us return to this thing Kuduna saw before the small hole came in his head. What had he seen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wendourie admitted.
‘Oh, but surely your fertile brain can invent something?’
‘I invent nothing,’ Wendourie said with spirit. ‘The terrible whip crack which woke the lurking demons frightened me, so I fled at once.’
‘But having overcome this fear,’ Urgali urged, ‘what did you do?’
‘I came back to the camp and told my story to the headman.’
‘And a very good story it makes,’ the medicine man said. ‘Unfortunately, it is no more than a story. And it lacks a happy ending.’
‘That is true,’ Unyama said. ‘If only you would admit you were mad, Wendourie…’
Urgali snapped, ‘He was not mad when he killed Kuduna.’
A greyhead in the front row of the semicircle arose and held aloft his spear. ‘I demand the life of this man who killed my brother’s son,’ he said. ‘Let him be killed at once lest he talk his way out of punishment.’
Ooloo said, ‘Patience, old one. Among the Narranyeri when there is a killing it is always asked, ‘Why was this thing done?’ Why, I ask you, should Wendourie kill his friend, Kuduna?’
The headman gaped, but Urgali shouted promptly, ‘Why? Because the hot blood of youth leaps in his veins. If his secret heart spoke it would tell you he was jealous of Kuduna and some young women.’
Unyama pondered. ‘Nothing of that has reached my ears,’ he said at length. ‘Is it true, Wendourie?’
‘It is not true,’ Wendourie said.
‘Words are cheap on the lips of campfire entertainers,’ Urgali scoffed. ‘But, by tomorrow’s dawn, all shall be known. With my magic I shall discover this woman who has remained silent and she will confess and provide the motive for this secret killing.’ He threw up his arms, palms out, subduing the murmur of the tribesmen and the distant gins. ‘Tonight will be an evil night,’ he warned. ‘Since the dead lies unavenged, let none stir from the huts in the hour before the dawn for there will be malignancy in the air.’ He addressed the headman. ‘This night, Unyama, I will soar into the clouds and, looking down, spy out that woman who is withholding evidence. I, Urgali the all-powerful, will confer with ghosts.’
Unyama looked uneasy. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Wendourie shall be brought before us tomorrow. If this woman exists we shall question her.’
‘One moment, if you please, headman,’ Ooloo begged. He leaned toward Wendourie. ‘Think well, young man. Is there not something that may help prove the truth of your story? Something which, perhaps, till now you have forgotten or refrained from mentioning.’
Wendourie hesitated; then, with sudden resolve, he thrust his fingers into the folds of his possum-skin belt. He said, as he withdrew his hand, ‘This I will give to no man but Unyama or his guest.’
Unyama frowned at what Wendourie was holding and held back, but Ooloo took it while the medicine man peered. ‘It is a leaf,’ Urgali suggested.
‘Have you ever seen such a leaf?’ Wendourie asked. ‘Is there a feather so light? Do you know of a leaf so thin or so white?’
Urgali said offhandedly, ‘In far parts grow many curious plants. This one has been blown hither.’
‘Examine closely,’ Wendourie invited the Narranyeri man. ‘You will note there are no veins.’
‘It is smothered in veins,’ the medicine man contradicted as Ooloo held the thing up to the sun.
‘No,’ Ooloo said meditatively. ‘They are not veins because they connect with no common stem. There is no stem.’
Unyama spoke uneasily. ‘Do you think, Wendourie, this thing was left by the monster of which you spoke?’
‘I do not know,’ Wendourie said. ‘I saw it clinging to a bush.’
‘It is of no consequence,’ Urgali said. ‘It is evident that Wendourie seeks to divert our minds and delude us with this leaf he has happened upon. Drowning in his own infamy, he clutches at reeds. But I warn him, this pallid thing he has plucked from a bush of his imagining will not save him from the vengeance of Kudana’s kinsman. He may clutch at the reed but the waters of the billabong will close over him.’
Unyama whispered to Ooloo, ‘He does this sort of thing rather well but, personally, it bores me.’
It had not escaped the Narranyeri man’s notice that, although Urgali ranted with assurance, he was a little puzzled and concerned about the thing he had maintained was a leaf. ‘This may mean much,’ Ooloo said.
‘Or little,’ Urgali scoffed. ‘If the thing were placed in my hands I would study it tonight and learn its implication.’
Wendourie shook his head. ‘Tonight you can
The medicine man drew himself up proudly. ‘That will I do,’ he said thunderously, ‘for am I not all- powerful?’
‘There is in Ooloo’s hand something more powerful than medicine men,’ Wendourie said quietly.
‘Pah,’ Urgali exploded. ‘More powerful than I, say you?’ He frowned at the headman. ‘Did I not suck devil stones from your wife’s cousin? Have I not a belt made from the hair of a witch’s mother-in-law that will heal battle wounds?’ He went on, boastfully, ‘Can I not spit into a man’s footmark and render him lame? And did I not and but recently, as a simple experiment, throw into the body of a total stranger, and at a distance, a barbed stick attached to an invisible string which I tugged – to bring first intolerable pain, then death?’
Unyama shuffled uneasily but Ooloo stiffened on his seat on the tree stump. ‘Are such things possible?’ he murmured. ‘Is it really true, great Urgali, this matter of the barbed stick and the invisible string?’
‘That and many other wonders have I worked with surprising ease,’ the medicine man said grandly, ‘Tonight I will float in the air and confer with ghosts. Tomorrow I will bring before Unyama the woman Wendourie coveted.’ He strode off, limping, and all waited in silence till he had disappeared.
Unyama sighed. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said, ‘now we’ve offended him. Wendourie has not helped his case by mocking him. Perhaps it would have been better had I permitted Kuduna’s uncle to use his spear. However, tomorrow Urgali will tell us what the spirits advise and bring before us the young woman. We may then be able to put Wendourie to death with an easier conscience.’ He dismissed the assemblage.
In the early dark Ooloo left the stifling hut of the headman, leaving him snoring by the fire, and made his way to where the young men were guarding Wendourie. Hospitality demanded they should open the way for him. ‘Young man,’ he began, when he was alone with the prisoner, ‘you spoke boldly, questioning the power of Urgali. Have you no faith in medicine men?’
‘In Urgali, none, Welcome guest.’
‘And yet he had killed at a distance, throwing at a stranger an invisible barb held by an invisible string.’
‘He has said it.’
‘I know it to be true.’
Wendourie considered this. ‘Since you say it, it must be the truth,’ he said slowly. ‘I am bewildered. I have been taught to believe but often I doubt. There is this business of soaring in the clouds, for instance.’
‘Urgali has promised tonight to confer with ghosts.’
‘Tomorrow, when the sun rises,’ Wendourie said with a half-smile, ‘there will be a great rustling of leaves and shaking of branches in the highest gumtree. Those who watch will see him leap to the ground. All will be able to follow his tracks back to his hut. But, if they searched, they would see also the earlier tracks he made when he walked to the tree in the darkness before dawn. They would see the marks on the bole and know that he had climbed
Ooloo regarded the young man steadily. ‘Then, if one dared be abroad at the dread hour before dawn about which your medicine man warned the tribe, he might see Urgali on the way to his ghosts?’
‘Is there one who would dare?’ Wendourie asked. ‘I will tell you now there is none among the Munamulla.’ He shrugged his shoulders and added bitterly, ‘It will be said Urgali’s ghosts are against me and he will drag before Unyama some timid girl out of whom he has frightened the wits and she will confess that I loved her and Kuduna loved her and it will be made manifest that I killed him because of my jealousy.’
Ooloo took from his belt that which Wendourie had given him. ‘If this be a leaf,’ he said, ‘there is no leaf like it in all our world. With this strange thing a man might become mighty in magic.’
Wendourie said, ‘I know not what it is but it has some connection with the monster whose tracks I followed and the devil sounds I heard.’ He hesitated and asked, ‘Why do you speak to me with such kindness?’
‘Because,’ Ooloo told him, ‘I believe you have spoken the truth even as my son who is grievously dead would
