A Changing Land(99)
Luke stretched out beside him. ‘Thanks.’
Mungo gave a series of slow nods. ‘The fox is cunning. He plays with his cubs, teaches them to fight and hunt. But this fox, mebbe he doesn’t want to let you go. Mebbe he wants this cub to fight for him.’
The light was dwindling as they crunched twigs and grasses, a flame springing up immediately once a match was held to the dry tinder. Although the sky remained bright, the sun’s rays couldn’t penetrate the timber bordering the creek and the shadows grew long, the sky a berry-red haze. Luke poked at the fire with a stick, concentrating on the glowing flames, on the coolness of the sand against his palm. ‘This will be my last drive, Mungo.’ Luke had little choice. He must do the drive one more time to get money in his pocket and then he would look for work elsewhere.
Mungo flexed his toes and then busied himself pulling on his boots, not bothering to brush the sand from his feet. ‘And then?’
‘Best water the horses.’ Luke walked through the timber, found his pack horses by their gritty chewing and led them back to the creek’s edge. As the animals mouthed up the brown liquid, Joseph meandered down to join them. Luke scratched his old mate between his ears, rubbed his muzzle, ran a kindly hand along his faithful flanks.
The two men stood together on the creek’s edge, looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. When the day grew to the point of ending, Mungo gave Luke a wry grin. ‘You’ll come back. Boxer says everyone comes back.’
‘We will leave when the moon’s full next month.’ He felt his friend’s eyes regarding him.
‘Mebbe.’ Mungo looked back up at the sky. ‘Mebbe I go walkabout. The old people call me.’ Luke understood that, like him, Mungo had a need to be free. Both chose to leave their fathers behind and in their own unique ways forge something of a life for themselves beyond the constrictions of Wangallon. This was the true basis of their friendship, a mutual understanding of their respective needs regardless of their father’s wishes.
‘What about your people?’ The air between them drew taught. Luke sensed a constriction of words grown unspoken by disappointment.
Mungo spat on the ground. ‘She wants us to leave, to make a life for ourselves beyond the tribe. I fear we will be outcasts. Mebbe it would be all right for me, but not her, not a woman. It’s safer here. But to have her I must leave.’ He wiped spittle from his chin.
‘So you do love her?’
Mungo squished moist sand beneath his leather boots. ‘Mebbe,’ he grinned, ‘I want her.’
‘Have you told her yet?’
Mungo gave one sideways nod of his head. ‘She goes to the old one tomorrow on the fullest night of the moon. I’ll tell her before then. Mebbe we leave then. Mebbe I catch up with you and she come with us on the drive?’ His voice faltered at the suggestion.
‘Maybe,’ Luke agreed. They both knew Luke was against women on drives. ‘You’re a good friend.’
‘And you.’ Mungo shook his hand. ‘Like brother.’
At the campfire Luke made damper. He mixed flour and water, added a pinch of salt and kneaded the mixture roughly on a tin plate. When he’d formed it into a rough loaf he dropped the dough into a cast iron pot, placed the lid on it and sat it squarely in the embers. He filled his billy from the hessian waterbag hanging from a branch in the tree and sat down by the fire for a smoke. Hunger was a state of mind he was used to controlling. However, experience taught him that an empty belly at bed often led to a ruinous morning. So he would eat the bit of damper when it was cooked, swallow his tea and hope that sleep would come.
Overhead a flock of bats winged their way across the silent depth of water and took up residence in a nearby tree. Their squeaks heightened the solitude of the camp. Luke thought of Joseph contented in a comfy, quiet hollow. He threw a handful of tea leaves into the billy of boiling water, waited a couple of seconds and then, removing his neckerchief, wadded it against the red hot handle, pouring the brew into his pannikin. The damper proved a little more eventful; he dropped the pot and spent some time brushing coals and dirt from his dinner. Finally he sat, chewing his way through his meal, moistening each bite with a swallow of scalding tea. It would have been good to have a brother closer to his own age, Luke decided as he settled himself for another quiet evening; or a sister perhaps. Someone to visit, someone else out in the world living and breathing who was of his blood; it was a small thing to want but it would have filled such a void.