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    Boomerang Hunter
    Boomerang Hunter
    Boomerang Hunter
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Boomerang Hunter

    By Jim Kjelgaard

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A tale about the special abilities of an Aborigine hunter!

    Driven by famine and drought, and armed only with a boomerang and a few hand-made spears, Balulu, an Australian Aborigine boy, and his tame, dog-like dingo named Warrigal, cross the danger-filled desert in desperate search of new lands, the last hope for their primitive tribe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReading Essentials
    Release dateApr 24, 2019
    ISBN9788832588279
    Boomerang Hunter

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      Book preview

      Boomerang Hunter - Jim Kjelgaard

      THE RIVER DEVIL

      [Pg 7]

      CHAPTER ONE

      When he came out on the ledge that overlooked the water hole, Balulu shifted his boomerang to his left hand and squatted on his haunches. His tame, dog-like dingo, Warrigal, padded silently forward and crouched beside him. Balulu let his right hand rest on the big red dingo's furry neck and breathed a silent thanks. Most of the Desert People's tame dingoes had already gone to the cooking fires, and the few that remained to the tribe would not long escape the same fate. The finest of hunting dogs were valueless when there was so little to hunt, and even when the eyes saw some tame dingo as a valued hunting companion,[Pg 8] the hungry belly that saw it as food presented a more powerful argument. But eating the remaining dingoes was no solution, Balulu realized; the Desert People desperately needed to find a new supply of game, and soon. Otherwise, the tribe would starve.

      Balulu stared intently at the water hole, one of the very few not yet drunk up by the Devil Who Lived Where the River Had Flowed. This and three similar water holes marked a rough triangle to which the Desert People had been restricted for the past seven seasons. If there was little game to be found near them now, there was even less elsewhere.

      His gaze fixed on the water hole, Balulu tightened his grip on Warrigal and thought back to previous hunts. From the maturity of his fifteen years he remembered clearly that, a mere three years ago, the water hole into which he now looked had been hidden by the river. The scrub in the parched valley that now stretched before him had been green, not gray. Rather than dust flats and withered vegetation, there had been grass[Pg 9] and succulent plants on both sides of the river. So many big kangaroos came to feed in the meadows then that even unskilled hunters were able to kill them. For the tribe's Senior Hunters, it was child's play.

      Balulu thought about his first kangaroo hunt, when he had been but a stripling, and Warrigal an eight-month-old puppy with much to learn about the art of hunting.

      Led by Morula, the Senior Hunters had stolen forth and concealed themselves in the scrub. Balulu and the other youths who hoped to become Senior Hunters, aided by the women and children, had driven the feeding kangaroos toward the ambushed spearsmen.

      Such a hunt, with those of greater experience hidden in a manner that would enable them to make the most effective use of spears and boomerangs, and the rest chivvying game toward them, was time-tested and approved. As the kangaroos turned in alarm from the weapons of the Senior Hunters, the youths closed in, hoping to make kills of their own. That is how Balulu had killed[Pg 10] his first full-grown kangaroo, a great red male.

      That had been three summers ago, and it was their last great feast. Remembering it now, Balulu licked his lips longingly. Then the Desert People used to live from season to season, wandering from water hole to water hole, taking game as they pleased. Now they lived from day to day, searching ceaselessly for game that became ever scarcer.

      The Devil Who Lived Where the River Had Flowed had brought the change about. So said Loorola, the tribe's Witch Doctor. In any event, Balulu knew that the river had flowed, at varying levels, since the oldest member of the Desert People could remember. As long as there was enough water, there had been no lack of game for the men to hunt or roots for the women to dig. Though individual members of the tribe had known spear-pierced bellies, devil-haunted bellies, or food-rejecting bellies, those able to eat had seldom known a hungry belly.

      All that had been before the Devil drank up the whole river. Thereafter, said Loorola, the Devil gained control of the sky, from which he allowed[Pg 11] no rain to fall. Deprived of water, the grasses shriveled and many of the edible roots died. When there was no more to eat, birds and beasts that had once abounded either starved to death or went elsewhere. Perhaps the Devil had taken them away.

      Only the wild dingoes, once-proud beasts that had become as miserable and humbled as the surviving members of the tribe, remained in any number. They ringed every night's camp, dogged anyone who ventured forth for any reason, followed every march when camps were changed, and snatched anything they could whenever they were able to get it.

      Balulu turned to glance at the pack that was following him and Warrigal. There were seven of the beasts, so lean-flanked and slat-ribbed that their heads seemed grotesquely large in comparison to shrunken bodies. They had been on the trail of Balulu and Warrigal since early this morning, hoping to catch Balulu off guard, or to steal anything he was unable to carry away if he made a kill. At no time had they come within range of[Pg 12] Balulu's boomerang, and now they were waiting just beyond such range.

      That was how they acted during the day, but woe betide anyone caught away from a protecting fire at night. The emaciated dingoes were as swift and deadly by darkness as they ever were in full sunlight, and at night the advantage was theirs. No member of the tribe who left his night fire did so without a weapon in hand.

      Balulu paid little attention to the pack. The wild dingoes might come within easy spear range, and they would still be safe from him.

      The last survivor of the Dingo Totem in his tribe, he had even been denied the morsel of meat that might have been his share when the Desert People started eating their tame dingoes. Wild or tame, Balulu could neither kill nor eat a dingo, for they were his sworn brothers and in the body of one of them lived his other self. If he killed a dingo it was even possible that he would be killing himself, for if his life had no place to go when it took leave of his body, it must perish too.

      Looking east across the Australian desert, Ba[Pg 13]lulu saw a faint intermingling of shadows. Actually the shadows were mountains where, in former happy times, the Desert People had hunted for a part of every year. They used to go to the mountains when the mali was in bloom, showing that the hot summer was approaching, and stay in the highlands until the killing frosts came.

      For the past two summers, however, they had not gone to their usual haunts in the mountains. Every sprig of vegetation in the high country lived by rainfall, so the mountains were hardest hit by drought. Only the greatest and most deeply rooted trees, such as the sky-piercing eucalyptus, retained any leaves at all and even those were shriveled. The smaller trees and shrubs rattled naked branches to every wind that blew. Once-lush patches of grass had become mere playgrounds for dust devils. The highland water holes had turned to slime-covered puddles, then to bowls of dried, cracked mud. The tribe no longer went to the mountains because there was no hope there. One might deny a hungry belly, but he must have water or die.

      [Pg 14]

      Conditioned by ages of aridity, the desert had fared somewhat better than the mountains. But even the hardiest of desert plants need some water, and the drought had levied an enormous tribute.

      Balulu stared at the mountains, and thought about the Devil Who Lived Where the River Had Flowed. Did he rule everywhere, as Loorola said, and were all living things doomed? Or was there a far place beyond the Devil's power, where rivers still flowed and game was plentiful?

      Balulu had given much thought to the Devil of late. Was it real, or was it just something that Loorola had made up to conceal his own waning powers? A good witch doctor should be able

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