the house Luke paused to take a swig from the canvas waterbag that hung from a hook under the eaves of the meat house. It was freshly washed down. Clearly there had been a kill in celebration of Christmas. Black flies buzzed incessantly as water dripped from the large wooden chopping block, a hefty tree trunk four feet wide by three feet high. Butchers knives and buckets stood washed on a low wooden table and the tampered dirt floor showed semi-dried puddles of water. Over all came the pungent scent of chloride of lime.
‘Luke, Luke, Luke!’
Luke found himself caught up in a great hug by Lee and was soon following his pigtailed, bow-kneed form past the old man’s large vegetable garden and into his hut. It was dark inside. Dark enough for streaks of daylight to show through myriad unevenly joined planks of wood. Luke counted three candles burning wanly in makeshift holders, a broken china cup, a saucer, a mound of earth. Beyond that he could smell incense burning. He sat cross-legged on the floor. The flare of a match broke the almost other-worldly feel of the room. A deep chuckle followed.
‘Young fella come back, eh?’
Luke followed the voice to a male form sitting some feet away. It was Boxer. Lee turned the flame up on a kerosene lamp.
‘So this is where you old people get to when my father’s calling,’ said Luke.
Boxer coughed a little, drew a deep breath. ‘Special occasion, young fella come back.’
Luke accepted the small glass of watered down rum and threw the liquid down his throat. ‘And Mungo. He’s a good stockman, Boxer.’
The old black coughed again. ‘Better be.’
As Luke’s eyes grew accustomed to the light the hut came into focus. At the opposite end there was a handmade wooden chair, a bench holding cast iron cooking pots, small sacks of dried goods and a clutch of quails’ eggs. Along one length was a narrow bed and across from it, Lee’s altar. It was from here that the smell of incense originated. A streak of smoke rose into the air from a ceramic holder. It sat surrounded by a collection of small bowls holding offerings. On the wall behind, tacked up with two nails, hung a torn banner inscribed with Chinese characters.
‘My grandmother died,’ Luke said slowly, drawing his eyes away from the remnants of Lee’s lost culture. ‘You remember her, don’t you, Lee? My mother’s mother? She ran the emporium. What was she like?’
Lee’s dark eyes were sunken as if beginning to withdraw from this world. ‘At Ridge Gully, yes, yes.’ Lee was tempted to tell Luke that the woman liked the pleasures of the flesh. That she paraded her daughter around like a bag of jewels until Master Hamish swallowed her up. ‘One should not speak of the ancestors,’ he cautioned, dipping his finger into the murky contents of his glass and sucking at his dirty nail.
‘You have much sadness?’ Boxer asked as he dragged heavily on his pipe.
‘No, not much,’ Luke said truthfully. ‘I never met her.’
‘Her daughter was like a scared rabbit,’ Boxer continued. ‘I remember; too pale, not strong enough for the spirits of this country.’ Boxer sucked again on his pipe.
‘Not strong enough for many things,’ Luke agreed, his finger flicking at an ant. ‘All my family are dead now, except for Hamish and Angus.’
‘And you,’ Lee pointed his wiry finger directly at him.
‘Sure, I’m still around.’ Luke got to his feet, marvelling at how old bones could sit cross-legged for hours on end when he could barely last a few minutes. ‘I admire your loyalty to my father, both of you.’
Lee bowed his head.
Boxer stared at him. ‘Mebbe it’s easy to follow those who do not forgive. The Boss’s path is undivided and for some there is strength in such a life. And remember,’ he chewed on the thickness of his bottom lip, ‘the Boss is favoured by the old people,’ he glanced skywards, ‘for he looks after mother earth who is home to us all. As for those who do not walk the earth now,’ Boxer continued, ‘well perhaps they did not wish to do so; or mebbe Wangallon didn’t want them.’
‘Come, come,’ Lee bustled Luke from the hut. ‘You come back later.’ Alone with Boxer, Lee hunched his shoulders, pulling a plug of tobacco from the pouch at his waist. ‘The boy thinks he is alone in the world, that all that were of blood to him are dead excepting his own father and the