“Have you seen Brownie?” Red asked Bear.
“Nope, he’s probably back where the goat was shot. He should know better. This is snake country. I reckon there would be king browns, death adders, and tiger snakes around here. One bite from any of those, and you’re stone dead in thirty minutes,” said Bear.
Brownie was pegging the goat hide on a bull ant’s nest. By morning, the hide would be eaten clean. A little more time in the sun, and it would be a great throw rug. He covered the remains of the goat with paper bark, and said a few words of thanks for providing food for the journey.
Brownie walked from behind the Kombi and joined the guys. He started to tell them about the days when wombats, with their hairy noses, popped their heads out of the many wombat holes around the area.
“There are no wombats now; just holes; so, guys, watch where you’re walking. Instead of wombats, king browns and death adders live in those holes. If you’re not careful, you’ll be their next meal for summer.”
“Is Brownie bullshitting?” asked Red.
“Well, I don’t plan to find out. Keep your eyes out for holes in the ground. Brownie, what happened to the wombats?” Mason asked.
“Drought, mate; it hasn’t rained out here for two years. Look at the ground; it’s just red dirt. Only the mulga trees and a few paper barks are still surviving. It’s a harsh environment.” He paused, and pointed to the ground. “One day, it will look like this as far as the eye can see.”
Both Red and Mason scratched their heads, and said together, “Looks like all we’ll see is red dirt.”
“No, look again.”
Brownie pointed. There it was! One blade of green grass.
“That’s what he’s on about, the Mitchell grass,” said Mason.
“If it rains, the dormant roots deep in the ground will shoot up long blades of grass, and transform this landscape from a sea of red to an ocean of green,” Brownie explained.
“Did you run into any ancestors when you were out there?” Cassa asked Brownie.
Brownie took offence to that comment, and answered, “You have no respect for the people who were one with this land. Don’t talk to me until you have some understanding!”
Mason, who didn’t want to listen to Brownie and Cassa arguing about ancestors and red dirt, went over to check out what Brownie had done with the goat hide. He looked at the hide covered in bull ants. Brownie was right; it would be eaten clean by tomorrow.
He walked over to the mound and wondered at the paperbark partially covering the huge goat horns. They were at least thirty-six inches across from tip to tip. Mason had a bright idea – the horns would make a great mounted trophy. He picked up a sharp rock and hit the top part of the skull. The horns dropped onto the red dirt. He picked up the horns and placed them over the bull ants’ mound, then started to walk back to the campsite. Mason was deep in thought, and didn’t see the king brown curled up in a wombat hole as he walked past.
Bang! One strike to his left leg, and pain like broken glass rushed through his veins, seeming about to tear his heart apart.
Mason yelled, “Help! I’ve been bitten by a bloody snake.”
Mason was already becoming delusional as he crawled away from the snake, which had slithered away into its hole.
Bear arrived first. “Don’t move,” he shouted. He ripped his sleeve off his shirt, and quickly tied it around Mason’s thigh.
Mason was scared shitless. His heart was thumping, he was sweating, and he had the shakes.
Brownie arrived next. “That won’t work,” he said. “He’ll lose his leg if you cut off his blood circulation. He’ll be dead in twenty minutes.”
“That’s what I was taught at boarding school, so it has to be right,” Bear argued.
“Our old mate, the professor, told me that, if you ever get bitten by a snake, wrap the whole leg firmly to restrict movement and blood flow, but don’t cut if off completely,” said Cassa
“Do you want to stake his life on the professor’s radical ideas, or listen to me?” Bear asked.
“What he needs is a GP,” LP said.
“No, they’re a waste of time,” said Red.
“I’ll just trust the professor,” said Mason. “What else did he say?”
“Catch the king brown,” said Brownie. “Don’t kill it, but milk the venom, and then drink it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve never heard of that.”
“Well, you’ve got twenty minutes to decide, or we’ll be strapping your body to the roof racks all the way to Bells Beach.”
“Okay, do it.”
Brownie went back to the Kombi and pulled out a six-foot length of PVC conduit. He slipped a length of string down the hollow tube, tied a slipknot at the end, and headed over to the wombat hole. He prodded the snake, but it struck out and slithered along the red dirt. Brownie chased after it. He placed the PVC tube and slipknot ahead of the snake, and looped it around the head, pulling it tight.
He caught it alive.
“Red, grab that jar,” yelled Brownie. “Get some cling wrap and cover it.”
Brownie grabbed the snake at the back of the head, and Red milked the snake’s venom as it bit down on the jar.
“Okay, quickly mix it with a little water, and let’s cross our fingers that the professor was right.”
“Mason, there’s not much time left; drink this and hope old mate is right.”
“If anyone knows what to do, it’s him,” said Mason. “I’ve seen him catch snakes and carry them in his t-shirt against his skin. He was born to be a zoologist. I trust him. Give me the glass.”
Mason drank it, and Bear and Brownie carried him back to the campsite. All they could do after that was wait for a miracle.
Sunset approached with the most amazing red colours that blended the red dirt with the setting sun.
“Let’s eat while we still have some light,” said LP. He started to carve the roast, and placed potatoes on everyone’s plate.
Brownie got compliments on his bush cooking skills.
They only had three six packs of beer, plus a handful of weed left that Wal was looking after – hopefully he hadn’t eaten too much.
“I reckon it’s time to crack open a couple of coldies and smoke a joint,” said Cassa. “We all need to chill out.”
Cassa walked over to the Kombi and opened the side door. He lifted up the shoebox lid and thanked Wal for looking after his weed. Cassa rolled a huge joint and lighted it. Taking a puff, he handed it around the fireplace. The guys had thrown more wood onto the hot coals, and the fire gave off enough heat to keep them all warm as the night temperature fell.
Mason’s strength started to come back. “Don’t leave me out; hand me that joint.” He took a deep breath, and soon felt no pain. Everything looked good.
“Are you trying to start a new fashion trend, Bear, with a one-sleeve shirt?” asked LP.
Bear realised, after all the panic with Mason’s snakebite, that it looked a bit stupid wearing a shirt with one long sleeve. He grabbed his remaining shirt sleeve and ripped that one off, too.
“What do you think guys?”
“That could be the next outback clothing trend to take off,” Mason replied.
Bear pointed to LP, and said to Red, “Why don’t you go over to the Kombi and cheer up LP? I think he’s got the grumps for having to do most of the cooking.
He’s slipping into one of his depressive moods. He must get his brooding from his Prussian bloodline.”
“What is it that brings his mood changes on?”
“He thinks too much, instead of living in the present. He says that sometimes things bubble up from the past.”
“Like what?”
“LP hates the fact that he can barely read or write. He thinks he’s not that smart. His one saving grace at school was that he learnt how to play chess and became pretty good at it. It helped reshape his thinking. Moves on the board are like decisions in life. Plan, anticipate, defend, attack and win.
“He told me he went to a private school in the sixties, and thought it was hell. Every day, students, forty at a time, like almost half the class, would be lined up against the wall. If they answered a question wrong, the Christian Brother would walk down the line and raise his leather strap over his shoulder. He would use all his force to give them one of his best on the palm of their hand. LP always hoped he’d be at the end of the line, so the brother would be worn out and wouldn’t be able to hit him as hard. By the time he was finished, he was red in the face and about to explode!”
Red butted in, “Hang on, that’s not education; that’s torture.”
“Yeah, they were called Christian brothers, but some would be better titled Brotherhood of Evil. You get my drift. Why not go talk to LP about Double Island and the best surf he ever had? It was during the cyclone, when the swells were thirty to forty feet high and the Cherry Venture ran aground. It was a Scandinavian freighter, sixteen hundred ton without cargo. The cyclone pushed it high up on Teewah Beach, just a mile south of Double Island Point.”
Red walked over to LP and said, “Hey, LP. LP, I’m talking to you. Answer me.”
“Yeah, Red, what do you want?”
“I see you’re sitting over here by yourself and thinking too much. I’m here to cheer you up. Think of a song that would lift your spirits.”
LP started humming, and sang: “Unchain my mind, let me be free, open my heart, let me be me.”
“The tune’s right, but I think you’ve got the words mixed up. It’s better than watching you mope, though. I want you to tell me about the best surf you’ve ever had.”
“That would be when we rode out that cyclone at Double Island Point. The waves were up to forty-foot high, with tubes you could fit a truck in. Let’s hope the waves are as good as that at Bells.”
“What else do you remember of that weekend?”
“Dolphins. The dolphins rode the waves with us. It was just unbelievable. It was the most pristine surfing spot in Australia, and no one knew about it. The only way to get there was by four-wheel drive, along the beach on low tide.”
“Did you have a four-wheel drive?”
“No, Gordon had one. He would take us up there from Rainbow Beach whenever the tide was low, even if it was two o’clock in the morning. We kept his orange-painted army blitz already loaded with surfboards and food and drinks.
“Yeah, I remember that weekend well. They had started mining the untouched Double Island for Zircon and RuCon. I guess you could call us the first environmental activists to try to close down mining on Double Island. Kato and I climbed over the dunes like commandos to take out a sand mining generator that ran twenty-four hours a day to keep the sand pumps operating.
“Kato’s instincts kicked in that night, and he stopped the generator operating. You could hear the fan blades slowly grinding to a halt; it was such a still night. Kato and I ran from the mining site, down the track to the mine workers’ huts. It was bright as day at the camp, with floodlights overhead. We kept running past the miners and over to the sand dunes. There were lots of miners still up drinking, but they didn’t take notice of two surfers running past. The workers didn’t realise until the next morning what had happened to their generator.
“We knew what we had done was reported to police, because the media got hold of the story and we heard it on the morning news bulletin. Until then, as far as the government was concerned, there’d been no mining at Double Island.
“Mining was only allowed south of Indian Head on Fraser Island. Most Queenslanders were aware of sand mining on Fraser Island, but not on Double Island. Of course, it turned out that the government did know all along, though – later, the media found minutes from secret cabinet meetings.”
“Yeah, Kato and my actions that weekend focussed media attention on what was happening on our beautiful beach. There was a public outcry after the government cover up was exposed, and the sand mining was stopped immediately.
“Later, there was a blockade on the Noosa River to stop a new generator being transported thirty miles up the beach on an outgoing tide. That had even more of an impact; without the new generator, the mining was totally finished.”
“Hang onto those thoughts, mate, and have a bit of a rest,” said Red. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
The rest of the guys were sitting around the campfire. Cassa said, “You know, Brownie, you’re full of shit. There’s no Dreamtime. Your ancestors were just hunters and gatherers that lived off the land. They didn’t progress until Europeans came along.”
With the ancient sound of a didgeridoo echoing through his mind, Brownie took offence at Cassa’s remarks.
He stood and explained, “Forty thousand years ago, your Euro ancestors were still living in caves and gluing their Stone Age tools together, thinking about creating the wheel. By then, my brothers from Dreamtime already understood the aerodynamics of flight. They took a tree branch and reshaped it, not only to fly, but to return to my brothers who launched it into the air.”
“Sure, but your ancestors were tribal for tens of thousands of years. So with that knowhow, back in Dreamtime, why didn’t your people progress like other civilisations?”
“It’s like the crocodile. It reached its optimum potential millions of years ago and stopped evolving. It was the same with my ancestors; we had reached oneness with the land, and all was provided for us. We had reached our optimum potential through custom and ritual.”
The guys enjoyed the time sitting around the campfire, telling stories, but they kept an eye on Mason’s condition. He was going in and out of consciousness and having visions. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening to him.
Mason said, “Turn the spotlight on. The Bora Ring; turn it on. Women! Seven women! Walkabout. You all are chosen.”
Bear said, “Brownie, grab that damp rag and put it on Mason’s head. See if that’ll bring his fever down.”
Mason continued screaming, “Chosen ones, undoing your clothing. Love; one mind; ecstasy; what’s happening? Where are you from? Are you on walkabout?”
The visitors spoke to Mason. “We are from another time and place. Ancient Bora Ring; time-line marker, Transporter; alignment of the heavens; enter time and space. The technology of a thousand light years away merging with your world. Your scientists unravelling the mysteries of life. Mapping DNA. Answers; future knowledge at your fingertips. Life renewed. When you reach your journey’s end, look for guidance from the sea, and you will achieve your aim to be the best.”
Silence filled the night air, and LP whispered, “He’s sleeping; let’s hope he makes it through the night.”
* * *
At sunrise, Mason woke up without fever, and looked a lot better. LP asked if he understood what he had been talking about the night before.
Mason repeated what he could remember of the visions seen and heard.
All the guys connected with his recollection and felt as though they were part of his dream or hallucination. They also had strange recollections of women standing before them, unclothed.
Bear said, “Let’s cut the crap and get this show on the road. Pack up; we’re getting out of here. This place gives me the spooks.”
Just before they left, LP pointed over to the Bora Ring. “What’s that standing at the opening of the Bora Ring?”
The stones of the Bora Ring had been placed thousands of years ago to resemble the shape of a woman’s womb. This was an unusual shape, as, usually, Bora Rings were shaped like circles. The guys looked to where LP was pointing, and saw a rolled-up parchment.
Brownie warned everyone, “Don’t touch anything; it’s sacred. Just leave it where it is.”
Mason spoke up. “I don’t know what happened last night, but don’t leave it behind. It has something to do with the future. I remember the numbers ‘0101100000; 0101100101’ and something about being one and zero.”
“Anything else?” asked LP.
“Something about an image and keep it safe.”
Bear asked LP to get the scroll and put it in the Kombi. LP did as he was asked, but was of the opinion that they had smoked too much pot around the campfire and it was screwing with their heads.
Brownie again warned them all, “Bad shit will befall us all if you remove anything from this site.”
“Crap,” Bear replied. “We’ll leave you behind if that will make you happy. Let’s go!”
