TheBanyanTree: Talks with Hambrel (5)

[Roger Pye]

Part 5

Five minutes into the healing, the 'power' in my hands began to fade 
away. Normally this is a sign that a healing is finished but this was 
much too soon - most treatments last at least twenty minutes to an hour. 
Then without any warning I experienced a tremendous upswelling of 
emotion and almost without thinking I fell to my knees (awkwardly 
because there was very little room to do so. My hands stretched out on 
either side - left to left and right to right - palms flat down on the 
blanket covering the bed. The energy came back into them full force and 
I felt my facial muscles twist in a brief uncertain smile. Perhaps 
another five minutes elapsed. Eyes still closed, the lids began to 
prickle and a few tears forced their way out. It felt at this point that 
a part of my mind was isolated and overseeing the whole thing with a 
'what on earth is going on?' attitude. I had no idea. A few minutes more 
passed; suddenly I was 'hit' by a surge of comfort and peace that could 
only have come from one Source. After that I was able to stand and 
finish the healing in my normal manner.

That night I awoke about 2am in my motel room with an urge to write; 
this was the result:

*****************

IN THOSE DAYS THERE WERE NO FENCES . . .

. . . all the land was free and fertile and the flocks and herds grazed 
without hindrance. There was abundant rainfall and sunshine and the 
rivers and creeks ran clear. We did not know how lucky we were, that 
within half a century the flocks and herds and human greed would have 
grown so much the land and rivers would be dying.

Often I would stand at the window of my mother's room, looking out 
across the open landscape to the ridge where the land began to fall away 
to the creek below. The Wullwye was its name, possibly a corruption of 
an aboriginal name or of Woolway Station, a large property west towards 
the village of Gegedzerick through which its waters ran. A hundred 
metres out from the window, my view was cut by the rough track winding 
up from the ford which lay to the east. The track was never easy, always 
deeply rutted by the iron-shod wheels of drays hauled by teams of 
straining bullocks which travelled the hundreds of kilometres from Eden 
Wharf on the south coast to the Kiandra goldfields high in the Snowy 
Mountains - carrying supplies up country and wool and fleece back to the 
coast for shipment to Sydney Town and the world.

All this I had learned at my mother's knee, year in, year out, not as a 
story but as snippets here and there. I was not sure, never sure, of 
where my father was, or even if I had a father, but it was not a subject 
I could discuss.

At the time I write of, I was as old as the property which was sixteen, 
almost seventeen years, and the year was 187_. I was slim and pretty as 
my mother had been at that age, or so I was told. Certainly there must 
have been something attractive about me for the boys at the dances in 
the hotel at Buckley's Crossing not far away eastwards always vied for 
my attention. Really I had very little time for any of them, except one 
older than I by three years, Michael by name.

Mike lived on a selection towards Nimitybelle, a small town a distance 
beyond the Crossing overlooking the escarpment of Brown Mountain. He 
rode his horse over to visit me two or three times a month and we would 
go riding across country, happy in each other's company. There are few 
secrets in small communities and so it was common knowledge what was 
happening to us. Neither am I ashamed to say I had felt Mike's hands on 
my body, indeed delighted in being fondled by him. That was probably no 
secret either.

Late afternoon it was when I last saw him in the flesh. It was a 
Thursday; he had ridden into the yard in the morning in great 
excitement, full of a tale of a coming battle that afternoon between 
'the law' and a band of bushrangers camped on the creek over the ridge. 
How he knew of it as far away as Nimitybelle he didn't say. Nor did I 
try to stop him from joining in for how could I? He would have laughed 
and gone anyway.

They brought him to the homestead about three in the afternoon, up the 
track from the ford, slung face down across a horse. There was blood 
dripping everywhere and I was horrified. With difficulty they carried 
him across the verandah, through the front door and into mother's room 
and laid him down on her bed which ran parallel with but a little way 
away from the wall with the window in it. She and I cleaned him up as 
best we could though that wasn't much. Then we knelt on each side of the 
bed, I with my back to the wall, and just looked at Mike in despair.

For his left thigh was shattered by a musket ball and a terrible graze 
ran across his face. Though his body was twitching constantly I thought 
him to be unconscious for he was very quiet except for the occasional 
groan but suddenly he said very clearly "I love you Enid, hold me 
close!" I smiled a little tremulously as my hands went out as if willed 
by another, the right to his head, the left to that awful leg.

How long I stayed like that I have no idea. That I cried I do know 
because I could feel his lifeblood, warmth and energy seeping away 
beneath my fingers. Until there was nothing left and I wailed, staggered 
to my feet and rushed from the room.

When I stand at the window now and look out, I see a tree directly ahead 
which branches out from just above ground level; through the limbs I 
perceive a garden gate ten metres onwards shrouded by a hedge. I know 
that a little distance further on there is a bigger gate leading to the 
track which still winds up from the ford but now carries vehicles very 
different from the cumbersome drays. There are fences everywhere and 
many, many more buildings than when Mike and I rode the paddocks in 
harmony. Even the homestead itself has doubled in size.

Harmony is something I have lacked in all my long years since. For when 
I awoke from the confusion which befell me after my mother dosed me with 
sedatives to quieten me down, I found weeks and weeks had passed. 
Whenever I mentioned Michael's name there were dark looks and people 
spoke in hushed voices or changed the subject quickly. Thus I never knew 
whether he had died that awful day - though I supposed he had - or if he 
had, where they had buried him.

So I have stayed here in confusion, afraid to leave in case he returned 
while I was gone. I have seen many alterations while waiting for him to 
return, seen the land wither and die much as he did, seen people come 
and go, some caring of the land's needs but most not.

Now, however, there has been a change.

to be continued . .

Woodcat