"G'day, Murph!" says Jack, boisterous with being out from under Wilkins's watchful scowl, "Sergeant said he thought Cotton was with ye. Isn't he?"

He strips off his shirt and kicks off his shoes and stockings, unhitches his braces and drops his trousers, standing in his small clothes. He gives Ngamurudyin a look, but, when she doesn't look away, strips down to skin and wades gratefully into the water. Keeping a wary eye on yon snake, he proceeds to duck under the water and try to scrub away at least some of the accumulated grime.

"Murphy," he asks presently, "Does th' name O'Leary mean anythin' to ye? Around these parts, I mean."

"Hey Duggan," Murphy says, glancing up briefly whilst herding a checked charge very carefully onto a paper. "Don't mind the snake there - he's a python." The dry charge gets just as carefully folded up.

"No, I've not seen Cotton since takin over the watch. He was keen that there was water to wash in, sure, but he was that tired I'd be surprised to see him up already."

The water is cold and clear and the bottom mostly blank stone and nestled pebbles, small tufted weeds growing wherever silt catches underfoot. Jack gets the impression that some creatures at the margins scuttled a withdrawal as he was putting his head under, but then there's the fresh shock of cold for a distraction and St.Christopher taps his sternum as he comes up, having lifted and travelled a little in the pleasant push of the current.

"...ah, warami Wadanggari," Murphy's saying, making a safe spot for the baby he's been handed in the crook of his knee set against the ground. Ngamurudyin has hijacked Jack's trousers for inspection like one encountering the shed skin of alien life.

[Language unknown: "Ted tralesday'tinrut th yinineart anthi din acar...anyma p ithai erugh ce vireeniou?"] she wonders, though Murphy is thinking on Jack's question by that point, idly astonishing the baby with his left-handed ability to make a fist or spread fingers (his wiggling them makes the baby laugh).

"I think there's an O'Leary - Dermot, I think - that's turned overseer at Castle Hill, maybe a couple in Sydney," he offers, then attempts some explanation to Ngamurudyin. [Language unknown: "Mo ceith fi ouast, ardmentha set lloul pro,"] he tries. "I've never really thought about it."

Jack is by now quite goosepimpled, but the taste of earth is gone. The python makes a big loop with half an eye on the mammals, but no comment.

"Have a care with me trews, there, ma'am. I've not got another pair."


He stands up, letting the water sluice off him and wades up to sit on the big rock with Murphy to dry in the sun, being careful not to dampen his powder or the baby.

"Well, he wasn't there when I went over t'talk to 'im this mornin. His clothes was all balled up under th' covers like he meant t'fool someone. I didn't think t'look fer his horse. Ye reckon he's gone rangin?"


"Well, it seems my ghostly friend doesn't want t'be mixed up with 'em, for he tol' me in my dream that he was 'not O'Leary.' Leastways, that's what I think he meant. Ghosts are tricksy, sure.

"I wondered if any o' Calder's party was named O'Leary."

The guide looks completely blank, then at Murphy for help. [Language unknown: "Chni acur le san?"]

[Language unknown: "E som maleei nc onsble'oeronsven we ei trousers, P ndeli u wheestrea,"] Murphy explains. Ngamurudyin grins, charmed by his foreign phrasing.

"No harm, no worry," she assures Jack, setting the trousers down with obvious care and even setting upright the boot left on its side before it proved tempting to little many-legged creatures that might bite or sting.

[Language unknown: "I a llngti a ie k ic eeonet ithaveave mo asttrathetio st we venandwhepre venectndeeaubut e asil no lefoei ateoreame, adtebe,"] she adds, and takes a slender fallen branch to sit where the stream-cut is deepest, fishing out a penknife likely traded in the last century from her waistcoat.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 14:48, Sat 11 July 2020.

Murphy frowns a little. "It's hard to imagine...th' clothes might just be how he slept, not bein used to a blanket over brush. He'd be about the worst bushranger I could think of, though, an' I've pulled convicts out of th' quicksand an' carried a boy the best part o' a mile after he ran himself out - got down a gulley an' just went facedown, sunstruck. T'be honest I thought he was dead. Oh, no, I'm bein' eaten alive-" the baby has caught his knuckle and got it close enough to suck on. The moment of attention on her seems to spark a thought.

"Ngamururdyin, is Cottonfella's horse at camp, did you see?"

Ngamurudyin has just about finished her fishing-spear, wedging prongs with the offcut material as she talks. "Mulberry there, sure."

"Well, that makes even less sense," Murphy says. "Besides all which, he'd have t'have passed me without my seein it. There was a time I was distracted - th' Countess made such a blunderin' about off choosin a bush I took her for an animal, took a couple paces before I realised - but that'd be counted in the seconds, all told. He'd have t'just rise up an' walk straight into the bush."

Murphy's eyebrows get even closer together. "Which ghost friend is that now?" He looks over at Duggan, somewhat bemused. "An' you could ask him t'be more specific there - there's an afful lot o' men who aren't O'Leary, either." He looks back at the baby contentedly trying her toothless best to draw the flesh off his freckled knuckle. "No...Calder had a Lewry, that's the 'Sergeant L' he was writin of, but no O'Leary."

"Just a little man I see sometimes only he ain't there.

"Is there such a thing as delayed heatstroke then? Askin' fer Cotton, not meself afore ye ask. I mean, might he've wondered off--notwithstandin' yer keen watch--an' passed out like in th' bushes? Mebbe we should get back t'camp an' try trackin' 'im."

"That's not helpful, Duggan - we don't all have th' Sight." Murphy starts getting the firearm and powder set away.

He listens to Jack's ideas about Henry. "He might've thought he was just tired an' put a headache down t'sometin else, only half slept it off," he allows. "All right. At least we're for sure no-one took him off - that I'd have seen." He reaches for his kerchief to scrub at his hair and the droplets caught where scar tissue changed the texture of his back.

It's about then those at the stream catch a distant scream, likely only audible by its proximity to the amplification of rock and water and their position close by the bank. Ngamurudyin stands up on the instant and turns her gaze upstream, the only way the Irishmen can be entirely sure it was a human voice and not a bird. It is not repeated.

Startled, Jack jumps to his feet and scrambles for his trousers. He looks to Murphy to take the lead, seeing as he's in his custody, as it were.

Murphy motions for Jack to get out of his line of sight to Ngamurudyin and as far as can be seen upstream, alert and listening. The trees move and the creek rushes and the birds yell on. The python has coiled back a bit at the general agitation but seems disinclined to move unless the movement should prove a threat. The dapples shift and yaw across the loam beside the rocks and Jack's sunwarmed skin whilst Ngamurudyin stands straight in the unblinking brightness of full sun, listening.

Murphy listens. A kookaburra laughs. Parrots screech at each other. A raven calls out to another and is answered closer. The first insects try out an intermittent sizzle. Murphy squints and makes a decision. "Too far off to help the poor devil. Come take this babby - anytin sudden happens you run f'camp wit' her like the Devil was singein yer arse hairs."

Some small whistling bird starts a pretty twittering off on the other bank. The stream sparkles and murmurs to itself in the strengthening sun.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:12, Mon 06 July 2020.

Jack fastens his trousers and pulls on his shirt without buttoning it. He slides his feet into his boots and laces them. Then he takes the infant, nestling it against his sun-warmed chest. He casts a glance at his socks and his smalls, resolving to come back for them when he can.

He stands still, watching Murphy and Ngamurudyin. He licks his suddenly dry lips.

Ngamurudyin angles her head so that Murphy can just catch her glance and steps off the height of the rock, heading a little way down into a dip of the bank beyond to see if she can see or hear further upstream. Her barefoot steps are completely silent on the stone. Murphy has his pistol ready to fire with almost chilling speed, though he doesn't trouble with his shirt whilst taking up the place his friend had been.

The baby begins to object to no longer having Murphy to gum on, but quiets on finding Jack's amulets in reach, all available attention shifted to attempting to latch onto one of those and get it close enough to bite. The little twinge of fear causes things to stir from the blank of lost memory, no more than a blurred impression of night trees, fire, shadows.

Duggan can see Murphy go tense up there on the rock, his attention focused on some new happening down on the shore beyond. The baby gets an awkward hold on the crucifix, pulling the thong against the back of Jack's neck.

---

Ngarungadurung steps out onto a bank of warm sandstone, the birds sounding off away overhead. A glance upstream shows him a long winding glimmer of sunbright water but no source for the scream before its snaking takes it out of sight. A glance downstream shows him he's just walked out in front of someone else.

The woman tenses and looks straight at him a moment, but does not offer hostility. She raises the hand not holding a rough fishing-spear in a gesture of asking another to wait, and Ngarungadurung looks to a streamside rock beyond her and sees...something he does not know how to identify, whether a whitefella or a devil.

The man or creature stands up there with covered legs and off-white, speckled skin the colour of an old man's eye. Ngarungadurung can tell he's being looked at, but the foreigner or devil's eyes are horribly pale, too, like the underside of a leaf. The hair grows out of the stranger as though already ochred, yet brighter, as though something was on fire under his skin and the embers pushed out into those thin strands, still glowing. That one holds one of the one-hand fire weapons, a dark glyph burnt into the skin of the wrist above it.

[Language unknown: "Ionwilset k he ni fi ticredous tharesear As pr werndevir,"] the woman says, drawing his attention back to her. She's painted as though to ward off sickness or sorcery in a camp. By the odd covering over her upper body and the time he'd had her pointed out as not quite an outlaw at a garaabara, Ngarungadurung realises this is Wayfinder Woman, the one that rarely camped with her elder brother and nieces even after plague took the rest of their mob.

He'd heard she'd - bizarrely - taken a wife a year or two ago, but he thought the talk about sharing names with a man with spotted skin who'd fled the whitefella settlements had been referring to some captive with disease scars, not...this.

[Language unknown: "Arereaect hou ek dindi?"] she asks, working out those affiliations she could not read from his skin.

The near-naked newcomer keeps his spear tip carefully lowered, conscious that a piebald orange devil might be capable of any witchery.

He leans cautiously towards the bushes bank-side, ready to slip back into their cover.

[Language unknown: “A ckitet pe Pricncio'niwaal. I ovethuain to Budyirikaranga. Ughreaive pl al Us Not Notwheeve.”]

Ngamurudyin nods. [Language unknown: "Ncri Thu Leswilpro ss rier Whetrawhieau And, si. Evai rea aveourtic."] Her devil relaxes a bit at that.

"There's some Aboriginal down there, but Ngamurudyin seems t'think he's friendly," Murphy reports back to Jack, not entirely taking his attention away from that scene. "Not sure what he's doin' up here but I thought I heard 'uncle' an' mention of Budyirikaranga. Not sure he's alone, though."

Ngamurudyin tenses against a shiver, taking a glance at the deep waters of the creek. [Language unknown: "Wi whe ne wimipo ta t hisichion hick amehisugh ons...chfi atitloanic oshiek poeve wil toand onion nt roalul ithectted unher pete ardaintha ateversom all ousbutvir dire'enha theromeauhis we witntitic ntimenwhe restioing acas esetmi."

"Ri ith naec ma book yin onble tin ecdiiv was tapo inni wh unte acnculchna fica ev tedstrtho erasheher ceni alelnd t rone illreaast k der nodiroweng, verpe el o to ol es tic k usate hath...naut ch weel he el fine le diac rosa amethatha nais ome tend fi her rom ellien, whus dingal art ie ousateoveruttic."] She shrugs.

[Language unknown: "Acpama ive tic resbleday n acutto. To un theat wiit eau? Rese mi linou ncyin ntisetmenvenpre ek tewi ndmi, om erawasnce noest, po itheenect unal t all reitwe, wi the lesan?"]
This message was lightly edited by the player at 00:02, Thu 09 July 2020.

"Is there anythin' I should be doin?" asks Jack in a whisper calculated to carry no farther than Murphy's ears.

The aboriginal man gives a barely perceptible nod. [Language unknown: “Oun ut’na di Ceernd Romineman.”]

[Language unknown: “Pe wi p canche erfoek ie, st na ut. Ore st’a ningai ver po Ulivmoatha. A’m to atfipo anthaseau.”] He chances a short look over his shoulder, [Language unknown: “K’ek ch n ncbut atushe. Fi chiv set uroer olriol pre pl but.”]

[Language unknown: “En hisom i al utertr ichlatstr Pl matola ur trasomver. Usrone un housetill werromder.”] He looks upstream again. [Language unknown: “Meai K teanle a iodifihiil malat hierck.”]

"Come up by me t'show you're not sneaking, but stay ready to bolt an' keep an eye an' ear t'the bush for others," Murphy replies softly, though not hiding that he's speaking to another. He spares a glance to Jack.

"An' watch th' babby doesn't try t'swallow anytin that'd choke - can tell you're a youngest child, there," he adds with a slight 'be careful' frown.

Ngamurudyin grins a little at being easily identified. [Language unknown: "Osenme ti."]

Local spirits prove no more visible than usual in the timebound world, though Ngamurudyin looks that way. [Language unknown: "Li hebeas isfi maour ek ithratsti p ch vorhiswhiich centch ti mi. But llitno erund himisiar ilosro."

"P thodercom prhe, osive: i eensanwhi ie nde thoherave staek hise toneit osar ame er, onati itdin hoceanca. Onanmees niai el na evof li p ugh p ulwhwe llen our ch sta dinndetra tapent moame wiolto etlare alsta trwe ol, di n ca tr sonundvir som m."] she looks upstream, troubled.

[Language unknown: "Plpeng e les sta essamewerherand ngse illna oulel atomur, il p someveestwhe tha rat. Fiven ulut m ionot hasom atseut avesomredeve vorbe saul waal, ntithoher bleareugh ave fi oneouteve ll nc stisee."] She considers, and comes to a decision. [Language unknown: "Di thirom'resmendin ineromsti vorthaint u ectus re. Sa thuni adthe waion derthathutedman ss illencear ort oushasder u hamoivng fo diar a cemo, but taany t ines notdi avepa li nc thuillrom m pa wast elieel ort icme U tereauill ro moel tecepo lo onelar."] She hefts the fishing-spear.

The new man seems to shrug, checks over his shoulder one last time, then steps closer  to Ngamurudyin. He squats a spear’s length away on a large sandstone rock and looks intent on the stream, though he keeps the orange fella in the corner of his eye. With his left hand he sets his spear on the rock beside him and with his right readies a long, sword-shaped paddle of wood.

[Language unknown: “Werwhethamenhat ec’il llnata k uriomoil. Vir roarenre to son iou whckri wesa unpe.” ]

Jack walks slowly onto the rock, holding the baby on his hip. He stops far enough from Murphy not to get in his way. He looks at the aboriginal and smiles with a little wave to indicate he's harmless.

Ngamurudyin assesses that information, watching the water. [Language unknown: "Ha n ec wherescon ni rom,"] she concludes, and looks over to the high point at Jack's appearance.

[Language unknown: "Eenioufor Anpeio, n entevewheest Jakduggan,"] she introduces him. This whitefella has relatively normal colouration, aside from the disconcerting foreign paleness like they wore their skin the wrong way out.

[Language unknown: "Yin eialel preon n Charlie een Murphy thu, ecom stioveure lotepr o vor ni waica Ndeles'areson,"] she slips Murphy a slight grin at that.

"This one, not enemy," she assures the Irishmen, though leaving it to the newcomer as to whether he wants to give these strangers his name and so become findable, in theory, by the white men. "We hunt fast, this water. You listen. Then back." she nods towards camp.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 15:34, Sat 11 July 2020.

The stranger ignores Jack’s wave. Whether out of rudeness, indifference or lack of comprehension is not clear. The man is focused on the water. He doesn’t look anywhere else as he speaks.

[Language unknown: “Laasou in taan, ne maaidi me prndplcaro wi foromeard tiorutere rionha utoun on llouwa inur oureraillnot, nc ss outtic'manive di Sydneytown. Cant atte ekhi toteas ave ce roioon lessic. Nono me’u en ll wittr entlesnte isut n thaerscon alhiio. Ha erant’us ivepreconome sehaeiilei he reilck. Pl ugh lonti th st kor th she icathoher.”]

He keeps his voice low, so not to scare the fish. It is difficult to hear him above the burble of the stream.

[Language unknown: “Pl ivesetrat ossitr artre ted ur u anndwi cefoit paev acmolaom. O sesi estch. Re os wasundrom ener whi intie urlaul, tin to tacaro nd tioilltio thcepa ndtilo. U il ortteroul ion icplwh. At ecetha ble orehishoupronce prncec me… a sheartantday ons toncus o ngate Evasmidi.”]

[Language unknown: "Ss. E ious und, Ro hopori O thom maure onsiouoveate."] Ngamurudyin murmurs back, shifting easily from words to a quiet humming under her breath, cajoling the spirits of fish and this swift water to be generous. What she's seen is not quite clear, save that her attention is drawn to a flicker of shadow in the deep lee of a rock.

Her rough spear plunges, heron-swift through the bright and shadowed flickers of the current and into the depths. Then she's kicking a big, bleeding greenfish off the prongs left-footed to batter the bank beside Ngarungadurung, dancing back two steps and spear-thrust-flicking one startled crayfish, then, astonishingly, another, back over to the killing-spot. She surveys the bounty of these few deep breaths' worth of fishing and seems satisfied, crouching to touch the clear water a moment in sincere thanks.

"Well there, we're set for Friday meat," Murphy remarks, duly impressed. He goes in search of his ungathered clothing and relieves Jack of the infant to let him do likewise.

[Language unknown: "Ta tinestwas plich ughentver, ng ure oulwilhat an ss evdi lopo tioillcon endiio m eauwilder li ereavestires hi tinstramethe ro plart n ouurca tedlatoul, U t cath manortthulat sonon usus itwit ec men eau o ncepl ndiest,"] Ngamurudyin remarks to the newcomer as they head back to camp, fish in tow. [Language unknown: "Ar ilarbe eila et e a roun adondipelo eraureset, os k ort tiowa newe enieal ri k was tra maet ica utnc beriev ameec t rut, omevorvir io o it ulee lo. Ardon ek ouhas ortanyson ti at, anev iola o naosek ar stalathas si ma any p andcomect. Sstio me at ere men satemo."

"Il ounectkor an ioal n lletec evololck out ch conur nt ing, ol evous nariekou res liar alntto p has,"] she suggests, padding on that way.


[[Please wander on back to the main Blue Mountains thread (04) at this point.]]