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  Soon they heard the rhythmic thunder of the rolling surf and a new birdsong that rose above the pulse of the ocean in a melody that ended in a sharp whip crack. Wirritjil pointed to the mangrove whistlers with bright yellow chests flitting among the trees.

  The women came to the dunes and climbed upwards, their feet sinking in the flower-strewn sand. On the crest of the dune they sat for a while, gazing at the wide blue of the sky and the deep green of the ocean. Wirritjil sang in a low murmur. Emily heard the long whistle and staccato si si si of the whistling kite. She lay back and watched the bird circling above her, coming low and lifting again, the tips of his spread wings dark and his tail a sharp fan turning as he looked down.

  ‘He has come to tell me something,’ said Emily.

  They walked to the water. On the beach, the wet sand was firm and grainy on the women’s feet and the breeze cool and salty against their faces. The waves broke from the green swell in a wall of white water, re-formed glistening smooth, rolling in and breaking again gently on the shore, spreading blue on the beach that was yellow in the late afternoon sun. Beyond the break, sleek black storm petrels rose in sudden sweeps, riding the early brushes of an approaching storm front. On the horizon black and grey clouds bubbled into the blue sky.

  The seagulls rose, flying sideways from the ground in front of them. Wirritjil and Emily sat at the edge of the waves’ reach, laughing in delight at the feel of the water on their skin. Grey sandpipers followed the waves back to sea, pecking at disappearing tiny shells. Long-toed stints and the black-headed terns ran in spiky movements, peering at the women, forgetting for a moment the gifts of food from the waves.

  Emily took a flint from her belt made of twine and hair and cut the belt. She laid it on the beach and admired the pouches, the bush tools, the pieces of useful grass.

  ‘You have taught me so much, Nyawama.’

  Emily walked into the water. The waves circled her ankles. She looked back at Wirritjil. ‘See? The sea has hands to hold you.’

  The two men and the boy were fishing from the shore in the estuary, pulling in a large tayiwul with a fine coat of glittering scales. Trevor held it tight, its muscular body twisting, as the boy blunted the barb on the strong hook of coral with a rock and the hook slid from the fish’s mouth. Charcoal lifted his face to the sky. He saw a sudden flight of seagulls and he rose slowly. Trevor sensed what Charcoal knew and he stood. He let the tayiwul slide back into the water. He saw the slight flicker of Charcoal’s finger. He ran with a start, his feet striking hard, heading north, bounding across the shells of the midden and through the slowing sands of the dunes. Janarra picked up his long spear and followed.

  Juwurru Charcoal stood still. His mind clouded, in a way he had not known before. He wanted to call to the boy but the words didn’t come.

  Trevor’s feet hit the firm sand of the washed beach. In the distance, he could see Wirritjil sitting on the beach and Emily’s thin figure moving steadily into the surf.

  Emily felt the rush of the salt water against her legs. She dipped her hands in so that the water pummelled the insides of her wrists. She pushed through the tumble of the waves’ wash, pressed her hands together, took a deep breath and dived deep under the break. The rushing foam with spinning grains of sand was hard against her face. She surfaced in the quiet haul of the forming breakers.

  Trevor called back to Janarra, ‘Call out loud. Call out Emily. Emily. Point to her.’

  ‘Emmmmeee,’ shouted Janarra, and he ran knee-deep into the surf. He pointed. He could see her. Her hair was dark and she was like a bird resting on the ocean, drifting away.

  Trevor swam strongly, cutting through the surf.

  Emily floated in the silent heave of the tide. She could see white rumps of the storm petrels and the yellow of their webbed feet as they skimmed across the water. They flew in upward arcs among the grey-winged shearwaters cutting and gliding through unsettled breezes.

  Emily felt the water soothe her. She was tired. No yesterday or tomorrow. There was only this moment. She let the ocean take her down through the shimmering rays of the last light of day. Down, down until there was nothing but green and blue, and the silvery silent slap of fish.

  Float, float up. She remembered her father’s voice, so far away, so long ago. Push, palms down. She pulled her fingers together and straightened her hands. The water was smooth on her body, caressing her. She had touched his shoulder, his face, his lips. The crescent moon was blue and the whistling kite flew across it just before dawn. Jurulu was there and they had loved one another, and she had tasted his skin, salty like the sea.

  There came a shadow and with it a song. It was the song that was there on the night their hearts beat together, and in the trees in the morning as he lay dead with his eyes open and clear, and there in the cave where the Walangkernany had looked at her with his sharp eyes, and in the haze of the desert and in the mists after the rain. The song wrapped itself around her and the shadow came close.

  It was a man, a black man, half-caste, with hair tied with seaweed in a topknot, a necklace of pearl shell and a shield in front of him and one on his back. He had yellow feathers behind his ears and he swam like a turtle, his feet flicking out behind. She saw his face, the curious expression and the shy smile. Emily stretched her arms out towards him and willed her body downwards. The turtle man offered his hand. Their fingers touched and the tips gripped against one another like hooks. He held his shield out so she could nestle behind it, against his chest. She knew this heart, this heart that was beating warm and strong.

  Black clouds moved across the face of the sun as it burnt red towards the ocean. Janarra walked back and forth in the surf, his hands shading his eyes from the glare. Trevor returned and asked Janarra once more where he had last spotted Emily. He dived again and was gone until the sun was a scarlet half on the horizon. He shook the crimson ocean from his body and looked back out to sea as black clouds came tossing with the wind and the moon rose big and red behind him.

  Charcoal hurried to reach Wirritjil. The seagulls rose in a flurry of white as he came to her standing on the edge of the great ocean. He told her they must hurry and hide. He motioned to the boy and Wirritjil called to him.

  Three men on horseback came over the dune, their figures dark silhouettes in the scarlet circle of the moon. One held his hand high and paused for a moment as if holding back troops behind him.

  Perez saw the woman and the old man at the shoreline facing the sea and the white man running out of the water towards them and the boy knee-deep in the surf. He aimed at the Aboriginal woman as she shielded her eyes and beckoned to the boy.

  A seagull flew at Perez, straight into his face as he pulled the trigger. He missed the woman but the bullet sheared through the old man’s spine and into his heart.

  Charcoal fell in a curl to the waves that lapped the shore and his blood was the same colour as the water in the setting sun. Trevor reached Wirritjil, gripped her arm and pulled her into the foam.

  The two constables had their guns raised but they held back. Perez had no such reserve. He galloped down the dune, pulling the bolt action on his rifle, shooting with a wild aim. Janarra had disappeared under the water. Trevor held his hands high and walked towards the policeman. Sergeant Perez smirked at Trevor as though he was some conspirator who was guilty of a misdemeanour and had been caught, but his face changed abruptly as he saw Janarra stand up in the surf and raise his spear high. Trevor lunged and grabbed Perez’s rifle. Perez’s horse shied, the long spear hurtled through where Perez’s heart should have been and hit deep into the sand.

  Trevor emptied the rifle of its bullets and threw it away. The special constables rode in tight circles, unsure of what to do. Perez snatched a rifle from one of them and whipped his horse to a canter along the edge of the water. He fired into the waves, but he could not see whether he had shot the woman or the boy for the storm was racing towards them and the entire ocean was red and black.

  17

  J
ustice

  The Minderoo nosed into the jetty. Kathryn peered out from under her umbrella. The water was a chalky green, splotched with rain and the only evidence of the shore was the bushy tops of the mangroves. The rain became heavy and streamed down as the steamer was unloaded. Sacks of goods, furniture and machine parts were thrown onto the trucks of a tram pulled by two horses. The men waiting were dressed in light clothing and linen-covered pith helmets or cream fedoras. The few women wore long skirts, the hems reddened by mud. At the end of the jetty were groups of Asians huddled, the rain falling in veils from their coolie hats. They were surrounded by armed white men, some on horseback and others on foot. A uniformed policeman paced on a tired-looking horse, scrutinising the crowd for any flash of untoward movement. Another policeman stood to the side in the long grass, guarding a pile of scythes and sharpened knives.

  The men in the coolie hats did not appear to have any reason to be there. Their mood was either angry or abject. Other Asians of a paler colour and dressed in the same lightcoloured linens as the white people mingled on the edge of the crowd, greeting a few passengers.

  Kathryn’s umbrella threatened to collapse in the heavy rain and her shoes and socks were sodden. Surely Emily would have read the passenger list. Why was she or William not here?

  A steam engine pulling the tram from the wharf came to a stop. The metal tracks heading into town were covered in sludge and it seemed unlikely the tram would be able to move, yet people threw bags haphazardly into a passenger cart that had a roof and open sides. There was shouting between the Asians. A policeman shot his gun into the air and herded the poorly dressed and those with coolie hats back along the muddy road towards town. The crowd thinned. A man with a leather hat and moleskins stood by himself in the rain. His arm was in a sling and he leant on a walking stick.

  ‘Miss Kathryn Lidscombe?’

  ‘Yes. I am Emily Lidscombe’s sister.’

  He nodded. His eyes were like the sea—not the deep blue sea but the sun-tipped clear coastal waters she had travelled to get here. He gave a small hesitant smile. ‘Been waitin’ for yer for a while. Name’s Jim Maley.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  The drover was lost in the face of the sharp question. ‘I don’t know.’

  The drover glanced at the departing police. ‘Been race riots in this town. Anyone who is white ’as got the law.’

  He turned back and looked straight into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to tell what ain’t true. There is a hearing right now in town that might tell you somethin’.’

  He picked up her luggage and without another word of explanation, pointed her to the tram.

  The journey was a mile long. At first there were just stunted trees, red dirt, glimpses of beach and mangrove swamp and the occasional hut, then finer homes with large latticed verandas. The tram stopped at the single-storeyed Continental Hotel.

  ‘Best hotel. Put yer belongings here. I’ll take yer to the courthouse. ’

  The drover insisted on taking her luggage in, limping and using one arm. In between the showers the day was a suffocating hot grey. Two women and a man sat in cane chairs fanning themselves behind the lattice. They waved politely to her and glanced sideways at the drover as if already trying to put pieces together for gossip. He pulled himself back on to the waiting tram.

  ‘Mr Jim Maley . . .’ Kathryn took his arm and forced him to face her.

  He returned her look but his eyes seemed to darken. ‘Saw yer sister once—she was runnin’ away from Cicada Springs. I promised I’d send that telegraph. Never saw her again.’ He turned away from Kathryn. It was clear he was going to say no more.

  The tram travelled past the cable house, a large building made of hardwood and decorated iron, with a sweeping wide veranda. It stood alone in a sea of mud with a few palms and mangrove figs. The tram continued on a circuit around an area of closely built double-storey wood and iron buildings. Chinese men with their hair plaited in a single braid long down their backs stood outside a noodle house, another group near what looked like a laundry. There was a grocery store with mounds of fruit getting wet and a peculiar small outdoor theatre for moving films. The people looked apprehensive, although some were obviously drunk. There were few women and everywhere were white men, some with guns and others with truncheons and a few with only the attitude of authority.

  At the end of the street, tram carts were being loaded from a small jetty. The ocean was receding, showing the trunks of the mangroves with the spiky forests of breathing roots. In the bay, pearling luggers, their sails like the wings of resting dragonflies, settled into the mud as the water streamed away from their hulls.

  The tram shuttled in a square into a street close to the sea. On one side was a hotel with no lattice, a low roof and dark windows with many men on the veranda drinking. Most of the men wore dirty shirts undone to the waist, heavy trousers streaked with mud and spurred boots.

  On the sea side were large rickety tin sheds with wide-open doors. Asian men with scarfs across their faces sat opening oysters, surrounded by mounds of pearl shell that glowed pale in the cave-like darkness of the windowless buildings.

  Everywhere there were groups of Aborigines, usually sitting in ragged circles and complete with all ages from the scarred elderly to chubby naked toddlers. Some were cooking on small fires and others drinking out of tin containers and brushing flies away.

  They came to the police station, which also housed the courthouse and, next to it, a narrow building that was the lock-up. Groups of prisoners were chained together and waited by a slender boab tree. The prisoners were mostly Asian men and there were several Aborigines and all were men except for one. There was a small crowd around the prisoners and the entrance to the courthouse.

  The drover took Kathryn’s hand briefly as they alighted from the tram, cupped his hand on her elbow and signalled to a man wearing a dark fedora standing at the door.

  The man squinted at Kathryn’s finery and motioned them forwards. Kathryn stared at the prisoners and in particular the Aboriginal woman. Kathryn considered her. She was very dark, black, with wild bushy hair, a large flat nose and ugly grey scars on her shoulders. The dress she wore looked like it was stitched together from pieces of sack cloth. Her legs were thin and she was pot-bellied as if she were pregnant. She stood at the length of her chain, apart from the others, her eyes on the ground.

  ‘That woman—’ the drover nodded towards Wirritjil ‘—she was travelling with your sister. Helpin’ her.’

  ‘With Emily?’ They were close to the door. The drover let go of Kathryn’s elbow.

  ‘Ma’am, er, Lady Lidscombe, I will leave you now.’

  ‘Please, why?’

  ‘Don’t as a rule go inside buildings. Gotta go ridin’. Was jes’ waitin’ for yer.’

  The man at the entrance took off his hat and bowed to Kathryn and opened the door. Kathryn gripped the drover’s sleeve.

  ‘Mr Maley, tell me more.’

  ‘Dunno much more, ’cept the black girl didn’t kill no-one.’

  He disappeared into the throng of greyness that was the sodden people and the rain. Kathryn entered into a steamy room that was packed with both men and women. It seemed there was a film of sweat, rain or steam or all three over everything. The proceedings were well underway. A single fan whirred overhead. The bench of the bewigged judge, a man with hawk-like eyebrows and small eyes, was a large varnished table. Sergeant Perez sat next to him at a smaller table loaded with folders and papers.

  A rope marked out an aisle for the prisoners to be marched to the judge’s bench. The Asians were dealt with first. Crimes related to assault, improper use of fire weapons, inciting riots. Some had feisty representation, usually with poor English, others had none. Some came with earnest expressions and hope in their eyes, as though the judge would be their saviour, and began listing their hardships, usually poor pay and dangerous conditions. The judge would cut them short.

  ‘We are here because of an incident in which you
are deemed to have broken the law. Make representation to the government in regard to all other matters currently within state and federal policy or law.’

  The hearings were brief and the penalties ranged from a few weeks’ labour to deportation. Those implicated in or accused of murder were remanded for further hearings or sentencing.

  The judge wiped the sweat from his face. His gown was dark below his chin. He took a break. The courtroom sweated and waited. The judge returned and sat. Lifting his wig as though about to remove it, he looked at the packed courtroom, shook his head, straightened his shoulders and let the wig settle back. He adjusted his glasses. No-one moved as the first Aboriginal man was led in.

  One Aboriginal was dispensed with after another. Cattle spearing, stealing rations. Most were sentenced to light labour in the Kimberley; others were sent south to Roebourne or Rottnest Island in the south for longer prison sentences. None had representation. Kathryn struggled to understand. Around her the onlookers chatted lightly, some even laughing and discussing other matters as though this was a social event or a meeting place. The room was unbearably hot, and Kathryn felt she would faint. She wondered if she could remain standing for much longer. What did this have to do with Emily?

  Suddenly there was silence. The Aboriginal woman was brought into the room. She was attached to an iron band on the policeman’s wrist by a chain from a similar band of iron around her neck. Her hands were bound in front of her and she pulled her shoulders forwards as if trying to hide herself; her head was bowed so that her face could not be seen.

  The judge read his papers in silence and looked from the papers to the woman and back again. He sat for a moment with a furrowed brow, then said, ‘The charge is the murder of one Mr John Calhoon.’