongside me, although the hyperactive Magpie spent more time out of the car than in it.
You don’t often manage highway speeds when you’re grinding through rough scrub. Between the low-gear crawl and the numerous puncture stops, he had plenty of time to dart off and run down a goanna, light a fire, leap up and navigate from the bull-bar. At one stage, as we wound our way through a patch of swamp grass, he dashed on ahead, my only sight of him a broad-brimmed hat bobbing on a sea of tussocks.
Maybe it was the heat; worried about fuel, I kept the air-con off and the windows down as we growled along in low gear. Maybe it was the intensity of the Kantulyu’s emotions at opening up a parcel of lost country. Maybe it was the power of the dreaming paths we were following.
Whatever the reason, the day passed in a kind of delirium, a feverish dream in which time, geography and our little band of travellers coalesced.
Eli was curled up next to me. Most of the time he seemed to be asleep. It wasn’t until we’d been on the go for an hour that I realised it was he—old, blind, crippled, gasping for breath—who was running the show.
Every so often he’d stir himself to ask a question: ‘Coupla big rocks up there, innit? West side?’
He was usually right.
‘Go under their shadow. See that hill up ahead? Sharp point, like a needle?’
Once again, there was.
‘Pawalyu. Go round about it. Up along the creek.’
Then he’d go back to sleep. We’d make subtle changes in response to his suggestions, and the other vehicles would swing in behind us.
One time we dropped down into a shallow gully and he told me, ‘Turn little bit west when you see them big rock. Boulder. Jawangu n’other side that hill.’
‘Which hill?’
‘Southside. Where the clouds are comin up.’
He was right: there were clouds coming up over a hill to the south, but how the hell had he known that?
Danny spent most of the day beside him, his expression illuminated and loose, joyful almost, drinking it all in.
We drove all day, made camp in the middle of a radium sunset. My companions were excited and happy: one bearded old lady struck up a song, plainsang lovingly, a single tooth exquisite in her tin smile. The others pitched in, illiterate poets hammering ancient melodies: they sang canticles and star charts, hunting songs, invocations of invisible rivers. They were celebrating the return to country they’d last visited on foot.
Danny sat close to Eli, his legs crossed, his face alight. He was a town boy and young, but fascinated. Keen to learn. From time to time the blind man would tap him on the knee, offer a whispered explanation.
While they were singing, I sat by the fire, scribbling into a notebook. Determined to catch the essence of the trip while it was still fresh in my mind.
Where do we go?
Over rolling termite plains, through cracked ranges, crooked gullies, stretches of vicious scrub that scrapes our flanks and tears at our tyres.
To the edge of a lake of snow; we walk out onto it, salt crystal crunching underfoot, the noonday glare like lightning.
To the rim of a crater the size of a football field: ‘made by snake, that one…’ says Eli.
Up fierce red cliffs, along the ridges of vast, crescent-shaped hills.
What do we see?
A hawk falling from the sky, smoke pluming behind it.
The bones of a horse that went too far, was caught by the dry: scraps of leather and rusted metal, grinning teeth.
What do we feel?
Mostly—hot. This is a fire dreaming we’re following, and that’s what it feels like. The heat clings and parches, rises inside you like yeast.
What do I learn?
That the Kantulyu word for compass—warlujinta—is the same as circle, that the word for watch—warlukari—is the same as the word for sun. Both circular, both living.
And that fire—warlu—is at the heart of both.