PROMISED LAND -

A lot of the books I read to find these stories are rather dry and hard going. Once in a while I stumble across a piece that is so well written that it needs to be reproduced in full and as originally written. This is such a piece titled Promised Land by Mary Durack.

“The river swung north, south and west on a torturous route through plain and range, cutting through dense pandanas thickets and tattered cadjibuts, cascading over rocky falls and into still reaches of pale blue lotus where jabiru and ibis preened and fished. When the water ran fresh they rode in to drink and leaning forward in their saddles dipped down their pannikins. The sudden terrified scream of a horse, a wild lashing of water, sent the packs scattering up the bank and set the riders instantly on guard. One of the horses seized by the nose between the teeth of a twelve foot crocodile, was pulling and scrambling for a foothold on the slippery bed. Kilfoyle fired quickly, the monster unlocked its jaws and disappeared and the horse, shaken and bleeding, stumbled from the water and up the bank.

In an instant the quiet scene became pandemonium. Cockatoos and flying foxes rose in noisy alarm and what seemed a forest of small charred trees on the opposite bank turned to running, gesticulating black figures, streaking off with terrified cries into the long grass.

The horse, caught half a mile across the plain, relieved of its packs, and the severe wounds on its nose neck and shoulders treated with coal tar, was soon moving quietly along with its mates.”

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