The White Earth (11 page)

‘In the early days,’ his uncle continued, ‘these hills were a lonely place. The only thing up here was an old shepherd’s hut. When I was boy I used to hear stories about how two men were stationed there, way back in the 1850s, when there was no House or anything. Supposedly, both of them went mad, alone for so long. One of them killed the other with an axe. Only bits of the body ever turned up. People said his friend ate him. I don’t know if that’s true. But the hut was still standing when I was young. And believe me, the place felt weird. Now though, it’s just a few old posts. You’d pass it right by without even knowing.’

And on they went, the old man’s talk carrying them further and further into the hills. Finally, they began to climb out of a narrow valley, and William’s uncle dropped the utility into its lowest gear.

‘Almost there now,’ he said. ‘Our first stop.’

They were ascending a steep hill. A single tree, bent by years of wind, marked the crown. And beyond that seemed to be open air.

The utility coughed to a halt beneath the tree. William was aware of a wide view all around, as they climbed out. The air was cool and still, and they were much higher up than he had expected. The first thing he saw were the Hoop Mountains. They had appeared from nowhere, immediately to the east, leaping up in a series of tall ridges, blue and crisp in the winter light, a thousand metres high. From his father’s farm on the plains, these same mountains had been a faded blue line on the horizon; now they seemed close enough to touch. He could see individual trees standing upon the crest of the central range. Thick forests swept down the flanks, but in the shadowed glens a tantalising darkness waited, naked cliffs of stone where the mountainsides had collapsed, while in other places again the peaks were worn and rounded and bore only grass, like great hairless heads. But the closeness was an illusion, he realised. The main ridge was still some miles away. In between, he could see now, were the higher foothills, a rugged tumble of them, cast out by the mountains and descending in waves until they lapped at the foot of the rise on which he stood.

‘Well, this is all of it.’ The old man had his hands in his pockets, as he stared out at the world. ‘Everything that Kuran Station ever was. Twenty-five miles north to south along the tops of the mountains here, and then another twenty miles out into the plains, all the way to the Condamine River. Five hundred square miles all told.’

William turned slowly to take it all in. The Hoop Mountains strode away in a great curve to either side, and the plains washed up against the foothills like a yellow sea. The spur was a wide, humpbacked spear of land jutting far out into that ocean. Its last hill, where Kuran House sat, remained hidden away at the western extremity. And beyond that was a great swathe of farmland, blurring with distance, until the horizon waited in an arc against the sky. William turned full circle, and confronted the mountains again. It was dumbfounding to think that it had all been one property once.

His uncle was shaking his head.‘It was too big, of course, even from the beginning. Ridiculous to think it could all hold together. They started breaking it up almost straight away. The mountains were the first to go. By the time the Whites took over, the boundary had been pulled back to the foothills. There were already loggers up there, and then people from Powell started using the mountains for camping trips. Later on the government turned it all into the national park.’

William was searching the mountains for landmarks he could recognise from visits he had made with his parents, but the angle was wrong. He could see no sign of the road that climbed up from Powell, or of the little resort village and camping grounds that he knew were nestled up there, next to the park. But he remembered guided walks with the rangers, and listening to lectures about the forest, craning his neck to see the tops of the giant trees — the famous bunya pines, and, of course, the hoop pines which gave the mountains their name.

‘The mountains don’t matter to us,’ his uncle said.‘They’re the old Kuran Station, and we’ll never get that back. Now there’s only twenty-odd square miles left, and that’s what concerns you and me. What we’re standing on right now. The land I own.’

William looked west again.

‘Do you see?’ His uncle crouched down at his side. ‘It’s nothing like the farm you grew up on. Your farm was a machine, a factory to grow wheat. But this isn’t anything like that. This is a piece of country. It’s not just about heads of cattle per acre. This place is alive in its own right. It has a history. It’s growing and changing all the time. It breathes.’

Glancing at the old man’s face, William saw a warmth there he wouldn’t have thought existed. It wasn’t directed at him, it was directed outwards, to the hills.

‘It even talks, to the right person. And that’s the thing — finding the right person. The truth is, land has to belong to someone to really come alive. It needs a human being to hear it and see it and to understand everything about it — where it came from, where it’s going. Otherwise it’s just a piece of ground. And when I die, I won’t be leaving a hole in a cemetery or my name on a gravestone. This is what I’ll be leaving.’

He was studying William now, his gaze intent.

‘Do you understand what I’m talking about?’

William couldn’t bear that gaze for long. It felt as if the old man saw deep within him and found only a lack, a little boy who didn’t understand anything. He dropped his eyes.

His uncle sighed, climbed to his feet.

‘Anyway,’ he said after a time, ‘this is as far east as we can go. From here we head south.’

William turned and looked down. At the foot of the hill was a line of winding trees that marked another creek — or possibly a different part of the one that ran past the House. A fence stretched along the near bank.

‘Cross over the creek,’ his uncle said, ‘and you’re into the national park.’

Something caught William’s attention.‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing.

His uncle peered down. On the far side of the creek, barely visible amidst the trees, was the red flash of a tent. And yes, there were men moving about down there.

‘So you’ve got eyes after all.’

‘Who are they?’ William asked.

The warmth had departed from the old man like an eclipsed sun. ‘I don’t know. But we’ll find out soon enough.’

Chapter Eleven

T
HERE WERE TWO MEN BY THE TENT,AND THEY WERE CROUCHED over what appeared to be a chart spread out upon the ground before them. Their heads lifted as they heard the utility rolling down the hill. When they saw that it was stopping by the fence, they rose and came to the far edge of the creek, then, after a pause, made their way across. Their feet splashed as they came, for this close to the mountains an inch or so of clear water was still trickling across the stony bed.

William and his uncle climbed out to meet them.

‘G’day,’ said the first man, lifting a finger as he came up. He was tanned and unshaven, and dressed, William noted with interest, in a faded ranger’s uniform.

His uncle returned the greeting watchfully.

The ranger nodded across the fence.‘This your property, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, good.’ He leant on a fence post and pulled out a cigarette, eyeing William for a moment as he lit it, then turning his attention back to the old man. ‘Might be lucky we ran into you.’ He stuck out a hand.‘I’m Ken Coates. National Parks. And this is James. He’s a PhD student I’m showing around.’

William’s uncle shook hands with them both. The second man wore ordinary clothes and looked much younger than the first, despite a bushy beard. Across the creek the tent sat brightly beneath the trees. There seemed to be a lot of gear stashed about it, and the ashen pile of a fireplace waited nearby. It was a pleasant, shady valley, with the creek running through, but it was far from the campgrounds up on the main range. And William knew that the national park rules were strict. You certainly weren’t allowed to camp just anywhere.

‘Yeah, been here since last night,’ the ranger was saying. ‘And it’s cold too, once the sun goes. So what do you run here? Cattle?’

‘Mostly.’ But William’s uncle didn’t seem interested in cattle. ‘You’re a long way down.’

The ranger tilted his cigarette towards his companion. ‘The boy’s doing some research, and I’ve been roped in as a guide.’ He flicked ash into the grass. ‘This your grandson, is he?’

‘Nephew. What sort of research?’

The young man spoke up.‘I’m writing a history of the Hoops.’ He was gazing over the fence.‘This is Kuran Station, isn’t it?’

William’s uncle ran a measuring eye over him.‘Yes.’

‘I thought so. I’ve read a bit about this place. From back when the mountains were part of the lease. Huge bloody place it was.’

‘This is as far as it goes now.’

‘The original owners—they were quite a famous family. You’re not descended from them, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Pity. I bet they’d have some stories to tell.’

‘No doubt.’

‘They don’t seem to have left any personal documentation, which is a shame. Is there any of that family left in the district? I should look them up.’

‘Not that I know of.’ The old man shifted his feet.‘I think they left back in the ’30s, long before I got the place.’

The young man shrugged.‘Oh well.’

‘What sort of history is it, exactly?’

‘I’m mainly interested in presettlement times. Indigenous occupation, the relevance of the mountains to their culture. Mostly I’ve been up on the range, where the big corroborees were held, trying to pinpoint localities.’

The ranger was smiling wryly. ‘The kid’s had me crawling all over the place. Looking for bora rings and shinning up bunya pines … but all we’ve found so far are a few old logging huts.’

The student nodded.‘There were gangs all over the mountains, from the 1860s on. And you can still find some of the roads the loggers cut, and those chutes they dug in the mountainsides to slide the logs down to the bottom. Of course it was all in decline by the First World War, and pretty much finished with by the Second. The hoop and bunya pines were logged out, and the red cedar too, except for a few left in the national park,but that was out of bounds by then.’

William’s uncle said nothing.

The ranger had finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out on the post, then drew a tobacco tin out of his pocket and stashed the butt away. He glanced at the old man.‘Grew up around here, did you?’

‘Out on the plains mostly.’

‘Familiar with the mountains at all?’

‘I’ve been up there.’

The student broke in again.‘So what about these bunya pines? You got any theories?’

William’s uncle regarded him blankly. ‘Theories about what?’

‘You know, the scars. On the big old trees, the ones that are a hundred and fifty, two hundred years old. Some people say they were made by Aborigines with stone axes, cutting footholds into the trunks so they could climb up to get the nuts. Other people reckon that’s rubbish and that they’re natural, just marks where branches have fallen off. You ever hear anything, one way or the other?’

‘I’ve heard both.’

‘What about the balds? Any thoughts?’

‘No.’

‘How about any other old stories? You know, stuff you might have heard from your grandfather about the early days. Strange happenings in the mountains, people stumbling into hidden gullies, that sort of thing.’

The old man only shook his head. There was a repressive pause. William was standing by, silent and wondering. He could sense that his uncle was being purposely uncommunicative, but didn’t understand why. What about all the tales he’d told William? Didn’t he like the men? He’d said that he didn’t want visitors or tourists on his property, but these two weren’t trespassing. They were in the national park. And one of them was a ranger.

‘What are balds?’ William asked at last.

The ranger grinned at him. He turned and pointed up to the mountains. ‘See those bare patches on some of the higher hills, where there’s only grass, no trees? They call them balds. No one knows why they’re like that. They weren’t cleared by logging or anything, and the soil is fine, but for some reason there were never any trees there, even though there’s forest all around.’

‘They might have something to do with the indigenous inhabitants,’ the student said. ‘Or they might not. It’s one of the things I’m investigating.’

‘You been up in the mountains, son?’ the ranger asked William.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Ever eaten a bunya nut?

‘No.’

‘Bloody beautiful. Fry ’em like potatoes. Fatten you up in no time.’

William’s uncle had stood by austerely through all this.‘There aren’t any balds down around here,’ he said.‘Or bunya pines.’

‘No,’ the ranger admitted.‘We’re after something else, along the creek.’

‘Yes?’

‘Water holes, actually,’ the student said.

The old man frowned.‘On this side of the range?’

The ranger sighed.‘I know, that’s what I told him. We’re in the wrong place. The only decent water holes are in the eastern catchment.’

‘It’s there in the oral sources though,’ the student insisted. ‘There was supposed to be a sizeable pool on this side, a water hole that you could rely on, even in droughts. It was pretty important in cultural terms, apparently, so there might be artefacts or other significant finds around it.’

The ranger was studying the creek. ‘We’ve been tracking all the west-flowing streams, up and down the mountains. Haven’t found a thing so far. That’s what we were wondering. You know this area. Nothing you can tell us?’

William’s uncle scraped a hand across his chin.‘Never heard of a big water hole this side. And anyway, it wouldn’t be so low down. You should be looking higher up.’

‘We have been,’ the student said.

‘Maybe you heard wrong. What are these sources?’

‘Well, there’s people’s letters and journals — early settlers, the loggers, the odd explorer. And old maps, though you can’t always rely on those. But oral sources, I’m talking about older stuff there, like Aboriginal legends. Tribes from all over southeast Queensland gathered here when the bunya nuts ripened, so the mountains feature in the tales of quite a few different tribal groups. All gone now, but I’ve talked to a few old men and women in places like Cherbourg, and they remember a thing or two. Part of my funding comes from their local land council, actually. There’s been some pretty good studies of Aboriginal history in the Darling Downs area, but nothing all that specific about the Hoops.’