“ That’s what the voice told us. I heard it from through the door,” J.P. said.
“ But before the evil man or his ghost dog could harm her, another man entered the glow of the fire and saved her. This other man healed my bleeding head and arm with his touch and stayed with her till morning.
“ When I came to I was fine. No head wound where my head crashed on the ground. No gashes in my arm where the dingo dog ripped my flesh. Not even any bruises. Something happened that night. I don’t know what, but something happened.
“ Sheriff, I can’t tell you who or what was responsible for everything that happened the day the Donovans were killed, but I can tell you what Ann would have said.”
“ Go on.”
“ It’s a story of shamen and sorcerers, good and evil, magic, sorcery and ghosts that walk the land-and it’s very probably not relevant. You still want me to go on?”
“ Yes.”
“ Do you know what a shaman is?”
“ A kind of witch doctor.”
“ You’re not too far off. The Aborigines have a traditional healer, a shaman, a marangit in their language. It’s his or her job to protect the clan from the evil of the galka and, if possible, to undo whatever evil the galka has done.”
“ Galka?” the sheriff asked.
“ The Bogeyman. The Galka are sorcerers who use their power for evil. They’re strangers who travel the land to seek out and kill. They like to ambush their victims in secluded places, where they kill them and mutilate their bodies.
“ Galka is one of the first words a child learns and he is taught from infancy to fear it. ‘Don’t stray from camp or the galka will get you,’ ‘Don’t go in the water or the galka will get you.’ Sound like the bogeyman?”
“ Yeah,” J.P. said.
“ But it’s not only children, adults fear the galka, too. The galka is the reason a woman won’t go to the river alone and why a hunter won’t hunt out of eyesight of another. No one strays from camp at night for fear the galka will get them.”
“ Why does it want to get them?” J.P. asked, captivated.
“ The Aborigines believe that people have two souls, a true soul and a false soul. When a person dies, the true soul goes to the clan’s waterhole or their version of heaven, while the false soul goes into the bush where it turns into a bad spirit called a mokuy. Sometimes, if it’s a strong spirit, and if a suitable human is present when it’s released, it will turn that man into a galka and give him evil powers. The mokuy then becomes the galka’s spirit familiar.”
“ Like a witch’s black cat,” Judy said.
The sheriff remained silent.
“ Yes, only mokuy don’t appear as anything so lovable. They usually take the form of deformed large animals that are sent out by the galka to kill and maim. The mokuy can’t live without the galka, they make him what he is and then they do his bidding.”
“ Can anything stop a galka?” J.P. asked.
“ Yes, two things, the first is a marangit. They get their power from the true soul. Sometimes, if a good person is present at the time of death, the true soul will touch him on its way to the waterhole, turning him into a marangit with the powers of good. Marangit use their powers to heal and protect.
“ The marangit has a small dillybag or box that contains the ten healing stones which he uses to treat the members of his clan. Each stone has a different power. One, when placed in a glass of water turns the liquid into a healing potion for the stomach, liver or kidneys. Another heals internal sores, another, external sores and wounds, another is an X-ray stone letting the marangit see inside the patient. Oh, yeah, and one stone tells him the identity of the killer after a murder has happened.”
“ The sheriff could use a stone like that,” J.P. said.
“ I sure could.” Sturgees turned to Rick and added, “Are you finished yet?”
“ Not quite. There is a never-ending battle between good and evil, between marangit and galka. The galka causes illness and kills. The marangit heals and protects. A galka will never stop trying to kill the marangit and even though it’s possible for a marangit to kill a galka, it almost never happens, evil usually wins.
“ The power of both the marangit and galka is passed on after death, usually to one of their children, however if they die away from their family and anyone else is present, the power and personality is transferred to that person, and that brings me to the crux of the situation.”
“ I don’t get it,” Judy said.
“ The man that chased away the galka had one of those dillybags. He opened it and let Ann look inside. She said that she saw the past, all of her lives, that is, all the lives of that old woman. She believed the old couple we buried were marangit and that they transferred their power to us and that the dingo with the canines was a mokuy familiar and the man with the bad breath, a galka. That galka won’t rest till he kills both Ann and me in such a way that we are not able to transfer our powers.”
“ Who was the man that chased away the galka?” J.P. wanted to know.
“ Remember I said there were two things that could stop a galka?”
“ Yeah.”
“ The other is a wongar. The Wongar are the creators of the Dreamtime and all mankind. They live in the sacred sites and aren’t dangerous unless they’re offended.”
“ So the man that chased away the galka and fixed you was a wongar?” J.P. said.
“ Bullshit,” the sheriff said.
“ I agree, Sheriff. In our lives together, it was the only thing that ever came between us. I don’t know what happened that night, but whatever it was, it scared Ann so much that it scarred her mind and somehow she came up with that fantastic story to deal with it. We never talked about it after we got back to the States, but I always knew she never shed that belief.”
“ So why are you talking about it now?” the sheriff asked.
“ You wanted to know about the Ragged Man.”
“ It was kids that left the note. Trust me.” The sheriff got up and walked toward the door. When he reached it he turned and said, “I’m going to go back to the office and try and get a little work done.”
The three of them saw the sheriff out and watched as he drove down the hill and out of sight.
“ Are we going now?” J.P. asked.
“ J.P., maybe Rick wants to straighten up first. He just got back.”
“ No, that’s all right. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”
“ I’ll be ready,” J.P. said over his shoulder as his mother pulled him along back to their house. “Then you can tell me more about the Ghost Dog,” he shouted, just before his mother dragged him inside.
He watched them till Judy closed her front door and, for a brief instant, he had the feeling that he was being watched, but he shrugged it off and went back into the house, unaware of the large dark animal watching from the forest at the edge of the clearing. An animal whose low rumbling breath sounded like the pump in a little girl’s fish tank.
Chapter Ten
Judy’s clock radio clicked on minutes before the sun. She rolled out of bed, glancing in the mirror as she passed it on her way to the bathroom. She was secretly pleased. She’d been dieting, doing aerobics and running for the last two months and she’d dropped ten of the twelve pounds she’d wanted to lose.
She passed into the bathroom and bounced on the scale. She looked at the digital read out and squealed with delight. One-fifteen. She’d lost the last two pounds. “And I’m gonna keep them off,” she told the scale.
She rushed back into the bedroom, shut off the radio and donned her sweats and running shoes. She was in a hurry to beat the sun.
Happier than she’d been in months, she tiptoed to J.P.’s door and eased it open. Satisfied that he was still
