Walkabout
By Dansen T. Stahl
(C) 1998 by Dansen T. Stahl
The Outback was still blazing in the heat of the afternoon Sun when the boy aroused himself. Before he moved he listened. Although the thin layer of dirt covering him distorted his hearing slightly he could hear no distortions to the sounds that should surround him. When he was satisfied he stirred and shook off the dirt that he had used to disguise himself and protect his skin from the Sun while he slept through the afternoon. Now, with a few hours to go before nightfall, he needed to get moving. Even with the full moon tonight he could not see well enough to hunt effectively ó for food or water and he needed both desperately. He oriented himself and began moving across the desert soil of the Outback.
* * * * *
Although he was the child of white parents this boy had found himself adopted by tribesmen in Australia. When his parents had been killed ó tortured to death before his eyes ó he had gone to stay with his uncle, a doctor working a circuit in the Outback. The healer of one of the local tribes, a friend and colleague of the boy's uncle, had taken an interest in the withdrawn mute boy with dead eyes. He had sat with the boy for many days, telling tales of the Outback and the Dreamtime. Then he had gone away for a time before coming back and starting the story-telling over again. Each time he returned he drew a little more response out of the boy until the boy was imitating him, learning to track animals, listen to the ground, find water, fight with hand or weapon. This for two years, with the healer splitting his time between the young boy and his own tribe. Then, one day, without saying a word, the boy indicated that it was time to go walkabout.
His uncle knew of walkabout, the ritual in which a tribesboy proves that he is a man and capable of surviving on his own if need be. Although he had worked for many years with the tribesmen of Australia it was hard for him to accept the risks of sending his nephew out on a walkabout when, in all likelihood, he might never return. While the uncle and the healer discussed the topic into the night the boy listened. Finally, he made his own decision. He discarded his own clothes, took the few clothes that a tribesman might use, and walked into the Outback that night. He knew that he couldn't survive the full strength of the Australian Sun so he traveled mostly by night and hunted mostly in those few hours of the day that he could stay out in the heat of the Sun. He took nothing with him but had soon found several pieces of flint to use for knifes and a stick from which to fashion a nulla-nulla ó a boomerang. He also fashioned a jug from reed and mud in which to hold water. With those few items he would have to survive in the Outback until he could return to civilization.
* * * * *
Three days later he was in trouble. It had been a very dry year and the boy was having difficulty finding water. Although he knew that he had to move on in search of water he found himself faltering. Finally, he couldn't trust himself to walk any further. Rather than continue until he collapsed without shelter he took what shelter he could from the blazing Sun behind a large rock. He would have to find water at night.
He didn't awaken to the nudging but he stirred slightly in his sleep at the voice saying, "Human, wake up!".
Again he didn't awaken at the voice saying, "Human, wake up!", but he came closer consciousness. His dreamless sleep began to fill with the faint tendrils of dream and sensed a danger but his dehydrated body refused to awaken.
One last time the voice spoke, "Human, wake up!". This time, although it was only a faint whisper scarcely louder than the slight breeze that brushed over the boy, he heard it and it roused him. He opened his eyes uncertain of his whereabouts. It was dark with silvery light shining around him. He turned around to look for the light and saw the moon ó full and bright. It was almost setting! He had slept through most of the night and he was so dehydrated that he knew he couldn't survive another day without more water. He made to get up then stopped and listened. He didn't truly remember the voice that had awakened him but the sense of danger was stronger than ever. He stilled himself to listen and heard it! A thumping and a rustling of dirt as though something as though something were half-walking/half-dragging across the land.
As quietly as he could manage it he grabbed his nulla-nulla and tensed to move...
Not a second too soon! Even as he tensed a huge shadow came from the rock and covered him! He rolled away, feeling scales brush against his skin. He kept rolling until he was about ten feet away then rolled onto his feet. He faced his attacker ó nulla-nulla ready to strike.
What he faced was a gigantic lizard! Its head, which was broad like a frog's, was at least half the length of his body and its body was large enough for the lizard to easily reach over the rock by which he had been sleeping. This reptile shouldn't even exist and yet it did. Worse, it obviously thought the boy would make a tasty meal. The boy ran! He didn't bother to look back. If the lizard caught him it would catch him. The only thing looking back was likely to do was make him stumble. Still, less than a mile away, he did just that, his dehydrated body betraying him as the adrenaline rush died down.
Now the boy looked back. A quick look back could hurt nothing now. As he looked he saw that the lizard had followed him but slowly. It was slower than the boy running but faster than the boy walking and it was huge! It had to be nearly fifty feet long and five feet wide across its dragging body. Then he saw something amazed him ó the lizard had six legs! This was the fabled Whowie the giant lizard of long ago that could eat an entire village in an evening. It shouldn't be here. The healer who had told him stories of the Whowie said that it had been killed many years ago.
Perhaps there had been others, living secretly in the Outback until now... until the boy had come along. The boy also remembered something else. The Whowie was not very fast. In fact, it was downright slow. Its danger lay in its stealth for, despite its bulk, it could move so quietly that a village might not notice it even as it was eating the villagers one by one. Unfortunately, in the boy's weakened condition, it was still too fast to escape. Finally, the boy realized that it must fight the Whowie if he wished to live. Perhaps, if he hit its nose hard enough, it would lose interest in him.
He waited for the Whowie to come to him. He was too tired to waste energy going to it. Finally, it came close enough to strike and, when it struck, it did so so quickly that the boy barely dodged in time. The boy realized, as he got up from the ground, that the Whowie had been raising its head slowly and steadily as it approached him, so slowly that the boy hadn't noticed it. When it was close enough it had struck the head forward at amazing speed. It could not, however, draw its head back as quickly. The boy seized his chance and rushed forward to strike the lizard on the nose.
He struck solidly and hard. The Whowie unleashed a howl of pain that was too loud to be as frightening as it could have been. The boy stepped away from the Whowie and waited for its next strike. The next strike came quickly enough. This time the boy was ready for it. He dodged to the side, struck the lizard's nose, then ran quickly off. This happened eight times, each time the boy striking the lizard's nose hard enough to cause it to howl, but the pain didn't drive the beast off. Instead, it seemed to make it even more determined than ever to eat the boy. Finally, the Whowie began to sweep its head back and forth rather than draw it back to strike. The boy fled.
Not much further on, in the bright moonlight, the boy spotted a fault in the earth. Nearly exhausted, he dropped over it and fell the four feet to the ground. He couldn't, for a moment, think clearly the exhaustion so nearly enveloped him. Then he hit on a desperate plan. Pulling himself exhaustedly to his knees he carefully peered over the edge of the fault to see where the Whowie was. It was still coming for him although it had, temporarily, lost sight of him. The boy carefully crawled along the fault to position himself directly under where the lizard would pass. Then he carefully checked again to be sure of his position. The next five minutes were the longest in his twelve year life. He kept checking for the lizard and waiting for the right moment.
Then there was nothing more to do but wait, nulla-nulla in hand. The seconds passed like hours until he saw the shadow of the Whowie pass over him. He looked up and could see the Whowie's head passing over him. He waited... waited... waited... then the Whowie's neck passed over him. He rose up with all the strength he could muster and shoved the long, pointed end of the nulla-nulla up, into the Whowie's neck. The point, though not very sharp, never-the-less, passed between the thinned, smaller scales on the underside of the Whowie's neck. When it was in the boy angled his weapon and pulled it out, hoping to rip the lizard's neck open and expose a major vein or artery.
The Whowie's flesh tore and blood gushed from its neck. The boy, not knowing which way to flee, simply balled himself up beside the fault. The Whowie screamed in agony and fell onto its side, its body draped over the fault. Because it had been slow to react the neck was now a good twenty feet from the fault. The boy opened his eyes at the sound of the falling lizard. He scrambled away from the lizard which was now clawing slowly at its neck. The boy feared that the would was not enough to kill the great beast. He could almost certainly flee now but he would have no food and no water.
No! He would finish what he started! Carefully, he crept toward the great lizard, keeping low to the ground to avoid notice. He observed the lizard's clawings and knew that he could avoid them. He held his nulla-nulla point down this time, ready to strike and when the time came he ran for the Whowie. A moment later he stood beside the lizard's enormous paw and neck and drove his weapon into the untorn side of the Whowie's neck without a moment's hesitation. He tried to rip it out but this time the Whowie twisted its head and the nulla-nulla was torn from his hand and flung across the desert. He retreated as quickly as he could. The Whowie showed little interest in following. The boy sat down on the ground and put his arms around his up-pointing knees to watch the lizard bleed to death from both sides of its neck.
He must have nodded off somewhere in that hour as the Whowie lay writhing and dying but it wasn't for long and it was still night. When the lizard hadn't moved for at least half-an-hour the boy moved forward to make sure that it was dead. After some cautious poking of the lizard with no response he was fairly sure that it would not move again. He pulled one of his flint blades from his pouch and cut into the Whowie's body. Although he couldn't drink the blood without making himself sick he could chew on small pieces of the lizard's flesh for moisture and food. After he had chewed a few pieces of meat and cut off some strips for later he turned to the Whowie's head. Painfully, for he was finally beginning to feel the abuse inflicted on him that night, he peeled back the Whowie's lips and began digging out some of the Whowie's teeth. Years later, when the boy adopted the mysterious guise of the Daredevil he would mount the gigantic teeth on his belt as a sign of the dangers that he had conquered.
He moved well away from the Whowie's corpse before dawn. With the rising of the Sun the flesh would soon draw insects and scavengers. He finally settled by the rocks that had sheltered him the day before. He dug out a hole in which to sleep through the day. Before covering himself with dirt to protect himself he laid out some of the meat that he had saved on a nearby rock. He was certain that some animal or spirit had warned him of the Whowie's approach and he made it clear to any creature near enough to him to hear that the meat was for them. Then he returned to his hole and buried himself.
When he awoke the next day he was amazed to see the corpse of the Whowie was gone. He looked around for the meat that he had offered his mysterious benefactor. It too was gone. It was then that he realized that the entire encounter had taken place in the Dreamtime. And yet... he reached to his belt and found there a pouch filled with teeth five inches long and his water bottle filled with water! He had visited the Dreamtime and returned. He had obviously done some Dreamtime resident a service in killing the Whowie and been rewarded. He knew then that his walkabout was over. He also knew that his life would never be the same. As he turned to return to his uncle's house and the healer he did something that he hadn't done since his parents had been killed. However ever small it was... he smiled!
The End
