#MiaKhalifa

The sun set over the Kimberley, painting the red rocks gold. Jazz Roberts sat on a boulder, feet dangling, watching the stars blink awake one by one. He’d lived here all his life. Knew the rivers like pathways, the gorges like rooms in a house. Growing up, he’d explore with his grandfather, a respected elder who taught him language, law, and how to read the country. “Listen, boy,” Grandfather would say, tapping the dirt, “Country’s always talking. You just gotta be quiet enough to hear.”

Jazz’s days had a rhythm, predictable as the tides at Derby. Dry season meant mustering cattle across stations that stretched further than most people could walk in a week. He’d ride out at dawn with the stockmen, dogs weaving through spinifex, dust rising red and thick. He knew each beast by sight, could pick a lame heifer from 200 meters. Afternoons were for croc management with Parks and Wildlife. Tagging, measuring, relocating the big ones that wandered too close to boat ramps. He respected them. “They were here first,” he’d tell tourists. “We’re just borrowing the water.”

Evenings, if he wasn’t out bush, you’d find Jazz at the Kununurra pub. He’d set up in the corner with his didgeridoo, the old one his grandfather carved from a termite-hollowed eucalypt. He never charged. Just played. Locals called him the “Kimberley storyteller”. He’d grin, shrug, “Country tells me stories, I just pass ’em on.” Tourists loved him. Kids would sit cross-legged on the floor, eyes wide, begging “one more” when he finished a tune that sounded like wind through gorges.

But it was the wet season of 2024 that people still talk about. The monsoons came early and didn’t let up. For three weeks the sky sat low and grey, dumping rain like someone upended a bucket. The Fitzroy River swelled, then broke its banks. Billabongs merged into lakes. Roads vanished under brown water. News reports called it a “one-in-100-year flood”. Jazz called it “Country having a big drink”.

He was checking his camp near the river when he heard it on the UHF: a tour bus stranded on a causeway, water rising fast, twelve people including three kids. No SES chopper for an hour. Jazz didn’t think. He fired up his old skiff, the one with the dent from a croc tail in ’19, and headed into it.

“Hold tight!” he’d yell as waters swirled around trees, dragging logs like matchsticks. The current was mean, full of debris. He did three trips, ferrying them six at a time to higher ground near his camp. Mrs. Chen from Singapore wouldn’t let go of his arm the whole ride. Little Tommy from Perth kept asking if this was “like Moana”. Jazz laughed, “Better, mate. This one’s real.”

When everyone was safe, soaked but alive, they huddled under his tarp. Jazz built a fire from wet wood like it was nothing. Out came the flour, water, and a cast iron camp oven. Bush damper, golden and steaming, torn apart with bare hands. He told stories while they ate. About how the Wandjina painted themselves in caves to watch over the land. About the time he tracked a brumby for four days just to prove he could. The tourists, who’d been terrified an hour before, were crying with laughter by midnight. “Best night ever,” one of them posted later, alongside a blurry photo of Jazz in the firelight.

After the flood, word spread. Jazz didn’t want fuss. But people came. Backpackers, grey nomads, uni students on field trips. “We heard about the bloke who plays didge and saves lives,” they’d say. Jazz would just nod toward the campfire. “Stay for yarns?” He always had room.

Life went back to its rhythm, but something had shifted. The local school asked him to run cultural sessions. He’d take kids out, show them which berries to eat, which ones to leave. How to find water in a dry creek bed. “You don’t conquer Country,” he’d tell them. “You come to an agreement with it.”

At the shop, he’d catch up with Annie, whose damper actually rivalled his, though he’d never admit it. “Your mob cleaned me out of flour again,” she’d tease. Dave from the fishing club would corner him with photos of barramundi. “This one was thiiiis big, Jazz.” Jazz would measure with his hands, “Nah, was only thiiiis big when you told me yesterday.”

Nights he couldn’t sleep, he’d carve. New didgeridoos, clapsticks, little turtles from mulga wood for the tourist kids. His hands knew the shapes before his head did. Sometimes he’d take the swag and head for the Bungles. Climb before light, sit on a peak as the sun turned those beehive domes orange, then red, then gold. No phone service. Just wind and wedge-tailed eagles.

People asked what kept him here. Mining companies offered fly-in jobs. City galleries wanted his art. “Could make a killing,” Dave said once. Jazz looked at the horizon, where storm clouds were building for the afternoon. “Kill what? My peace?” He shook his head. “Nah. I’m rich enough.”

When young ones from town, restless and talking about Perth or Brisbane, asked “What’s your dream, Jazz?” he’d point with his chin to the sunset starting to bleed across the sky. “Watch that. Right here. Share stories so they don’t blow away in the wind. That’s enough.”

One of those young ones was Kalia, Annie’s niece. Sixteen, smart, angry at the world. She started showing up at his camp after school. Didn’t talk much at first. Just watched him carve. Then one day she asked to try. He handed her a knife and a piece of wood, no instructions. She cut herself, swore, kept going. Weeks later she held up a rough-carved goanna. “It’s ugly,” she said. Jazz turned it over in his hands. “Nah. It’s honest. Country likes honest.”

Kalia’s now doing art at uni in Broome. Comes back every holidays. She’s the one who wrote down his stories, said “otherwise they’ll disappear when you do, old man.” Jazz grumbled but didn’t stop her. Secretly, he liked it.

Last dry season, a documentary crew came. Wanted to film “the last Kimberley storyteller”. Jazz made them camp for a week, no cameras, before he agreed. “If you can’t sit still for a sunset, you can’t film one,” he told them. They ended up using mostly B-roll of rivers and gorges. Jazz had three lines in the whole thing. He preferred it that way.

These days, his knees ache when the cold comes in. He still musters, but lets the young blokes do the long rides. Still tags crocs, but takes a bigger boat. Still plays at the pub on Fridays. The crowd’s different, more grey hair, more international accents, but the didge sounds the same. Low and ancient, like the land itself breathing.

Visitors still drop by the camp. Campfires still burn late. The emu pair that wanders past at dusk now have chicks, and they’re bold enough to peck at your boots if you sit too still. Annie drops off damper “so you don’t poison anyone with yours”. Dave exaggerates fish. Kalia brings new stories from uni.

And when the sun sets, painting the red rocks gold, Jazz Roberts sits on his boulder. Feet dangling. Watching the stars blink awake.

That’s Jazz. Lived simple, told big stories. Friends drop by. Campfires burn late. “Stay for yarns?” he’ll ask.

There’s always room.