To black stump - Part III

The first few hours of my journey to black stump were soundtracked by swarming insects.
They seemed to surround and penetrate my head, as if one had burrowed into my ear and called the others to follow. Very soon the howls of distant carnivores were lost to me and all my brain could maintain was the chirrup of the scratching crickets and the buzzing wing-beats of great beetles as they feasted on the darkness of morning.
I was walking in a straight line, away from Derek’s place. A straight line, as best I could, in the direction he pointed me - straight out the door, and keep on walking.
Things were crawling on my clothes, in my hair. Things nipping at my skin and drinking deep of what goodness I had to give. Who was I to deny them that pleasure? I just looked at the ground before me, and measured each step, carefully, by the milky light that God had blessed me with.
The sun started to rise after just over two hours of walking. It was coming up behind me, so I figured I was heading west or maybe north-west. For the first time I noticed the colours. The sun blessed the landscape with colour.
You may think you know what a sandy or rocky landscape looks like; but to stand alone here, in the midst of what is a colossal ancient seabed and see the light creeping across the scattered rocks, bushes and hardiest of trees - to see the sand first begin to glow red with the pride of day - that is a blessing too few have had.
A rise of hills lay in the distance and arced off towards the north. This at least kept me penned in, kept me hunting in an area my brain could almost comprehend. I shifted my course, more to the north and tried not to disturb the lizards of day, before their prey did.
Birds called now and the insect drone gave way as the fat, delicious creatures of night looked for sanctuary. I’d stumbled into a long dry watercourse and was following its wake without thought, back towards the hills. I could leave this journey to itself for a while, so I put my hat on and I thought of Derek. I considered his words, his stories about black stump.
He told me that black stump was both a real place, and an imagined one. That it existed physically, at the site of a burned out old eucalyptus tree, but that it also existed spiritually and was a place of particular significance to the indigenous peoples of the area.
The Arabana tribe, he said, had many stories of powerful experiences near black stump. Rain was said to flow up from the sand, or fire might grow in the bushes and even inhabit the animals, round about.
These people would perform dances at the black tree and sing to the spirits of the air. Aboriginal travellers through the region said they had encountered dead friends and relatives, and even spoke to them. The shaman would come to the stump to ask questions of the ancestors, decipher the whispered truths from the lies of the dead.
To non-Aborigines, the notion of black stump was thought simply a part of mythology and local folklore. Lots of people said they’d seen it, but who could be sure it was the black stump of legend?
Of course, every weird event or crazy story, told by anyone who travelled through this stretch of bush, was at once attributed to black stump.
“Did you cross black stump on your travels?”, “Ah, you must have been passing near to black stump.” This place existed as clearly in the local imagination now, as it did in the traditions of the indigenous tribes people, and as it did in the vivid experience of Derek.
For Derek’s part, he told me he once found himself out in the bush, at the dead of night. Figured he’d been sleepwalking and had come to, miles from his home - maybe 50 miles. And there, about 20 yards away from where he was standing was his father, blood streaming from his ears and eyes, smiling at Derek, squatting there upon a charred black stump of wood.
They talked some, that night, and then Derek turned around and followed his footsteps home. He’s been back, he says, but every time he’s had to go a different direction. A new route, every time, to find black stump.
I'd like to believe him, I'd like to believe all of it, everything about black stump. I'd like that, so much.
So, as the sun’s heat waned later in the day, I stopped thinking about Derek and the stump. I just stopped thinking at all. I climbed out of the stream bed and veered north-east towards a distant billabong and I camped pretty nearby that night, but far enough away not to be bothered by mosquitoes.
That night, as the sun set behind the hills, I knew I wasn’t quite there. I might even have gone way past it, but it didn’t matter because I knew I wasn’t ready to find black stump. Not yet.
Something told me I still had a couple more days to go.

...to be continued...