Published: 7 Aug 2025

The first to rise are the songbirds and there are many in the forest, some of the songs are sweet, some harsh to the ear but all have the same message, it is a new day so be awake and enjoy and who is that noisy bugger invading my territory. Tate is slow to rise even if his stomach is rumbling its complaint. Breakfast would be some dried meat prepared by his sister Elsie and berries he had spied close by during the previous day.

He can hear running water also the distant sound of Din-Din falls although it is the dry season with a lesser flow than usual.

“I need to piss.”

Tate rises and releases his water onto a struggling sapling;

“That should help you along,” he says;

“Or kill you,” he laughs then realising his unkind gesture towards nature he directs the flow elsewhere.

It is now a bull ant colony disturbed by the flow as the ants quickly attempt to block the entrance to their nest others search about for the perpetrator.

Some of their soldiers find Tate’s bare feet.

One of the ants bites his foot;

“Bugger!”

He quickly flicks it away.

At the far end of the clearing is a large Cassowary with his striped chicks, being another example of the man doing the hatching and minding and the Cassowary like the Emu takes his work most seriously.

The bird halts its picking about among the leaf litter while training a cautious eye on Tate.

“Don’t concern fella’ I won’t harm your chicks.”

The Cassowary makes a conscious aggressive movement, so Tate decides it best to be away and hides behind remnants of the fallen fig, moments later the bird looses interest then with its chicks is gone into the darkness of the forest.

‘Tolga said the Cassowary chicks make good eating.’

‘Firstly you have to challenge the father and I don’t fancy a fight with such a big bird.’

‘Breakfast first then I’ll see if Tolga has been about of late.’

Mid morning Tate is approaching Din-Din and the Kuranda camp. So far during his travelling he found no evidence of Tolga not even at the spot where Tolga’s father had died, the body wrapped in tree bark and hoisted high out of reach of scavengers. The old man’s remains had long since gone but the tree stands strong and tall, also the small circle of river stones Tolga place close by, he said the stone circle would keep his father’s spirit safe.

Tate had questioned;

“How does a circle of stones help?”

“Just does,” was Tolga’s answer.

Possibly not even Tolga knew the answer but he did insist the stones had to be river stones chosen from below Din-Din and nowhere else.

For a time Tate stood near Tolga’s sacred spot but felt nothing towards a man he had never known. He did feel for Tolga and wished him well. After a moment of thought he moves on towards the Kuranda logging camp.

Tate didn’t expect to find anyone at the camp although as he approached he noticed a whiff of grey smoke rising from an abandoned camp fire. He cautiously enters into the clearing and touches the ashes; they remained warm to touch and less than a day old.

Scattered about are the remains of a possum, the pelt thrown aside with a number of bones.

“Surely this is not the meal of loggers,” he softly exclaims while examining the remains, realising how shoddy the removal of the pelt had been.

The camp site is in a large flat clearing with a number of bark huts. Tate enters the closest hut finding bunks and some discarded clothing well beyond usefulness.

There is also a table, some chairs and an iron cooking range.

On the table is a cooking pot blackened from years of use, also pewter plates stacked together and pannikins, one of the pannikins holds liquid resembling coffee, congealed and weeks old covered in mould, the rim down to the contents is dark with small black ants.

Tate lightly touches the pannikin’s handle sending the ants to scatter.

Dust is everywhere as it is obvious the camp had not been occupied for quite some time, even so one of the bunks appeared to have been recently used.

‘It must have been whoever lit the fire,’ he thinks.

‘Why didn’t he use the cooking range?’

‘Strange.’

Tate returns outside the hut, his eyes are above the clearing towards the sky; it is heavy and black with late monsoonal promise. The high ridge above the falls is now shrouded in mist when only a short time previous it was bathed in sunlight.

Tate sniffs the heavy air;

“Rain,” he says;

‘And a lot,’ he deduces as it is the time of year when the monsoon comes in from the west, or storms with the south-east trades across the Coral Sea, bringing downpours that can last for days.

A quick search of the camp site finds nothing more of the campfire’s owner although there are footprints. Two sets, one unshod and small, he recognises the mark of that missing toe on the left foot. The prints are quite old and appear to be heading out towards the falls. The owner of the second set is wearing boots he is a tall adult male, they lead in from the east then out towards the Downings and the Tableland.

Tate follows the second set away from camp into the forest; they are relatively new prints possibly laid down earlier in the day.

After a short distance Tate looses the prints in the leaf litter so he returns to the camp. He wishes to follow the younger set towards the falls but the afternoon is advancing and a strong wind is heard funnelling along the deep gorge of the river, soon it is in the treetops bending branches and scurrying leaves, bringing down twigs and a long abandoned nest of a wedgetail eagle.

The nest thuds to the ground at Tate’s feet scattering feathers and dry guano.

Tate turns his eyes to swirling treetops and laughs.

“You missed me,” he calls.

“Better chance next time.”

With his call the wind dies and all is quiet.

Possibly one of Tolga’s spirits heard his complaint.

Tolga had a word for such a gusty wind and as usual it could be a warning but most of all it was nature thinking what to do next, should nature destroy itself or go gently on the land. It appeared the spirits, like the Christian god could be a sadistic lot and as fickle as any woman black or white.

Did Tolga believe such stories?

Possibly not as he had been estranged from both his parents’ clans for all his life, not Cassowary or Crocodile and he always concluded his stories with a wry smile and soft laugh, besides it was Tolga who showed the young Tate how to kill and prepare the Cassowary for cooking.

Who with honesty would eat their totem?

Bearing in mind he kept well clear of his mother’s totem being the large saltwater crocodile.

Who would attempt to catch his mother’s totem by the tail and get away with it?

‘By the tail?’

Tate recalls his own mother’s story.

To catch a wild bird you need to sprinkle salt on its tail, she declared.

True the salt canister had a lad chasing a bird with salt.

For some time Tate attempted her suggestion.

Tate smiles through the memory; ‘silly boy, if you can get close enough to put salt on a bird’s tail; you are close enough to catch it with your hands.’

There lay the truth in the matter.

From the camp the river gorge is visible through a clearing of trees where the loggers had been working. It is the kind of scar the natives call white man’s curse and once where there was nothing but a wall of giant trees there is now a vision as far as the ocean and a small green island beyond. Tate’s brother Michael said he visited the island during one of their fishing trips and it was known by most simply as Green Island. It was small; a person could walk its entire circumference in less than half an hour and was nothing more than land claimed by nature for her own tropical island garden on a bed of coral.

Some may call the view through the scared landscape to the island a vista but a wall of trees can be as beautiful and where the giant trees once stood the land eroded into the gorge, while those gentle giants became naked supports for trestled bridging.

As the wind dropped to a ghostly silence the approaching storm could be seen coming up the gorge as a watery wall, heavy and dark as the clouds attempted to lift higher than what nature allowed to cross the mountains into the Tableland, even further to the grasslands if its power permitted.

Within a wink the mountain peaks are lost to mist and the storm is above sending Tate for shelter.

He makes it to the hut he had previously explored but not before becoming soaked.

Once inside the hut Tate soon realises its temporary construction, outside the rain is pelting down, inside the hut’s bark roof is badly leaking although to his relief mostly towards one corner and not near the bunk he as chosen for the night, or over the iron cooking range.

With a little extra luck Tate discovers the previous tenants had built up a good supply of firewood.

Now naked with his wet clothing hanging on a cord line over the heat from the stove, Tate can at last feel the chill from the rain leaving his bones but soon the hut fills with smoke as some unthoughtful critter had built its nest in the stoves makeshift chimney.

There is a scurrying sound as the nest’s builder makes haste away from the rising smoke and heat.

Tate opens the door allowing most of the smoke to dissipate and is standing naked at the open doorway.

The rain has eased to a drizzle, there is a slight breeze and being naked Tate can feel its gentle touch to his privates, he smiles as consciousness begins to have effect.

‘Maybe I could.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘There are deeds that only the night should know as the darkness has no eyes, or has it lips to tell.’

‘Who who was it that said that?’

‘It was Tolga, although on a different matter and loose in the translation.’

‘I should dress and remove temptation.’

Tate returns inside, his trousers are now dry to touch; he pulls them on while deciding what is in his pack for a meal.

The drizzle stops and the mist dissipates, out through the logged gap the storm appears to linger in electric splendour although in the forest the rain will continue for days with heavy residual droplets descending from the high canopy even on the brightest day.

Darkness approaches with her nightdress pulled bashfully across the land, or so the natives believed. She can be a loving soul, or bring tragedy depending on her mood as with the natives there is always tragedy and strange how like the new arrivals to the land those from the native dreaming can have two faces depending on the situation – or one’s interpretation.

There is no twilight at this latitude; one moment there is dullness the next darkness. Inside the hut Tate finds a candle stub but by its size the illumination would be short lived, while outside the call of Din-Din appears louder as the river is fed by the storm.

The candle flickers throwing ghostly shadows about the hut catching a number of pages torn from a catalogue and nailed to the structure’s wall.

The images were designed to promote the sale of women’s clothing, the models standing like store mannequins and dressed to the ankles.

Someone had played with the design, attempting to show what was below the clothing using charcoal and beside the images the artist had drawn a large erect phallus in full ejaculation.

Tate softly chuckles;

‘The bigger the brag, the smaller the dick,’ he thinks.

‘Or that is what Wilson would say.’

A smile towards recall;

“I’m bigger,” Tate had boasted to his brother.

“Longer yes but not bigger and girls like something nice and thick, not some annoying prodder.”

Wilson followed with his adage;

“Long and thin goes too far in; short and thick does the trick.”

“You made that up,” Tate had protested.

“You go and ask any girl, she’ll tell ya’.”

“Girls,” Tate softly says as the candle light flickers then dies.

He had never lay with a girl although there was a time with Sally Palmer but he was younger then and it was Wilson who put them together in the small scrub behind the chicken pen.

One hand palmer she was called as she had a fancy towards playing with boy’s parts but nothing more and would never allow reciprocation. Still it was a new feeling for Tate as it was the first time he had been touched in such a way by the so called fairer sex.

Tate remembers the wave of ecstasy and the twitching without production; even so it made her giggle.

‘I was very young,’ Tate thinks.

‘Wilson reckons he did her.’

‘I doubt it;’

A cheeky smile in the dark.

‘Wilson also likes boy’s parts.’

‘I can’t imagine Wilson lying with a girl.’

‘Not in the biblical sense anyway.’

‘Sally is married now.’

‘I wonder if her husband receives more than a hand-job.’

There is a scuffling sound outside the hut.

There is enough light from the stove embers to guide Tate’s way towards the open door, nervously he peers into the darkness as a wave of tension grips at his chest.

In open spaces he is fine as his ears are well tuned to the night but inside the hut sounds are dull to the senses and imagination enhances every muted thud.

“Who is there?” he calls in his bravest voice.

His voice squeaks in his throat.

He clears the blockage, laughs and with more volume repeats the call.

The scuffling continues followed by a snorting sound.

“Flaming pigs,” he deducts and turns from the open door.

For many years farm pigs had been escaping and once feral their offspring reverted back to what they once were, dangerous, scruffy ugly animals most folk called Razorbacks because of their prominent spinal rise, or possibly their razor like tusks.

Tate had read in his history books they were also known as Captain Cookers and decedents of those let free by Captain Cook all those years ago. It was said he left some in New Zealand in hope the Maori would stop eating each other and those in the far north escaped when Cook spent seven weeks mending his ship Endeavour. Whatever the truth the Razorback was not the sort of animal you would wish to challenge face to face.

Tate closes the door; the thin panelling with its cracks gives a feeling of security, although it is supposed a strong wind would turn the door to kindling.

Outside there is something else.

Footsteps – they are soft but obvious.

Tate quietly approaches the door, placing an ear close to the wood work he hushes his breathing to listen.

He could open the door but decides against.

Now he can’t hear anything.

‘But I’m sure I heard someone walking about.’

‘It must have been the pigs.’

Morning arrives with the usual alarm calls from nature. Inside the hut it remains dark outside as well but the sun is setting the treetops on fire with reddish glow. Unusual for Tate he is late rising. At home he always beets the dawn with chickens to feed and the sow Betty to slop out, especially since being mated with the neighbour’s boar and has eight piglets to fatten for the Gratton Street market in Cairns. Already the piglet’s ride has been arranged with Les Jackson and his cart, with promise of one of the piglets as payment for the ride. Another piglet had been promised as payment for the matting of Betty to Clarence the boar, who to be called a fat pig would not be insulting but old Clarence loved his sex as much as his food and was sure to get more than a squeal out of any sow.

It is mid morning before Tate has his day organized besides he isn’t in any hurry to be anywhere. True he was eventually heading towards the village of Mareeba and has a friend there, Willy Watson. In truth Willy is a mate of his brother Wilson and before Wilson found work with Les Jackson they were inseparable. Tate had suspicions about his brother and Willy’s relationship. In a clumsy way he did ask Wilson who simply laughed saying, what do you think I am brother while refusing further on the matter.

‘Willy Watson,’ Tate brings to thought.

‘All that red hair.’

‘I wonder if he is red down below?’

‘Would have to be – anyhow enough of Willy’s red bush. I should do something about moving on.’

At last account Tate had heard Willy was working stock for a cattleman in the dry country west of Mareeba but was unhappy with the treatment he received, so with the coming of the dryer months he intended to live in the Mareeba village, or possibly return to Cairns. Willy wouldn’t return to Smithfield as he left under a cloud of bad blood with some of the Smithfield boys. Something to do with a scheme Willy concocted leaving the local lads a little lighter in their pockets.

Willy had come up with a get rich scheme that would only take an investment of ten shillings from each investor. Willy had approached Wilson but was soon sent packing. Instead he found willing investors with the Smithfield lads who were as lacking in sense as Willy.

What was the scheme one may ask?

It was to gather crocodile eggs from Perfume Creek and hatch them, selling the hatchlings to the natives for food. There were three problems with Willy’s scheme, the first obtaining the eggs, the second what native had money and why would they pay for something they could obtain freely for themselves. The third being the local natives had the crocodile as their totem and would not kill them.

During their last encounter Willy had suggested Tate join him in some adventure but hadn’t elaborated what it would be only it was to do with finding cattle and selling them to the Mareeba meatworks. Tate had suggested Willie’s idea sounded like duffing but was quickly assured it would only be clean skins, unbranded cattle that had wandered far from their property. Tate wisely declined the offer as duffing was stealing and wandering cattle still remained property of someone.

Remembering the footprints from the previous day and with the sun high above the trees, Tate decides to follow those he believes had been laid down his native friend Tolga but few remain being overprinted by the pigs he heard during the night. Before going far Tate encountered the second set of prints obviously those of a white man as natives wouldn’t be seen wearing boots, something to do with allowing nature to enter into your soul through the soles of their feet. Or that is what Tolga told him but the lad was laughing at the time.

Tate had answered his friend, boots also have soles.

Tolga simply gave that cheeky smirk natives give when they are taking a lend of a white fellow’s head.

The new set of prints appears to be following in the same direction as those of Tolga towards the falls but on closer examination they were fresh and not washed out with the rain.

‘I thought I heard someone about last night other than the pigs.’

Gary’s stories are about life for gay men in Australia’s past and present. Your emails to him are the only payment he receives. Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Conder 333 at Hotmail dot Com

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