The Kadaitcha Curse Read online

Chapter 22

  The lighting that strikes at the cave entrance gives enough light for me to see. They are definitely not sticks. They are bones!

  I have to get a better look. I crawl back to my little fire, pull one of the larger sticks from the flames and I have my torch. Primitive, but effective enough. Burning torch in hand, I crawl back to the rear of the cave and notice that it bends lightly to the right. It is not just a few bones. It is two complete skeletons!

  We have a full size plastic skeleton in the science lab at school but I’ve never seen a real one. And now two at once. I think one is larger than the other but it’s hard to tell. One is stretched out as if the person died lying on his, or her, back. The other is curled up beside it, one bony arm across the chest of the other.

  I can tell they’ve been here a long time.

  “Bury the bones!”

  I look at dad. Bury the bones? No it’s too much of a stretch. Or is it? Stranger things have happened over the past couple of days.

  “Bury the bones.”

  Maybe he’s not worried about what I did with the lamb chops after all. But how would he know that these bones were here?

  No, he’s just hallucinating.

  “Bury the bones!”

  The smoke is filling my head. I’m starting to feel sick.

  “Bury the bones!”

  Where? Bury the bones where?

  I give up. I throw my burning torch at the wall where it explodes in a burst of sparks. I look at the wall where it made contact. Was that a drawing?

  I start to wonder what sort of tree these sticks that I’m burning came from. The smoke is playing tricks with my mind and with my eyes. I start to see two of dad and two fires. I crawl back to what I hope is the real fire, pull out another burning stick and take it back to the skeletons.

  Sure enough. On the wall beside the bones is a drawing. It’s faded, presumably with age and having so little light makes it even harder to decipher. Double vision isn’t helping either.

  The first feature I focus on is a tree. I get that. Then what looks like a body…no, a skeleton. Funny sets of double-dots join the skeleton to the tree. Double dots? Footprints?

  My head is spinning now. I twist quickly away from the bones and throw up against the wall.

  I look at the drawing again. Footsteps leading from the bodies to the tree.

  “Bury the bones!” Dad is becoming louder and tossing so fitfully that I’m afraid he’s going to injure himself against the wall of the cave. I put the sleeping bag over him again. But he’s thrashing around so much that it is soon discarded. I turn my attention again to the drawing as dad keeps up his mantra in the background.

  Maybe my body is releasing some drug into my system to combat the trauma of my arm wound. Maybe it’s the smoke. Or maybe it’s just normal for a dying person. But I start to join in with dad.

  “Bury the bones! Bury the bones!” The rhythm of the chant is strangely comforting. I feel like I’m in a partial trance.

  “Bury the bones!”

  I collect an armful of the bones and crawl out of the cave. Without any wilful thought on my part my body moves across the ravine and up the other side. I am not even aware of my feet touching the ground although I know they must be.

  I reach the tree and there she is.

  Angel, her snout still red with pig blood, is clawing at the ground inside the circle of stones. The earlier rain must have softened the ground enough for the dog to get through the hard surface. Now she has managed to dig a hole about half a metre deep. I know I could never have managed to dig a hole like that myself. The white dog moves back as I approach. I drop the bones in the hole and go back for more.

  Over the next hour I go back and forth in a half-dream collecting the remains of who-knows-who in my one working arm and dropping them into the hole. And finally both of these poor souls are in the grave.

  Both of my arms are now next to useless. I fall to the ground exhausted. Angel, moved by some knowledge or sense far beyond my comprehension, starts to backfill the grave with the soil she has taken so long to dig out. I am lying on the ground looking up at the tree. I feel my life ebbing like a final tide. And there is a sound approaching through the darkness.

  I hear my name. The ancestors are beating their drums and calling me. I can see the light. I am ready.

  “Robbie! Robbie! It’s me Millie!”

  I regain a little sense of reality. Millie dismounts and lays her torch on the ground.

  “Millie, dad is…”

  At that moment the sky breaks open. The violence of the thunder and lightning I’ve already experienced is nothing compared the ferocity of what is happening now. Millie helps me to my feet. The tree is on fire.

  “This way,” I manage weakly, pointing towards the cave.

  “Come on, King. Come on, Angel.” King trots obediently behind.

  “Come on, Angel,” Millie repeats her command.

  Angel stands and walks towards us. A huge flaming branch crashes to the ground near her. King rears up, startled, but is quickly settled by Millie’s reassuring voice. Angel, on the other hand, seems not to sense the danger. Or she is simply unafraid. She is not walking towards us. She is walking towards the grave. She looks at us and barks. She lies down on the freshly packed soil and barks at us again as if to say you go, I’m staying. She rests her head on her paws and closes her eyes.

  Burning branches are falling all around us. “She knows what she is doing,” I say. “Let’s keep going.” But my legs give out.

  “Here, King!” Millie whistles and her horse trots to us. Millie helps me up onto the horse’s bare back. I slump forward holding King around the neck. Millie hands me the torch.

  “Point the way with this,” she shouts then takes the bridle and jogs in front.

  King makes easy work of the ravine that had almost been my undoing. We reach the cave unscathed. Millie helps me down. Another explosion turns us around. A hundred lightning bolts attack the tree. Its branches erupt into a million pieces and crash in splintered heaps to the ground.

  The storm stops. We watch in disbelief as the big dark cloud that has hovered over this mountain for as long as anyone can remember, dissipates before our eyes.

  The full moon is blindingly brilliant.

  “Goodbye, Yilkgawu-mirrin,” I say softly.

  Against the evening sky the great tree stands like a naked giant, tattered garments strewn untidily at its feet.

  Neither of us speaks until, after what seems an eternity, my father’s voice breaks our trance.

  “Robbie!” he calls. “Robbie, where are you?”

  We both crawl into the cave.

  “It’s OK, Dad. I’m here. Everything is fine.” His skin is still clammy but feels warmer. He is not flaying his arms and legs around like he was before so I put the sleeping bag back over him. “It’s OK, Dad. Everything’s OK. Try to sleep.”

  Dad settles down.

  “I buried the bones, Dad,” I whisper to him.

  “What bones?” he murmurs and is soon breathing deeply.

  “Your arm,” says Millie. “let me look at it.”

  She looks at the wound. “No wonder you’re weak.” She rips the sleeve off my shirt and tears it into strips. With them she makes a bandage and a sling.

  “Wow,” is all I can manage.

  “You say that a lot,” she smiles. She leans her face towards mine.

  A loud squawk startles us both. We turn around. The white cockatoo stands at the cave entrance. It has something colourful in its mouth. With a flamboyant flap of it wings it drops the object, squawks once more, and flies off.

  Millie crawls over to the object and carefully picks it up.

  “What is it?” she asks as she reaches out and drops my homemade red and yellow lure into my hand.