Read Online Wild Lands by Nicole Alexander - Free Book Online Page A

into the grass and towards the scrub some distance beyond. The area had not been burnt since this time last year and Bidjia was keen to entice new growth in the spring. His people needed food and the fire would encourage the leaves and grasses to sprout. The tender young plants would attract animals and increase hunting opportunities, as well as stimulating yams and other food sources.
    Forming a nest of dry grass, Bidjia sat cross-legged on the ground. In his hands he held a stick, which he began rotating into a notch cut into a piece of softwood. The stick twirled quickly between his palms. He held it close to the nest and the heat borne of his handiwork caused a dark fleck to fall on the dry grass. His son, Jardi, picked up the smouldering pile and waved the grass gently through the air. A flame appeared.
    â€˜Where is your brother?’ Bidjia asked his son.
    Bronzewing had only returned to them last night and already he was disrupting the day. Two of their clan waited on the edge of the scrub some distance away. Once the grass was fired, the game would rush to escape it and head straight for the hunters.
    And once smoke appeared, the whites would know where they were.
    The younger man shrugged and pointed to the thick trees behind them.
    â€˜Find him.’ Bidjia watched as his son walked swiftly away, he was in no mood for delays. The white settlers were a half-day’s walk away, but with their horses they could travel quickly over the land. It was as it had been on the great waterhole side of the blue hills. The strangers came slowly at first, but once the road across the mountains was built by the men in chains, the whites came in great numbers, claiming land, building dwellings and disrupting the old ways.
    The Lycetts, the ones who had come to build their hut near Bidjia’s clan in the folds of the hills, were friendly enough, but they brought sheep with them and Bidjia had already been warned many times that a firing of the grasses would not be tolerated. Such disrespect was unknown to him. The whites did not own this land and the sheep fouled up the waterways for man and beast alike, ate the grass to the ground and stomped the rest to dust.
    Jardi’s white brother darted through the trees, circled him swiftly and dived, cuffing an ankle so that they both fell to the ground. ‘I thought I had missed you.’ Jardi accepted the older man’s hand and was pulled to his feet. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’
    Bronzewing laughed. ‘So then, have you found yourself a woman yet?’
    â€˜Have you?’ Jardi countered, as they began to walk back towards Bidjia. ‘You’ve been gone a year.’
    â€˜Nothing took my fancy,’ he admitted.
    â€˜And the business, it went well? You were too busy arguing with my father last night to share all your stories.’
    â€˜There isn’t much else to tell.’ Bronzewing had crossed the mountains back to Parramatta last year with Mr Lycett and assisted in taking his wool to market. With a good price obtained, he’d then joined a party of settlers intent on journeying south-west towards the Murrumbidgee River. He’d not travelled to that part of the colony before and although he was employed to act as intermediary with the various clans and tribes along the route, he was, more importantly, an extra white man with an extra musket. The trip had been eventful. The wife of one of the settlers had given birth along the way and lost the child; they’d had sheep rushed and speared. Bronzewing had not always been successful dealing with this land’s first people. His knowledge of the different languages was slight, but he knew their ways and he did his best to reassure both black and white in the hope of avoiding attacks, by either party. In his absence, however, relations between Bidjia’s clan and the Lycetts had deteriorated.
    Ahead, Bidjia waited, his brow wrinkled tightly. ‘Late,’ he