They arrived at the tree just before nightfall, with a dark honey sky above the scattered red rocks of The Kimberley. In silhouette, the 14 aboriginal prisoners — men and boys accused of unlawful possession of beef — gave the impression of a single long and curving creature, being joined by chains at the neck. They had walked over 250 miles across the outback of Western Australia, in the hottest month of the year.

The prisoners were led by Rhatigan and Wheatley, two officers from the new gold rush port of Wyndham, and their four native trackers, on horseback. A falcon erupted from the upper branches of the gnarled old baobab when the officers dismounted. For a thousand years or more, the massive tree had given food and shelter to the tribes of East Kimberley. They knew it as an honored individual — a piece, along with many others, of a songline that together became the living land. But now, in 1895, with cattle stations and the bush patrol, and gold nuggets the size of chicken eggs coming out of Halls Creek, the tree was known as Hillgrove Lockup. Alongside the doorway cut by officers that led to the tree’s vast hollow interior, this new name had been deeply stamped into the bark.

Hillgrove Lockup was a day’s walk from the Wyndham courthouse, where these men and boys — as had many before them — would be tried, found guilty, and sentenced to several years’ hard labor, often for cattle killing, but sometimes for simply getting caught eating beef. On this latest bush patrol mission, the luckier aborigines were the ones who got arrested: 20 others had been shot down instead while attempting to run away from Rhatigan and Wheatley, who discovered the large gathering of men, women, and children swimming in a lagoon near where some cattle had been killed several weeks earlier.

One by one, the prisoners ducked into the doorway, chains clattering, and entered the pure darkness inside the tree where they would spend the night. A few of them had to be hoisted over the threshold, some too small to get up themselves, others no longer able to lift their legs. The belly of the tree was large enough for all of them to sit, but not to lie down, so they leaned on one another and against the rough wood. Outside, they heard the officers talking and preparing their pipes while the native trackers unpacked and fed the horses. The tree was cooler than the air outdoors, and had a soft elaborate smell, like something living and awake. Snakes often took refuge here, and the prisoners felt them now silently moving, hot satiny bodies passing beneath a leg or over a shoulder, but the men were not fearful of snakes.

Featured photo by Leonora Enking.