Cockatoo Creek

Cockatoo Creek

A novel by Renmark local B. J. Scholefield

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The year was 1932

The huge cattle station, Cockatoo Creek, sprawls across five thousand square miles of the Kimberly, managed ruthlessly by Jan Muller, an Afrikaner, a huge man towering more than six and a half feet tall, a dangerous, sadistic man, who has no time at all for the coloured people of this earth. The station is owned by millionaire Melbourne businessman, Michael Montinari. Isabella, his only child, has returned to Australia from Europe having studied fine art there for several years. Isabella, a stunningly beautiful woman, has decided to visit the vast station owned by her father, to venture into the wild lands and capture with her paints the rugged landscapes that make the Kimberly so unique. Jack Ballinger, a returned serviceman wounded in the hell that was the western front, a close friend of Isabella’s father, is sent north to meet Isabella and to watch over her as they travel into the bush.

This harsh, uncompromising land is home to several wandering Aboriginal tribes. Among them, the Ongkomi, and their legendary spirit man, Pirramurar. A man reputed to have supernatural powers, a man that some say can travel the land as a spirit bird.

However, the Kimberly is suffering a terrible drought that is threatening the vast beef enterprise of Cockatoo Creek. Thousands of cattle may soon perish if the rains do not fall. Roaming natives struggle to find their traditional foods, the kangaroo and the wallaby as many of the shrinking waterholes and creeks become fouled with the rotting carcasses of the starving cattle. Yet the tribes know they must never touch the red beasts of the white man, for they have heard rumour of the slaughter of their people. But—as time passes, hunger and desperation may soon recognize no rule or boundary.

Jiiarnna, the beautiful Aboriginal girl with the strange oriental features, travels to the station homestead with her grandfather, Goonagulla, an elder among her people, the Njikena, and with them, the last of their pitiful group to beg for food from the huge white man. But Jiiarnna is soon to find her young life will change forever as this silent savage land bears witness to rape, and murder, which will set in motion a terrible chain of events.