‘WHAT YOU WANT boy?’
Though he has been waiting and hoping for it, the crackly voice startles Buddy. He has not been there long by his small fire, but it is fully dark now. He has been slapping away at mosquitoes, praying that this does not all go horribly wrong.
Teoh Tom sidles closer, so he is just visible on the fringes of the firelight.
For all his planning, Buddy has not thought until this moment what he might say. ‘Are you okay?’ is all he can think of.
‘What you reckon?’
‘You’ve seen what he’s done hey? There’s nothing left.’
‘Good thing. Can’t live there now. All the spirits loose — now that bones come up.’ Tom peers to see what Buddy has brought with him. ‘You got tucker?’
‘Only this bit of dried fish. I took it from your place. I was going to catch some fresh, but I didn’t get round to it. Want some?’
Tom rubs his hands and gives Buddy a crooked smile. ‘You better come my camp boy. Got that canoe? Otherwise you gonna get wet.’
They put out the fire and head down to the canoe, Tom moving like a cat in the darkness and Buddy stumbling after him. Tom takes the paddle. To Buddy’s surprise they head back towards the creek mouth. But well before they reach it Tom guides the canoe into what appears to be a clump of mangroves growing like a small island in the middle of the creek.
‘You the first one,’ Tom tells him.
‘Uh?’
‘Only Tom know this place. Nobody else ever come ’ere. Look.’
With the moon starting to rise, Buddy can just make out a pair of pandanus palms, and at their feet a bamboo pipe driven into a patch of moist earth, with another one leading from it to a plastic bowl set into the ground. Tom dips a small pannikin into the bowl and offers it to Buddy, who looks dubious.
‘Suit yourself boy.’ Tom drinks it down and smacks his lips. ‘Fresh one. Sweetest spring in Broome town, right here middle of the salt water.’ Tom cackles as Buddy dips the pannikin and takes a drink. The water is indeed beautifully cool and clean.
‘Hungry?’
‘Hungry?’
Buddy nods.
‘Eat first. Then talk. Mebbe.’
Tom produces a tiny gas cooker. ‘No fire here. Somebody might see smoke. Then no more secret place for me.’ He quickly gets a small pot heating, and soon passes it to Buddy. ‘Fish ’n’ rice. Breakfast for me tomorrow. But you can ’ave ’im.’
Buddy hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he starts eating. He hoes into it, while Tom retreats to sit on a low branch. The silence is broken unexpectedly when Tom speaks in a low voice.
‘Old Buster got them bones now, hey. That’s one good thing.’
Buddy looks up sharply. ‘You know whose bones they are?’
Tom looks away. ‘Mmm.’
‘Buster hasn’t got them. Big Al has.’
Tom springs to his feet and backs away to the edge of the tiny island, eyes wide in alarm. ‘Whooorrrooo! I bin go back there last night. I see that hole. I thought you lot been take ’em.’
‘He beat us to it. He dug them up the same night Mack broke his leg, after you ran off.’
‘What for!’
‘You tell me old man.’
‘No, no. Can’t say. Can’t talk about all that business. Too much trouble. All around, everywhere, trouble and secrets. Bad power comin’ out.’ Tom has become wildly agitated. ‘He got a bad power. Just like ’is father.’
‘Who? Big Al? What’s his father got to do with it?’
‘He kill my brother. Kill ’im. Jirroo too. Kill ’im. Tom too, might be.’
‘Big Al’s father killed your brother?’
‘Can’t say, can’t say.’ Tom curls himself into a tight ball.
‘Tom, you can’t stop now,’ Buddy pleads. ‘Buster’s worrying. Mimi hasn’t stopped crying. She knew it was her father. You’ve got to tell me.’
Tom croons in a low sing-song. ‘Poor Bella, poor little girl. Lost her daddy. Lost her daddy. I’m sorry little girl, so sorry.’
The ‘sorrys’ become a low murmur. Buddy is frozen. ‘Only Tom to dig his grave. Only Tom to sing a song.’ Tom is looking at Buddy now. But it feels like he is looking right through him, to his memories. ‘Billy Steer, he’s the one. Skinny one, not like his boy now. But cold eyes, just the same. I couldn’t say nothin’. He kill my brother. He kill Jirroo. I say anythin’, he kill me.
‘All the secrets comin’ out now, look like. But I can’t tell you boy. This story don’t belong to you. If I got to give it up, I give it up to Buster. Buster and Bella. You tell ’em, I’ll give ’em the story.’
A breeze shivers the trees. Buddy feels out of his depth. He is unsure what he has unleashed. ‘I’ll tell them,’ he says in a whisper.
Tom has fallen silent, still curled in on himself. The only thing Buddy can think to do is go and sit beside the old man. Gradually Tom uncoils himself, but he is still hunched and tense, when eventually he starts talking again. ‘It was them diamonds Buddy boy. Billy Steer been so greedy for them diamonds, it made ’im mad. And madman’s got a power. Bad power. I reckon his boy got that same kind of mad. Might be he got that same kind of power too.’
‘Can I ask you something else?’
Buddy takes Tom’s silence for agreement.
‘I looked down your well today.’
‘That’s not askin’ something.’
‘Did you move them somewhere else?’
‘Don’t make riddles boy. What you talkin’ ’bout?’
‘The diamonds.’
Tom twitches nervously.
Buddy is desperate to stop Tom from losing it again. Hesitantly, slowing down when he senses Tom getting too upset, he explains how Tich connected the dots once they had the pendant from the grave, and how they figure it is a message that the diamonds are — or were — hidden in his well.
When he has finished explaining he looks at Teoh Tom, but the old man is staring at the moon.
‘Too many things it’s more better I forget I ever know ’em. But them diamonds, I never know where they be. When I bury Jirroo, I finish with that diamond business once and for all. Nothin’ in my well. Not now. Not ever. That’s sure an’ certain.’
‘Big Al doesn’t know that.’
‘What you talkin’ ’bout now?’
Buddy tells Tom about seeing Big Al at the shack, prowling around the tank. ‘He’s worked out nearly as much as we did. That’s what we thought at first, a tank. What if he figures out it’s a well too? He’ll think the same as me. He might come looking for you.’
‘Might be he was more closer than you know.’ Buddy waits and watches. Tom stares at the moon, then turns to him.
‘I don’t want to tell you boy. I can feel danger comin’. But all them stories, all them secrets, they startin’ to spill out now. Must be too late to stop ’em. An’ more better if you work ’im out before Steer.’
‘Work what out?’
‘Jirroo got his own well.’
‘What!’
‘Where you sit bangin’ your drum there. What else that tank be for? It dry up though. Somebody been cover ’im up, long time back.’
Buddy stares at Tom, slack jawed. He can’t quite comprehend the thought that all those times he has sat on the old timber platform with his drums, he might have been sitting on top of the diamonds. And he nearly got himself drowned searching for them up at Garnet Bay!
Buddy tried to talk the old man into coming with him to the shack, to see if they could get at the old well under the timbers. But Tom would not have a bar of it. The old fellow had settled down a bit, but he had done enough talking and remembering for the night it seemed. He told Buddy it was time for him to go home.
As they paddled back down towards the creek mouth they heard noises up towards Tom’s camp. They crept ashore. From the fringe of the mangroves they saw Big Al working by moonlight, using a crowbar to pry the stones of the well wall loose, one by one.
Tom signalled Buddy back to the canoe and silently manoeuvred it into the creek and paddled away. Once he figured they were well out of earshot, Buddy chortled that Big Al was wasting his time. But Tom was in no laughing mood. ‘You get ’ome boy, I’ll take you quick way.’ After that, he said no more.
They paddled back upstream and along a side branch, and then walked for ten minutes. Buddy had no idea of his bearings, until the trail Tom was following dipped around a corner, and suddenly they were on the outskirts of town, near the turning for the Eagle Beach road.
‘Remember boy, tell Buster I’ll come an give ’im an’ Bella that story.’ Tom gave him a gentle push, and a warning. ‘You be careful. It’s all bubblin’ up now.’ Buddy turned to say something, but the old man was gone.
‘Bubbling up is right,’ he murmurs.
As he walks through the silent streets Buddy tries to think it all through. But there are so many different things racing through his head there is no way they will fall into any sort of order in his mind. The strongest beat is the thought that the diamonds are almost within reach.
He remembers back to the bedroom at Garnet Bay, when he boasted to Micky that he would find them one day, not believing himself for a moment. He tries to think what they could do if he finds them, but it is too big to imagine. Anything. Anything at all, is the answer. But will they let him? Will he get the chance?
First things first though, he thinks. I’ve got to give Buster the message from Teoh Tom. But what if the cops get me before I see Nyami? I’ve got to tell him myself. It’s not the sort of thing I can tell someone to pass on. It’s too big for that.
He can’t answer all the questions. He can’t make a plan. As he nears Jirroo Corner he decides he will just have to play it by ear; see who is there, and what is going on.
At least there are no cop cars. Then he realises that there are no other cars either. Everything seems quiet. There are no lights, no sounds from Janey’s house. He tiptoes across to his place. A light is on, but no-one is there either.
Where is everybody?
Then the realisation hits. They must be out looking for him.
He crosses the yard to Micky and Bella’s house. There’s a light on in Mimi’s bedroom, but he can hear the sound of her soft snoring. Then he hears another noise. It sounds like Jimmy, talking in his sleep. He peers in at a window and sees the four of them — Dancer, Janey, Jimmy and Tich — on the floor of Bella’s living room.
He grins, an idea forming in his mind.