THEY PUT HIM on a rug under a shelter of bark, and Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin came and lay against his front, pulling the rug over them both. He smelt woman’s smell, but it was different: part rank, part musk; and the skin was velvet. A dog lay along his back to keep him warm. He moved in and out of sleep, until the fingers stroked his lips again, and the liquid was in his mouth, sweet as honey, mixed with a sharpness, as strong as turkey rhubarb, vinegar, sour. The fingers pushed between his teeth and rubbed the flow onto his tongue. The fingers went and came back, again and again, until the taste was comfort, and life was in his throat. He felt the crystal through the net.
When he woke, he was alone. Across from him, old men with grey hair were sitting on their folded legs and talking beside a fire. At another fire, old women worked and laughed. Some children were playing.
He watched and dozed. All day, a man or a woman would check that there was water in the bowl beside him; but, except for that, they took no notice.
As the sun dropped, the younger men appeared, tired and dusty, with only their weapons in their hands. Soon the women came, chattering and laughing, with babies on their backs, and bags filled with roots and berries, and small, dead animals. They were followed by children, who dragged wood for the fires.
The day became busy night. Food was made ready, and, after they had eaten, they sang and danced, until the end, when the People turned to their fires and slept, and Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin gave William more of the yellow gum and lay beside him, the dog behind.
So each morning he watched the men leave, in silence, carrying spears and shields and curved pieces of wood; and the women would wander off more slowly, holding pointed sticks, and always talking, always laughing.
Sometimes the men came back with fish and eels, and sometimes they had things that he had never seen, so big that it took two men to carry them. Then there was shouting, and a special fire was made, and the animal was thrown into the flames to singe the fur or the feathers, and it was pulled off the fire, raw and charred, and cut into pieces with stone and shared with all. But he was given none. For him, the old men and women made a different food, and fed him small pieces through the day.
After they had all eaten, they sang and danced: different songs, different dances, different patterns on their bodies. And the songs and the dances made William stronger than did the water he drank or the food he ate, and the strength stayed with him.
“Eh! Taffy!”
The old men looked up.
“Taffy! Fetch us some baggin!”
A man came to the shelter and checked the water bowl. He said something.
“Nay. Is that all they learn you?”
The man made more sound.
“Give over mollocking. All yon ‘yanna-koojalla’ nominy! Can you not talk like a Christian?”
The man went to a woman. She put handfuls into a shallow dish and pummelled with a stick and gave the dish to the man. He brought it. Inside was a paste with small pieces that were dark and hard, and the paste looked like a flesh.
“What’s this tack? I’ve never seen owt of that afore.”
The man spoke, and pointed to his mouth, and went back to the other men.
He sniffed.
I doubt there’s not much cop here.
But he was hungry, and he took some of the paste on his finger and sucked it. It was a kind of meat, and there were juices, yet it tasted of nut: a rich, sticky nut. He ate more. Well. None so bad. He scooped out the dish. There had been only a little, but it was enough. As he swallowed the last lump, a part of it twitched.
What he liked best was to watch the children who stayed behind, the sun golden on their yellow hair. The girls played cat’s cradle; and the boys played at being men.
The men had their pieces of bent wood, and so had the boys. They would stand and hold the wood by one end, behind their head, and throw it over their shoulder. It spun away in a line, and then turned and looped in all directions: right, left, up, down; and then it would hover, twirling like a sycamore key, and, still spinning, come back to the thrower, so that it fell at his feet; and, just before it fell, it hung still in the air. And every flight was different, and every drop the same.
One boy stood, and the rest were quiet. He made his throw, and watched it all the way; and, at the moment when it hung above him, and the spin that would have broken his hand stopped, before it fell, he reached up and took hold of the wood at the centre of its curve. And the other boys danced and cheered.
Well, I’ll go to Buxton!
Forgetting that he was too weak to move, he got up and walked out from the shelter towards the boys.
An old man spoke, and they scattered, except for the boy who had just thrown.
“Hey! Now then, Dick-Richard! Whoever learnt you to do like yon?”
The boy put out a hand and touched him, then smelt his fingers. He moved forward and looked up, offering the curved wood.
“Oh, crimes!”
The boy’s eyes were covered with a white film.
“Wangim.”
“You conner see!”
“Ongee. Wangim.”
The boy felt for his hand and put the bent wood in it, then pointed.
“Wangim.”
“Wangim?”
The children clapped and shouted: “Wangim! Wangim!”
“Right, mester, right! Four nobles a year’s a crown a quarter! My song! Let’s give it some fullock, shall us?”
He held the wood as best as he could remember, and threw it hard. It tumbled straight and clattered into a tree. The children screamed with laughter, and even the old men and women joined in. Someone ran to fetch the wangim, for him to throw again. But he was gripping the boy by the shoulders, and looking at his eyes.
“Nay,” he said. “If you can thole, what’s up with me?”
“Wangim?”
He let go of the boy.
“Not wangim, youth. China.”
He was unsteady, but he could manage. Nobody tried to stop him. He did not know which way was north, but he could make a compass later. He set off away from where the hunters had gone. One of the old men put his hands on his thighs, and hummed softly, deep in his chest, and the note did not pause or change as he breathed.
He kept going. The giddiness left him, but he often had to rest. Yet he kept going. He was in the great silence, and, since all looked the same, he tried to walk forwards, so that he would not wander and come back. He had seen how the men walked, one foot in front of another, not to the side, unwavering. He did the same, slowly, but that did not matter, so long as he moved on.
He would be hungry. He would have to thirst. But he had lived before, and now there was food, and there was water, if he could find them, and, because of that, the land was not empty, and he was not afraid. And even in the great silence he was not alone. The ground would not let him fall. His foot spoke the earth, and made it new, now and in its beginning; and that earth spoke him now, new, in step and breath that met in its dance, so that the ground and the man sang as one. To China, all the way.
“Cooo-ee!”
The cry was behind him.
“Cooo-ee!”
To the side.
He looked. Four men trotted in and out among the trees, carrying spears and shields.
“Oss off! Oss off!”
He tried to run, but he had forgotten how, and when he moved faster, the earth did not listen, and would not hear. And he, deaf as before, stumbled, the song out of tune.
“Cooo-ee!”
The four caught up with him and surrounded him, but did not take hold of him. He had to stop.
“Damn yer to hell!” He was crying. “Leave me be! Oss bloody off! I’m going home!”
But they were crying, too. The tears were on their cheeks. They tapped his chest briefly, as if fearful, and thumped their own, then beckoned and pointed back the way he had come.
He moved to pass them, but they blocked him, still not touching, still crying.
He fell on his knees, and the men stood over him, in anguish.
“Het! It’s no use! Het! I tried! It’s no use! Het! They’ll not let me!”