The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya Page 3

Wayne and Mitchell continued eating noisily, completely mystified at the funny looks their parents were giving each other.

  Around four the following morning Grungle was sitting waiting patiently in the darkness on the front seat of the Land Rover, next to the thermos of hot tea and the lunch his master’s wife had prepared. She’d also filled Murray full of bacon and eggs and was now standing on the verandah having a hug and a kiss before he left.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you in a couple of days or so mate,’ said Murray, giving her one last hug before he turned and walked down the front steps.

  ‘All right Love. Take care,’ she replied with a wave and a smile.

  Murray was about halfway to the car when a couple of sleepy voices made him stop abruptly and spin around.

  ‘Why didn’t you say goodbye to us, Dad?’

  His two sons had come out on to the verandah and were standing in the light from the kitchen, either side of and leaning half asleep against their mother.

  ‘Well,’ grinned Murray a little sheepishly as he started walking back up to them, ‘it’s pretty early and I didn’t want to wake up my two best mates in all the world.’ He hugged his sons to him and planted an affectionate kiss on both their foreheads.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ mumbled Mitchell. ‘You should’ve said goodbye, Dad.’

  ‘Yeah you’re right mate,’ replied Murray, smiling at the wonderfully cranky look on his son’s face. ‘I did the wrong thing. I’m sorry. Anyway, I’m only gonna be gone a couple of days. But I want you both to look after the place and do what your mother tells you. Okay?’

  ‘You needn’t worry about that, Dad,’ said Wayne. ‘She hits almost as hard as you.’

  Murray started the car and with a toot of the horn headed off down the driveway towards the faintest flicker of pink and mauve staining the cobalt of the dawn sky. Grungle gave a throaty bark out the window as Ernie zoomed down out of the darkness to land at the side of the driveway and watch as the Land Rover rumbled past. There was another toot on the horn and the next thing they’d left the drive and were on the red-dirt road heading in to Dirranbandi.

  Murray picked up the main road out of town and then, with one foot on the accelerator and the other banging on the floor in time to some country radio station playing Gary Young and The Rockin’ Emus twanging their way through ‘I’m Runnin’ Late For Gwandong’, he headed for the small town of St George. There he picked up the Balone Highway, straight to Cunnamulla, where he took the Mitchell Highway to Charleville. Taking advantage of the even bitumen he hoofed it a bit because after that it was all red dust and loose gravel for a while, and then worse... practically nothing after the tough cattle town on the Warrego River. Murray was there just as the shops were opening a little after nine. He then turned west on the dirt road past Lake Dartmouth, and drove on over the Blackwater River.

  More country music, from some other radio station, twanged away on the radio while outside the blinding sun climbed higher into the sky and the Land Rover sped further into western Queensland, spewing choking bulldust out behind it in a billowing red cloud. Homestead? or any signs of civilisation soon began to disappear except for the odd refrigerator cum mailbox standing by a gate at the side of the road, generally with the bleached skull of a steer perched on top as a grim decoration. On either side of the road stretched the shimmering flat plains, their monotony broken only by countless grey termite mounds, more bleached bones of various animals, and pepperings of brittle-looking shrubs and trees that were almost as red and dry as the soil they clung to so precariously. Beyond the plains loomed a horizon of low, uneven mountain ranges, blue in the distance. These always gave Murray the feeling that eons ago, during the dreamtime, some giant had come along and decided that these ranges were too high; so he scooped the tops off and turned them all into plateaus. Now and again small flocks of startled emus or bustards would gallop off into the spinifex and stinging trees, joined occasionally by equally small mobs of scraggy red or grey kangaroos. Wedge-tailed eagles, hawks and crows would sometimes appear drifting languidly in the hot air currents like scraps of burnt paper, then dive and disappear into a landscape as drab and gaunt as the people and creatures that inhabited it. The great master painter never bothered with too much on his palette when he made this part of Australia. Any colour schemes he left to be chosen by the relentless hot winds and the burning outback sun.

  Murray checked his watch about an hour later as a change in the terrain — from semi-desert to huge outcrops of granite and ashen boulders, interspersed with orangy brown carpets of wild hops — told him he was getting into the McGregor and Coleman Ranges. At the edge of the trickle that presently passed for the Kyabra Creek, thirty or so kilometres this side of Windorah, he decided to stop so he and Grungle could have a piss and stretch their legs.

  After he’d had a leak, Murray got the canvas water bag from the front of the Land Rover and took a good long swallow. Normally he would have poured some in his hat for Grungle but the dog found a small pond in the creek bed and happily slurped up all he needed. He trundled back up to his master and they stood in the still, hot silence by the side of the car idly watching a huge antlion buried in the sand, its jaws just below the surface, snap onto another ant almost as big and drag it beneath the surface to suck it dry. A monstrous greeny black goanna, almost two metres long, lumbered up over a boulder and looked intently at them for a few moments, possibly wondering if the weird-looking dog was going to give chase; but Grungle wasn’t the slightest bit interested in this heat. Its body swaying rhythmically from side to side, the goanna finally lumbered off disturbing a pair of fat, white, speckled geckos sitting on a rock. They appeared to have heavily-membrane-lidded eyes only for each other. Murray always liked the ubiquitous little geckos with their flattened spade shaped tails and funny little hands. He walked over to them for a closer look. It wasn’t long before the two lizards brought their heads up and started their awful, high-pitched hissing scream that was supposed to terrify him but was nothing more than a bluff from the delightful, harmless little creatures. Murray chuckled to himself and watched them continue with their hissing for a few moments before he turned to Grungle.

  ‘Come on mate,’ he smiled. ‘It’s not hard to see we’re not wanted round here. Let’s piss off.’ Murray looked at his watch once more. ‘We might stop again for a bit of lunch in a while, eh. What do you reckon?’

  It’s hard to imagine, but as he jumped up on the front seat of the Land Rover it looked like Grungle nodded his head in agreement.

  An hour or so later they’d passed Windorah — where the Barcoo and Thompson Rivers join to form a creek, the Cooper — and were on the banks of the Whitulah River.

  It was almost noon, Murray’s stomach was rumbling constantly and Grungle also looked like he was getting ready to gnaw the butt off his master’s AR-15 sitting on the back seat, so they pulled up for some lunch. Murray opened up the overnight bag and found a thermos full of sweet white tea, strong enough to stand a pinch-bar up in, and two roast beef and home-made chutney sandwiches about the same size as a Webster’s Dictionary. There was also a bag of roughly chopped meat for Grungle and the bones from Sunday night’s sirloins. Murray fed the dog first and then, with the car doors open, got stuck into his sandwiches while he gazed fondly at the still rugged, yet increasingly beautiful countryside around him.

  The Whitulah was nowhere near full but a fairly steady stream of clear water, trickling languidly over the smooth white stones that formed its bed, showed there had been a little more rain than usual during this year’s dry. Patches of huge golden king orchids moved gently in the warm breeze at the edge of the river and took advantage of the extra moisture, along with a few small beds of Sturt’s beautiful white desert roses — their bright crimson centres looking almost like drops of blood. Silver wattle and giant silver elkhorns vied for space on the river bank, among great smooth rocks whose shiny whiteness was stained by spreading patches of brown and green moss. Murray’s attention, however, was
directed mainly to a pair of beautiful olive-backed orioles singing melodiously in a magnificent golden wattle tree. There were plenty of other birds around but the orioles’ shrill clear sound seemed to rise easily above the others’ before they were abruptly interrupted and driven from their tree by a flock of noisy white corellas who started fighting as soon as they landed, squawking and jostling each other for a better position. Murray smiled and shook his head, and even Grungle seemed to wince and wish they’d shut up.

  A movement in the bushes a few metres behind the wattle made Murray freeze and tentatively move towards the loaded submachine gun on the back seat. It was a wild dog. At this distance Murray couldn’t miss; he’d nail the savage carnivorous pest and besides doing the bush a favour get the bounty on its scalp. But when the animal nosed its way a little further out of the bushes Murray could see it was a rare black dingo, probably attracted by the smell of the food and the noise. Grungle sensed the dingo’s presence, spotted it, and immediately began to bristle.

  ‘Hold on mate,’ said Murray, taking Grungle firmly by the collar. ‘We’ll let him go. There’s not too many of them left — and he ain’t gonna do too much harm out here.’

  The black dingo heard Murray’s voice and vanished as quietly and mysteriously as it had appeared.

  Murray finished his sandwiches, gave his stomach a rub, and the dog’s too. ‘Well. What do you reckon mate? We get crackin’? With a bit of luck we should be there in another four hours or so.’

  Grungle seemed to nod his head in agreement and hopped back up on the front seat. Murray rinsed the thermos in the creek and they were soon on their way again.

  The road on the other side of the Whitulah was now nothing more than a dusty, uneven, rock-strewn trail, across which crawled numerous thick growths of orange desert pea. The plains were way behind them now and by the time they had pushed through the metre or so of water that formed Farrars Creek and past a dot on the map called Currawilla, they headed into an even worse stretch of road leading towards another dot, Pulparara.

  The landscape around them changed dramatically once more. Precipices and mountains, thrown up by volcanoes and hewn by water rushing through them millions of years ago, formed ragged ridges along either side of the narrow dirt road. Massive orange, ochre and mauve cliffs would often tower over the Land Rover. Some were smooth, as if cut by a hot knife through butter, while others were weathered into frighteningly weird patterns and shapes by man’s greatest enemy and the leveller of all things on earth — time. Pools of crystal-clear water and equally clear streams and billabongs teeming with fat white-necked herons would appear at the bases of these ochre ridges and redstone cliffs. White-barked cedars, flooded gums and monstrous green tree ferns were everywhere. Stinging trees and squat cabbage palms, their delicate fronds spread out like a Spanish senorita’s fan, were also in abundance.

  Murray spun the wheel violently to avoid two huge and plump stumpy-tailed lizards asleep on the dirt track. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve been out here mate, eh?’ he grinned at Grungle, bouncing madly all over the front seat. ‘Still the grouse though, ain’t it?’ The bushman’s dog appeared to nod once more in agreement as if he too loved and appreciated the rugged, remote beauty of these parts.

  Vine-tangled trees full of birds overhung the narrow track, and banks of colourful wild flowers grew everywhere. Blue, wild tomatoes edged alongside pink and mauve hollyhocks. Golden spur valleias, looking almost like orchids, intertwined with orange quandong, or native peach. Purple fan flowers grew neck and neck with coral and yellow drumstick shrubs while more bursts of orange desert pea kept scrambling across the track, looking like tongues of flame.

  The laughter of kookaburras echoed off the cliff faces along with the screeching of galahs, cockatoos and parrots and the screaming and arguing of the channel-billed cuckoos that have a rotten habit of laying their eggs in other birds’ nests. Murray had turned the radio off ages ago; the screeching and squawking of the dozens of varieties of birds, although at times unbelievably raucous, was all the music he needed.

  Just across the small but beautiful Diamantina Lakes, where the Mayne and Diamantina Rivers meet, Murray stopped again to check his map, the odometer and the compass on the dashboard.

  ‘Not much further now, Grungle old son,’ he smiled, running his finger across the map. He gave the dog a rough pat on the head and they lurched on their way again.

  Another ten kilometres or so past another dot on the map, Springvale, Murray found what he was looking for — a row of a dozen cycad trees lined up along the side of the road like a column of tin soldiers. Even through the dust-covered windscreen Murray could clearly make out the hundreds of tiny red-backed wrens hopping nimbly amongst the protection of the trees’ bayonet-sharp leaves.

  ‘There it is mate.’ Murray grinned at the dog and swung the Land Rover off the track at the last cycad. He drove back to where the cycads hid the start of another trail and followed it for about five kilometres till the bumpy trail suddenly opened up into a landscaped clearing of approximately one acre with a huge old rambling homestead. At just on four-thirty Murray switched off the motor and smiled happily at Grungle. They were there. Roughly 250 kilometres in from the Northern Territory border and right on the Tropic of Capricorn. Binjiwunyawunya. Place of plenty of water and a full stomach.

  No matter when it was, every time Murray pulled up at Binjiwunyawunya and the old house built out in the middle of nowhere he never ceased to be amazed at the strange beauty of the place and the sheer incongruity of it all. The white wooden homestead, with a wide verandah running around the front and the two sides, was built right into the red-ochre table-topped mountain that loomed over it. Part of the verandah was shaded by white, wooden lattice work with vines, fruit and different coloured bougainvilleas growing through and around it in a haphazard display of magnificent colours. Pink, gold, blue, crimson, white. More vines and flowers spread across the green, galvanised-iron roof in the middle of which was a large disc-antenna for picking up satellite TV signals. Flower beds, shrubs and small native trees dotted the landscaped clearing in front and to the sides of the house, where a set of sprinklers played jets of water across them and the neat green lawns. There were numerous pebble-edged ponds filled with huge white lilies and hibiscus over which dozens of spindly-legged waterbirds skipped and danced as they pecked at the insects and tiny fish in the crystal-clear shallows.

  The gum tree-dotted mountain behind the homestead swarmed with more birds and held a natural mineral spring that bubbled into the chain of ponds to one side of the house before it disappeared into an underground stream. This spring ensured a steady supply of water for the house and gardens even in the severest drought and the owners often used to joke about how people in the cities paid a dollar for small bottles of Perrier and other spa waters while they used to throw it all over their gardens nonchalantly. Murray smiled and shook his head once more in wonder at the sheer magic of it all before he and Grungle got out of the Land Rover. Just as they did so, a huge swarm of exquisitely coloured butterflies drifted over them and flew on towards the mountain.

  Two absolutely gorgeous young Aboriginal girls, no more than twenty and wearing nothing but a pair of brief Spank running shorts that emphasised their ripe full-breasted bodies, stopped what they were doing amongst the ponds and squinted over towards the car, their hands above their eyes. One was holding a hose, the other a small pitchfork. As soon as they recognised Murray and Grungle their lovely dark faces broke into beautiful, shy, pearly grins that only Australian Aborigines seem to manage; huge grins that are totally infectious and look as though they can light up a room or a cloudy day all on their own.

  ‘Murray,’ they chorused excitedly. Both girls dropped what they were doing and giggling happily to each other came running over. ‘How are you, darling? You too, Grungle.’ ‘Hello Numidi. Hello Nantjinin. Shit it’s good to see you again.’ Murray threw his arms around them and hugged them to him and kissed them warmly as they giggl
ed and squealed affectionately. ‘How are you girls?’

  ‘Terrific, Murray,’ replied Numidi happily. ‘Especially now that we’ve seen you.’

  They squeezed and held each other for a few moments more, then Nantjinin looked up into Murray’s eyes.

  ‘What brings you out here anyway?’ she asked cheekily. ‘Was it to see one of us, oh great white hunter?’

  ‘Don’t bloody great white hunter me you cheeky little bludger, or you might get a boot right in the bum. I came out to see the boys. Where are they?’

  ‘In the house,’ said Numidi.

  Just then a voice sounding like it was trying desperately hard not to laugh called out from the homestead.

  ‘By the livin’ bloody Jesus. Here’s trouble.’

  Murray turned to see three Aboriginal men, wearing black cotton headbands and running shorts, grinning at him from the top of the stairs running up to the house.

  ‘Hello fellas,’ he chuckled. ‘How’re you goin’ there?’

  With his arms still around the girls’ waists and Grungle trotting happily behind, Murray returned the grins and walked over towards the house.

  The happy faces on the verandah belonged to the men Murray had travelled over a thousand kilometres to see, through semi-desert, mountain ranges and hidden trails. The owners of the unique homestead at Binjiwunyawunya: Tjalkalieri, Mumbi and Yarrawulla. These were their true native names, but ever since childhood Murray and the rest of the family had called them Chalky, Mumbles and Yarra. And as Aborigines the boys from Binjiwunyawunya were something else. Walking slowly towards them, Murray never ceased to be amazed at the way they never seemed to change in appearance — even in the thirty-odd years he had known them.

  Each man had to be at least seventy, but none looked a day over thirty. It was uncanny. Their teeth were all white and perfect, set in faces scarcely lined except for a few wrinkles around the eyes and sides of the mouth, probably caused from laughing too much. Not a grey hair amongst the short, curly crops on their domed heads and not an ounce of fat on their smooth, wiry bodies. Bent slightly over the railing, the folds in their stomach muscles looked like squashed-up piano accordions. Chalky, the shortest, had the makings of a small, straggly beard. But the one oustanding feature of all three men was their bright, almost electric-blue eyes. While nearly all Aboriginal people have brown eyes, these were a piercing blue and even though their faces were creased with laughter Murray could sense the energy behind those eyes and almost feel them boring into him as he ambled towards the homestead.