2

And what of Bonny and his friends on this last night on Badtjala soil, once the fire had turned to coals and the dancing had stopped? If there was an observer there to report, a ghostly figure who could gaze secretly inside their huts, what story might that ghost tell?

Perhaps this.

I can see more clearly than I once could, although I, myself, am unseen. I can approach unnoticed and watch the living in their sleep, I can see their expressions – their frowns, their smiles. When they think they are alone, I can hear them whisper to the spirits. What do I do with such power? Bonny once asked me to record his story, but I did not know then what I know now, and still my knowledge is partial. I fear I failed Bonny in life. I cannot fail him in death also. What if I were to simply tell you what has been told to me and what I can see? If it is not too late.

Under the bark roof that is Bonny’s preferred shelter, his heart beats fast and his chest rises quickly like the sea in confused winds. A soothing breeze blows into the open-sided hut where Bonny lies, and I suppose it is the spirit of the wind, Can-o-bie, acting on Beeral’s instruction. The warm breeze blankets the young man’s body with a thin layer of white sand.

Can-o-bie has been called on like this before. In the Last Time, and the time before that, right back to the First Time when Bonny’s ancestors could still talk to the animals, the Badtjala made long journeys. Through the wind, and in other ways, Can-o-bie sent the messages that were asked of him: missives of encouragement and sometimes of warning.

‘There is comfort to be gained from remembering the bravery of the people who journeyed before you,’ the wind whispers. At least this is what I understand it to say.

But still Bonny’s mouth is dry. He has not told Beeral exactly how far he is travelling, not just to the other shore across the strait but much, much further.

It begins to rain. Beeral must have asked another of his messengers to send a shower so that Bonny can drink and feel refreshed. The rain strikes the thick bark roof of Bonny’s shelter and runs in narrow streams over the doorway. It runs down the fishing spear propped at the entrance, funnels along the spear’s grooves where Bonny inlaid bottle glass and inserted three sail needles as barbs. Bonny extends his head outside and the rain moistens his lips. He opens his mouth and catches the fragrant water, sweetened with the oil of eucalyptus and paperbark.

He looks to the east, where Beeral lives, and asks, ‘How can you read people’s minds and direct the weather but have no power over the white strangers? Where is my mother?’

But although Beeral has messengers he cannot himself speak and, even if he could, it seems to me that he has no answer. He sent Yindingie to teach the first people how to live, and while those people passed the stories on, new people came and they did not listen. They broke laws other than stealing. They damaged the land, cut down ancient trees and loaded them onto big sailing ships. They took kangaroos and kept fat animals but never shared. A great many Badtjala were killed. The survivors fought back. And through it all, Beeral could just watch and bear witness and that was something terrible indeed.

Late on Bonny’s last night on home soil, the brief rain shower ceases and Bonny looks up and sees a shooting star. Does he think of his uncles and aunts and their stories of such things?

Bonny draws in a long, steady breath and cups his hand behind his ear as he listens to the rush of the wind in the trees around him, the calls of the frogs and all Beeral’s other creatures, even the grunts of possums fighting over the skin from Louis’s wurst that Bonny did not like and secretly discarded. He has no way of knowing what lies ahead, and only he and perhaps Beeral know the truth of what is driving him to go.