The First Voyage Read online

  ‘Yes, and . . .’ Fast Fish stops. Eagle Eye just looks at him and waits. Then Fast Fish turns to me. ‘How many?’

  ‘Um,’ I know that he will not like my words. ‘A lot.

  Maybe thirty . . .’

  He snaps his teeth and looks at The Wind. ‘Is that right?’

  She nods. ‘Maybe more.’

  ‘Come on! You two are making them out to be like

  breeding ants.

  ‘Maybe other people came from the Long Island and joined up with the Crocodiles,’ I say.

  Eagle Eye waves his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Fast Fish shakes his head very slowly. ‘Fighting. It won’t work.’

  Eagle Eye waits for him to realise what we need to do.

  Fast Fish heaves. ‘All right, we have to move again.’

  * * *

  We begin our journey, but Waterlily is very scared. She takes her jingling shell necklace off and gives it to The Wind. The Wind looks at the shell necklace and nods, but she doesn’t put it on. She shoves it in her dillybag with the roots and eggs.

  That first night, we sleep in the hills above Bird Lake. Waterlily wakes up often in the night, and so The Wind gets her sleeping on her, like a monkey’s baby that clings onto its mother. It took a long time, but The Wind finally got her snoring softly that night.

  The next day, we start out early. We pass Lizard Mountain, the hills, Climbing Perch Mountain, Flying Lizards Forest and Sleeping Turtle Mountain. Eagle Eye keeps our route close to the mountains, where Monkey River, Crocodile River and Angry River are just little streams instead of roaring rapids.

  When we come to cross a stream, Fast Fish helps Moonlight as if she is a little old woman.

  We hear the Buffalo Horn twice – so the Crocodiles haven’t broken it – and it echoes around the mountains. That frightens Waterlily and she clings to The Wind tightly, so Burnt Earth gives her a spinning top, and it helps. His top is a simple sharpened stick with a trimmed leaf and a blob of tree sap to hold the leaf on the stick. He gets it spinning for a long time, and Waterlily spends days with her tongue pushed against her cheek, trying to get it to spin for as long as Burnt Earth did.

  The Wet peters out just as we get back to the coast, and finally we are on Snake River again. I can see where our camp used to be, across the slow water; I can see where Shufflewing flapped off across the empty sea. But there is nothing of him. No banana leaves now on the sand.

  ‘It is good being back,’ Eagle Eye says tiredly.

  ‘For maybe three days?’ Fast Fish says.

  ‘Take it. It may be the last.’

  Suddenly, I see something on the edge of the river . . .

  Eagle Eye says, ‘I didn’t see that before.’

  I nod, thinking that he is seeing what I see, but he is staring out to sea and at the flat horizon.

  ‘Look at the sun,’ he says.

  I look out to sea and see the sun lifting from the ocean. It is hazy and there is a little bit of blood-red.

  ‘That means there is a fire out there . . .’ Eagle Eye says.

  ‘Maybe,’ Fast Fish says. ‘It may be from a volcano somewhere.’

  ‘You are a pain.’

  I turn back to the edge of the river. The sun has picked something out of the shadows, and I feel my heart racing. I charge into the water and swim across the river, ignoring the current, and sprint over the sand and the mud.

  Then I stop in front of it and yell, ‘Yes!’

  I pull a long black bamboo from the mud. It is heavy but I know it is not heavy enough to sink under the water. I heave it into the river and I am right – the bamboo is floating on the water. I throw my body onto the bamboo and paddle back. Old Tortoise helps me to pull it onto the sand. Fast Fish and Eagle Eye are still arguing but Eagle Eye is looking at the bamboo.

  ‘At last, we’ve got something that we can use . . .’ And then Eagle Eye sees the marks on the bamboo and nods.

  But when Fast Fish sees the bamboo, he starts to rant, ‘Now we only need to find twenty of them along the river bank.’

  I open my mouth but Eagle Eye looks at me, moves his eyebrows. His eyebrows say ‘Stop, let Fast Fish work it out.’ That is the way.

  Fast Fish glares at the black bamboo. Then he blinks.

  I can’t help myself: I smile. He sees things now. I watch him as he sees the streak of black in the yellow, the burned base and the cut where leaves had been . . .

  Fast Fish steps forward, touches the bamboo and looks at me. ‘You saw that from across the river?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I shrug. Before, I couldn’t see the nick on the bamboo. But it’s there now.

  Fast Fish rubs his fingers on the mark that his axe had made on the bamboo. ‘I did that.’

  I smile at him.

  Fast Fish looks at Eagle Eye. ‘All right, the black bamboo is the right wood to use. But the Crocodiles will have been there. There won’t be anything left.’

  ‘Well, we will see.’

  I am one of ten hunters that are quietly moving up the Snake River. We each have three spears. We hear the Buffalo Horn from the hills but it is a long way away.

  We reach the bend in the river from where we can see the stand of black bamboo.

  Fast Fish studies the stand and looks at me. ‘Well, have the Crocodiles come?’

  I crouch a little. I expect a clip on the ear, but he only meant, ‘Get those eyes working on the stand.’

  Things have changed. There are new black bamboos that have already grown to be almost as big as the others. The long grass has grown over the burnt part, but there is still faint ash on the ground, and you can see the burnt edges of felled bamboos. I notice birds’ tracks on the ash travelling to the mud bank. But I can’t see any new man footprints.

  ‘Um . . . I don’t think that Crocodiles have been here.’

  ‘I’ll have a look.’ Fast Fish wades through the river to the stand, and then he shakes his head.

  Eagle Eye calls out, ‘They have taken them?’

  ‘No, they are all here.’ Fast Fish says. ‘But why? Why didn’t they take them?’

  We follow him across the river and I see that the dropped bamboos have not been touched. They haven’t moved since we were here eight full moons ago. The long grass has grown over them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Eagle Eye says. ‘Maybe they saw the first black bamboo at the bottom of the river and figured that they couldn’t use them.’

  Fast Fish shakes his head. ‘I don’t think they have been here. Not the time we were here, and not any time since then.’

  ‘Um . . .’ I have a thought.

  ‘Yes,’ Fast Fish mutters.

  ‘Those bangs were frightening.’

  ‘Bangs . . .? Oh, them.’

  ‘Yes, them.’ Old Tortoise nods. ‘My spirits. They were terrible.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ Eagle Eye speaks very slowly. ‘We worked out what those explosions were because we made them. But the Crocodile warriors only heard the sound. That is terror. They think that the bamboos have got a spirit. A vicious, angry spirit. They must have figured that we ran away from it as well.’

  ‘What a pity the Crocodiles didn’t think that we had that spirit in our hands,’ Old Tortoise says.

  ‘Yes, but we don’t. And they know we don’t. And so we have to move quickly. Now!’ Eagle Eye says.

  He sends Burnt Earth back to the camp to tell Brown Moss that we have got the bamboo. And then he sends Fast Fish with a mob of us to cut thin vines and dry palm leaves. On the palm are leaves like giant hands on the top, and withered leaves closer to the ground. Those withered leaves are what we are after. I can see some of the hands waving at me in the jungle as we cut the dead leaves from the palm. Fast Fish comes back with several vines trailing him like training snakes.

  Old Tortoise has his hand on my shoulder. ‘We’re getting there.’

  Fast Fish shakes his head. ‘So we can lose it all in the ocean?’

  ‘The birds survive – even the lit
tle blue wrens. There must be something out there.’

  ‘I will not have my boy trusting on birds and fake fire.’

  Old Tortoise looks at him. ‘You didn’t say that to Eagle Eye before. Why not talk about that to him?’

  ‘I didn’t know that Crocodiles wouldn’t touch bamboos. Never mind, never mind. We can use the bamboo rafts to move us to another place on the island.’

  Old Tortoise doesn’t say anything to that and we return to the stand.

  The other hunters have pulled the bamboos from the tangled grass over to the river bank. Now we have to build a raft to carry the long bamboo downstream. We get to work, first making a frame with two long bamboos and two short, thick branches to hold the two bamboos together at the ends. We pull the withered palm hands apart – you get five strong strands from each hand – and knot two strands together to tie the branches on top of the two bamboos.

  We walk the frame into the river. I think most of us are looking at the frame and willing it to float, which is stupid. Of course it will float. We had seen the first bamboo float in the Yam camp just days before. When we take our hands off the frame, we grin at each other. The frame floats like a leaf.

  ‘All right,’ Eagle Eye slaps his leg. ‘Quickly now.’

  Fast Fish and I hold the frame against the current while the others splash back to shore and grab some of Fast Fish’s vines. Others carry the loose bamboos to the frame. When all of the bamboos are piled on the frame, a few vines are quickly thrown over them.

  Eagle Eye calls, ‘Tight, tighter, like you are making an axe.’

  ‘Why this rush?’ Fast Fish says.

  Eagle Eye says, ‘We could hear your chopping.’ Meaning that the Crocodiles probably heard it too.

  ‘Oh.’

  Now the frame is underwater, but not much. The load of bamboos on top is very long, and a little boy would have trouble throwing a spear from the beginning to the end. But Eagle Eye is almost smiling. ‘Well, those bamboos float. The thick ones can carry a load.’

  Fast Fish says slowly, ‘But . . .’

  I hunch, thinking that he is going to attack Eagle Eye’s plan to go across the ocean. But he only says, ‘Are those enough for us?’

  Eagle Eye stares at the load for a long moment. ‘Yes, yes. Of course it will be enough. It has to be.’

  ‘There are some more of the burnt bamboos in the stand. Maybe I can bring those down with my axe,’ says Fast Fish.

  ‘We can’t wait.’

  ‘I know. It’s all right.’

  ‘I will help.’ Old Tortoise hefts his axe and Fast Fish nods.

  I think for a moment about Stone and Shufflewing, and how I have been shivering from the Crocodiles. ‘I’ll help,’ I say quickly.

  But Fast Fish shakes his head. ‘You haven’t got an axe.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘Come on, Bent Beak.’ Eagle Eye pushes me towards the load.

  And I go with a weak smile. At least I tried.

  Eagle Eye steps onto the load and points to four hunters to come up with him while me and some others grab the bamboo and begin steering the load down the river. It is easy work. After all, the river is carrying us where we want to go; all we have to do is look out for snags and cross-currents. And for that, Eagle Eye is ready. When he sees the load aiming towards a snag, he sends the four hunters on top to battle it.

  But I can hear the chopping axes of Fast Fish and Old Tortoise, and the hollow echo from the mountains over the ripple of the river’s sound. I keep paddling but see smoke rising from the bamboo stand. Now, definitely, the Crocodiles know where they are. Fast Fish and Old Tortoise must have found the bamboo too tough for their axes. I could have helped with the fire. I am not afraid of the Crocodiles.

  I feel guilty when we pass the Fast Fish lightning tree . . .

  We reach the Yam camp in the afternoon, but find only The Wind, Waterlily, three babies and a fire by the river. Next to them is a pile of roots, coconuts, mussels, plus a few fish in the shade and two funny things that look like dead big fishes. These funny-looking fake fishes are made of kelp seaweed, from the deep water on the other side of the mangroves. I didn’t know that the gatherers could swim in such deep water.

  I watch The Wind and Waterlily, who are making another fake fish. They are threading two sticks to the kelp to make it into a big bag. You could put many things in there.

  Eagle Eye calls, ‘Where is everybody?’

  The Wind waves around. ‘Everywhere. In the mangroves, in the jungle. Brown Moss sent everyone to get food the moment she heard that you have the bamboos. She thought we better get things just in case. I got the job of looking after the food and the babies. And keeping Burnt Earth’s fire alive.’

  ‘Where is he?’ asks Eagle Eye.

  ‘Getting things in the jungle.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘I don’t know what.’

  I nod. ‘Ah, he’s chasing monkeys again. And I’ve figured out what those fake fishes are.’

  The Wind looks at me.

  I point. ‘Those fake fishes. They’re for carrying things like coconuts and a lot of mussels on the rafts.’

  The Wind shakes her head. ‘No . . .’

  The Horn blasts from the hills, and Waterlily clutches at The Wind.

  Eagle Eye looks at her and smiles. ‘It’s all right. We are leaving them.’ He steps off the bamboo load onto the shore, and turns to the hunters. ‘All right, you heard. Waterlily doesn’t want to see the Crocodiles anymore. And I am with her. We have to get the rafts built now. Before they come.’

  There are a few groans – well, we had been battling that huge load for a long time – but we pull the load onto the mud and spread the bamboos on the sand.

  Eagle Eye stands in front of them and nods slowly. ‘Five rafts. That won’t be enough but we can do it . . .’

  He starts with the frame of the first raft. Three of us pull to the fire a long bamboo, which Eagle Eye measures with his eyes, jabbing his spear into the centre. ‘Burn here, and then cut it,’ he says.

  We move the bamboo to the fire and coals, and begin burning around his mark. Other hunters grab burning sticks from the fire and start their fires on other bamboos.

  I guess I must be frowning as I push coals around, as Eagle Eye guesses what I’m thinking: ‘Why not go with long bamboos into the ocean?’ he says.

  ‘Um,’ I say.

  ‘Because the sea is not Snake River, as Fast Fish would say. You’ve seen the sea with waves – big waves, little waves. I don’t think that a long raft can ride them.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He then sends most of us into the jungle to find branches and small logs – anything. We are still in the jungle when he pulls the first bamboo from the fire, and I can see through the trees that two hunters are attacking the burnt parts with axes. As I return to camp, dragging a little log behind me, the first bamboo is done. The bamboo seems to be easier to cut after it has dried out.

  Eagle Eye wants to get two pieces for the raft from one bamboo, but sometimes an extra-long one can also give an extra, short piece. And that helps things move along.

  A few hunters and I take the finished bamboos to the mud flats, and we start to build the first raft. First we make the frame, using a small branch and one of the shortened bamboos. Then we tie two longer bamboos to them. I battle with the vine and bamboo through the mud, and I have a thought. I say, ‘Um.’

  ‘Yes?’ Eagle Eye pants.

  ‘Maybe we could put the raft in the river, like when we tied the bamboo load to the frame, and work on it there . . .’

  Eagle Eye looks at the shallows where the current is almost dead. ‘All right, why not?’

  I grin as I help to move the raft through the mud to the river. It is great when Eagle Eye listens to me, which is not often.

  Working on the water is very much better than working on the mud; so much easier. Everybody is surprised, including me. We work out a system: a hunter throws a vine to tie a short bamboo to one of
the long bamboos, and then pushes it down to my hands under the water. I am sitting on the sand with my stomach touching the bamboo, and I can’t see underwater, but I can feel the vine and the bamboo, so I shove the vine to the other side of the bamboo. The hunters pull the vine from their side, tighten it and give it back to me. We tie the vine four times around the bamboo, so that the short branch sits snug with the long bamboo, and then we move on to the next one. Soon, a frame looks like a great raft.

  We finish the first raft at the same time as the gatherers arrive, with their dillybags heavy and arms carrying bananas – the green bananas and the big leaves. Burnt Earth comes out of the jungle separately. He has branches with many leaves.

  Eagle Eye frowns at him. ‘What have you got?’

  Burnt Earth says, ‘These are for paddles.’

  Eagle Eye closes his eyes. ‘Paddles . . . I have forgotten about paddles. Fast Fish will kill me.’

  I look up the river for a moment and Moonlight sees me.

  ‘Why all the leaves?’ Eagle Eye says.

  ‘I don’t know, but they may be good for pushing water? I could find only a few good branches for paddles.’ Burnt Earth points at a branch with a flat end.

  All right. Sometimes he’s not so dumb.

  ‘It would be better to get thick branches rather than leaves. We will see what the hunters bring back,’ Eagle Eye says.

  Moonlight studies me, like a bird eyeing a bug. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about. Really. He’s getting new bamboo.’

  ‘By himself?’ She puts her hand on her swollen belly.

  ‘He is with Old Tortoise.’

  ‘The old man.’ She shakes her head and looks at Eagle Eye. ‘He shouldn’t have let him do it.’

  Brown Moss unloads green coconuts onto the sand and snorts at her. ‘When did Fast Fish ever follow instructions?’ She pushes Moonlight towards the raft. ‘It is looking very good,’ she says. ‘Did you test it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say.

  ‘Well, we should do that.’ She waves the gatherers towards the raft, takes two long branches from Burnt Earth to paddle, and steps onto the raft. She helps Moonlight to get on the raft, too, and gives her a branch. They sway as the raft rocks in the water, but only for a moment. Then The Wind joins her with a branch, and eight more gatherers – both women and children – follow. The raft shivers and sinks.