This Golden Land (42 page)

     He tossed and turned in fitful sleep. The silence was eerie. Neal had gotten used to hearing human sounds at night—snores, sighs, coughs—even the sounds of copulating, which had unsettled him at first but which had become as natural a sound in the night as a baby's cry. Finally he drifted into dreams. Hannah was there, in quick flashes that he tried to grasp but could not. He dreamed that the clan had returned for him and he was awash with relief. There was even a brief scenario with Sir Reginald in which Neal accused
him of murder.

     He awoke to bright sun slicing through the mulga branches. He drank his fill of the artesian water and then struck off. He wished he had a container to carry extra water with him, but he had learned where to find sources in this seemingly arid plain. When Kangaroos needed water, they dug wells for themselves, sometimes as deep as three or four feet. Kangaroos were not in abundance in this area, but there were a few, and Jallara had shown Neal how to find these "kangaroo wells." For food he would do what the clan had done, hunt for roots and seeds, or bring down an animal with his spear. If he was lucky, he would find emu eggs which were green-shelled and ten times as big as a chicken's egg.

     He turned his face into the hot wind and took one step away from the camp.

     And then he stopped.

     He felt it behind him, felt its heat and uncanny vibrations.

     The mountain.

     Neal turned and, as he looked at the monolith glowing golden in the morning sun, he finally faced a truth about himself: his decision to undergo initiation had nothing at all to do with scientific curiosity, or the desire to write a paper about the experience. It was an excuse, he realized now, to send him out there, on his own, so that he could come to terms with the mountain that, even now, continued to beckon.

     Taboo or not, he had to uncover the mystery of the red mountain.

A
LL THROUGH THE MORNING AND INTO THE AFTERNOON
, Neal moved under a strange compulsion, his feet treading the sand as if under a spell of their own, drawing him closer to the monolith that had turned from golden to red. Even so, Neal could not accept that there were supernatural forces at work.

     It is scientific curiosity, he told himself when he arrived at the base of the sheer cliff, and to prove his point he examined the rockface with an analytical eye, making mental notes: it is composed of a coarse-grained sandstone rich in quartz and feldspar. Uplifting and folding has resulted in vertical strata. The surface has been eroded. Weathering of iron-bearing minerals by the process of oxidation has given the outer surface a rusty color.

     He wanted to reach out and touch the wall, but was suddenly afraid. I have a university degree in geology. I am a scientist.

     Yet he stood transfixed at the base of the towering mountain and felt the power of the red rock that was blinding in the sunlight. Was the mountain magnetic in some way?

     No, Neal thought at last, feeling something inside himself capitulate to powers greater than he. There is no magnetism. No subterranean streams or seismic disturbance. There is nothing geological going on here, nothing that belongs to the physical world.

     And suddenly he knew: that at some point in the past few days, unbeknownst to himself, Neal had changed from an objective scientist to a spiritually hungry man yearning for a message from the unseen world.

     And if the spirits did send me a secret message, what would it be?

     Although his brain reminded him that he had promised to respect the laws and taboos of Jallara's people, his heart heard the call of the spirits within the mountain. Once again, as if driven by a will other than his own, Neal's feet began walking, following the sandy base of the smooth cliff like a man searching for a doorway. He stepped over pebbles and cobbles, debris that had been washed down the rusty surface for millennia, and followed the jagged footprint of the monolith, the late afternoon sun blinding him, the heat pressing down on him. Sweating profusely, he removed his kangaroo fur loincloth and dropped it to the ground along with the fur blanket. He continued his exploration of the base of the mountain. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He ran a hand over his forehead and it came away soaked. Jallara's people always slept during the worst heat of the day. Neal knew he should be doing the same.

     He lost his grip on the spear. It fell to the ground and he kept walking, the sun now behind him, so that he knew was going in a circle and that eventually he would arrive back at the place where he had started. Why was he doing this? What did he hope to find?

     He had his answer when, glancing at the ground, he saw the thorny lizard in his path.

     It seemed to pause, look up at him, and then it skittered on. Neal followed until the
thulan
appeared to suddenly vanish into the rock. But when Neal examined the surface, he was surprised to find space there. Eons ago, rock had broken away from the main body of the mountain, creating a narrow defile.

     Neal slipped inside and what he saw took his breath away. The slanting sun illuminated a cliff wall that rose smooth and majestic from the desert
floor, curving at the top to form a queer overhang. It resembled an ocean breaker about to crash on shore, petrified in a forever cresting wave. His scientist's mind tried to identify the rock and its immense age, how it had been thrust up through the earth. But all he could think of was how beautiful the stone wave was with radiant orange and yellow strata in the red. It looked unreal.

     And then he saw
them.

     People. Men and women. Children and animals. Symbols forming clouds and sun and moon. An endless parade of them, executed by different hands in different pigments, red, white, yellow and black. They marched across the face of the rock with long limbs and haloed heads, spears in their hands. Kangaroos in retreat. Babies nursing at breasts. A white-haired elder being laid on a burial mound. The chronology baffled him. Neal had learned that in Jallara's language there were no words for yesterday, today or tomorrow. They never spoke of a future, although they did understand that a past lay behind them. They seemed to have no need for the concept of time, as they lived in the constant now. So how did that explain this chronicle? And then he knew. Each generation came to this rock wall and recorded their
now
, making this a string of "nows."

     All these figures, walking, running or lying down, killing kangaroos or plucking up spinifex grass, were generations of one family. Jallara's clan. Neal imagined Thumimburee reciting the lengthy narrative as the family saw depictions of those who came before them. Here was the permanent record of people who Neal had thought needed an alphabet and writing tools.

     As he continued to follow the mural, he saw fathers and sons, down through the ages. He reached out to a man leading a boy by the hand, both carrying boomerangs. A father teaching his son to hunt. Tears pricked Neal's eyes.

     And suddenly he was reminded of
other
tears. A memory from his boyhood, long forgotten. Nine-year-old Neal had come home early from school one day and had walked in on Josiah Scott, sitting in his study, weeping. Neal realized he must have suppressed the memory because it had embarrassed him—for a little boy to come upon the man he worshipped, and find him crying like a woman—but now the scene flashed back into his mind in
vivid detail—Josiah Scott sitting at his desk clutching Neal's baby clothes and blanket and emerald-green tear catcher, and sobbing with all his heart.

     For eighteen years, Neal had kept the shocking scene buried. He must have run from the house, although he had no recollection of that. It had frightened him to see his father sobbing so. Josiah Scott, who had been such a tower of strength to the boy, who knew everything and was a rock of such stability that the son had not known a moment of insecurity. Neal never brought it up, Josiah never knew that the boy had witnessed his moment of weakness, and Neal had never thought about it again.

     Until now. It was strange that primitive stick figures painted on an ancient wall should dredge up that memory now. To what purpose?

     With a lump in his throat, Neal resumed walking between the two walls of rock, the sun no longer beating down on him but continuing to illuminate figures that gradually became fantastical in appearance. He placed his hand on the wall and could have sworn he felt the mountain vibrate.

     The air grew heavy, he heard a buzzing sound. The wall seemed to go on forever. The illustrations grew more primitive, less identifiable. Neal deduced by the alluvial erosion of the wall that these paintings were very old, perhaps thousands of years old. He was going back in time.

     Jallara had explained about her ancestors, the First Ones, who came from the Rainbow Serpent, and she had pointed to the sky. Seeing the eonsold paintings overwhelmed him. The men became less human in appearance until, near the end, they reached enormous proportions and appeared to have round transparent bowls covering their heads and looked as if they were coming down from the sky. At the top edge of the mural, there were stars and what looked like flames. What
were
these beings? Creators, Jallara had called them.

     Staring at the figures, Neal felt the air shift and change around him, as if the air pressure were dropping and rising.

     And then, before his disbelieving eyes, the figures on the wall started to
move.

     Neal gave a cry and fell back. His mouth stretched in terror as he saw spindly black arms and legs move on the rocky surface, as one-dimensional creatures stretched and breathed and fleshed out. Neal stood frozen with
horror as he watched the figures walk before his eyes, as if in some grotesque shadow play, and then suddenly arms shot out, seizing him, pulling him into the wall.

     He screamed. He couldn't breathe. He was smothered in rock. Black figures with arms and legs like sticks danced around him. Flames came down from the sky. Neal saw impossibly tall men walking toward him, glass globes encasing their heads. He screamed again, but no sound came out. He was immobilized in the rock as the animals came to life, kangaroos with misshapen bodies and hawks swooping down with sharp talons. All around him, in the red atmosphere that was suffocating him, he saw frightening creatures swimming in the strata. Long-fingered hands reaching for him.

     He ran. It was dream-like. His legs were sluggish. He felt hands holding him back. He fought to get away, to escape from the rock.

     Help! screamed his silent voice.
Somebody help me!

     Suddenly, in the dense sediment and rock strata that imprisoned him, Neal saw a light coming toward him, glowing brighter as it drew near, and as it reached him, he saw that it was a beautiful woman—not a black-ink stick figure, but a flesh and blood woman with blond hair and white skin and a flowing white gown. She smiled at him for a moment, as her hair floated about her head, then she leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. As Neal felt the dark figures begin to recede into the rock, the woman covered her face with her hands and when she brought them away, Neal saw that they were filled with diamonds. Raising her arms, she let the diamonds rain down on Neal's upturned face, and where they touched his skin he felt pinprick sparks of life and joy.

     In the next instant he was out of the rock and in cool night air, blinking up at the night sky. He gasped for air, drawing in rasping breaths like a man just rescued from drowning. His eyes did not focus for a moment. He didn't know where he was. And then he saw Jallara looking down at him.

     He blinked. She was kneeling at his side, and he saw the emerald glass tear catcher in her hand. She had broken the seal and sprinkled his mother's tears on his face.

     Shaking and heaving for breath, he sat up, propping himself up on an elbow. Neal looked around in bewilderment and saw that he was no longer
in the rocky gorge but a distance away from the sacred mountain.

     "I find you," Jallara said, handing the now empty tear catcher to him. "You not wake. Spirits hold you. They keep you. I call, 'Thulan,' you not hear. You trapped in spirit world. I use mother's tears to give you birth again."

     He frowned, shook his head to clear his mind. He must have run out of the mountain when he had thought he was running inside the wall, but he had remained trapped in the nightmare until—

     "Jallara, I had the most astonishing vision!" he said, his respirations returning to normal, although his heart continued to race. "I don't know who she was, perhaps an angel. And she gave me a message."

     "You must not tell me, Thulan."

     "I
can
tell you, Jallara, because it is a wonderful thing, and it is something I should have known all along, and perhaps I did. She told me that Josiah Scott is my real father." He knew now that that was why the memory of the day in Josiah's study had been brought to the surface, why primitive stick-figure fathers and sons had wakened his memory, to tell him that what he had witnessed as a boy was not a moment of weakness after all, but his father's naked anguish.