‘It was far worse with them. It was lucky for us when he won us, for strangely he likes a bit of the lash himself though you have to be careful not to hurt him, or else he bellows like a stuck pig.’
‘Won you?!’ Wadawaka exclaimed, as if he was re-living other horrors invoked by the women’s story.
‘Yes at cards. They were using us, all of them, but only that brute owned us. Malone, our ghost, had taken a fancy to both of us. Even then he had thought of settling on this island and “living the life of Riley” as he put it. This meant that he wanted us to do all the work as well as touching him up with the lash every now and again. So, he waited and seized the opportunity when it came. He got the brute drinking and out came the cards and he finally got us with a couple of red queens which he had palmed.’
‘And that’s why he calls us the Queen of Spades and Clubs,’ Nadjee broke in, ‘though he got us with the red, but he says that it was the black that made him lucky and when he gets into a game these days, he rubs our skins for luck. ’
‘To get back to what happened next,’ Lorimee raised her voice above that of her sister, ‘that brute, he let us go just like that, saying that there were more birds in the bush and he only liked to sample them, not own them.’
‘True,’ Nadjee regained the story. ‘Just like that, but that Malone once said that he was off to some place up the coast and didn’t need to be lumbered with two black women.’
‘Well,’ Lorimee said, ‘whatever made him do it, he did it and that was good for us.’
Wadawaka picked up a glowing stick from the fire and flung it out into the darkness. He watched. A tiny flame flickered up, then disappeared. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it is the same everywhere for us black folks. The whip, the lash, manacles and degradation. It is too much and ...’ Suddenly he broke off, staring hard into the gathering darkness. Such was the intensity of his gaze that we all began looking into the blurred outline of a tree where something, light and indistinct fluttered among the leaves. Then it was gone and all that we could think was that some spirit had been listening to the women’s tale of woe.
Wadawaka, more agitated than he had been when he was speaking, got to his feet and prowled within the illumination of the campfires, stopping every now and again to stare off into the gathering darkness. At least the drizzle had stopped and now as night fell like a heavy blanket, the clouds parted to let the moon peer down. It was a half moon with a halo, surrounded by the brittle sparks of stars. These made me think of the skyworld and the campfires of our ancestors, though then I became frightened as I imagined ghosts as numerous as falling drops of rain flooding down to conquer this world of ours. This was what my father and our shaman had told us and it was under his influence that we had begun our voyage westwards so that we might be free of them once and for all.
I missed my friend and got to my feet. I was about to follow him, for it was not good to leave a person to wander by himself in a strange land, when there was another disturbance as the ghost Malone walked into our camp with a small barrel on his shoulder. He smelt of rancid meat and rum and in the fire and moonlight did indeed appear like some demon. He stopped, jerked his head about and saw my mother’s sisters there.
‘Didn’t I tell you to stay in the bush until I called for you,’ he snarled at them. ‘Just remember who you belong to and what blackfellows think of you for being with me. Queens or traitors, eh? You’re better off here with me than with a bunch of damn savages anyway. So keep yourselves to yourselves and stick by me, or else,’ he threatened.
The two women glanced at each other, then back at their ghost and Nadjee muttered: ‘Why, are you going to whip us?’
They made no attempt to get to their feet and Malone licked his lips as he stared at them before shrugging and muttering: ‘They’re like dogs, you know, like dogs.’ His one good eye gleamed malignantly as it flicked from face to face. ‘Treat ’em with kindness, let ’em sleep at the foot of your bed, throw ’em a few scraps, avoid their sharp teeth if they get stroppy and you got friends for life. Can’t get rid of ’em, you know. Malone’s sluts and they know their master and I could show you how much they can show it ...’ He stopped abruptly with a leer, licking his lips as if he was about to go on, then clamped his mouth shut as if he had just recollected who he was among, a mob of blackfellows, some of whom most likely understood English and might take his words amiss.
He covered what confusion he felt, if any, by setting the cask down carefully, then flopping down next to it. He seemed not to notice that we were all staring at him with hostility and instead pulled out a pannikin, fiddled with the cask until he got the bung out, let his mug fill then shut off the flow and gulped the liquid down. As his face lifted and dropped with the emptying of the mug, I noticed that his possum cap had two red stones in the place of eyes and these stared venomously at me, reminding me of other eyes, of another ghost who had treated me with kindness, if it could be called that. I didn’t like thinking about that and turned my attention to Malone’s one blue eye which was clouded over as if with some filmy tissue, and if the eye beneath the black patch was in similar condition, it meant that he was going blind and needed workers or companions.
Now, drunkenly he muttered something indistinctly, hawked a mass of phlegm up, spat it into the fire where it sizzled a long moment, then spoke again. ‘Well, at least one of you knows the English language and I expect all of you’ll know what the government will do to you, if they catch you with that boat. As far as I know blacks are property and with not as much up in the top storey as we white fellows. You need a white bloke in charge of you, tell you what to do and how to do it. You’ll get by that way and no-one’ll say a word against you. Well, I’m glad to know that you can sail this sort of boat, I can’t, but what's the use of sailing her if you can’t put into a port. As I’ve said, what you need is a white man in charge, then bob’s your uncle. Look at me, I’m that white bloke and what’s more I’ve got a load of kangaroo skins waiting to be taken and sold. You’ve got the boat and I’ve got the colour. A fair swap if you ask me. Nothing else to say, except let’s celebrate your new captain and he’s a kind master as long as you don’t get in his way. Ask the queens there. I’m a good bloke. Never laid a finger on them though they’ve deserved it more than once and sometimes, you know, I need a bit of a massage and they go at it too hard just out of spite. Well, that’s neither here nor there. So what do you say, eh? There’s nothing but desert to the west of us, best if we load up the skins, go east then north to sell ’em at Port Jackson.’
Hercules gave a snarl which if the ghost had known him would have put him on guard. He didn’t, nor did he heed the fact that the giant had been dangerously silent. When Hercules was like that it was best to get him talking, but Malone ignored him and we weren’t butting in to warn him. Now the ghost swung his filmy eye over us as he babbled on. ‘Of course, we’ll have to get ourselves presentable. Get you and me cleaned up. When you got a vessel like this, you got to look the part, swank it up a bit.’
He gulped his rum and it was then that Hercules lumbered to his feet and went out of the firelight. I thought that he was going for a piss and this got me wondering about our missing chief mate. What would he make of the ghost’s idea? It was an easy answer. He would think it shit. It was then that Hercules returned. He took two large steps as he came into the firelight and stood in front of the ghost. His arm swung back, then down. The axe which he had taken from Malone’s woodpile flashed down, through the possum skin cap and then the brain, cleaving the skull in twain as it lodged up against the top of the spine. Bits of bone and grey matter splattered over us. The women shrieked and the two sisters rushed to the dead ghost and began wailing: ‘He wasn’t that bad; he wasn’t that bad,’ they cried over and over again.
In fascination I watched the blood gush from the split skull. How red and intoxicating it looked. I felt like rushing in and lapping it up. I was on my feet ready to go to the dying
