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Unyama shifted uneasily on his tree stump. He whispered to Ooloo, ‘I am afraid, as a logical man, I ca
‘Kuduna wished to return to camp but I persuaded him to stay,’ Wendourie said. ‘If the monster has eaten the toeless one, he will be no longer hungry and will spare us, I told him. And then, of a sudden, there was salt in our nostrils and I knew we must be close to the great water which Kuduna had never seen. In his eagerness I think he forgot the monster and the strange tracks. As we crept through the scrub a voice shouted and it was like no voice we had ever heard and what is said was meaningless to us. We crouched, trembling, behind a bush but none spoke again, and by and by Kuduna raised his head cautiously. ‘Look!’ he cried in astonishment, and then there came the sound of a devil cracking a giant whip and it was as if the earth and the boulders about us had become alive with hidden monsters shouting one to the other.
‘I looked at Kuduna and he had fallen and was lying very still and I saw that he had a little hole in his forehead. I shook him and he did not move, and I knew he was dead, and I was very frightened that one could be dead so swiftly and from so simple a hurt, and I turned and ran and ran.’
Wendourie covered his eyes with his hands for a few moments before he went on. ‘But the shame of ru
‘Go back and face a thousand devils?’ the medicine man sneered.
‘No; go back and get Kuduna and bring him to the camp.’
‘It is a pity you didn’t carry out so noble a resolve,’ Urgali said. ‘I would undoubtedly have saved him.’
Unyama whispered in Ooloo’s ear. ‘He is very powerful in magic. I’m obliged to let him have his head a bit.’ To Wendourie he said, ‘Proceed.’
‘I went back slowly and very fearfully to the spot where I had left Kuduna,’ Wendourie told them, ‘but he wasn’t there.’
Urgali barked. ‘Hah! He was dead when you abandoned him but had gone when you returned. Tell us, brave boy, since when have the newly dead walked?’ He smirked. ‘Come, come, Wendourie. Let us return to this thing Kuduna saw before the small hole came in his head. What had he seen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wendourie admitted.
‘Oh, but surely your fertile brain can invent something?’
‘I invent nothing,’ Wendourie said with spirit. ‘The terrible whip crack which woke the lurking demons frightened me, so I fled at once.’
‘But having overcome this fear,’ Urgali urged, ‘what did you do?’
‘I came back to the camp and told my story to the headman.’
‘And a very good story it makes,’ the medicine man said. ‘Unfortunately, it is no more than a story. And it lacks a happy ending.’
‘That is true,’ Unyama said. ‘If only you would admit you were mad, Wendourie…’
Urgali snapped, ‘He was not mad when he killed Kuduna.’
A greyhead in the front row of the semicircle arose and held aloft his spear. ‘I demand the life of this man who killed my brother’s son,’ he said. ‘Let him be killed at once lest he talk his way out of punishment.’
Ooloo said, ‘Patience, old one. Among the Narranyeri when there is a killing it is always asked, ‘Why was this thing done?’ Why, I ask you, should Wendourie kill his friend, Kuduna?’
The headman gaped, but Urgali shouted promptly, ‘Why? Because the hot blood of youth leaps in his veins. If his secret heart spoke it would tell you he was jealous of Kuduna and some young women.’
Unyama pondered. ‘Nothing of that has reached my ears,’ he said at length. ‘Is it true, Wendourie?’
‘It is not true,’ Wendourie said.
‘Words are cheap on the lips of campfire entertainers,’ Urgali scoffed. ‘But, by tomorrow’s dawn, all shall be known. With my magic I shall discover this woman who has remained silent and she will confess and provide the motive for this secret killing.’ He threw up his arms, palms out, subduing the murmur of the tribesmen and the distant gins. ‘Tonight will be an evil night,’ he warned. ‘Since the dead lies unavenged, let none stir from the huts in the hour before the dawn for there will be malignancy in the air.’ He addressed the headman. ‘This night, Unyama, I will soar into the clouds and, looking down, spy out that woman who is withholding evidence. I, Urgali the all-powerful, will confer with ghosts.’
Unyama looked uneasy. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Wendourie shall be brought before us tomorrow. If this woman exists we shall question her.’
‘One moment, if you please, headman,’ Ooloo begged. He leaned toward Wendourie. ‘Think well, young man. Is there not something that may help prove the truth of your story? Something which, perhaps, till now you have forgotten or refrained from mentioning.’
Wendourie hesitated; then, with sudden resolve, he thrust his fingers into the folds of his possum-skin belt. He said, as he withdrew his hand, ‘This I will give to no man but Unyama or his guest.’
Unyama frowned at what Wendourie was holding and held back, but Ooloo took it while the medicine man peered. ‘It is a leaf,’ Urgali suggested.
‘Have you ever seen such a leaf?’ Wendourie asked. ‘Is there a feather so light? Do you know of a leaf so thin or so white?’
Urgali said offhandedly, ‘In far parts grow many curious plants. This one has been blown hither.’
‘Examine closely,’ Wendourie invited the Narranyeri man. ‘You will note there are no veins.’
‘It is smothered in veins,’ the medicine man contradicted as Ooloo held the thing up to the sun.
‘No,’ Ooloo said meditatively. ‘They are not veins because they co
Unyama spoke uneasily. ‘Do you think, Wendourie, this thing was left by the monster of which you spoke?’
‘I do not know,’ Wendourie said. ‘I saw it clinging to a bush.’
‘It is of no consequence,’ Urgali said. ‘It is evident that Wendourie seeks to divert our minds and delude us with this leaf he has happened upon. Drowning in his own infamy, he clutches at reeds. But I warn him, this pallid thing he has plucked from a bush of his imagining will not save him from the vengeance of Kudana’s kinsman. He may clutch at the reed but the waters of the billabong will close over him.’
Unyama whispered to Ooloo, ‘He does this sort of thing rather well but, personally, it bores me.’
It had not escaped the Narranyeri man’s notice that, although Urgali ranted with assurance, he was a little puzzled and concerned about the thing he had maintained was a leaf. ‘This may mean much,’ Ooloo said.
‘Or little,’ Urgali scoffed. ‘If the thing were placed in my hands I would study it tonight and learn its implication.’
Wendourie shook his head. ‘Tonight you can describe it to the ghosts.’
The medicine man drew himself up proudly. ‘That will I do,’ he said thunderously, ‘for am I not all-powerful?’
‘There is in Ooloo’s hand something more powerful than medicine men,’ Wendourie said quietly.
‘Pah,’ Urgali exploded. ‘More powerful than I, say you?’ He frowned at the headman. ‘Did I not suck devil stones from your wife’s cousin? Have I not a belt made from the hair of a witch’s mother-in-law that will heal battle wounds?’ He went on, boastfully, ‘Can I not spit into a man’s footmark and render him lame? And did I not and but recently, as a simple experiment, throw into the body of a total stranger, and at a distance, a barbed stick attached to an invisible string which I tugged – to bring first intolerable pain, then death?’
Unyama shuffled uneasily but Ooloo stiffened on his seat on the tree stump. ‘Are such things possible?’ he murmured. ‘Is it really true, great Urgali, this matter of the barbed stick and the invisible string?’