A Far Away Time

2010-03-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

A Far Away Time
by
Victor C. Sparks
Word count 15,000

PROLOGUE

KOOLANGARI STATION, AUSTRALIA 2006

I awoke early that morning as I had for the past four years. I arose and walked barefooted over the rough hewn Radiata pine floor boards from the bedroom into the living room to the book case and ran my eyes over the shelves looking for it again. It had not been so long ago that I had read it the last time. It lay in the corner of the bookcase where I had placed it last.
Pulling the book from the shelf I lifted the journal to my cheek and lingered there feeling connected and whole. The cover was supple and soft and deeply patinaed from years of use and the smell of the leather stirred a place inside of me I could not quite understand. I stood for a moment in the quiet predawn silence letting a feeling of uncertain uneasiness fill me for a moment and then I walked over and open the door to the veranda.
The air that morning was cold and damp and felt good against my skin. At the eastern end of the veranda I sat down in one of two worn and tired looking wicker chairs and waited for the sun to rise.
The view from the veranda at that time of morning was my favorite. The fog, moving silently just above the grass tips, licked the clover sending its cool wet fragrance into the air, while droplets of dew, sparkled and danced their way into a visual symphony of silent sound. Away in the distance, the sheep, sparsely dotted the landscape grazing on soft new shoots of grass while Joe our adopted tom cat sniffed out a frog from beneath the wood pile.
I looked down again at the journal in my hands, hands that once had been youthful and soft, now calloused and scared from years of honest work and thought about her words etched so long ago across the pages of time and I reflected on my own hands that chronicled the passing of that time and wondered where it had all gone. Pulling the warmth of the mornings light to my face I slept.
I awoke to the cawing of a Galah somewhere off down the paddock. The sun, breaking free of the horizon, warmed the last of the damp air and bit into the corner of my cobwebbed cheek. It was going to be a hot day. Leaning into the morning light slowly my thoughts brought me back to the home of my youth. Back to the flatland plains of the outback, to the sun burnt sepia colored earth, to the sparsely parched stubbles of grass, to the stunted ironwood trees yearning to break free and fill the sky. Back to the song of the kookaburra, to the low night whooping of the grey Kangaroo, and the death throw howling of the red fox looking for its morning mate. Back to Koolangari Station and my home.
And so begins the story of Anna and how she came to be at Jengula Station that fateful July in the winter of 1954.

CHAPTER 1
JENGULA STATION, AUSTRALIA 1954

I remember the first time I saw her. I remember everything on that cold winter day.
The Year was 1954 and I was a young spry station hand just nineteen years of age. We lived on a small sheep station called Jengula. Small by Australian terms my father had a property of about sixteen hundred hectares which my grandfather first homesteaded in 1896. He had come over from England as a wool merchant but the draw of the outback and the governments offer of free land was all that my grandfather needed to head east from Sydney some 650 kilometers to a small wool stop town called Geringanda. Lying halfway between the ore fields of Broken Hill to the west and the Blue Mountains to the east, Geringanda possessed some of the best grazing land for sheep in the shire.
There were four roads that lead to our town and they were all one lane dirt tracks. The Government railway brought Iron and copper ore from the outback to Sydney then brought supplies back to us and the other small towns along the way. Grazers brought their wool bales to be shipped down to Sydney and returned back their properties, which sometimes were hundreds of miles away, with the much needed staples to sustain them for another year. I remember how Geringanda bustled with people and wagons stacked with wool bales during the shearing season in an otherwise sober and quiet town.
Geringanda was layed out on a square grid with Main Street running east and west down the middle. To the south of Main Street were the railroad tracks and on the other side of the tracks, which everyone called, the outside of town, were a few houses, two pubs, an auto repair shop and a fuel depot. Main Street itself consisted of two long blocks with the train station sitting between them. Behind Main Street and to the north was the larger section of homes which also included the post office, police station, grange hall and the town hall. . Main Street consisted of all the essential business; a bank, meat market, veggie shop, baker, hardware and general stores, one gas station and six pubs, a shire office, and we had one Return Servicemen’s League Club also.
At one end of Main Street was a town meeting hall and at the other was a community tennis court. On the other side of the houses we had a horse track where once a year we held the picnic races; a three day event where there was some horse racing and too much drinking and next to that were the Stock yards. The nearest town to us was eighty kilometers away. We had a school that was just one building that housed both grammar and high school student together. We didn’t have a doctor or dentist but we had the new South Whales Air Ambulance service.
Several times a year when a graziers or one of the other town residents got injured the Air Ambulance was called. During the day a siren would blow and the main street would clear for the plane to land or at night the plane would first fly low over the town waking up nearly all inhabitants and the pubs, mostly filled with men, would empty and everyone would line their cars up on Main Street with headlights on forming a makeshift runway and as it was customary to back your car into the curb it did not require the men to drive at all which was a blessing.
I remember one hot summer night last year Colin Hanson was kicked in the head by a birthing cow in the early morning hours before sun up and Colin had to be flown to Sydney for an operation. The Air Ambulance made several passes over the town before landing. It took only seconds to load Colin into the plane and then they were gone. After the air ambulance had left we just opened up all the pubs and started drinking beer. It was three in the morning.
We had electricity at times in town, but on the station everything was run either by kerosene, like our refrigerator and tractor, or by steam and petrol. We had a stream engine at the shearing shed to run the shearing cones and dad had a short wave radio powered by a kerosene generator which was the only way we heard any news from the outside world.
The landscape on this high plateau was flat, covered with grass and spotted with Iron Bark trees which grew to about thirty feet tall. The soil was black mud for the most part and when it rained, which was not often, impossible to travel through. When it did rain our tractor and dad’s old Holden Ute usually got stuck down to their axels. For the most part we rode horses.
Jengula lay some twenty-three kilometers west of town at the end of a one track road. Grandfather had built his house on a small rise of land dotted with Radiata pine trees in the northwest corner of the property. Twelve inch planks of Australian pine for the walls, dried adobe slabs of clay for the fireplace and corrugated tin for the roof. A three thousand seven hundred and eighty five litre rain water tank on the side of the house provided drinking and washing water when we had enough rain. The floor was dirt until 1940 when my dad covered it with pine boards.
Our house had four rooms. A main living and three smaller rooms we used as bedrooms. The veranda ran around three sides of the house which we used most of the year as a sleeping porch while the kitchen was built separate from the rest of the house because they always burned down. Mum cooked on the wood stove which had a large iron top, oven, a twelve liter water reservoir, and a fire box.
It was always warm and it seemed that mom was always cooking. I remember mum always cooking lamb chops on top of the wood stove filing the room with gads of smoke. There was a big pine table in the center of the room where we all ate our meals and a hutch sat in the far corner for plates and glasses. On the veranda outside the kitchen there was a small kerosene refrigerator and a meat safe which consisted of an iron framed box covered with hessian sacks. On the bottom of the safe was a water tray. The water would wick up the hessian and through evaporation the meat inside would stay cool.
The dunny was about thirty meters away from the house. In the winter it was a cold trek. The seat was metal and if you forgot or were in a hurry your bottom would stick to the seat and sometimes you would sit there until things defrosted. Dad kept a candle and matches there so we could run the flame up under the seat before we sat down. There was always a chance of burning oneself too. In the summer we used the candle to scare away the red back spiders nested under the lid. I remember once when mom saw a six foot Australian Brown snake slither down a small hole next to the dunny. She would not go out there or sit there until dad had blasted four or five twelve gage shot gun shells into dunny which he grudgingly did and lost his hearing, in both ears, for a week.
Mum had a sink that drained out into the garden and a rain water tap for water. Many a time I had to fish frogs out of the rain water tanks to keep them from soiling the water. I used to place a block of wood floating in the tank for the frogs to sit on. Catching them was even harder.
I had been mending fences when I noticed a cloud of dust in the distance toward our front gate. You could always see someone coming before you could hear them. As they drew near I could see that it was a battered old Ute with two people inside. It pulled up to the house and a man got out. He stood for a moment by the Ute before coming to the door.
Presently dad yelled at me to fetch some petrol from the fifty-five liter drum and bring it to him. As I walked slowly over to the Ute to fill it with petrol I notice a young girl waiting quietly in the car. She was beautiful. I filled the Ute with gas as my father chatted with the stranger. It was a custom to offer a cup of tea and biscuits to any visitor to the property and a bed if needed although we didn’t get many visitors.
I remember mom made scones and tea and we all sat at the kitchen table and visited. It seems they were headed west from Geringanda but had gotten lost and had stopped at our station.
Her name was Anna. She was dressed in a pair of jeans, a white blouse and riding boots. Her hair was a soft shade of auburn that she wore pulled back over her shoulders tied with a ribbon. She was slender in stature about five foot seven in height. Her face was aquiline and soft while her eyes were wide and the most beautiful shade of green I had ever seen. Her hands were slender and long and not unaccustomed to manual work. She sat quietly that day while the others talked. I wanted to talk to her but was afraid so I just leaned against the wall by the kitchen door and watched. I think I tried to stand up a little straighter and hold my chin up a little higher. Once I left to get more fire wood for the stove and stopped by my room to look in the mirror at my hair trying to brush it down a little more. As I loaded my arms with wood I was aware of her laughter from inside the kitchen. I paused just to listen and I was drawn into it in a way I cannot explain. When I coming into the room Anna dropped her head just slightly to the left and looked at me and then looked down for what I thought was more that a moment and then I saw a faint smile just then at the corner of her mouth. I wondered what she was thinking and then the moment was gone.
I stoked the fire box on the stove and put the rest of the wood in the tray next to it. Dad asked me if I would gas up our Ute As he was going to lead Mr. Larson back to the track by taking a shortcut across the paddock. I wanted to go but knew I had chores to finish.
Most local grazers knew to carry all the essential parts needed to repair their utility on their own which included five liters of petrol, two spare tires, a tire pump, spark plugs, coil, two fan belts, a rope and a flat piece of iron for under the jack. Dad also carried several gunny sacks and piece of tubing to put over the front radiator and the exhaust to help push the water away from the fan and tail pipe in order to ford swollen creek beds which we did many times during the wet. I remember dad teaching me how to push start the Ute on a flat surface by jacking up the left drive wheel and spinning it with the tire iron. Of course, there was the all essential coil of bailing wire known to hold together half of the Australian outback.
They were headed for Colungara Station about one hundred fifty kilometers north of us. The track to Colungara was not heavily traveled and in the dry you could see it quite well but in the wet you traveled by the few land marks that were there or not at all. And, after a while, you just sensed the right direction to go.
I learned later that Anna’s father’s name was George Larson and he was going to Colungara Station to survey for water and dig a well and that he had stumbled onto Jengula Station looking for the track to Colungara. They were well 10 kilometers off the Colungara track, and had it not been for a torrent of winter rain the previous day the track would have been visible and I would have never met Anna.

CHAPTER 2

KOOLANGARI STATION 2006

Ian sat quietly on the veranda watching the sun come up. Staring into the morning, but not seeing, he drifted back again to his youth. Images flashed through his mind like an old picture show flickering in and out of focus each familiar to him but he could not settle on a single frame. Lost in his own thoughts he drifted for a time only to be awakened by a blazing light as if a single frame of film had caught in the projector ablaze.
He closed his eyes again and could see the blood pulse through the veins in his lids and in a moment of clarity the image of Anna came rushing into him
He pictured her, as he always did, standing in the front yard of their garden. Her thick auburn red hair was pulled up top of her head and stuffed up under a straw hat that she always wore. She was dressed in a starched white linen dress that fell over the curves of her breast and around her small waist. Form her waist the sun played against the transparent folds revealing glimpses of her legs while her hem played against the edges of the vermillion and pink Geraniums that edged the garden.
The early morning sun bore radiance into her that both reflected her beauty and grace as though Monet had painted the scene himself. He soaked in the moment treasuring the image born from a long ago time as he watched her dance in the sunlight, round and round as a dragonfly hovers above its mate. He closed his eyes again but the scene was gone only to be replaced buy a more disturbing one. Ian involuntary shook flinging the journal across the floor. His face knurled up like an old dry fig, while his hand grip helplessly at the now invisible journal. He sat motionless afraid to step in or out of the frame while Monet’s colors faded and melted into the surrealism of a Dali painting. He winched again at the colorless image before him.
“Ian, Ian,” Anna’s voice was calling to him. Opening his eyes he looked up to see Anna walking across the veranda with morning tea.
“How did you sleep darling?’ she asked.
“Well,” he said.
“Going to be hot today!” she surmised.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Thought I might go to town to see Mary Henry’s new cat and I was wondering if you would like to come with me,” she offered.
I heard Rollie Katchen got a new tractor and Mavis thought it would be nice if we stopped by to see it. I wanted to talk to Mavis about the spring fete at church and anyway Rollie’s new tractor has been the talk of the town. Even got a radio in it too! Gets the BBC all the way from England can you imagine that!
Ian closed his eyes again as Anna’s perfume ate its way into him. A sweet fragrance of hyssop and lavender coupled with rose tickled his nose as Anna put the tea down on the small wicker table next to him. He smiled.
Ian was not sure how he wanted to spend his day and although the morning was almost half gone he mentally made a list of things to do in his mind. There was always something to repair on the property. Just yesterday one of his cows walked through the telephone line breaking it in two. He had intended someday to string the wire along the seven miles to the main line on poles, but that was something he had put off for as long as the phone worked he didn’t think it was necessary. As it was, the line ran to the main road just above the ground on fence posts. There was a new pond to dig in the east paddock to support the new heard of Red Pole cows he had purchased for an artificial insemination program he wanted to start and there was a 55 gallon drum of petrol to pick up at the deport. Soon he had to butcher another sheep for meat too. A trip to town would do him good, he thought I would like to go to town Anna hasn’t seen Rollie in a while and it would be nice to get away. Let’s go after I feed the horses.

Chapter 3

JENGULA STATION, AUSTRALIA

Through the winter of 1954 I mended fences, sheered sheep, butcher animals, trapped rabbits, chopped wood, pulled stumps, tanned hides, and did all the various jobs needed on a property. I hadn’t thought about anything but helping dad keep the property going. It was not until that that spring that I saw her again.
Dad and I had gone to town to pick up some wheat seed at Doyle’s Feed Store to plant in the north paddock. We had parked our Ute next to an old green and white Ute. Getting out I noticed the words Larson Surveyors written on the door and a memory came rushing back to my mind. It was an image of me leaning against the kitchen door and the look of a young shy woman sitting at our kitchen table.
“Ian, my father called, you coming?”
As I walked into Doyle’s store I found myself running a hand through my hair and looking down at my clothes to see how dirty they were. I saw that my hands were caked with black tar creosote from mending fences that morning. I pulled a faded blue bandanna from around my neck and tried to clean my hands but it was hopeless so I just shoved them down into my pockets as far as they would go.
I followed dad to the back of the store where Tom Doyle’s office was. Through the office window I could see Tom sitting as his desk talking to a man in a tan hat and a green shirt but I could see no one else in the room. Disappointed I decided to walk back to the gun section to look at a new Winchester rifle I had read about. I turned and almost ran straight into a customer behind me. Raising my head to apologize I stood not six inches from Anna’s face.
“Hello Ian,” she said as she extended her hand.” “Hello Anna,” I stammered as I extended mine and before I realized it we were shaking hands.
I noticed the tar had left small stains on her hands but she didn’t notice.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Busy mostly mending fences and working with the sheep,” I replied
“Dad’s dug a new pond that needs to be finished before the wet, “ I said.
“And you Anna what have you been doing?” I asked.
“Mostly helping dad,” she said.
“We have been surveying land up north of Billy Mara’s place and next week we go down to Jinbuie Station to help Ned White survey his place for a new homestead. He lost his home in the Garilgambon fire last month.”
I listened as best I could but I couldn’t stop looking at Anna and hoped that she didn’t notice me staring at her. I wanted to respond to what she was saying but an uneasiness inside of me tied my mouth shut like a piece of fencing wire wrapped around a fence post.
“Ian, Ian, Ian, are you right? She asked.
Her words touched my ears as the setting sun gently kisses the horizon and I was lost in the deep rich color of her voice as though Turner himself had loosed his brush upon her with a palette so soft that I couldn’t help being pulled into the canvass that was Anna. I stumbled and stammered as a young lamb just out of his mother’s womb until finally getting my land legs once more.
I finally said “I sorry about Ned’s bad luck and that most of the Shire had tried to save his property but failed.”
“ We did manage to save all of his stock though.”
Anna raised her head just a little and closed her eyes and I could see her trying to imagine the fire and knew that she was feeling Ned’s loss.
“Is there anything I can do for him? She asked.
“I think the RSL club ladies have gotten together and started to collect furniture and things for the house and Ned is staying at Tommy Karen’s place next door.”
“Dad and I are going over with a few of the station hands next week to begin building a new house for Ned.
“I might see you at Jinbuie Station then,” she said.
“I hope so,” and she said as she turned to leave.
I watched her for a moment as she walked back to the Ute hoping she would turn around again but she didn’t. I waved, in a clumsy sort of way, as her Ute pulled out from Doyle’s store. I turned to go and ran right into my dad standing behind me.
“She’s a looker she is, he said.”
I could only mumble “Right,” under my breath and got in our Ute to go back to Jengula Station.

Chapter 4

KOOLANGARI STATION

The sun now burned hot against Ian’s cheek as he sat on the veranda letting the morning’s warmth fill him while he again let his mind drift in and out like a slow swinging door caught in a ray of sunlight.
He picked up the journal in his hand and began to read.
“September again… soon it will time for the annual spring dance out Mara way.” (It was a time when everyone living on the stations got together to celebrate the spring harvest.)” Must get fabric to Colleen so she can start my dress,” Anna wrote
Ian’s mind again wandered back over the years until a picture of Anna began to form. There she stood, in the most uncommon of scenes, wearing the most elegant of dresses he had ever seen. It was the color of pale butter cream and made of silk. The top of the dress was open and formed a low cut v which showed a little too much of an Anna’s breast but he liked it. Underneath the v the material was gathered in rushes while the rest of the dress fell to the ground showing off her slender form. Her auburn hair was pulled up over the top of her head and fell to the back tied with a small pale cream bow while around her neck she wore a single strand of pearls.
He let the image of her linger in his mind, as one watches on a leaf softly falling to the ground. The image of her moved silently back and forth until his eyes came to rest forming a full portrait of Anna that stayed with him for a while.
He could hear the faint sound music playing while the image of several men dancing with beautifully gowned ladies played on his mind like a children’s carosel going round and round.
The men were dressed in white tie and tails and, while they spun around to the rhythm of the music, the tips of their tails danced to their own rhythm flapping in the air like some flag of honor in the finest of parades.
Now all of this all took place on the Mara Station about eighty kilometers from town. It was a waltz they were playing and he was dancing with her. He was afraid at first to look and closed his eyes. He imagined the warm touch of her hand is his. He could feel her gliding in step as if dancing on thin ice of a newly frozen pond in winter while the smell of her perfume drew him into her. He could feel her soft green eyes looking at him and he turned to look at her and was captured again by the beauty that was Anna.
A stirring inside of him pulled her closer to him until he could feel the curves of her body beneath her dress. The image stayed with him until the music stopped and he could feel her body pressed tightly against him still.
“Let’s go,” she said quietly and they walked hand in hand out into the moonlight.
In the darkness they could see several cooking fires off in the distance and the outline of a few men standing round smoking cigars and drinking pints of beer.
A little further along they could hear the laughter of the woman in a small kitchen as they prepared super by kerosene lamp. A soft yellow glow filled the window shadow dances of activity.
The warm air from the north felt just right and the sky above them formed a canopy of stars so beautifully full from horizon to horizon. It was unimaginably quite as they walked slowly to their tent and stood for a moment outside holding each other close.
He ached for her as the rushes of want came rising up and she again pushed up against him and he could feel her pubic bone rising within her. They entered the tent and she pulled him gently onto the bed and touched him there. She could feel his hand on her breast raising her nipple erect. The music off in the distance faded into a forgotten memory and they kissed, lingered and danced to their own new rhythms, their lips barely touching, they held each other sustained. She gently lifted him and felt the warm weight of his body press against hers and she wanted him more. He fell into her and they both moved in a slow dance until their passions fully rose and were spent. They lay coupled and close for a time until the smell of fatback bacon filled the air. Midnight supper would be ready soon but they were already full and happy and slept until morning.
They arose and dressed and while Anna helped the ladies prepare a breakfast of hot scones and eggs, Ian helped the men stoke the fire and cook a basket load of lamb chops, bacon, and potatoes, on an old steel plate.
Billy Coles had brought four legs of ham that had been hanging in a 55 liter drum converted into a smoke oven for hot sandwiches later that day. Their breakfast of hot scones and grilled lamb chops along with a cup of strong black coffee satisfied them.
Now this all took place on Mara Station some 80 kilometers from our place and lasted three days. It was a very fancy affair and one that everyone looked forward to each year. White tie and tails was the dress of the day and the ladies wore gowns of the most beautiful and fanciful types and mostly homemade. Because distances were so fast in the outback you did not see your neighbor if at all, and rarely did you see anyone in town, this was a time to get together and celebrate the beginning of spring. It was a time for the men to talk about new grazing techniques and farming improvements and what the forecast for the coming spring’s weather would bring.
Only about eight inches of rain fell in the Geranganda Shire each year and the success of each property and each station was dependant on enough rain to grow enough grass for the sheep while a few of properties were experimenting with growing short harvest wheat.
This year’s rainfall was good but that was not always the case. There were many years with no measurable rain at all and without rain there was no grass for the sheep and cattle. It was not unheard of for grazers to kill and bury their cows and sheep in large pits. I remember a few years back you could not even sell of potty calf for a schilling.
The spring dance was also a time for the ladies to get together and talk about families and spring gardens and all that was new in town.
Late in the evening of the third day Ian and Anna packed up their gear and put it into their Land Rover and headed Back to Koolangari station.
The road home was a mere dirt track and they had to make many stops along the way and get out of the truck and walk ahead looking for the track. Anna drove slowly behind Ian shining the spot light back and forth to illuminate the ground.
The sky above me was ablaze with stars from horizon to horizon and the only sounds to be heard were the wooing of an odd kangaroo off in the distance.
It was a moonless night and the chill of the spring air bit its way into Ian’s cheek.
They had gone a mere thirty kilometers when the horizon lit up with ribbons of lightning and with each flash it moved closer to them. Soon the rains would completely hide the track and Ian and Anna stopped for the night.
“Ian,” Anna called, “We might set camp before the storm hits”.
“Right,” Ian replied, “
Their long wheel based Land Rover was Idea for camping. They had two shearer’s cots placed side by side under which all the gear was stowed. It was dry and offered good protection from the coming storm.
Anna lit a small kerosene lamp and placed it between the two front seats and then she unrolled their sleeping bags and fluffed up their pillows while Ian made a small fire beside the truck and boiled some water for tea. They sat for a while beside the fire watching the lightning off in the distance slowly move their way.
Her face was beautiful, Ian thought, as he watched the flames cast shadows in and out across her aquiline features. He reached up gently to touch her cheek bringing her beauty into him as he had done so many times before. He watched as she closed her eyes to his touch and, as she always did, letting out an almost inaudible sigh of pleasure that lingered in the heart as if it were a wave about to break but held by the immovable force of love that arced, like the lighting that filled the southern sky, from her body to his.
Again, a flash of lightning jumped across Ian’s eyelids so searing he could feel the heat of its flash, but this time it did not go away but stayed there burning its warmth into him.
He struggled to open his eyes but could only see the yellow and blue dots of light spinning around and around in front of him like a child’s pinwheel blowing in the wind. He shut his eye again trying once more to shut the light from his sight and to clear his vision, but it was of no use. Ian’s hand jerked and he involuntary brought the journal up to his face blocking out the mid-mornings sun. For a moment he was lost between images, like a phonograph needle caught in a groove, his mind spun round and round playing the same song over and over and then it was gone. There was nothing, no light, no sound, only the drowning silence as if floating head down on a wave lapping the shore waiting for some other force to pluck him back to reality. It was a darkness he could not understand but one that was all too familiar.
How long he sat he did not know he only felt the droning of the distant light hum its way into a memory so far forgotten that he felt he must go back to the basement of time to remember.
“Ian,” “Ian,” Anna’s voice broke the silence and slowly brought him back to the present.
“Thought we might go for a walk down to the south paddock before the sun gets too hot. I would like to see how the sheep are lambing.”
Ian painfully rose slowly from the wicker chair and reached for Anna’s hand as she instinctively reached for his. Together, they walked down the worn dirt track in silence for there was no need to speak.
The Mid morning sun felt good on Ian’s face and as the Galahs flew in and out through the gum trees while the only sounds that could be heard were an occasional baying of a single sheep off in the distance.
Ian knew the track well. It first meandered past an old stand of Radiata Pine trees that dotted the landscapes in front of their house. Presently the land opened up to a flat Cane grass covered plain called Carson’s Marsh. It was named after Billy Carson who got his Ute stuck, right down to his axels there in 1950. This thin strip of land, about one hundred meters wide, was all swamp and black clay soil and ran the breadth of the property. It took Billy three days to dig his Ute out of the mud. Using old pieces of Iron Bark to support his jack he would jack up the back left side tire and place under it as many small pieces of Iron Bark tree as he could. He would repeat this again on the right tire. Next he built a track of limbs from the back tire to the front. He then repeated that process under the front tires. Next he would drive the Ute forward as far as he could on the makeshift road and then repeat the process again.
In the dry it was passable but in the Wet it was all but impossible to get across. The technique to cross Carson’s Marsh successfully was simple. In the rainy season the idea was to get up enough speed before hitting the marsh and let the car’s momentum carry you across. It was often a hallowing ride and you often did not take the straightest route. There was always the chance of flattening a tire or breaking an axel and, if anything it always kept you guessing. It was the only way from the main road to the station. On a positive note Carson’s Marsh boosted some of the best pig hunting on the property.
The southern paddock was just on the other sided of the marsh and provided a natural barrier for the sheep grazing there.
We hadn’t gone far when we came across the first birthing ewe. She lay on her side with her baby lamb’s head partially out of the birth canal It was dead and the ewe would die too if we could not help her. It was not uncommon for ewes to birth twins and if we could get the first lamb out there might be a second on the way. Anna coaxed the mother to get up and Ian straddled it with his legs holding her by the wool just behind her withers. Anna first gently pulled on the baby lambs head but it was of no use. Next she gently inserted her hand into the birth canal feeling for the front legs. Folding the legs back she moved to the other side and ran her hand back along the baby’s back. With a one hand pulling her by the neck, and the other pushing, Anna was able to pull the dead lamb out of its mother. The mother sniffed the dead baby once and then was no longer interested. Ian let the mother go and she trotted off down the paddock. Anna reached down and grabbed a handful of red earth and wiped her hands and arm cleaning herself as best she could.
“Ian, Anna called, but she got no response.
Ian slowly let himself to the ground and sat quietly rocking back and forth. She called again but knew Ian had gone again to that place now all too familiar to Anna.
In Ian’s time he would come to her so Anna sat on the grass by his side, leaning back she and closed her eyes to wait. She let the midday sun break into her and let her mind drift back over the years not wanting to focus on any particular point of time. She Slept.

Chapter 5

Cayden

The sun, high in the sky now, burned into Anna. She turned her head and tried to block out the blazing light but couldn’t. She brought her hands up to cover her eyes then slowly open them. What she saw was unsettling. She was not sitting on the grass next to Ian anymore, but in a room surrounded by people dressed in white and it took her mind a moment to piece together the scene. She lay in a hospital room, on a gurney, giving birth.
Anna’s head spun round and round throwing off her balance as if tossed into an unyielding sea and she could taste the sweet saltiness’ of her sweat as it poured from her body.
She tied to focus again but could not. It was like tying to look through the bottom of an old lemon squash bottle thick and distorted.
Instantly a stab of pain hit her like a stampede of thundering horses. It sent waves of terror into her as she felt each crushing hoof dug its way deep into the soft fleshy folds of her belly. Anna cried out in pain and then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
She laid watching the doctor and nurse whisper quietly to each other then lifting her eyes upward she came to rest on Ian’s face. He reached down with his hand and touched her forehead but she could not feel it.
Anna held tight to the rail of the hospital bed fighting the nausea welling up inside of her but it was of now use. The room began spinning round and round as if on an out of control carousel. Centrifugal force sent her flying in the air and as she hit the wall hard it sent a shock wave of pain through her which strained every muscle against the pressure building inside.
She screamed again sending an angry echo crashing into the ceiling where it bounced once then drove its way out of the room filling the corridors with a menacing sound.
The cold compress felt good on Anna’s forehead and she wished she was back on Koolangari station. She closed her eyes again and let the cool spring air fill her naked body. Ian called to her from the bedroom to come back to bed but she was drawn out into the open air. She stood on the grass looking at the most magnificent display in the heavens. She thought of God and how marvelous his creation was. She marveled under the most brilliant sky she had ever seen. A million billion stars capped her gaze in a dome of splendor stretching from horizon to horizon and then nothing.
“Push dammit, “she heard Ian say, “Push,” but Anna did not want to come back.
She fought for all her might to stay under the stars, to stay in the cool spring air, to stay on the on the grass, naked and free but she could not.
Another sharp pain drove inward. All she wanted was to be free of the baby she had borne for the last nine months. A savage stab of pain dug deep into her sending muscular spasms through out her body. She felt as though a million tons of water had fallen crushing her beneath its weight. She struggled for air and to break free of the pain, but like a giant ocean, the waves of pain kept breaking and spilling onto the shore. Time and again she was smashed against the coral reef boiling the water up inside of her.
“Push, Ian cried.
“Anna,” “Anna,” Ian shook her, but there was no reply, none at all.
Moments passed and still nothing. Silence settled over the room as a thick wet fog harbors the early morning grass, and they waited. Still Anna lay motionless as in a Louis- David painting all surgical tools and blood and gore frozen in what would make The Death of Marat seemed tame. The only movement in the room was the steam rising slowly from Anna’s body.
The light was even brighter now but Anna made no effort to shield her eyes. In fact, she was drawn to it and wanted it more than she had wanted her baby that now seemed only a distant memory. Standing on the edge of the spectrum of light she was drawn toward its warm comforting center. She closed her eyes, leaned forward fell. She could feel herself falling and drifting away and made no attempt to stop letting the force take control of her.
The end came fast as Anna’s feet slammed into the bottom of the white hole. She let out a primordial cry of pain so eerie that it had to of come from the very depths of her soul. So forceful was the impact that she felt as if her legs were being driven up over her head. Instinctively she raised her hands to push down on her knees to counteract the force but it was no use and her knees remained right where they were. She pushed harder and this time she felt the immovable force give way and with it all of the pain that had been locked up inside of her.
Anna woke to the cry of her newborn son. She instinctively reached out to touch him to bring him close to her breast. He lay on her quite and content snuggled into her as a new born lamb yearns for the soft wet folds of his mother.
“We will call him Cayden,” she said and with that she slept the sleep of the dead but, she was very much alive.
For the next few days she stayed at Geringanda Hospital with Ian seeing her and the baby each evening. She breast feed Cayden every three hours, bathed and changed him every day, while exploring every inch of his newborn body.
She marveled at the miracle of life that had come from her, but was not prepared for the feeling of uneasiness that welled up insider
On the forth day she was released from the hospital to go back to Koolangari Station some 40 km away. Ian brought the Ute around to the front of the hospital to pick her up. The nurses had prepared a traveling kit for her, and Ian had brought a basket of food, some warm blankets, and a pillow for Anna to sit on. The main road out of Geringanda was only paved for the first 5 km and the rest was mostly a single track dirt road filled with potholes and ruts. Although is was just 40 km to home it could take any where from three to twelve hours depending on the weather and road conditions to get there. Each time the Ute hit a pothole Anna’s body shook and a stab of pain ran through her. Several times an approaching car or truck would come towards us and Ian or the other driver would have to move over and run one side of the car on the shoulder.
Anna was content to sit in silence listening to the sounds of their newborn resting quietly on her chest. She listened to the rhythm of his breathing while her hand moved in a gentle cadence up and down.
Ian reached over and touched Anna’s cheek, as he had done so many times before, and Anna responded by gently touching his leg. Several cars and trucks passed on their way to Geringanda.
Ian saw it first. It was a large sedan moving at a high rate of speed toward them throwing up a shower of dust and rock. Ian slowed and pulled over as far as he dared while rolling up the window to keep out the dust. As the car passed a horribly loud deafening explosion was heard.
“Bloody hell, shouted Ian and tried to get the Ute under control.
Anna covered the baby in her arms while Ian threw a blanket over the two of them. He slowed the Ute to a stop and turned off the engine.
“Are you and the baby ok,” he asked. After getting over the initial shock she finally replied, “Yes.”
The windscreen of the Ute was completely shattered.
Anna and the baby got out of the Ute and made themselves comfortable by the side of the road while Ian pulled a tarp and tire spanner out from behind the seat. He covered the dashboard, steering wheel, and the seat with the tarp and began smashing out the broken windscreen. Anna took the opportunity to change and breast feed Cayden... Ian collected all of the chards of glass in the tarp and pick through the Ute to be sure he had found them all. He wrapped the bundle up and threw it in the back of the Ute.
Ian then took one of the blankets and tucked it under the sun visor and then brought it through the window down and under the front of the dashboard and tucked it in securely. Anna and the baby got back in the truck and Ian tried his best to make them comfortable. He drove as slowly as he could but still the truck filled with dust. He covered Anna and the baby with another blanket leaving only a small space for Anna to see. Several cars passed and then a truck train, one of those three trailer, 50 meter long rigs hauling sheep, approached. Ian pulled off the road and out into the underbrush and waited for the truck to pass and the dust to settle.
The track to koolangari was just 2 km ahead and once they turned off the main road there would be no more traffic for the next 18 km and he could make better time. . Approaching koolangari Station Ian could see up ahead the white fence post that marked the south west corner of their property. He stopped to open the first of three stock gates, and drove in. Upon reaching the house Ian carefully took the blankets off Anna trying not to disturb the dust. Finally they were home.
Anna lay Cayden down for a nap while Ian made a cup of tea for the two of them. Lost in their own thoughts they sat silently for awhile on the veranda sipping tea and taking in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Anna, tired and exhausted, closed her eyes and slept driving the aches and pains into her subconscious. She let her mind wander back through the images of her life as they flashed before her without order or sequence they painted a portrait of life gently given by God, each frame a blessing, each day a gift, and now the miracle of birth reminded her of how precious life really was and that is was God’s hand dealing the cards and she was grateful for the hand she had been given.
Ian watched her for a long while glad she was finally resting. He knew her recovery would be slow and he prepared himself for the challenges of the next few weeks. Finally he too closed his eyes and slept.
Anna let the frames of her life pass slowly in front of her, as a parade marches pass a reviewing stand, but with each frame the picture got dimmer and dimmer. She strained hard to see but could not. All she saw was darkness so intense that it blotted out all of the stars in the heavens. Her mind fought the blackness, it did not want to go there, but she was drawn, like a black hole into the cold chilling emptiness. A daunting fear crept into her body so foreign to her that she did not recognize it. She strained and tugged at it trying to free it from its aerie hold on her but she could not. She tried to walk around it and over it but she was blocked each time. Standing there motionless she could not go forward nor could she retreat. Sweat poured from her body as she strained to open her eyes and when finally her mind let go and tore the images of darkness from her She opened her eyes, but what see saw paralyzed her with fear beyond belief.
She was still sitting on the grass, it was nighttime, Ian was gone.

Chapter 6

Looking to the west a cloud of dust boiled up into the air and Ian could hear the high pitched whining of a truck engine racing across the main road toward his bottom gate. For a moment the whining stopped and then started again. The speed of the vehicle was unusual, Ian thought, and he called to Anna,
“Company coming, and in a big hurry too!” he yelled.
He watched as it continued to race across the flats hitting Carson’s Marsh with lightning speed and he could hear the drone of the engine as it labored its way across the muddy bog and then the pitch of the engine increased as the Ute spotted its way through the Gum and Iron Bark trees toward the house.
“Joe Connolly’s coming,” Ian called to Anna.
Joe had the property next to Ian. Joe’s white Ute screeched to a halt and Joe flew out of the Ute without shutting off the engine or closing the door. He ran up to Ian shouting and holding something his hand. Joe slowly brought up the small wooded match box for Ian to see. Inside was one dead female Locust about 35 mm in length, brown in color, with a large dark spot on the tip of the hind wing. It was an Australian Plague Locust.
“Yancy Miller was out running his sheep this morning when he saw Hoppers thousands of them,” said Joe.
Rollie is organizing a spraying party in town and Jack Hunter is on the radio calling all of the out stations with the word. Bobby Arnold rigging up his plane to spray and Gordy is contacting the Agricultural research station at Dritrangie for assistance. We can pick up insecticide at the depot. Gordy wants all of us to check our properties for anymore signs of the pests and report beck to him.
“Might just be an isolated Band,” Joe said, but must be sure.
Surveying sixteen hundred hectares was not an easy task but Ian knew that locust usually laid their eggs in the soft wet clay along the swamp marsh that ran through the middle of his property and he would look their first.
Ian and Anna headed to the south east corner of Carson’s Marsh and left the Ute there. They walked together along the northeast side first. The black clay soil was dotted with tufts of grass that spread out from the tall cane of the marsh on each side. Walking for a while in silence they surveyed the ground. It was mid afternoon and the sun was high in the sky and the only sounds to be heard were the occasional cawing of a Galah and the baaing of a ewe off down the paddock. Off in the distance a small group of Kangaroos dotted their way across the landscape heading for the shelter of the trees and the mid day sun.
Anna spotted them first a small cluster of green brown grasshoppers covering the ground and as she walked through them they hopped in a mad frenzy around her legs and feet. Ian too found more and soon the ground was covered.
“I have seen enough here,” he said “let’s walk back to the truck and drive to the northwest corner of the marsh.”
“Most likely we will find more,” Anna stated.
“Weathers been right too,” Ian replied.
Ian drove across the paddock stopping occasionally to look for more signs of the hoppers and found several.
Next Ian drove south to the front gate stopping to look on each side of the road where small open clusters of grass grew and there he found more. Finally, he drove across the main road to the Nutyoon dry river bed. Ian knew that would be a ripe breeding place too for the water lay in puddles along its banks from the last rain.
“Let’s head into town and let Gordy know what we have found and stop by the Ag depot to pick up some spray,” Ian suggested.
“Drop me off at Doyle’s and I can pick up a few things for the house and I will ask Tom what he has heard too,” Anna offered.
They drove in silence letting the warm afternoon sun beat against them while the hum of the engine lulled Anna to sleep.
Her mind drifted through a series of slide shows and finally settling on an image that happened more than twenty years ago.
It was autumn in their first year of their marriage and Anna was just getting used to life on Koolangari Station. Ian had been gone several days up north to Kingali to help Colin Harper build a new shearing shed.
It had been unusually warm and humid that week and the rains filled the air with a dense mugginess that clung like slow molasses to every pore of her body. Sweat oozed from her like a wellspring in the desert drying to a sticky saltiness that only attracted more flies. The only way to cool herself was down was to strip naked, stand on the little bridge that covered the gap between the house and the kitchen, and pour a couple of buckets of water over her head and, at lest for a moment, she felt right again.
Sleep was impossible and by evening the temperature inside the house was unbearably hot so she finally moved her bed out onto the enclosed veranda where it was a little cooler, covered her body with a wet towel, tried to sleep once more and finally drifted off.
For one not familiar with the night smells and sounds of the bush they could find it a little unsettling at first. There were the sheep chewing on the soft green shoots grass and an occasional baaing of a baby lamb trying to find its mother or sounds of Kangaroos hopping there way across the paddock sometime running into the house fence or jumping into the house yard to forage for food. There was the musky smell of a wild group of goats heading toward the river or the low grunting of a sow and her babies digging in the earth with their noses to find some morsel of food. The sound of scratching made by one of the horses easing an itch on its hindquarters, or the razor sharp claws of a Goanna Lizard digging its way into the bark of a Jacaranda tree. The scent of the red fox burning its way into your nostrils, or the faint muffled squeal of a cotton tail caught in the jaws of a dingo.
All of this orchestrated together in a rich symphonic harmonic that assaulted the senses form every angle and continued long into the night only to be replaced by the another set of harmonies at dawn.
Anna had been disturbed several times during the night by unfamiliar sounds and with Ian gone she felt less at ease. Finally having tossed and turned enough and with dawn soon approaching she got up and crossed to the other side of the house to make tea. She returned to the veranda, propped up her billow and was just about to write in her journal when she saw them.
The entire screened in porch was covered with Locust and the sound that had awoken her earlier, she now knew, was the munching and chewing of millions of grasshoppers eating everything including the green paint off the house.
She sat frozen for a very long time as the familiar gave way to an uneasiness that flushed over her like a rising tide of doubt filling her with a panic she could not quite understand. Covering her head with a blanket she opened the door, and as quickly as she could, and walked across the veranda toward the kitchen and the telephone. The boards of the veranda were covered with the slimy green pests and with each step crunched under her feet leaving a path of green brown goop behind. She tried to swat them away but there were too many of them and they hung onto her like flies to a molasses. Goosebumps covered her arms and the hair on her neck stood up as she entered the kitchen shutting the door quickly behind her. She cranked the phone twice and waited.
“Is that you Mavis?” she shouted!
“Yes,” she answered.
“You sound hurried,” Mavis replied.
“Mavis, call the shire office and tell them that a swarm of Locust has hit Koolangari Station and they have completely covered the house and that the ground outside and would you get hold of Ian, he is out working at Colin Harper’s place and let him know what is happening.”
“Anna, I will contact Trevor Johnson he’s down Galgungrii way today and also let Bobby know. He will want to spray,” Mavis said.
“Thanks Mavis, I’ll sign off,” Anna concluded.
Hanging up the phone she could do nothing now but wait.
“Anna, Anna, we are here,” Ian said as he gently shook her shoulder.
“I’ll be back soon to pick you up,” he reminded her and “Let me know what you find out too.
As Anna watched the Ute pull away the uneasiness that had settled over her in her dream began to abate and as she walked toward Doyle’s store she found herself scratching her arms all over.

Chapter 7

Anna and Ian were finally getting use to the idea of being new parents. They had settled on a feeding and sleeping routine for Cayden and he seemed to fall into step too. He didn’t fuss or cry very much and was content to sleep most of the time.
It was on a Tuesday of the forth week after bringing Cayden home from the hospital that it happened the first time. Ian was out mending fences in the north paddock and Anna was just about to give Cayden his bath. He lay on a towel on the bed while Anna prepared the water. When she returned she reached down to touch Cayden on the cheek calling his name and making cooing sounds, but he did not reply. It lasted only a few seconds then Cayden turned and smiled at her once more.
It happened again a few days later while Cayden was lying on the floor. Anna noticed that he had turned his head to the left and was just staring into space. She touched his cheek calling his name but again he did not reply. She clapped her hands to get his attention but he did not respond. Anna clapped again and Cayden turned his head and looked at her with the biggest smile ever. The staring had only lasted a few minutes and Anna thought nothing more about it.
Anna and Ian adjusted well to their new life with Cayden on Koolangari Station and for the first few months a visiting nurse would come once a week and help her with the many responsibilities of being a new mother.
Ian and Anna marveled at the life they had created and while Anna spent most of her days doing chores and taking care of the homestead Cayden slept in his bassinette or sat in a small rocker with Tom, our house cat, snuggled up at his side.
Once a month Anna drove into town to meet with the Ladies Home Society and talk with other mothers and share stories about their children. Anna had gone to Doyle’s to pick up a package for Ian and then to Colin’s Market for dry goods leaving Cayden with Mary Larson. The other babies were lying on a rug playing with their toys and making cooing sounds while Cayden just lay staring to one side. Mary had tried to get his attention but could not. He seemed to be ok just off in space somewhere. She put one finger in his small hand but he did not close his hand around hers. Mary had worked as a Physical Therapist in Sydney before marrying Roland Larson and moving out to Geringanda and she was puzzled by Cayden's behavior and would talk to Anna when she returned. It had been close to an hour before Cayden finally turned his head and smiled at Mary reaching out his hand toward her. Mary placed her finger in his palm again and he squeezed it hard and pulled it toward his month.
When Anna returned Mary talked to her about the strange behavior.
“Anna, does Cayden often do that, tune out?” She asked.
“No,” replied Anna, “I have only seen him do that a couple of times a while ago, why?”
“Well I just have a feeling that something’s not right and I have seen behavior like this before,” Mary said. “You know, Doc Edwards the traveling pediatrician is coming through town next week and maybe you should see him,” Mary added.
“He’ll be alright,” Anna replied. “He probably is just focused on something in the room,” Anna stated.
Mary left it at that and soon Anna and Cayden packed up their gear for the long twenty five kilometer drive back home. She thought nothing more about her conversation with Mary.
It wasn’t until the following spring that Anna noticed it again. It was lambing season on the station and Ian was busy helping ewes with breech births, putting down the weak and deformed, keeping the foxes and Dingoes away, and providing extra feed for the flock. With an eighty percent birthing rate about thirty-six hundred more lambs would be added to the property. The older ewes would be culled out and sent to auction.
Anna had been talking on the phone to Mabel Lewis about spring plantings when she noticed Tom climbing onto the small rocker that Cayden was sitting in. He sat down in his lap and made himself comfortable but Cayden made no effort to acknowledge Tom’s presents which was unusual. Tom licked Cayden’s hand and switched his tail in his face but still Cayden did not move. He only looked to the side and starred off into space. Anna hung up the phone and walked over to Cayden and put her hand up to his eyes but he did not notice them. She tied to hold his hands to get his attention but still nothing. She clapped her hands in front of his but he still looked to one sided. She sang his favorite song but he again did not look at her. Then it happened with almost paralyzing speed Cayden thrust himself backwards with such force that he fell out of his rocker. His arm and legs flailed uncontrollably and his eye rolled back up into his head.
Anna tied desperately to get him to stop. She called and called his name but he did not hear her and then as suddenly as it had started it stopped.
Cayden lay exhausted on the floor from the ordeal turning his head again to the side he slept. Anna was afraid she checked again and again to see if he was still breathing. She picked him up and held him tightly in her arms. Trembling, she sat for a long time holding her baby trying to piece together what had just happened but she was at a loss to understand any of it. Cayden slept for along time. When he awoke he was back to his same old self cooing and playing with his toys, giving Tom the look, and smiling each time he swished his tail in front of his face. Anna sat relieved but could not shake the underlying fear that had absorbed into her body and remained there. Little did she know at the time but it would remain there for the rest of her life.

Chapter 8

Wiradjur Territory

Migay

I was not on Koolangari Station at all but looking out onto a landscape magnificent and old. Ancient mountains that had once been here were now gone, ground down by wind and rain leaving this alluvial plain flat and covered with clumps of range grass as far as the eye could see. Here and there small mounds of dirt rose up and an occasional rabbit would poke its head out of the warren and sniffed the air.
On either side of me tall patches of light brown cane grass marked the edges of bogs that ran unevenly across the landscape making a home for the Australian Brown snake and the extraordinarily beautiful Carpet snake while wild pigs, Goanna lizards and Emus lived there too.
Off in the distance, under a Wilga tree, sat a school of six Grey kangaroos taking rest from the mid afternoon sun. Gum and Ironbark trees stood like sentinels guarding their posts never moving, never growing, each wearing a ring that marked the end of their lives given to them during some severe drought long ago in a futile attempt to save what grass there was for the sheep. New trees had sprung up over time and had filled the sky with patches of green , and above, the sky dotted with clouds had a blue the intensity of deep plum indigo and when the sun slowly slid beneath the horizon it was an if Turner himself had loosed his brush with all the colors of his palette onto the landscape turning it into a sea of vermillion, yellow orange, and crimson-purple dust that filtered through the lens of the eye leaving the viewer so stuck in awe that it blurred his vision.
On a moonless night, looking up into the blue-black sky, I could see billions of stars, some shooting madly across it in a race against time and my mind was drawn out to the edges of the universe to the beginnings and I sat in wonder and while the night above captured the magnificent glow of the heavens lit by a sun out of sight, I sat on the ground beneath gazing into the heart of my own soul searching for the answer.
It was long ago that I had sat in this same spot and had pondered my fate. At four years of age doctor’s said Cayden would not ever be normal, ever. They said he would never be a useful member of society. They had wanted to put him into an institution down in Sydney but Anna would not here any of it. It was a blow that cut deep into me and I could not accept that fact. I asked God to heal him, to make him whole again many times, but he did not hear my plea and I gave up
asking anymore.
Anna did her best to try to make me see how wrong I was but I could not see it at all. I fell into the pit of self pity and unbridled pride that kept me from seeing the truth and I believed my maker cursed me and gave me this burden for some ungodly sin I had committed long ago . I hated myself, I hated my son, and I hated the fissure that had grown deep between Anna and me, and I couldn’t accept either.
I spent more time away and found excuses to be gone. Many times I made extra work for myself because I did not want to go home and I became good at finding excuses to be away.
I was jealous of Cayden because he consumed all of Anna’s time which left many of the household chores undone or were left to me to do when I had time. I resented that more and more and I resented what we had become as a family.
What faith I had dissolved into meaningless nothingness and what strength I had left fell away and I had never felt so lonely or so unloved in my life and, in that time, darkness entered unto me so complete and so foreign and still that I could not move through it. The trap had sprung; the sun had set the chasm of hopelessness between body and soul closing around me forever.
The rain pounded the ground turning the black soil into a slippery muck that stick to everything. The sheep sat huddled in a circle miserable and wet trying to shield themselves from the torrent of rain. The sky above purple black was filled with blots of lightning that danced around us filling the air with electricity and the deafening thunder split the air ringing my ears with ache. The dogs paced in nervous exhaustion around the sheep while my horse struggled to stay afoot falling several times to his knees and still I continued to ride on. By noon the sky had changed to blackandness so intense that all light could not escape its cover and the wind whipped up everything in its path pelting me with stinging bullets of driving rain that etched deep into my face and still on I drove the sheep.
By mid afternoon the ground was so swollen with water that I made for a shallow rise of earth to rest my horses and the sheep.
One of the rams was uncooperative and had taken several of his ewes off in another direction and I broke with the flock again to retrieve them. My horse had only gone about twenty meters when it stepped into a rabbit warren hole and fell and that’s the last thing I remember.
When I awoke I was not on the ground anymore. It was not raining and the sky above me was wet, grey and cold. Before I could open my eyes I could hear and smell the fire but I had not lit a fire. I closed my eyes again the fell back into the darkness and slept.

When I awoke again she was standing over me and for a longtime we just starred at each other. She placed a cold rag on my forehead turned and walked away without saying a word. I tried to sit up but the explosion inside my brain forced me to lie back down. I struggled to make sense of where I was but the images flickered past as if looking through the window of a fast moving train.
She came over to me again carrying a tiny bowl and with her finger put a small amount of paste on my lips. It tasted sweet and tart at the same time and I let the goop slowly slide over my tongue and down my throat.
“More,” I asked but she just starred at me motionless. I lifted my hand bringing it up to my lips. I could see a faint smile appear at the corner of her mouth and she gave me another glob of paste and we went back and forth for a time. Finally she walked to the fire and brought back to me a blackened tin which she placed on my lips. The warm fluid flowed into me and I drank.
“Where am I?
She again just starred at me without saying a word and then she walked away. I tried to focus my eyes but the image was faint and dim. I reached out and touched the walls and they felt cold and rough. Slowly my mind began to make sense of the sensory input it was receiving. It appears I was in a cave about five meters square. A small fire was burning in one corner. A few small bowls were scattered about and animal skins covered part of the floor.
I sat up and leaned against the cave wall and tried to focus again. Away in the distance I could hear the bawling of sheep and tried to stand but my brain reeled violently making me feel sick. She came to me again offering me a bowl of cold water to drink. I lay back down and slept. Images danced in my head familiar and unfamiliar. People darted in and out of the frame and I felt moments of recognition and I wanted to stop and make sense of it all but I could not and when I tried even harder it was if the movie had broken and the reel had gone into overdrive slapping the end of the film against itself dislodging all of the images onto the floor and when it finally stopped and the pictures reappeared again they were all stacked one on top of the other and looking through I could see all of them at once but I could not make sense of any of them.
She again came over to me and this time I had a better look at her.
She was small in stature about a meter and a half tall. Her skin was a deep chocolate brown tinged with a little butter cream. Her hair was black and hung in curls just above her shoulder and her eyes were wide and bright and the color of coal dust with bits of mica which glistened when the light hit her just right. She wore a tattered short cotton print dress and no shoes. Around her wrists she wore bits of colored leather woven into a bracelet.
” I am Ian,” pointing to my chest, “Ian.”
“My name is Ian,” I said again.
I could tell that she did not understand and she walked away. After a while she came back to me.
Again I tried to talk with her telling her where my home was.
“Koolangari, Koolangari, “Pointing to my chest.
“Koolangari,” she said and touched one hand over the other and pointed off in the distance and then repeated “Koolangari.”
“Yes, yes, “I repeated “Koolangari.”
It was the first time we had communicated and I saw that she recognized the word.
“Wiradjur,” she spoke pointing to herself, “Wiradjur.”
“Wiradjur, I repeated.
“Ngawa,” she said in a low voice. “Ngawa, “she repeated.
I tried to tell her my name again saying “Ian, Ian.”
“Ian, “she said patting my shoulder with her hand
“Yes, yes,” I said patting myself.
She picked up my hand and touched her shoulder and with it saying “Migay, Migay.”
‘Migay,” I said and a faint smile appeared in the corner of her mouth and then she left. Her name was Migay.
A while later she returned with a few pieces of Ironbark wood and set about making a fire by the cave door., Over it she set some sticks and went about tending to them for awhile. I could smell the meat as it cooked above the fire and my stomach ached with hunger. I tied to sit up against the cave wall but my vision blurred and my head began to spin again but I managed to fight through the dizziness until it subsided.
“Migay,” I said and she came over to me and I pointed to my lips with my hand.
She smiled and mimicked my hand motion pointing to her lips.
She put what was cooking over the fire in a small bowl and brought it to me.
“Gadi,” she said and gave my bowl. It was the first time I had fed myself. The meat was white and sweet tasting and I could feel its nourishing goodness filling me. She brought me another bowl filled with a warm liquid and it also felt good going down. I was beginning to feel whole again and was slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together trying to figure what had happen to me. I had no memory of time or place or how long I had been here a day, a week, a month?
I fell back to sleep again and drifted off into a fog- like state of mind. I felt myself rising out of my body until from above I could look down and see myself surrounded in a blanket of pain. I looked again and saw my body laying there motionless. My face was snarled and twisted and my eyes rolled about in my head. I saw my lips pulled to one side of my face frozen in pain. I looked away in fear afraid of what I had seen not wanting to look at my image again but something compelling drew me to look closer and I did but this time what I saw frightened me even more.
Lying next to me on the cot was another figure, A Figure of a woman dressed in a clean white cotton dress. Her auburn hair fell over her face and her hand was gently caressing my cheek.
I closed my eyes again and fought to bring the image of the woman closer to me and finally, as if a piece of photographic paper was dropped into the developer an image came slowly into focus familiar and certain.
It was Anna and she was beautiful. Her long auburn hair was pulled back behind her ears as she stood in our kitchen peeling potatoes into a bowl. I could hear her humming softly to herself a song familiar and old. I remember how I loved to watch her from the kitchen door. I remember those unspoken moments passing between us. I remember how she lowered her chin and look my way teasing me with a silent invitation to come into her private space. I remember...and then it was gone and as quickly as it had appeared the image in the developer slowly faded and to turn black while the edges of the photographic paper curled up into itself as if a black hole were pulling all light and memory into the deep wet darkness within itself. I remember…only my own shame.

Chapter 9

Migay’s Story

“You don’t know me so let me tell myself,” Migay said as she sat on the floor close to the man next to her. I don’t know if you can hear me or not but it makes no difference I will tell you my story anyway because it is nice to talk to someone even if they don’t talk back.
“Yuwin ngadhi Migay she started. My name Migay. I Wiradjuri.
I found you many suns ago in great sleep lying on ground under cold, wet, gray sky your horse standing next to you, your sheep eating for grass, your dogs keeping you warm. I tried to wake but you did not wake. I tried to move but you too heavy for me to lift. I brought water you did not drink. I sat with you many days with fire keep you warm through the cold spring nights and I brought food but you did not eat. Only you slept lying on ground where you fell like kangaroo hit by stone. After many days I made sling out of stick and dried grass. I tied one end to you and other around my head as I saw Dhundhu do. For many hours I dragged you across grass here to my home. You have been asleep here for many more days. Sometimes you talk and often you yell at night but I am not. You talk strange words like “Agannah,” or “Kaigdgiin,” but I not understand. Your head is very hurt I think you sometimes gone to dreamtime. Sometimes you wake but act like baby bandicoot that lost her Gunhi. I take care of you like I take care many animal that hurt. Sometimes you try sit but your eyes see only like a Wilay in bright sun but I am glad to have another to talk to but you soon will get better we can have many talking then.
I tell you my story because that is all I have to tell and it keeps me to remember myself. I have painted pictures on cave wall, some to tell story of Migay and some to keep evil spirits away and others to bring good spirits to me. You will know my voice, as I know my mother’s voice. You will know my face, before you will see me. You will know my heart, as I know my mother’s heart, before you awake. You will know my touch, as I know my mother’s touch, before we embrace, and you will come to know my sorrow for it is freely given so you can help me carry it like a Ginaginbaany carries her young and you will see my soul before you see me and these things you will know for I am Wiradjuri.
My name is Migay and in Wiradjuri it means girl. My parents did not give me a name because I was not supposed to live. When I was born I was taken to the spirit stone and placed beneath it to die but I did not die. I was taken there because I did not look like a Wiradjuri, I looked more like a Mugiiny-mabi, a wild cat. My parents thought that I was an evil spirit brought to do harm to our people. In Wiradjuri it was a custom to put babies like me to death but my mother could not do so and my father felt shame that he went walkabout. So my mother placed me under the spirit stone an offering to the Garingali but Garingali did not come only great Dhundhu came and took me away to the Marabungdigarra , the forbidden land, and I was raised by her alone. Dhundhu was like me, an outcast. She was shunned by her tribe and sent to Melbourne to live and made to do unforgiven things but she did them without complaint all the while learning their language and their ways but not letting them know what she knew. All she knew was that she wanted to go home to be with her tribe again.
One the day she decided to leave Melbourne and made secret preparations for her long journey north and with great care and secrecy and planning she left Melbourne quietly late on night walking with all that she owned.For many weeks she traveled north to the great Jingara plains to her tribe but when she arrived she found her tribe even more shunned than before and because she had learned the white man’s’ way, they thought she was possessed by the two headed evil spirit Dicanwajamuurri and drove her from them. Frightened and scared and alone with no place to go she traveled northwest to the Marabungdigarra. A placed she had heard about only in stories, a land where even the evil spirits were forbidden to go. It was a place so dark and mysterious it was not even included on the map of Australia. Aboriginols once they had crossed over were never heard from again. It was there that Dhundhu took me.
Dhundhu lived here in this cave. She taught me to hunt for food, to find grubs and Watumjehg berries. She showed me how to make tea from the leaves of the Dibeudu tree and to milk the sap from the Wibusahbenhundi bush. And mix it with the seeds of the Kimbuchu to make a paste to eat. That‘s what I have been feeding you each day.
She showed me how to make clothes from animal skins and how to make fire and she taught me the white man’s talk. She knew how to become invisible and melt into the great divide and for many years we lived this way but then Dhundhu got sick and like you she laid for many days without moving and I brought her water and
food and washed her body but she did not move or get better. And finally one night Jigarmundi came and took her away and I was all alone.
I sat for many days leaning up against the cave wall feeling the emptiness inside on me. I could not cry for her because I knew she was with the great spirit now where all go not to die but to live again and I know this that Dhundhu is whole again and because she lived without her tribe she is now raised up in greatness there in the Wambendral and forever she will ride with the spirits in the forever dreamtime.
But I will tell you this that I miss her very much and I have not had anyone in my house until I found you. Dhundhu saved me I owe her a great debt and now I have paid her too by taking care of you and now her spirit lives in you too and you will only go to beyond the great divide when you too pass on the spirit of Dhundu.
I will tell you something I have not told not even Dhundhu. I want a name. I want to be someone. I want to belong but that is only a wish and the spirits will not hear me but someday that is my dream.
Maybe you can hear me and maybe you can’t but I know when you look in my eyes you will see into my heart and know Migay and what she wants and maybe the great spirit will give me my wish and then Migay started to sing.
“Bin chewwa kineght couer,” may the Great Spirit heal.
“Gundwa swtbntu mintsbugnubdsa sabapom,” and carry you home.
“ Mayia cumdihutse shobutji jambucaika,” and heal me too.
For I am Wiradjiri.
Exhausted and tired Migay walked over to the entrance of the cave and watched the last of the vermillion sky plunged its way into the horizon leaving a purple red band of color etched into the edges of the soft round outline of this ancient alluvial plane. Before her the sky turned a dense dark indigo so black that a host of heavenly stars could not penetrate it and then, as if on cue, the night above opened up in a shower of light that danced from horizon to horizon in a symphony so magnificent and alive that all who starred upon it were stunned as if the world were sucked into a vacuum less void of silence. It lasted only for a moment and was Migay’s favorite time of day. She stood breathless starring into the frozen night suspended by time bent into a hyperbolic and then, as quickly as it had appeared it was over. Migay left the entrance of the cave and walked slowly across the dirt floor to her bed. She took one last look at Ian before closing her eyes and falling to sleep.

V C Sparks Writings

A Far Away Time