To the Islands by Randolph Stow

Author:Randolph Stow [Stow, Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CLASSIC FICTION
ISBN: 9781922253101
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2015-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

6

Heriot woke to the harsh outcry of crows, it was a crow his eyes saw first as they opened unwillingly on the light of day. A shining bird, it clung in the tree close above his head and broadcast its discovery to the air. Presently two more crows came planing in to join it and to perch and peer sidelong at the prone man.

‘You think I’m dead,’ he said. ‘Damn your impudence. I’m a strong man yet.’ He got to his feet energetically and waved his blanket at them, so that they flew, protesting.

Justin was in his usual post at the fire, smoke rising blue and clear into the sky. ‘I’ll never starve,’ Heriot said, coming up behind him, ‘while I have you.’

The brown man looked round with a grin. ‘I thinking we better keep that tin food. Not much there, old man. You like duck?’

‘Jau, ngaia nambal.’ He took the little cooked wing Justin handed to him and chewed it.

‘Good, eh?’

‘Manambara.’

‘Why you talking language now, old man? Angundja-gu jei gram?’

‘Gadea gabu,’ Heriot said, ‘ngaia bendjin, nawuru morong nangga. No more white man. I’m a blackfellow, son of the sun.’

Justin laughed, slow and shy, looking up glowingly from under his jutting forehead. There was grey in his hair, Heriot saw, and it showed in the incipient beard, but his smile was young. ‘Maoba,’ he said, ‘old man, bendjin don’t always say gadea for white man.’

‘No?’

‘Most of the people, they say djuari or they say bungama, because you all white like devil-devil or ghost.’

‘Bungama ngarang,’ said Heriot contentedly. ‘I am a ghost.’

‘Which way we going today?’

‘Gala. That way. West. To track the sun.’

‘Gare,’ Justin said, ‘okay. Now you have you breakfast.’

When they had packed up and were moving again a troop of hawks came and hovered over their heads and moved with them, hanging so low that Heriot, when he looked up, could see their watching eyes.

‘What are they doing?’ he asked, suddenly frightened and old.

‘They just looking at us. They not cheeky.’

‘Why are they following me?’

‘They follow anyone, old man.’

‘No,’ Heriot said shakily, ‘they’re following me, they’re waiting for me to die.’ He screamed at the hawks: ‘Get away, you filthy vultures, go on! I’m not going to die!’ But they wheeled still.

‘Don’t look at them,’ Justin advised, ‘they go away soon, they got their own countries.’

‘Shoot them,’ Heriot commanded. ‘Where’s the rifle? Give it to me. Why are they watching me?’

‘They all right, old man.’

‘Filthy birds! Look at them,’ Heriot raged, ‘watching me. They’re going to follow us, all the way. Why don’t you shoot them, damn you?’

‘They always around,’ Justin said. But though the birds presently dropped back, others rose and briefly followed as the two men rode on towards the new range; and when, hours later, they stopped to rest and eat by a palm-shadowed spring at the foot of one of the sentinel hills, the hawks were above, circling the peak in restless vigilance.

‘Why is the earth so hungry?’ Heriot protested weakly. ‘Where is God?’

Standing in the tin shade of one of the stores, bored and out of place, Dixon thought longingly of the mission.

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