THE DEPRIVED...Chapter 4...Part 15.

A continuation of my book.

“Come with me. Let me show you something.” said O’Connor as he rose to his feet and, placing the old hat on his head, walked out of the hut.
Sam followed the old man down to the river.
“Just round this bend here. See where it shallows?”
The bend narrowed and so forming a shallow run where the water lost its flow and then to reach a wider part and tumble out in a small waterfall.    O’Conner reached up to where a pan had been thrown.
“See this?” asked the old man, holding up the pan so that Sam could see it had holes in it. “This is what I use when I search for gold!” he exclaimed as he walked out into the tumble of water and held the pan under the flow.
Sam turned to see that the three men and the old woman had followed them down to the river and now stood chattering and laughing, pointing at the old man as if he were mad.
“They think I’m mad!” shouted O’Connor. “I showed them some small nuggets of gold once and they tried to eat it!”
He laughed loudly as he brought the pan out and swirled it round.
“They know what it is but have no use for it.”
Sam left the old man panning for gold and made his way back to the hut. The three men and the old woman followed him, all jabbering excitedly. Sam was completely struck by the nature of the Aborigines and asked if he might inspect their tents but was disappointed to find there was nothing in them except their weapons.  Walking Tom motioned for Sam to follow them, the old woman remaining in the shack. The other two, John No Longer and Jim Who Whistles walked alongside Walking Tom as he led Sam some way from the shack, to a piece of land which was made of the red sand. Here they stopped and the men squatted and began to chant in that same weird song they had sung earlier. Then Walking Tom smoothed out the sand and began to draw pictures with his fingers, many made from dots and squiggly lines. Sam watched, not recognising the drawn animals though fascinated as the three men now began to chant over the sand-drawing.
“That’s some pictures of their ‘Dream Animals’ which have magical powers. I’m not sure of what it all means and I tried to teach them about the Holy Mother but they go deaf if I try to teach them anything about religion.”

The old man had finished panning for gold and had walked to where the four men squatted. Returning back to the shack, O’Connor went to a corner of the room where he removed a large old tin trunk and began to dig at the earth beneath it with a small shovel.
“Let me show you something.” he shouted back to Sam as he drew up an old biscuit tin buried in the soil. Brushing the earth from the box, he opened it and set it on the table.
“There, you see.” he said.
Inside the box lay an old leather pouch which O’Connor slowly opened to expose a lot of gold nuggets, some smaller but many with a size to them.
“That’s what I’ve got from the river so far.” said O’Connor triumphantly. “We can work together and share the gold.”
Sam picked up some of the nuggets, having never seen raw gold before and marvelling at the shine to the metal.
“Have you ever sold any of the gold?” he asked.
“No.” answered the old man. “I’ve never left here since I found the place. This is where I belong and where I’ll die!” replied the old man.
“Then what’s the point of collecting the gold if you have no intention of exchanging it for money and having a good time?” asked Sam.
O’Connor tapped at his nose like an old schemer.
“I expect, if I live long enough, the town will come to me and then I’ll sell my gold.”
Sam smiled at the thinking even though there was no logic to it.
“See this?” asked O’Connor, lifting out a paper from the bottom of the tin.
He held it up and Sam could see it was a signed form of some sort.
“That’s my ticket of leave.” he explained, tapping at it. “I got this piece of paper after twenty-five years of good service!”
O’Connor spat on the ground before putting the paper back into the tin, followed by the gold nuggets which had been placed back into the pouch. Sam watched as the old man reburied the tin, smoothing the earth down and stamping on it before dragging the tin trunk back over the spot.
“Get undressed.” suddenly demanded O’Connor as he opened the tin trunk and began to pull out all sorts of clothes which smelt of old age.
“I reckon there must be something to fit you here.” he said, rummaging around.
Sam took off the prison uniform and tried some of the rough old clothing which O’Connor had laid on the table. With much pulling and pushing, tearing and stretching, Sam at last had some clothes which covered his body. O’Connor threw Sam’s prison clothes out of the shack.
“I’ll have them burned.” he said then held out a hand.
“I’m hoping you’ll stay with me and pan for gold. We’ll share and share alike. Is that understood?”
“I understand.” was all Sam said.
“So we’re partners, are we?” said the old man, spitting on his hand and holding it out again.
Sam did the same and they shook on the deal of partnership.

Over the weeks that followed, Sam and O’Connor spent a lot of time down by the river, taking it in turns with the pan. It might have taken all day without anything though there were days when they literally struck gold, returning back to the shack with the few small nuggets and with O’Connor digging up the tin, to add the nuggets before burying the tin once again. The evenings were spent with the singing of old Irish songs while the Aborigines clapped along and chanted or danced to mystical spirits.

One morning Sam woke up to find the old man outside the shack and peering into the distance.
“It seems we’re on our own again.” he said on seeing Sam. “The boys have gone on walkabout and Bag Of Bones has gone with them.”
Sam was amused by the look of annoyance on O’Connor’s face.
“I thought you might have been happy with her gone for a while.” Sam remarked.
“It’s not her I worry about.” said O’Connor. “The boys are my hunters and get the meat and plants for food and are excellent security guards if ever the army and police or even those outlaws who roam the bush are looking for easy pickings. Any of those Aborigines can put an ear to the ground and tell you if there are horses coming and even how many.”
“How can they tell?” asked Sam.
“It’s ‘cause they aint civilised like us white men. They still have their use of hearing outside the box and can even smell what’s on the wind, like animals can. They have so much more than us and act on instincts which we lost thousands of years ago. I learned years ago never to laugh at them, you do so at your peril.”
What the old man had said made perfect sense to Sam. Without them, Sam’s bones would be rotting out there somewhere. And the way they could find water and find their way over vast distances without the aid of a compass or even the stars.
“It’s lucky we have some food buried for emergencies like this.” said the old man, suddenly going around the back of the shack and into the shade.
“Here! Come and look at this, Sam.”
Sam hurried round to the side of the shack to find O’Connor digging at the earth with his hands, to bring up a bundle wrapped in skin. Sam leaned over to watch the old man unwrap the bundle and he jumped back as the putrid smell hit him so that he had to control his stomach as O’Connor laid out the rotten flesh, to begin opening it up to show the maggots which crawled in there searching to feed on the food.
“You might not like what you see now, Sam. But a week of hunger and you will eat this without a thought!” cackled O’Connor as Sam walked away, holding his mouth.
Sam doubted what the old man had said very much. He would rather die than eat the foul mess. The old man had rolled up the flesh and reburied it, still cackling away as he came back and entered the shack.

By the next week both O’Connor and Sam sat on the ground outside and ate some of the rotten flesh. At first Sam had been sick, bringing up the mess but the second time of trying the food slipped down into his gut and stayed there, washed down with plenty of river water.
“You see now how a starving man will eat another man’s flesh if he has to.” said the old man.
Sam agreed that he had eaten the putrid flesh but doubted if he would turn to cannibalism to keep himself alive. But O’Connor knew different after having eaten his dog and Mule to stay alive.