The Silent Country (40 page)

The woman turned and looked, then screamed. Suddenly everyone was shouting, looking shocked and dazed as the reality of the maneater’s presence finally dawned on them. They rushed to one side of the boat to photograph the huge reptile.

‘Hey, steady on, stay on both sides of the boat, please,’ called Justine. ‘There’s another one up ahead on the other side. See, in the shallow water.’

She nosed the boat a shade closer to the floating croc than she normally would, so that the foreigners could take in its long snout, protruding teeth and mean-looking eyes that watched this boat cruise past twice a day. Further along there were two smaller crocs on the bank and the tourists began chattering amongst themselves.

‘These ones, they attack men?’ asked the group’s leader.

‘And women,’ said Jamie affably. ‘And children and cattle and dogs and fish.’

‘That’s why there are signs saying “No Swimming”,’ added Justine, just in case they’d missed the point.

‘Can we shoot them?’ asked the man.

Jamie shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate, these animals are protected. Endangered species, so you can only shoot them with a camera.’

‘But so many are here! Why are there no safaris to shoot these ones?’

Veronica imagined they were now reassessing this place no longer as a recreational spot but more as a big game experience.

Jamie was polite and patient and carefully explained how the crocodiles had almost been hunted to extinction, but since they had been protected their numbers had increased. Now there were special farms that bred them for their skins and meat.

Justine turned the boat around and returned the foreigners to the landing where they shook Jamie’s hand and made a hasty return to the picnic area.

Justine set out again in the boat, with just Jamie, Veronica and Dougie and they motored back down the river.

‘Justine has a lot of stories about this country,’ said Jamie. ‘The tourists love her.’

She took them further down river to a strip of white sandy beach, which she assured them, was safe as there were no resident crocs in the immediate vicinity. A few metres up on the bank the land was cleared and a bough roof suspended on slim tree trunks shaded some woven mats on the ground below. They went ashore and sat down and Justine handed around examples of weaving, carvings, utensils and digging sticks made by the local women.

‘We bring people here for a bit of a talk about this country and my people, then we take the women out to look for bush tucker and medicine plants and the men go for a sort of hunting walk. They can learn to throw a boomerang or a spear and learn how to catch goanna and snake and that sort of thing. Then we make a campfire and have a bush tucker lunch. Just gives tourists an idea of how we live,’ said Justine with some pride.

Dougie, who had been filming her, asked if she’d show him some bush plants which were important to the Aboriginal way of life. ‘Where’s the white sand from?’ he asked. ‘Not from the river. It’s too muddy.’

Justine pointed to the distant range of jagged hills. ‘It blew down from up there quite recently. It got dumped in the river and blocked up one of the entrances. I used to take the boat much further along, closer to the gorge so people could see the rock art and carvings up on the cliffs. It’s harder now.’

‘Have you always lived here?’ asked Veronica.

Justine shook her head. ‘Nah, I worked for a mining company to make money, but after a year I had to leave. I couldn’t stand what they were doing to my country, digging it up like that. The old men cried when they saw all the sacred places getting dug up, buried or carted away. So now we want people to know the real story ’bout this land.’ She got up. ‘C’mon Doug, I show you plenty good things for your camera.’

Jamie smiled at Veronica. ‘Shall we sit in the shade? Or do you want to go with Dougie?’

‘He’ll be right. I’ll look at the footage when we edit it. He can get Justine to explain what things are.’

‘She will, she’s a good talker and knowledgeable.’

‘That was funny with those tourists wanting to swim. You handled them very well, Jamie.’

‘Yeah. Could’ve been interesting. Dealing with the
public can be a challenge. I try to leave that to the other people.’

‘But you’re very good at it.’

‘It wears me out, I can be impatient.’ He smiled. ‘You don’t know my bad traits.’

‘There’s a lot I don’t know about you,’ said Veronica, then felt embarrassed.

‘And I about you,’ he said.

‘I’m not very interesting. You have two cultures, a huge, wonderful family, a fascinating job and lifestyle,’ began Veronica, but he held up his hand.

‘And a lot of baggage comes with that, Veronica,’ he said seriously. ‘And I have a son and a commitment to him.’

‘Surely that’s a good thing,’ said Veronica.

‘Sometimes. But it means I’m not a free man,’ he added awkwardly and stood up, gazing at the river with his back to her.

Veronica looked at his lean, straight back and saw the tension in his shoulders, the taut muscles in his neck. ‘What would you be doing if you didn’t have such a sense of duty and responsibility?’ she asked gently.

He shrugged, turned and ran his fingers through his hair, his gold and hazel eyes soft. It was a gesture that tugged at her. Then he smiled. ‘Ah, I’d probably take off to Sydney, ask you out to dinner. Take you somewhere silly.’

‘That sounds nice.’ She smiled back at him and saw the intensity in his eyes belying his easy smile.

He looked away and his smile faded. ‘It’s not going to happen, Veronica. I really like you. But Sydney is a long way away.’

She didn’t know what to say. She had felt drawn to him since they’d first met and while irrationally she longed to leap up and put her arms around him and kiss his perfect mouth, she understood what he was saying.

‘That’s okay. We all have commitments. I have my
job …’ Her voice trailed off as she realised what she’d said. She’d put her job first. ‘What I mean is, my family are all good, comfortable and can look after themselves. I’m a free agent, I suppose. I’ve never considered these things,’ she finished lamely. Then seeing Dougie and Justine returning she asked, ‘Where to next?’

‘The Crossing. Are you ready?’

‘Yes. I just wish Topov’s ghost could appear and tell us what happened.’

‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ said Jamie with a laugh.

‘Okay, let’s go. This might be the final curtain call,’ she said. ‘Unless we find Marta to tell us more.’

The country changed yet again. From the vast red spaces stretching to a distant horizon it plunged into lush emerald jewels of palm-fringed pools, paperbark swamps and rich grass marshes.

‘Buffalo country,’ said Jamie. ‘Buffaloes make a dreadful mess environmentally and since being introduced they’ve became a feral pest.’

‘Weren’t they culled from Kakadu?’ asked Veronica.

‘Yes. There was an eradication program for ten years up to the mid-nineties, but they’re still out of control in the parts of the Top End.’

‘Good for big game hunting,’ said Dougie.

‘Some buffaloes are shot for pet food and there’s some live export trade. I have a friend who has a herd and he makes cheese from the milk,’ said Jamie.

‘I filmed a big mob from a chopper, once,’ said Dougie. ‘It looked beautiful, a stampede of huge beasts through the floodplains in the wet, but apparently they gouge tracks that become swim channels in the floods and this has caused a lot of problems.’

‘This a field you’re interested in then, Jamie?’ said Veronica.

‘Can’t you tell?’ he said with a smile. ‘There are so many environmental problems here in the Territory.’

‘Have you thought about entering politics?’ asked Veronica. ‘You and your mother have so much to offer.’

‘I’ve thought about it. I’m in no position to do that just yet.’

‘Billy?’

‘And I need to learn more.’ He changed the subject. ‘There’s the South Alligator River again. We turn off the track here, Wild Man is further downstream.’

‘It’s very pretty,’ said Veronica. ‘I can see why you’d want to camp here,’ she said thinking of Topov and his party.

‘Up here you’re pretty safe. But I wouldn’t be washing dishes in the river,’ said Jamie.

They arrived at the Crossing ten minutes later. Jamie parked on the rise and Dougie leapt out to get the camera.

‘I’ll shoot you both going down to the Crossing,’ said Dougie, then paused. ‘There’s water going over it. Can we get through that?’

Veronica looked at the smooth river meandering to the stone wall that made a causeway between the two banks. The green water slipped across it and cascaded a short distance into the deeper part of the river on the other side. ‘I have no sense of danger here,’ she said. ‘It’s deceptive. Can we drive through that water?’

‘In this vehicle, no problem. But the water’s actually deeper than it looks, probably a foot or so, and the current can be quite strong.’

‘There’s no-one here,’ said Dougie. ‘That’s good.’

‘Let’s explore. Veronica, do you want to take photos as well as film?’ asked Jamie.

‘Absolutely. Jamie, could you tell me on camera about Wild Man Johnson?’

Jamie took her arm as they made their way down the steep track towards the river as Dougie filmed. At the bottom, Jamie talked easily and entertainingly about the Crossing and how it got its name. Then he added, ‘There are negotiations underway to lay hundreds of kilometres of fibre optic cable through Arnhem Land, including under this river bed, to connect communities to broadband.’

‘That must be a challenge, given the terrain and the wildlife,’ said Veronica.

‘Yes, indeed. So shall we cross and explore the Arnhem Land side?’

It was the perfect cue to get back into the car. Jamie drove Dougie to the other side as Veronica waited, taking photographs of the bow wave swirling around the vehicle. Then Dougie filmed Jamie driving her across.

‘It feels different, knowing that I’m in traditional country,’ said Veronica as she stepped from the car.

‘It’s the biggest Aboriginal freehold area in Australia and its culture is still very much alive here,’ said Jamie, aware Dougie had his camera trained on him. ‘This is where the yidaki, or didgeridoo originated.’

‘Can you play one?’ asked Veronica.

He shook his head. ‘Not very well. Let’s go a little further on foot, see what wildlife we might find.’

Veronica nodded to Dougie but he’d already turned his camera on the bird life swarming around them. Graceful white egrets, dainty jabiru, flocks of magpie geese and the flash of a sacred kingfisher diving into the river, all ignoring their presence.

‘Look at those colours,’ said Veronica, pointing to a spectacular plant beside the track. ‘Pink flowers and red seeds.’

‘It’s a turkey bush. The branches are nice and straight, good for spears and the seeds are poisonous but the women
make necklaces from them.’ As Dougie filmed a close-up of the bunches of red seeds, Jamie continued, ‘Aboriginal people look at flora and fauna differently from white people. For example, there aren’t just the wet and the dry seasons. They have five seasons and the weather dictates what food to find and when and what to hunt.’

Veronica looked around her. ‘There’s a whole language and history here isn’t there that we can’t see?’

‘It’s why white engineers, mining people, government officials, developers, can’t understand why they shouldn’t dig the ground, or move rocks and fell trees. They see physical structures like buildings or bridges or roads or stockyards as evidence of civilisation that should be preserved, but Aborigines have a different concept of what heritage means.’

Veronica nodded. ‘I see. Those hills over there, that ridge line, it’s very distinctive. It looks like a huge mushroom.’

Jamie smiled. ‘Yes it does. There are so many other interesting things in this region. Plants and minerals just waiting to be discovered.’

They walked a little further until they came to a waterhole below a small flat-topped jump-up.

‘I guess these formations are called jump-ups because they just jump out of the ground, like a little plateau,’ said Veronica as she took a photo.

‘This is Palm Tree waterhole. There’s been one palm tree growing here for years. I heard some old fellas tried to plant other palms but they won’t grow. Just this one old one survives,’ said Jamie. ‘Let’s stop a minute.’

They sat on a flat rock by the pool of water ringed with small waterlilies. Dougie wandered around looking for things to point his camera at and Veronica took off her shoes and splashed her feet in the cool water.

‘Thanks for bringing me out here, Jamie. I’m trying to imagine whether Topov came here, sat here.’

‘He would’ve been in this area if he walked over the Crossing, but he might not have come this way.’ He lifted his arms in a vague gesture. ‘Who knows?’

They returned over the Crossing and Veronica glanced back at the benign scene. ‘Poor old Topov.’

On the way back to Darwin the next day Jamie announced, ‘I have to make a small detour and call in at the Jabiru Land Council office. Would you like to stop and have a coffee at the Croc Resort?’