Corroboree (57 page)

Eyre said, ‘Look—we will stand here, right out in front of the rocks—then, when Yonguldye and his warriors begin to throw spears—we can run back.'

‘Run back?' frowned Ningina.

‘Not out of fear. Out of wisdom. They will run after us in among the rocks, and then we can trap them, and kill them.'

‘I do not want to run back,' said Ningina, pouting. ‘I have never run back from my enemy.'

Winja glared at him. ‘You will run back when you are told to. Are you my
ngauwire
, my son?'

‘Yes,
ngaiyeri
.'

‘Then you will run back.'

Eyre loaded his rifle while they waited for Yonguldye to
catch up with them. He would probably only have time for one shot; but this time he hoped he would be able to hit Yonguldye somewhere fatal. It was a miracle that Yonguldye had already survived what must at the very least have been a severe powder-burn, and then a glancing rifle-ball to the side of the head. Perhaps there was something in his magic, after all. Perhaps, like the fabled Mabarn Men of the past, he was invincible, and possessed of eternal life.

The sun began to fall to the west; and this to Eyre was another advantage. Yonguldye and his warriors as they approached would have the glare of the early afternoon in their eyes, as well as a quarry that was going to behave completely uncharacteristically, and run away. Running-away was not a recognised tactic in Aborigine battles; the tradition was to stand firm with club in hand and fight blow-for-blow until you or your enemy dropped dead.

Yonguldye looked unnervingly threatening as he approached. His huge black emu-feather head-dress dipped and blew with every step he took; and he walked with a long, awkward limp that must have been caused either by the two shots that Eyre had fired at him or by the exhausting length of his pursuit. At first, because of the rippling heat, Eyre was unable to see his feet; but as he came nearer, only a hundred yards away, he could distinguish the dreaded
kurdaitja
shoes, of emu feathers and human blood, the shoes which unerringly guided a Mabarn Man towards his victim. Yonguldye had followed Eyre for hundreds of miles now, through the heat and dust of high summer; and he had found him.

Eyre stepped forward with his rifle raised. Winja caught his arm, but Eyre said, ‘No. Let me speak to him.'

Yonguldye stopped, and raised one hand in the sign that meant greeting. He was wrapped in a kangaroo-skin
buka
, the fringes of which were tied with coloured threads and rows of tiny bandicoot skulls, which rattled as he walked. The rest of his skulls and magical apparatus were
being carried by two young boys who stood at the back of the group.

Eyre could see now that Yonguldye's face was scarred on the left side; a half-healed bullet wound which had tattooed his skin with black powder. The powder burns which Eyre had inflicted on him at Yarrakinna were presumably concealed beneath his
buka
. Yonguldye's expression however was haughty and disdainful; the look of a man of power and influence. A man who had proved himself to be the greatest of all clever-men: unstoppable and impossible to kill.

Eyre called, ‘What do you want, Yonguldye?'

Yonguldye kept his hand raised. Some of his warriors shifted uneasily around him, and one or two of them lodged their spears into their woomeras. Behind him, Eyre could hear Winja's men moving forward a few paces, to protect the white man whose life they now owned.

Yonguldye let out a great harsh crowing, which made Eyre's back tingle with alarm. Then he spread his arms wide, and came out with a long screeching chant, punctuated by raucous and repetitive cries, which sounded like an imitation of a red-tailed cockatoo.

Winja called back something in return which sounded to Eyre like mockery. He couldn't understand any of the words, but Winja's tone was ‘Come on, then, puffed-up one, come and fight if that's what you've walked all this way for.'

Yonguldye stopped screeching and crossed his arms over his chest. Then he said in broken English—English which Minil must have taught him, ‘You,
djanga
, have killed many. You too must die.'

‘You would have killed me first, Yonguldye. You and Joolonga.'

‘Joolonga led you to find me. But now you must die. The story must finish.'

‘The story is only a story, Yonguldye. I am not the
djanga
.'

Yonguldye shook his head, and all his skulls and his
beads shivered as he did so. ‘The message came. I was in Woocalla; two men came from Tandarnya and spoke.' For a moment he couldn't think of the words; but at last he said, ‘The
djanga
has returned, they said. He is here and he will come to find you. The story has come to be.'

‘Why do you want to kill me?' Eyre asked him.

‘You must not go back to the land of
tinyinlara
.'

‘But I have not yet told you what is in my head.'

‘You kill too many,' said Yonguldye. ‘In your head is death. I will learn what is in your head when you are killed.'

‘So it's true; you want to eat my brains.'

‘The story says that you will give your head. The story must come to be.'

Eyre lifted his rifle and pointed it straight at Yonguldye's chest. ‘I am not the
djanga
. And I am telling you now, unless you go back to where you came from, you and all your warriors, I will shoot you, and kill you, right here, and right now.'

Yonguldye looked at Eyre with eyes as dull and primaeval as grey creek-washed pebbles. Then he lifted a single finger; and immediately, one of his warriors leaned back, his spear poised in his woomera, and launched it towards Eyre's head. Eyre caught sight of the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and heard the whistling called
bimblegumbie
, and dropped smartly to one knee, and fired his rifle towards the knot of warriors. The shot was overcharged, and deafeningly loud; and a cloud of blue smoke rolled through the Aborigines like a frightened ghost. One of them cried out, and spun to the dust; and then Eyre was running back towards Winja and Ningina, shouting, ‘
Back! Back
!' and waving his arm at them to retreat.

Winja ran back towards the rocks straight away; but Ningina hesitated. Two spears whistled dangerously close to him; but then Eyre seized his arm and pulled him along after him, into the ambush they had prepared. Winja had already scrambled up on to the rocks and was standing there with his spear drawn back to catch the first of Yonguldye's
men as they came running and whooping after them.

Eyre leaped up on to the rocks beside him, and picked up the stone-headed club that Ningina had lent him. Yonguldye, startlingly, was right behind him, and swung at him with a kangaroo-bone axe, tearing the leg of his britches and grazing his left calf. Then the rocks were crowded with howling, keening warriors, and a sudden burst of spears clattered down all around them like a hailstorm, followed by racketing stones and tumbling axes.

Eyre leaped higher up on to the rocks, but Yonguldye climbed up after him, his sharp teeth bared, his face contorted with concentration and anger. His huge emufeather head-dress fluttered and blew in the afternoon wind, and the skulls around his
buka
set up a shaking, shattering noise, like the death-rattle of a dying man. Carefully, feeling the rocks behind him, Eyre backed away until he was right up against a sheer wall of eroded limestone.

Yonguldye hit out at him again; once, twice, and the kangaroo-bone axe made a soft
whew
sound as it flew past Eyre's arms. Eyre swung back at him; and their weapons jarred and clashed together, and for one moment they gripped each other and wrestled hand-to-hand. Then Eyre let himself drop back against the rock, and as Yonguldye lunged towards him, his axe raised, Eyre pressed his back against the rock to support himself, and kicked out at Yonguldye with both legs. His boots hit the medicine-man hard in the pelvis; and with a desperate shout, Yonguldye fell backwards off the rocks, and tumbled like an overbalancing emu on to the dusty ground. Eyre jumped after him, and struggled astride him, pinning him down. Then he lifted his club threateningly over Yonguldye's head, and shouted at him, ‘
Yonguldye! Listen to me
!'

Yonguldye stared up at him, wild-eyed. Eyre's heart was galloping, and he felt that he could hardly breathe.

‘
Call your people off
!' Eyre demanded. ‘
Call them off! Tell them to put down their weapons
!'

Yonguldye spat, and struggled, and cursed Eyre in a
hissing stream of Wirangu that Eyre began to think would never stop. All around them, Winja men battled with Yonguldye's warriors; and even as Eyre knelt in the dust, pinning Yonguldye down, a spray of warm blood spattered over them both, and a man shrieked with agony, and fell heavily to the ground close beside them, bleeding and jerking.

Without any further hesitation, Eyre knocked Yonguldye in the side of the face with his stone club as hard as he could. Yonguldye grunted with pain, and twisted his head away, in case Eyre hit him again.

‘Tell your people to drop their weapons!' Eyre shouted at him. ‘Tell them to stop fighting! Otherwise, damn it, I'll beat your brains out!'

Yonguldye hesitated for a moment, and then closed his eyes; and let out a hoarse, commanding roar. It was so harsh and so supernaturally loud that it made Eyre's head ring; but then he had heard about medicine-men who could simply shout their victims to death. He looked up, and the fighting had suddenly stopped. The Aborigines eyed each other cautiously; and then Yonguldye spoke his command again, more softly this time; and one by one, clubs and spears and fighting boomerangs dropped to the ground.

Eyre climbed up off Yonguldye's body, and brushed down his shirt. ‘That's it.' he said. ‘That's the finish of it. No more story. No more coming after me with those
kurdaitja
shoes. It's finished, do you understand?'

Yonguldye was helped to his feet by two of his warriors. He stood and faced Eyre with undisguised malevolence; scowling like Kinnie Gerthe cat-demon, whose single pleasure was to eat men alive. Winja came forward and stood next to Eyre, as protective as before, holding his bloody club raised as an obvious warning that the battle was over; and that Yonguldye's men should not make any attempt to renew it.

‘Are any of your people hurt?' Eyre asked him.

Winja said, ‘Ningina has been wounded in the leg, but that is all. We have killed two of theirs.'

Eyre said to Yonguldye, ‘This is what happens when you try to make a story come true. Men die. This bloodshed is your responsibility.'

Yonguldye held his hand to his reddened cheek. ‘Truly you are the
djanga
.'

No, Yonguldye, I am not the
djanga
.'

‘It is spoken that the true
djanga
will always deny his real name,' said Yonguldye, in Wirangu this time. Winja translated as best he could, into his own language.

Eyre said to Winja, ‘Tell this medicine-man that he must go now and never trouble me again. Tell him that I am not the
djanga
, but that I will kill anyone who suggests that I am; or comes anywhere near me. Tell him that if he continues to track me, he will meet an extremely sticky end.'

‘Stick-ee end?' frowned Winja.

‘Yes. Tell him I will turn him into a grub and eat him for breakfast.'

Winja explained all this to Yonguldye, shouting to make himself understood in the same way that an English traveller would have shouted at a French douanier. Yonguldye listened with rage and mystification, glaring at Eyre as if he wished that death-spears could fly from his eyes and strike Eyre dead where he stood. At last, with an irritable chop of his hand, he indicated to Winja that he had heard enough. Then he limped forward two or three paces, and inspected Eyre even more closely, his face smeared with sweat-runnelled
wilga
, his eyes bloodshot.

‘You are the
djanga
of the story even if you will not say so. You are the dead one who has come to give us knowledge. But you will not. Why?'

‘Yonguldye, I am not the
djanga
. I am a perfectly ordinary human being, not a ghastly white spirit from beyond the sunset.'

‘You have betrayed us!' screeched Yonguldye, with
spittle flying from his lips. ‘
I
curse you! I curse you! I curse you!'

Shaking with anger, he plucked a shell-bladed knife from out of his possum-fur belt, and brandished it under Eyre's nose. Winja immediately stepped closer, his spear raised towards Yonguldye's chest, but Yonguldye waved him away again with that same impatient chop. ‘We have waited for your coming for countless years,' he said, half in English and half in Wirangu. ‘Now you have betrayed us; and left us naked in the face of the white-faced people who would steal our lands and break our fishing-traps and take our women. You have the secret. Why will you not give it to us? Is this a punishment? What have we done?'

Winja translated as much of Yonguldye's fulminating speech as he could follow. Eyre listened with apprehension; and with some sadness. There was nothing he could do for Yonguldye. There was nothing he could do for any of the Aborigine people. He was barely surviving himself.

He said at last, ‘Go, Yonguldye. I will take your message to the white people; and do whatever I can.'

Yonguldye roared at him in utter frustration and fury. Then, turning the shell-bladed knife towards his own body, he ripped a deep diagonal cut all the way from his left nipple to his right hip, almost cutting the nipple right off. Blood ran down his belly in a bright red curtain, and rivered down his thighs. But then he transferred the knife to the other hand, and cut himself again, slicing a cross from one side of his body to the other.

The pain of his cuts must have been mortifying; but he threw down his bloody knife and stood facing Eyre with raw, defiance on his face and both fists clenched like a madman. The lower half of his body glistened with running blood, as if he had been wading in it.