Cockatoo Creek

1

Blackfellas Boss

Cockatoo Creek Station 320 kilometers northeast of Derby

North-Western Australia, Kimberley Country

15 October 1932 Late afternoon.

A wedge-tailed eagle circled high above the first of the wet season’s rain clouds that drifted slowly over the boab trees. The huge bird turned in an unseen column of warm air that rose up from the dusty plain below and gradually soared higher and higher in slow, graceful circles, its keen eyes searching the dry and dusty landscape that stretched away from horizon to horizon. Far below the magnificent bird, a small group of Aboriginals moved through the trees in a quiet, weary line. Their hard, calloused feet made soft crunching sounds on the dry leaves that even they were unable to silence. They were tired and hungry. For too long the weather had been harsh and unseasonable, and they had suffered with the passing of each dry and onerous month. Game had become difficult to stalk through the sparse grasses, and without cover, even they, with their prodigious skill with spear and boomerang, were finding it difficult to find enough to feed their hungry bellies. For many days, all they had eaten were a few lizards and an occasional handful of grubs, and now, water had become more of a problem than usual. The drying waterholes were farther and farther apart, many of them putrefied, contaminated by the rotting carcasses of the white man’s starving cattle as they had weakened and bogged themselves in the mud of the shrinking pools. The rivers they knew of to the north were too far for them to travel at this time of the year, and perhaps even then, they would only be disappointed. They had never known it to be this dry. They were small in number now, only seven of them in total. Two of the old people had died in recent weeks and most of the young bucks had left them several weeks earlier, and headed in on the long walk to the tiny outback town of Derby. Once there, they hoped to find food and shelter in the rundown bush camp they’d been told of on the edge of that town. Perhaps then, the caring church people of that rough-and-ready cattle town would take pity on them. Many of the roaming Aboriginal tribespeople had made their way into the small outback towns that were scattered throughout the north-west to live in the ramshackle camps and survive on the scraps handed them by the white man.

This tiny group had travelled for many weeks from their traditional lands some distance to the north. The country there had become very dry, and the white man’s huge herds of the red cattle had decimated the native grasses and most of the game the Aboriginal people traditionally hunted had either died or disappeared. They had travelled to the south in the hope the hunting would be better there.

However, as they travelled, it had become no better, and now, perhaps even worse. As they trekked through the parched savannah lands, they passed thousands of the white man’s starving cattle, but all of them knew it was forbidden to kill them, for they’d been told of the slaughter of their people for eating the red beasts. Their tribe was Ngarinyin, one of several of the Kimberley tribes that called this vast northern land their home. The Ngarinyin were much smaller in numbers now, as were the Unambal people. The dry weather had forced them into small, fragmented groups as they hunted for food across their traditional lands.

Leprosy was rife throughout the tribes of the Kimberley, and in some areas, it had taken a terrible toll on their numbers. But because of their isolation, this small group had not had any suffer from that terrible deforming disease carried to their lands by strangers from other lands.

Even though the season had been harsh, the older members of their group wanted to stay in the bush. None of those who remained wished to follow the young bucks that had left them. The bush was their home, there they walked every day with their long-dead ancestors and sang to them around their campfires at night. It had been the land of their people since the beginning time. Since the ‘Wandjina’ had walked the land carving the rivers and pushing the stones together that would, in time, become the red and rocky hills of their sacred land.

Cautiously, the weary natives peered out from the shadows at the sprawl of station buildings. The quiet homestead with its sheltered veranda’s, the long bunkhouse, the huge workshop, and the shady gardens that seemed incongruous in this harsh and difficult land. They saw the beautiful poinciana trees vibrant in the afternoon’s fading light with their canopies of fiery red flowers. Cassia, heavy with pendulous bunches of brilliant yellow blossom and frangipani, their flowers, brilliant white in the afternoon’s heat. Dogs were sleeping in the heavy shade beneath some of the trees, but the natives had approached the station carefully, the faint breeze in their faces, and the sleeping dogs were oblivious to their presence.

The stillness was suddenly broken by a loud noise from somewhere to the left of the weary group of natives.

White cockatoos that had been sitting quietly in the treetops began to screech their annoyance at being disturbed. The natives turned toward the sound and watched a thin Aboriginal man dressed in the clothing of the white man step out from a nearby building. A dense cloud of bush flies followed him as he hitched up his dungarees and began pushing his arms through the sweat-stained braces that hung lopsidedly around his legs. With a weary gait, the Aboriginal man made his way toward one of the distant buildings.

The cockatoos, annoyed by the sudden clap of sound from the shutting of the outhouse door, rose from the treetops above the natives in a screeching cacophony of alarm. The Aboriginal stockman stopped, looked back and watched the dense flock of birds lift into the air and then begin to settle back in the treetops. In the fading afternoon light, their wings seemed to glow a brilliant white and their crests an incandescent yellow as they nodded their heads with annoyance and fought for position along the crowded branches of the massive boab trees. It was then that he saw the natives peering out at him from the shadows beneath the screeching birds. He kept walking―he had to force himself not to break into a run. He’d seen the spears and clubs that some of the natives were carrying. The Aboriginal stockman was suddenly afraid―very afraid. He made it to the manager’s cottage, banged on the door and looked back at the boab trees. They were still there, watching him from the shadows.

Golly knew that attacks by bush natives were not uncommon in the Kimberley. He remembered some years before; the manager and a cook from a station farther north had been killed and butchered by a rogue group for no apparent reason, and he’d heard the stories about Jandamarra, the famous Aboriginal renegade who had roamed the wild Kimberley country some years earlier.

Jandamarra had at one time been a tracker for the Derby police but had turned against the white men who had employed him and led a band of Aboriginals on an attack of five stockmen droving cattle through Bunuba land, the land of his people. During the attack, two of the whites had been slaughtered.

As he stood by the door, waiting, Golly remembered the story in all its tragic detail. After several unsuccessful attempts to hunt down the renegade, Jandamarra, the police had recruited Micki, a famous Aboriginal black tracker from Broome. A man reputed to possess supernatural powers.

Mickie finally managed to hunt down the Bunuba man near his Tunnel Creek hideout in the Napier Ranges and had shot him to death. The police had later cut off Jandamarra’s head and placed it in a jar of formaldehyde, and to comply with a request, it was sent to England to a firearms company as a gory exhibit illustrating the effectiveness of their weapons. Jandamarra’s body was later buried in a hollow boab tree by his family somewhere in Bunuba country.

This had happened more than thirty years earlier, but Golly knew there were still wild natives roaming the Kimberley bush. The stockman was also aware that, to many aboriginals, Jandamarra was regarded as a hero, a legendary figure still held in high regard for standing up to the white man’s seemingly unstoppable invasion of their traditional lands.

The stockman could hear the clatter of a knife and fork being put down impatiently inside the manager’s cottage, and then the sound of footsteps. The door burst open, and the station manager, angry that he had been disturbed from his evening meal, looked down at him.

‘What the hell do you want, Gollywog? It had better be bloody important,’ Jan Muller snarled.

The station manager was a huge man, standing more than six and a half feet tall and built like one of the rugby forwards of his South African homeland. Jan Muller was a white Afrikaner. A man with a vicious nature and a fiery temper, and to make it worse for the Aboriginal stockman, he had no time at all for the coloured people of this world.

’Blackfellas, Boss, hundreds of ’em over there behind the shitter in the trees. They got spears and them killer boomerangs. Maybe we are all gonna get ourselves killed today,’ Golly gabbled nervously.

Muller grunted and looked off in the direction Golly pointed, but he could see nothing, just the dark shadows cast by the boab trees and flashes of white from the cockatoos still shuffling about in the high branches above.

’Round up all the hands, and get them here as quick as you can, Golly―go on, get bloody moving.’

Golly turned and ran for the bunkhouse as fast as his skinny legs could carry him.

Jan Muller looked back at his table and his half-eaten plate of food and cursed. ‘Damn blackfellas . . . !’ He reached up and lifted down his old Rigby rifle from above the door and checked the magazine. It was fully loaded, as well he knew. He rested it against the wall and took down the holstered pistol that hung next to it and buckled it around his waist. The big Smith & Wesson revolver was loaded as well, but he slid it out of its holster, flipped it open, and spun the chamber out of sheer habit. Jan Muller knew only too well it paid to be ready for anything in the bush. His earlier life in Africa had taught him well. He holstered the pistol and walked across to a small cupboard near his desk and took out a box of Kynoch .350 calibre cartridges for the Rigby, tipped half of them into his left hand, and stuffed them into one of his trouser pockets. Then, with the Rigby comfortably in the crook of his left arm, he stepped out into the yard.

Most of the station workers were hurrying toward him now, carrying whatever weapons they could find. Some carried the old single-barrelled shotguns they used to hunt wild duck for the kitchen. One of them carried a military issue .303 Lee Enfield, while the rest carried knives or clubs, and one, the cook―an old Filipino, carried the well-worn axe he used for lopping the heads off chickens from the pen behind the bunkhouse.

Muller grunted at the stockmen as they approached him. ‘Get in behind me and listen to what I say.’ He threw the Rigby over his right shoulder. ’I want to get off the first shot, so wait for my signal―and watch out for the spears, the bastards can throw them more than a hundred yards. And someone―chain up those bloody dogs.’

One of the stockmen quickly rounded up the now yapping dogs and chained them, while the rest followed Muller toward the trees, most of them cautiously, watching this way and that, not really sure what was expected of them.

’I don’t see them, Golly―where the hell are they?’ the station manager hissed over his shoulder to the Aboriginal stockman following him.

‘They must be back in the shadows a bit, Boss,’

Golly replied nervously.

Muller slammed a round into the chamber of the Rigby and increased his pace. The others followed his example, but anxiously and with much more caution.

In the trees, the hungry natives watched the group of men walking boldly toward them. Goonagulla, their leader, was an old man, and next to him was his granddaughter, Jiiarnna, and behind them both, the rest of their weary group. Goonagulla began to feel the first prickles of fear as he watched the approaching men. He whispered a quiet command, and the natives laid their spears and weapons on the ground.

Goonagulla had seen many things in his long life, but only a few times had he seen pure evil, however, on this day, he saw it again as he watched the big white man leading the group of men walking toward him. This was a brutal, ruthless man, and the old man could sense a terrible evil that walked with him. He was suddenly afraid of what might now happen, but he fought off the urge to pick up the long spear at his feet and hurl it into the body of the big white man, and instead, forced himself to think only of his quest―to plead for food for his hungry people.

Goonagulla had helped white men in the past when he had found them lost and wandering aimlessly in the bush. He had fed them, given them water, and guided them safely back to their stations. The old man had done this many times, but he had never really trusted any of the white men he had come in contact with. To Goonagulla, they were a cruel race that did not really belong in this, the sacred land of his people.

Jan Muller had seen the old man in the shadows and knew instinctively he was their leader. He smiled and pushed the safety on his rifle forward to fire, ready to bring him down with his first shot. Less than fifty steps were all that separated them when he stopped and, with a steely look, lifted the Rigby to his shoulder.

Suddenly, the stockman, Golly jumped forward. ’Let me talk to ’em, Boss! Let me see what they want. They put them spears down on the ground nice and quiet you know, Boss―I don’t reckon they’re really bad buggers!’

‘They look pretty bad to me, Gollywog, and I reckon I’m going to have me some shooting practice, so step the hell back out of my way, you useless bastard.’

Golly stepped back, fearful of what he knew was about to happen.

Just then the old Aboriginal headman stepped forward, his arms to his sides.

Jan Muller smiled and eased back the first pressure on the trigger, in readiness for the final squeeze and the impending recoil of the big rifle.

It was suddenly very quiet. The cockatoos that lined the branches of the trees above the natives now sat like alabaster statues watching the drama unfold below them.

The old Aboriginal headman slowly lifted his right hand and pointed his fingers into his mouth and then back to the small band of frightened natives standing behind him.

’They only want tucker, Boss―just tucker, that’s all. No need to kill ’em today―no need at all, Boss,’ Golly mumbled nervously. The other stockmen nodded in agreement and began to lower their weapons.

Jan Muller looked disappointed, but he kept the Rigby to his shoulder. He looked back at Golly and whispered, ‘If you ever stick your black nose into my business again, I will cut your skinny throat. Do you understand me?’

Golly knew his boss only too well, and he knew instinctively that he meant every word. He replied quietly, ‘Okay, Boss.’

Muller kept the Rigby aimed at the old Aboriginal man’s chest, but now indecision began to creep into his mind. He saw a flicker of movement at the old man’s side. He swung the Rigby to his right, hoping against all probability it would be a young buck with a spear raised. He readied himself for a quick shot. But it was a lubra, a young girl of no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age. The girl was attractive, very attractive. Muller lowered his rifle and studied her closely. The native girl was tall, bare-breasted and well-shaped. Her belly was flat and sleek and her dark skin shone like polished ebony in the evening light. A narrow string loincloth was all that covered her lower body and it seemed to accentuate her long legs and firm buttocks. Her hair was jet-black, long and sleek and slightly matted with the fine red dust of the bush. Muller noticed she had slanted, somewhat oriental eyes and much finer features than any of the others in her pathetic group.

Strangely, she reminded him of a tall Ethiopian woman he had once seen in a marketplace in Nairobi when he had visited with his parents when he was just a boy. However, that woman had not been a heathen like the one he was looking at now. She had been dressed in the traditional, Habesha Kemis of her people, and she had been truly beautiful, not at all like this naked, dust-covered bush native watching him from the shadows.

Muller remembered the brightly coloured cloth the tall Ethiopian woman wore and the colourful necklaces and bracelets that had adorned her slender, Nilotic arms and neck. It had been an almost forgotten memory that had suddenly reappeared as he stared at the native girl. In his mind, he saw again the tall African woman’s beautiful smile as she showed him her hand-made wares in the shade of the flowering jacaranda trees that grew along that busy marketplace. He rested the Rigby in the crook of his left arm and bellowed back to Golly, ‘Come here, you useless excuse for a stockman.’

Golly moved up and stood trembling at his boss’s side. ‘I hear you, Boss. Do you want me to tell these smelly black buggers to piss off or what?’ he said quietly―nervously.

‘I want you to tell this old black bastard that I’m going to give him some tucker. Can you do that?’ Muller grunted.

‘Yes, Boss, I reckon I can. He talks a different sorta language to me. But I can tell him okay.’

‘Now listen carefully, Golly. This is what I want you to say. You’re to tell him I will give him all the meat he can carry and potatoes he can put in his campfire coals as well. But he must leave that girl here with us. One more thing; tell him she will be looked after well. She will be given a job and a place to stay, and will live a long and happy life and will never go hungry again. Have you got all that?’ Muller said in a lowered voice. He was nodding in the direction of the young Aboriginal girl as he spoke.

‘Yes, I got it alright, Boss. You must be feeling a bit generous today,’ the Aboriginal stockman replied nervously. He had just noticed a peculiar expression on his boss’s face, and it made him feel uncomfortable.

‘Just tell him what I said, and cut the prattle you stupid little black shit.’

Golly stepped forward and began speaking to the old man. The conversation seemed to take quite a while and the station manager was becoming impatient. However, it was a difficult task for the Aboriginal stockman; he had only a rudimentary knowledge of the old man’s dialect, but he kept at it and eventually made Muller’s demands clear to the old man.

‘What did he say?’ Muller grunted impatiently when the conversation finally came to an end.

‘He said that his people are very hungry and more will die soon if they don’t get some tucker, Boss,’ the stockman answered nervously.

’Yes, yes―but what about the girl is he going to leave her here, or do I have to shoot the lot of them on the spot for spearing cattle?’

Golly looked confused. ‘They ain’t speared any cattle, Boss.’

Muller casually swung his rifle across his right shoulder and glared imperiously at the Aboriginal stockman. ’If I say they have―then they bloody well have,’ he hissed. ‘And you know the penalty for spearing cattle.’

‘Don’t matter anyway, Boss. He said the girl can stay if she is given tucker and looked after right.’

Muller looked back at the old Aboriginal head man and noticed he was nodding at him and smiling, as were the two older women standing behind him. The only other male in their group, a young buck, stood grim-faced watching the proceedings carefully from the shadows of the boab trees. The buck put Muller in mind of a sinewy black snake, coiled and ready to strike should anything happen to the old man.

’That’s good, Golly―real good. Now, tell Santiago to get them some dried beef and all the kangaroo meat they can carry. The dogs will just have to go hungry until we get a few more. Tell him to give them a small bag of the worst of the potatoes as well. When he’s done, he’s to tell that bush nigger to clear the hell out of here right quick.’

‘Okay, Boss, I’ll tell him straight,’ Golly replied nervously.

‘And you tell them to stay well away from any cattle they come across, or I’ll come looking for them.’

‘Will do, Boss.’ Golly turned back to speak to the old Aboriginal headman. But Muller continued.

’Tell old Santiago to take the girl over to the cook-house and give her a feed―as much as she can eat, and tell him to keep an eye on her, I don’t want her running away―I’ve got plans for her.’

‘Maybe she could work in the kitchen, Boss. She could help old Santiago. He sure needs some help, poor fella. He could teach her real good, and then she’ll be a good cook just like him, Boss.’

‘Just do what I told you to do, you skinny little black shit,’ Muller grunted and turned to head back to his cottage―back to the remainder of his now-cold dinner.

‘Okay, Boss will do,’ Golly answered, relieved at last that the senseless slaughter of the bush natives had been avoided.

‘One more thing Golly, tell old Santiago she can sleep in that little room next to his, and tell him he better lock her up each night until she gets used to the place. She can earn her keep helping him in the kitchen,’ Muller yelled back over his shoulder as he trudged off toward his cottage.

After Golly had finished his conversation with the old man, he walked across to where Santiago was standing. The old cook was leaning on his axe, waiting for some sort of instruction.

‘It’s all over, Santiago,’ Golly said to the old cook. He turned to the rest of the men who were milling about wondering what was expected of them. ‘You boys can head on back to the bunkhouse. There’s not gonna be any more trouble.’ He turned back to Santiago. ‘It looks like you finally got yourself a helper, Santiago, and a pretty one too.’

The old cook looked confused, but Golly went on to explain everything in detail to him. He told him the girl was to be given some food and where she was to sleep; and that she was to be locked in her new room just as soon as she had been fed. Santiago never replied but nodded his understanding to Golly.

The old cook went across to the group of natives. He put his hand out to the young girl and waited patiently while she spoke in her tongue to the old head man. Santiago was suddenly aware that most of the stockmen had started to wander back toward the bunkhouse and that he was alone with the bush natives. He began to feel nervous as he watched each of them step forward and stroke the young girl’s arms in farewell and whisper their goodbyes. Only the young buck standing in the shadows stayed where he was and made no attempt to farewell the young girl. Instead, he suddenly reached down and picked up the spear at his feet and jabbered some sort of insult that Santiago could not understand. The old head man spun around and fixed his eyes on the young buck, and even though no command was given, Santiago watched him throw his spear to the ground in frustration.

Finally, hesitantly, the young girl stepped forward and took the old cook’s hand. Santiago gave her a warm smile and at the same time, he nodded his respect to the others in her group and watched as all but the young buck smiled back apprehensively. Santiago continued trying to comfort the young girl as he led her away toward one of the distant buildings.

Jiiarnna could sense the kindness in the old man with the brown skin, and she walked cautiously but without fear by his side. After they had gone a short distance, she looked back at her people and, smiling nervously, lifted her free hand in an uncertain farewell.

Once they were inside the kitchen building with all its pots and pans, its huge wood-burning stove and its worn timber benches, Santiago poured the Aboriginal girl a cool glass of water, which she gulped down thirstily. Then, whispering soothing words to her, he led her out through the back door and across the narrow verandah to what was to become her new bedroom. He opened the simple wood-planked door to the small room and led her across to the narrow bunk bed. He motioned her to sit and patted her shoulder.

’What is your name, child―what are you called?’

The Aboriginal girl could not understand any of the words that Santiago said to her, but she realised by his tone that he was asking her a question.

The old cook tried again. This time he pointed to himself and said slowly, ‘S-A-N-T-I-A-G-O.’ Then, he pointed to the native girl and with an inquisitive look on his face, he asked. ‘What is your name, child . . . ?’ It took the old man a few more tries, before; finally, she seemed to understand.

‘JIIARNNA,’ she said slowly, smiling at the old cook. ‘Jiiarnna . . .’

’Jiiarnna―is that your name?’ Santiago asked, repeating the somewhat difficult word.

The native girl nodded eagerly and pointed to herself. ‘Jiiarnna,’ she replied shyly. ‘Jiiarnna . . . Jiiarnna.’

Santiago thought for a few moments, and then he patted the native girl’s arm. ’From now on, your name will be Anna, and because you will need a second name for the station records, your new name will be Anna Cook. The old man smiled at his clumsy attempt at humour and tapped himself on the chest. ’Me, Santiago Mendoza, and you―Anna Cook.’

They both began to laugh. But the old cook knew the young girl never really understood what he was saying.

‘Now, Anna, you must stay here in this room until I come back for you,’ he instructed. He smiled and went across to the door, left, and locked it.

Santiago went back to the kitchen and, with the help of one of the stockmen, gathered up the promised food for the natives waiting in the trees. A small hessian bag of potatoes, a large chunk of dried beef, and around twenty pounds of rather rank kangaroo meat were quickly put together. The old cook placed two loaves of stale bread that he had been keeping for making breadcrumbs in with the potatoes and instructed the stockman to take the bags of supplies across to the natives as quickly as possible and to make sure they left the area promptly before Jan Muller had a change of heart.

Jiiarnna sat quietly on the strange bed and looked around the tiny room. There was no window, just a set of three long wooden vents in the wall above her head. Next to the narrow iron cot with its thin kapok mattress was a worn wooden cabinet, and on it, a metal plate with a candle in its centre. She ran her hand across the chipped top of the bedside cabinet and absentmindedly picked up the candle and sniffed its faint perfume. She felt confined and uncomfortable. She put the greasy-feeling candle back on its metal plate. She was already missing her old grandfather and her people.

The young girl was still looking around the room when Santiago returned and unlocked the door. He gave her a smile to comfort her and led her back into the kitchen to the big wooden bench in the centre of the room. The Aboriginal girl stood close to the old man. She trusted him and felt comfortable with him and watched as he buttered her a thick slice of the bread he had baked earlier that day and spread sweet-smelling mango jam across it. When she had eaten her fill, Santiago led her back to her room and patted her head in a comforting gesture, encouraging her to swing her long legs up on the bed. Then the old man left the room, locked the door behind him, and went back to the kitchen to clean up the mess they had made.

* * *

Jan Muller was watching from his cottage window as the natives, with their promised supplies, disappeared back into the trees and headed away from the homestead, which he knew could easily have been their killing ground. He shrugged his shoulders with disinterest and went back to his untidy desk and poured himself another glass of rum.