Sand on the Gumshoe

The Power of the Leaf

In the year 1847 Ooloo of the Narranyeri, busy with his boomerangs and wresting by violence a living from territory where, as yet, no man had planted seed, was delighted when the headman put the message stick in his hand and sent him on a peaceable mission to the neighbouring Munamulla tribe. He took no arms with him but his boomerang and the throwing-stick carved for him by his young son, now grievously dead, and pointed with a barb made from a spike taken from a sting ray.

Ooloo was old now and greyer than he had been a month ago when his son had been brought to him tossing his head, frothing at the mouth, and flailing his arms. It was all too evident, as the medicine man had said, that someone had pointed a stick at Young Oo-omal – a stick with several sharp, twisted prongs – and that the stick had entered the lad’s body attached to an invisible string upon which some unseen enemy had pulled and thus brought about the painful quivering.

The medicine man had watched his patient for an hour, crouching before the writhing form, and then, leaping abruptly, had succeeded in seizing and cutting the unseen string. Shuddering and moaning himself, he had sucked the place of pain, extracting for all to see broken pieces of the barbed stick. Gradually, Oo-omal’s convulsions had subsided and it was plain to everyone that he had no more agony – plainest of all to his stricken father who knew he was dead.

As he tramped through the bush, his eye wary lest he be attacked before he could produce his symbol of peace, Ooloo thought much of the unknown enemy who had struck down his son. The medicine man had been vague. The lad would have lived, he asserted, had he been brought to him a few moments earlier. The enemy? One of great power, living at a distance. He waved in a general direction and promised he would keep an eye open.

All this Ooloo had found unsatisfactory. Resting beneath a giant gum in the territory of the Munamullas, he meditated deeply, permitting himself the luxury of a thought that astonished and then intrigued him. Perhaps the medicine man was not as powerful as he pretended. He began to wonder. Whence did these men derive their authority? From dreams, they said, but, after all, one had only their word for what they dreamed.

It would be very nice, Ooloo thought, to possess the influence of a medicine man and live easily at others’ expense.

Unyama, the Munamulla headman, received him courteously. He was in a genial mood. It had been a good season, game was plentiful, and the request of the Narranyeri not unreasonable. Besides, he loved to gossip and all he lacked was a new listener. It was a pity, he told Ooloo, he had not reached the camp a day earlier when he might have witnessed the trial of a young man who had murdered his hunting companion. The affair had had some interesting and puzzling features. Firstly, there was no dead body; secondly, the murderer himself had brought news of his friend’s death; thirdly, the young man, owing to a certain popularity because of his gift for story-telling, had been offered the opportunity of admitting himself mad and thus, for his life-time, enjoying all the privileges of the happy-minded – and had refused. And so, shortly, he must be speared to death by the uncle of the young man he had killed.

It was a pity, Unyama declared, that the tribe should lose one who was undaunted in the hunt, clever beyond his fellows in tracking and killing game, who had faithfully obeyed the injunctions of the old men at his initiation and had never been known to covet or molest the young women. But the medicine man, Urgali, had demanded the death sentence, maintaining that evil would befall the tribe if the murderer were not eliminated.

‘If it is permissible, I should like to see this young man,’ Ooloo said, ‘for it would seem he has some of the qualities I saw in my own son and while I do not condone the murder of one’s companions, you have said sufficient to intrigue me. I wish I had arrived in time to hear his story from his own lips.’

The guest had expressed a wish. Hospitality demanded that it should be fulfilled. Unyama thought of the tribe’s well stocked larder and ease with which even the youngest children and the oldest gins could collect a meal of fat white grubs or caterpillars. They had plenty of everything and of all things of which they had an abundance they had most of time.

‘It shall be as you desire,’ he told Ooloo. ‘The uncle of Kuduna can bring his poisoned spear tomorrow. Today we shall question Wendourie again and you, a stranger and therefore impartial, shall give us the benefit of your wisdom and advice.’

Ooloo sat upon a tree stump in the place of honour beside the headman. In a semicircle before them sat the men of the tribe, the greyheads squatting in the front rows, behind them the young bucks; at the rear and at a respectful distance, the women. On the outskirts, too far away for their noisy fun to distract, the children played.

‘Let Wendourie be brought,’ Unyama ordered.

‘Wait.’ It was Urgali, the Munamulla medicine man, striding toward them. He was long and thin and the lines of pipe-clay drawn in half-circles from shoulder to hip and down the thighs and shins emphasised his height and his authority. He paused in front of the headman. ‘Last night,’ he announced, ‘I projected myself into space. I saw many things on the earth below and much in the sky above. I searched behind the thickest and blackest clouds but I saw nothing to bear out the story Wendourie has told. Many heard me returning to earth. Is it not so?’ he cried, throwing out his skinny hands in a gesture of appeal to the young bucks.

‘It is so,’ they shouted.

‘I descended into a large tree and made my way through the branches. I was heard. Is it not so?’

‘It is so,’ the young men cried again.

‘And leaped to the ground in the presence of some, leaving my footprints for all to see. I twisted my ankle. Behold, I limp.’ He demonstrated, walking up and down, lamely, then, stopping in front of the headman and Ooloo, folded his arms. ‘I have spoken,’ he said. ‘It is unwise to hold further talk upon this matter.’

‘We have a guest,’ Unyama said. ‘He cannot be deprived of our hospitality.’

‘Death waits for us all,’ Ooloo said quietly. ‘It will not mind waiting a little longer for Wendourie.’

‘Besides,’ the headman said, ‘it will pass the time of which we have more than enough.’ He called his guest’s attention to the approach of a young man, guarded on either side by three bucks. ‘See, here is Wendourie. Let us hear his story again that our friend may carry word of our justice to the Narranyeri.’

Ooloo, gazing at the young man who stepped, unarmed, before his headman, felt a sudden tug at his throat, for here was his own son again. The same age, the same proud stance, the same clear eye flashing defiance.

‘Wendourie,’ the headman said gravely, ‘would it not be wise to confess that all you have said is but a fine story and one that will go down to our children and their children and be repeated at campfires long, long after we have all joined the spirits?’

‘All I have spoken,’ the young man said, ‘is the truth.’

Unyama said, ‘So be it. Here is a stranger who is our welcome guest. He would hear what you have to say.’

Wendourie looked long and earnestly as if he would divine what manner of man Ooloo was. The old one said, ‘Be of courage.’

Wendourie bowed. ‘When the stranger goes he will take the truth with him.’

The medicine man, Urgali, made an impatient gesture. ‘So be it,’ he said and pointed a skinny finger. ‘You, Wendourie, went forth with your friend, Kuduna. But you returned alone. Why?’

Wendourie folded his arms. ‘It is as I have said. A hole was suddenly in his forehead and he was dead.’

‘A small hole, you said?’ The headman was anxious his guest should be impressed.

‘No larger than the top of my thumb,’ Wendourie agreed.

Urgali cried, ‘So small a thing! Had I been there I would have sucked the place and spat out the magic.’

Wendourie regarded him calmly. ‘Since you are so powerful, why did you not know what had happened?’

There was a murmur of surprise and awe at the boldness of the question. Unyama shifted uneasily on his seat, wondering how the medicine man would take it, but Ooloo, with his own private views, found his heart warming to the young man. Urgali made light of it. He bent double and cackled with thin laughter. ‘Why did I not know, simple one?’ he asked at length, looking toward the young men for support. ‘Because it never happened!’

The following laughter was quickly suppressed by Unyama. ‘This is not a campfire gossip,’ he said. ‘Let us behave with circumspection before our visitor. Let us make it plain to him what happened!’

Urgali bowed low. ‘With all respect,’ he said, ‘I submit it should first be made plain to our guest that our young men are not so effete that they die from trifling holes in their foreheads.’

‘It is known far and wide that we are a hardy race,’ Unyama said. ‘Let us not dally with self-evident facts. Proceed, Wendourie.’

The young man said, ‘We, Kuduna and I, were three days’ walk from here when…’

Urgali was waving his arms, shouting, ‘Hear, you of the Narranyeri. There was wrongdoing from the beginning. Three days from here in the direction which Wendourie took would take him into the territory of the Koliju.’ He whirled on the accused man. ‘Did you carry a message stick?’

‘No.’

‘You were trespassing with evil intent?’

‘No. I did not realise where we were.’

‘So!’ Urgali looked about him triumphantly. ‘The great hunter, Wendourie, was lost.’

The young men in the semicircle laughed and even the grey-heads smiled but Ooloo remarked smoothly, ‘It might be. Temporarily, of course. I myself, busy with my thoughts, have sometimes momentarily forgotten my exact whereabouts.’

Urgali spoke with false deference. ‘But you, welcome one, are weighted with years. You have much to ponder. Wendourie, however, is young and without responsibility.’ He pointed an emaciated finger at the youth. ‘I suggest to you that you lured Kuduna into foreign territory the more easily to hide his body.’

Unyama said testily, ‘Let us get on with the matter of the magic tracks. Proceed, Wendourie.’

The young man said, ‘Kuduna saw them first and called to me excitedly. It was late in the day but there was still time to follow them. They were like no tracks I have ever seen. At first they were a little confused but presently they became quite clear.’

Unyama beckoned one of Wendourie’s guards. ‘Bring two long sticks with blunt ends,’ he ordered and said in an undertone to his guest, ‘Now you will see something.’

The medicine man said, ‘We have had all this before.’

‘I am anxious to see and know all,’ Ooloo remarked suavely, and presently Wendourie was holding the sticks that had been brought, one in either hand, trailing them after him, pressing their ends into the dusty ground, making two roughly parallel lines.

He explained to Ooloo. ‘Thus were the tracks, but thicker and even and always even, and ever between them great marks made by some monster.’

‘Bigger than the pads of the great kangaroo?’ Urgali enquired.

‘Bigger and different.’

The medicine man appealed to the greyheads. ‘You who have hunted all your long lives, have you known pads larger than the giant kangaroo’s?’

Unyama turned to Ooloo. ‘Wendourie thought they were the marks of spirits. Is it not so?’

‘It was so,’ the young man agreed. ‘We were frightened and Kuduna was terrified by the sight and the strangeness of the smell but I persuaded him to follow the tracks. On and on they went, the two broad lines, never approaching each other and always with the same queer marks between, and suddenly Kuduna trembled and would go no further.’

‘But you,’ the medicine man interposed with sarcasm, ‘were unafraid?’

‘No,’ Wendourie said gravely. ‘I was very frightened because of what I had seen in the tree.’

‘Tell our guest what you had seen,’ Unyama said, watching Ooloo to note the effect of what was coming.

‘Someone… something had grasped a bough in passing.’

Unyama could not restrain himself. ‘Later,’ he told Ooloo eagerly, ‘he saw that other boughs had been grasped and the yellow blossoms and leaves scattered as though whole branches had disappeared.’

‘It is nothing,’ the medicine man said. ‘Children at their games…’

‘To grasp these branches,’ Wendourie said, ‘one would have had to sit upon my shoulders.’

‘To pluck the blossoms of which he speaks a man must need be a giant,’ Unyama emphasised, anxious that his guest should thoroughly understand.

‘I have a very clear picture.’ Ooloo said dryly, and addressed the young man. ‘You think, Wendourie, the hand that grasped the high branches and scattered the yellow blossoms belonged to the monster which made the strange tracks between the parallel lines?’

‘I did,’ Wendourie said, ‘and then I didn’t know what to think.’

‘Listen to this carefully,’ Unyama bade his visitor quite unnecessarily, for the Narranyeri man was absorbed in the recital.

Wendourie said, ‘Suddenly, in an open space, there were the tracks of a man.’

‘Coming from nowhere,’ Unyama implemented.

‘Ah!’ The medicine man smiled. ‘Tell us, young man, of the origin of these miraculous tracks.’

Unyama, greedy for his guest’s reaction, was not disappointed when Wendourie answered, ‘They were made by a man without toes.’

Urgali threw back his head and cackled. ‘And so,’ he cried, ‘now it seems we have two strange lines which never come closer each to the other, which is an impossibility as has been proved by every young man in the tribe who has experimented with trailing sticks; strange tracks of animals bigger than exist; and lastly, a man without toes!’

‘It may be that his toes had been cut off,’ Ooloo suggested.

‘Wait till you hear,’ Unyama said, his eyes bright. ‘Tell him, Wendourie.’

‘The toes had not been cut off,’ the young man said. ‘They were just not there; but the whole foot was the same shape and bigger than mine.’

‘Much bigger?’ Ooloo enquired.

‘Only slightly bigger,’ Wendourie explained.

‘You are sure it was a man’s track?’

‘It smelled like a man’s but not a man of our tribe, nor,’ – with a little bow to Ooloo – ‘of one of the Narranyeri.’

‘Answer the question,’ Urgali shouted. ‘Was it a man’s track?’

‘But for being toeless, it was a man’s.’

Urgali’s contemptuous glance swept the semicircle of tribesmen. ‘I ask the young men. I appeal to the greyheads. Where shall we find a toeless man? How would he climb trees? How pick up without stooping?’

The headman smothered the titter that followed. ‘Silence!’ he barked. ‘The man’s life may depend upon this.’ He whispered to Ooloo, ‘Now comes a very amazing statement.’

Wendourie said, ‘The tracks made by the toeless one ran, for a few yards alongside and outside one of the two, broad, parallel lines and then disappeared.’

‘But the tracks such as Wendourie has described, the two lines never varying in distance each from the other, went on,’ Unyama informed his guest.

Urgali bent his great height, stooping toward the young man in mock humility. ‘I am overwhelmed,’ he said. ‘I – Urgali, who consort with demons… demons peaceably inclined toward the Munamulla,’ he added hastily, ‘I, who can leave my sleeping form in my hut and travel the heavens by night and am versed in all magic, am willing to be taught. What is the explanation for the sudden disappearance of the toeless man’s tracks? Was the man absorbed into the earth? Did he fly into the sky? Did he evaporate?’

‘I thought,’ Wendourie said simply, ‘the monster had eaten the man.’

‘Tut, tut,’ Urgali protested. ‘You must do better than that. Had the tracks not abruptly appeared? Are you suggesting that this so-called monster was walking about alternately spewing out and gobbling up this remarkable toeless man?’

Unyama said testily, ‘Get on, get on. We are not here to listen to suggestions but to hear the whole story.’ He glanced at Ooloo for approval and signalled Wendourie to speak. Urgali, however, waved his long arms. ‘I think,’ he urged, ‘we are entitled to know what Kuduna thought of this miracle.’

The young man said, ‘We were both very frightened,’ Kuduna said, ‘truly, here are signs of a magic-man more powerful than any we have known – one who makes our own medicine man look like a child.’

Unyama covered his thick lips with his hand to conceal his smile and with his elbow nudged Ooloo in the ribs, calling his attention to Urgali’s scowl. ‘Continue, Wendourie,’ he said.

‘What Kuduna said or thought is immaterial.’

‘Night came,’ the young man continued. ‘We feared much but we heard nothing, saw nothing, smelled nothing. And in the dawn we saw that the tracks had gone.’

‘Very convenient,’ the medicine man said with fine sarcasm.

‘Very convenient, indeed. Like the remarkable toeless man, this alleged monster which, apparently, was trailing a couple of large snakes, one in either hand, disappeared into space, snakes and all.’

‘It had rained heavily in the night,’ Wendourie explained. ‘I know of no tracks which will stand against such rain.’

‘You were three days’ walk from here,’ Urgali snarled. ‘Only Kuduna could confirm this opportune rain. And so ends the first part of an ingenious story. It leaves Kuduna alive and well, if a little frightened at what no doubt I could have easily explained had I been on the spot. Now we come to Kuduna dead.’

Unyama shifted uneasily on his tree stump. He whispered to Ooloo, ‘I am afraid, as a logical man, I cannot accept what Wendourie will now relate. However, I don’t want to say anything to influence you.’ He motioned the young man to go on.

‘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 running away made me stop at last and wait, hiding. I heard nothing and could see nothing, and presently I decided to go back.’

‘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 connect with no common stem. There is no stem.’

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?’

‘That and many other wonders have I worked with surprising ease,’ the medicine man said grandly, ‘Tonight I will float in the air and confer with ghosts. Tomorrow I will bring before Unyama the woman Wendourie coveted.’ He strode off, limping, and all waited in silence till he had disappeared.

Unyama sighed. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said, ‘now we’ve offended him. Wendourie has not helped his case by mocking him. Perhaps it would have been better had I permitted Kuduna’s uncle to use his spear. However, tomorrow Urgali will tell us what the spirits advise and bring before us the young woman. We may then be able to put Wendourie to death with an easier conscience.’ He dismissed the assemblage.

In the early dark Ooloo left the stifling hut of the headman, leaving him snoring by the fire, and made his way to where the young men were guarding Wendourie. Hospitality demanded they should open the way for him. ‘Young man,’ he began, when he was alone with the prisoner, ‘you spoke boldly, questioning the power of Urgali. Have you no faith in medicine men?’

‘In Urgali, none, Welcome guest.’

‘And yet he had killed at a distance, throwing at a stranger an invisible barb held by an invisible string.’

‘He has said it.’

‘I know it to be true.’

Wendourie considered this. ‘Since you say it, it must be the truth,’ he said slowly. ‘I am bewildered. I have been taught to believe but often I doubt. There is this business of soaring in the clouds, for instance.’

‘Urgali has promised tonight to confer with ghosts.’

‘Tomorrow, when the sun rises,’ Wendourie said with a half-smile, ‘there will be a great rustling of leaves and shaking of branches in the highest gumtree. Those who watch will see him leap to the ground. All will be able to follow his tracks back to his hut. But, if they searched, they would see also the earlier tracks he made when he walked to the tree in the darkness before dawn. They would see the marks on the bole and know that he had climbed up as well as down.’

Ooloo regarded the young man steadily. ‘Then, if one dared be abroad at the dread hour before dawn about which your medicine man warned the tribe, he might see Urgali on the way to his ghosts?’

‘Is there one who would dare?’ Wendourie asked. ‘I will tell you now there is none among the Munamulla.’ He shrugged his shoulders and added bitterly, ‘It will be said Urgali’s ghosts are against me and he will drag before Unyama some timid girl out of whom he has frightened the wits and she will confess that I loved her and Kuduna loved her and it will be made manifest that I killed him because of my jealousy.’

Ooloo took from his belt that which Wendourie had given him. ‘If this be a leaf,’ he said, ‘there is no leaf like it in all our world. With this strange thing a man might become mighty in magic.’

Wendourie said, ‘I know not what it is but it has some connection with the monster whose tracks I followed and the devil sounds I heard.’ He hesitated and asked, ‘Why do you speak to me with such kindness?’

‘Because,’ Ooloo told him, ‘I believe you have spoken the truth even as my son who is grievously dead would have spoken. To none have I told this but he, too, questioned the magic of the medicine men.’

‘And you?’ Wendourie asked. ‘How much do you believe?’

‘Some things I believe,’ the older man said simply, ‘but often, like you, I am bewildered. If at times there is deception, it does not follow there is never truth.’ He hesitated briefly and went on softly, ‘If I had this leaf for my very own, I might accomplish much. Will you give it to me?’

‘Is it not in your hands? I cannot take it from you?’

‘Nevertheless, I ask for it.’

‘You have been kind. It is yours.’

Ooloo smiled. ‘With this magic I shall save your life.’

Abruptly he left.

In the morning, early, Urgali the medicine man was found dead of a blow and lying beneath the tallest gum. His tracks made it clear that he had been going toward the tree and had almost reached the trunk when he had been struck down by the nulla-nulla found lying beside his body. The headman had been barely awakened with the news than there came a wailing from the hut of the kinsman of Kuduna. The man’s wife told how, in the dread hour against which they had been warned, her husband had heard a strange voice softly calling his name. She had begged him to ignore it but, vastly curious, he had put his head outside. No more than his head, she was sure, but she saw his whole body shoot into the dark without and he had not returned. She had waited, trembling, till dawn and found him but a few yards from the hut, lying beneath a small tree, his head mangled. A bloodstained nulla-nulla lay beside him.

When the old men had been summoned, Unyama said, ‘Urgali is dead. The uncle of Kuduna is dead. It is for us to discover who has done this violence.’

‘Who but Wendourie?’ a greyhead asked and there was a chorus of approval. ‘Let him die at once.’

Unyama shook his head. ‘Are we of lesser wisdom that the Narranyeri? Shall we not ask ourselves what reason Wendourie had for killing these men?’

An old man rose and said mildly, ‘To me it is quite evident. Today Urgali was to have produced the young girl he coveted.’

Unyama frowned. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Let Wendourie be brought.’

Ooloo, standing beside him in the open space, suggested, ‘Let also the six young men who guarded him through the night be brought.’

The headman gave the order. ‘Let us be grateful for the wisdom of our welcome guest,’ he said to the greyheads. ‘Since he is a stranger and impartial, I propose to let him question Wendourie.’

The prisoner was brought, three guards on either side of him, and Ooloo asked, ‘How did you spend the night, young man?’

Wendourie looked surprised. ‘Why, how but in sleep?’

‘And where?’

‘Since I am a prisoner, all know that.’

Ooloo beckoned a young buck. ‘Does he speak true? Did he once leave the hut?’

The man explained how guard had been kept. Always while three slept, three stayed awake.

‘He is undisputed evidence, trebly confirmed,’ Ooloo said. ‘Wendourie never left the hut and thus could not have killed Urgali nor the kinsman of Kuduna.’

‘Who then is the slayer?’ Unyama asked.

Ooloo asked, ‘Who would be abroad in the hour before the dawn?’

‘No one,’ Unyama said promptly. ‘Were we not warned by Urgali of the dread hour?’

‘Then,’ Ooloo said, ‘since Wendourie slept and it is agreed that none other would venture out at the hour these men died, it is evident that the spirits are angry.’ Deferring to Unyama he asked that the nulla-nullas with which the two men were killed should be brought.

When the blood-stained weapons were set before him, he lifted one and held it by the ends, twirling it about, examining it closely while Unyama watched, fascinated. ‘It is as I thought,’ he said at last. ‘See, Unyama.’ He nodded his head and the headman saw. In the centre of a blood splotch, adhering to the nulla-nulla by a bit of gum, was a piece of the strange leaf found by Wendourie. Ooloo took up the other nulla-nulla and there, also, was a piece of the leaf in the very midst of the horrid stains.

But Unyama had seen something else. ‘These are my nulla-nullas,’ he gasped.

‘It is very simple,’ Ooloo said, confidently. ‘The ghosts did not wait for Urgali but in their anger came for him.’ He looked at Unyama. ‘Since they used your nulla-nullas, it is evident that they were in our hut, invisibly, as we slept. Indeed, this much I know, for with the first streak of dawn I wakened and took from my belt the magic thing Wendourie had found clinging to the bush, and, behold, it was smaller.’ He fumbled for a moment and produced the strange leaf, holding it out to Unyama who took it with some trepidation. ‘Observe,’ he said, ‘that the two scraps on the nulla-nullas might be fitted perfectly into the larger.’

Unyama said in awe, ‘What does it mean?’

‘It means,’ Ooloo told him, ‘so long as any of this magic leaf remains, death will visit the tribe.’ He frowned at the thing lying on Unyama’s reluctant palm and went on, judicially, ‘I estimate there is enough left to make fifty bloodied nulla-nullas.’

Unyama shuddered and hastily placed the thing he held on a tree stump. ‘Let no man touch it,’ he cried largely, ‘till this matter has been investigated.’

‘It has been investigated,’ Ooloo said coolly. ‘It is plain that the spirits are angry with those who demanded Wendourie’s death. First, it was Urgali and he is dead; then the kinsman of Kuduna and he also is dead. Who else cried for his death?’

‘Not I,’ Unyama said hastily. ‘I always felt the boy was innocent.’

One of the old men cried, ‘Look,’ and pointed. The ‘leaf had fallen from the tree stump and, fluttered by the breeze, was trailing along the ground. A tiny spiral of dust began to move toward it, growing in density, and presently it had become part of the incipient willy-willy. Caught by a current of air, it leaped up, dived, then rose abruptly and soared, straight and swift, over the gum-trees.

And at that moment one came running, eyes wide, breathless with his news. ‘Unyama! Beside the hut of Kuduna’s kinsman! The mark of the toeless man!’

Unyama’s mouth fell open. Ooloo broke the awed silence. ‘It is not surprising,’ he said. ‘Did I not say the spirits were with us last night? The Toeless Thing is a creature of the ghosts which killed Urgali. Is it not a fact that many saw the tracks of Urgali moving toward the spreading tree, but who among us saw tracks of the killer?’

The old men sought each other’s eyes, wonderingly. ‘There were no tracks,’ they said. ‘Only Urgali’s.’

When they had gone to investigate and Ooloo was alone with Wendourie, the Narranyeri man said, ‘The spirits have been kind to you.’

The young man said blandly, ‘And to you, clever one. May it ever be so.’ He looked about him, assuring himself none was within earshot. ‘It shall be a secret between us that you swung into the great gum from a branch on the west and climbing inward, waited till Urgali came from the east; then, leaning as he was about to reach up, struck. Afterwards you climbed to a far branch and leaped.’

‘You, too, are clever,’ Ooloo smiled. ‘But the tracks of the toeless one? Can this astonishing thing be explained?’

Wendourie showed all his teeth. ‘I have thought much since I first saw the toeless tracks,’ he said. ‘Those I saw cannot be explained but they may be imitated frighteningly by cutting bark in the shape of a man’s feet and binding it to his naked soles.’ He added in another tone, ‘I am sorry your magic leaf was blown away. Do you really believe the spirits took it?’

Ooloo shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. He glanced round cautiously, then, opening his belt, revealed to Wendourie the scrap of whiteness lying within. ‘I took the precaution of saving part of it,’ he said. ‘This, skillfully used, and with the aid of some strange dream I shall think up, will make me a powerful man among my own people.’

Wendourie asked with difference, ‘Would I be impertinent if I asked your permission to accompany you on part of your return journey? I feel there is much I could learn from you quickly which, without you, only the years could teach.’

In the middle of the next day Ooloo and Wendourie stood together on a high hill, their faces wet with the sweat of exertion, and gazed down upon an endless vista of trees which smothered the surface and hid the contour of the land, concealing plain and precipice alike. No thing stirred.

Ooloo pointed with his throwing-stick. ‘There lies my territory,’ he said. ‘Beyond the Narranyeri is the land of the Wirriwirri; beyond the Wirriwirri, the Bulpanarra and beyond them, ‘tis said, a tribe so ignorant it has not yet learned how to procure water from gum scrub roots. But beyond and far beyond… what?’

‘Nothing,’ Wendourie replied promptly. ‘The world ends.’

Ooloo blinked at him. ‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly. They stood, busy with disturbing thoughts, till their ears caught the sound of rustling leaves and then a little breeze fanned their heated bodies and simultaneously they lifted their heads, sniffing.

‘The great water…the great mysterious water,’ Ooloo said. ‘Even here the salt fills our nostrils.’ Half to himself, he murmured, ‘How strange if there were another side to it from which men might cross…’

‘I have stood and watched in awe,’ Wendourie said. ‘It can be peaceful as the billabong and then suddenly turbulent and angry, its voice more frightening than the bull-roarer. It would devour even the biggest canoes.’

Ooloo nodded. ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘None would dare risk their lives.’ He lifted his shoulders in a characteristic shrug. ‘Still, it is a pity Kuduna died before he told what he had seen.’

As he stood watching Wendourie’s black body merge and lose itself in the tangle of scrub, in the distant north-east Captain Madge of the ketch Ulysses, making its way from Sydney with a small party of colonists for the new settlement at Brisbane, was sitting in his cabin, a glass of grog in his hand, a Bible on his knee, and on the table before him the log in which he had lately written:

August 17, 1847: This day, the sea being calm with a light breeze, moored in a little cove very lovely to behold alongside a rock ledge providing a natural dock and giving us six fathoms no less. Being greatly enamoured of the place and the morrow being her wedding anniversary, nothing would satisfy Mistress Turner but her husband should make an excursion ashore to gather branches of the golden blossoms growing abundantly in scrubland bordering a flat pasture. Facilities for disembarking being good and weather mild, Mr Turner decided to land the light dray and our horse and go a little inland for to spy out the country and perhaps obtain game. Party returned safely aboard with no game and nothing to show for their pains but a load of blossoms which they pulled from the trees as the dray passed beneath. No sign of savages but serpents being observed they remained in dray for fear of being bit. Mr Scott, descending once, almost stepped upon a giant snake and was right glad to clamber back to safety.

August 18, 1847: The rain which fell during the night with some violence ceased early this morning and dawn brought a beautiful day, to be marred, unhappily, by a distressing incident. Mr Turner, watching from the deck, observed movement in the near bushes ashore and, suspecting savages, and first shouting as a warning, fired a shot to frighten them away. Sent two men ashore to investigate who returned with a poor naked heathen whom Mr Turner had accidentally shot dead, but he and the other gentlemen being by this time deeply engaged with the ladies in preparation for the festivities, thought it befitting to say naught to mar their lightheartedness and had my men dispose of the body.

Feeling a little sad at heart and asking God’s forgiveness for our part in this calamity, tide and breeze being favourable, sailed from this most lovely spot amid the laughter of the ladies and gentlemen and with Mr Scott’s little daughter sitting prettily in the stern, a garland of golden blossoms about her neck, singing to herself as she tore up an old newspaper and watched the scraps float away through the air like birds making for the bush.