Boards and Dingo Roads
THEWINDclawed the iron roof and now and then shook even the walls. The two men slept fitfully, Charlie tautened by the proximity of the wild aborigines outside, and Bony beset by recent events, plus the need for sleep in a comfortable bed.
Eventually morning came, to reveal several holes in the roof, and crevices about the door frame and under the eaves.
By standing on a case or the bunk, Bony was able to survey the surrounding scene. The wind continued high but had moved to the south, was noticeably cool, and no longer possessed the power to lift dust and move sand dunes. There was no sign of Charlie’s pursuers.
“I’ll fetch water,” said Bony. “Let me out and wedge the door until I return.”
He picked up a petrol tin bucket, thrust cartridges into a pocket and the automatic into another, and removed the wedge. The door swung inward. His hand was moving towards Charlie, in the act of tossing the board to him, when a projecting piece of metal halted the movement.
The board was about two feet long, and seven or eight inches wide. One end was curved to a blunt point, and the original sharp edge along one side had been rasped to smoothness. Across the width and at about one-third from the square end was screwed a wooden cleat, and at equidistance from both ends holes had been bored close to the edge of both sides.
Setting down the bucket, Bony examined the board more closely, and failed to discern its use since it had formed part of a packing-case. “Charlie,” he called, “what do you make of this? Part of a camel saddle, or what?”
On looking up at the aborigine, he found him staring at a point above his head, his face registering expression of dawning comprehension. Only for a moment was reaction to the board evident, then it gave place to one of vacuity, and the shutters fell behind the black eyes.
“Dunno, Inspector Bonaparte,” replied Charlie, the title and surname slipping into the reply unnecessarily. “Bit of ole wood belonging Yorky, looks like.”
“Obviously, as it’s Yorky’s camp. Seen anything like it before?”
Charlie shook his head, and Bony again picked up the bucket, motioned to the opened door, passed outside and heard the door being wedged again.
It was not a time for cogitation. The barren dunes could sprout black figures and discharge a flight of spears. From behind five or six tough mulga trees could step other black men, each with a spear ready to throw. Without haste, or caution, Bony walked the hundred yards to the windmill over the well, where he released the brake to set the mill working to raise fresh water. Casually he leaned against one of the iron legs and scanned the wind-swept, arid surroundings about the mill and the hut. Nothing human appeared, to relieve the depressing scene.
He carried the filled bucket to the hut, and when Charlie opened the door the change of wind proved that the wide iron chimney could smoke.
“Are you firing the place?” Bony asked. And Charlie laughed too loudly before explaining that the fire wasn’t properly blazing. He had started it with brush, and, as he spoke, it burst into flame.
“No blackfellers outside,” Bony told him. “Looks like they cleared out.”
“Too right. They don’t like fight with big-feller policeman. Could be they tell Canute to do his own dirty work, the black bastard. What’ll we do now?”
“Use that basin to wash in, have a shave, push on to the homestead. We’ll follow the beach, to reduce chances of ambush. And you’ll be staying close to the homestead while I argue it out with Canute.”
Charlie was decidedly relieved by Bony’s cheerfulness. He tossed the case board into the fire, added more fuel to surround the billy with flame, and within thirty minutes they had eaten breakfast, rolled cigarettes, and Bony had brought in the horses. To add importance to the big-feller policeman for unseen eyes, assuming the wild men were watching, they moved off with Charlie haltered by a length of camel nose-line and walking beside Bony’s hack as though a prisoner of the Law, white man’s ruddy law.
Even Charlie, so close to the primitive, so close to ‘nature’, failed to sense any nearness of warlike aborigines. As the sun lifted from the horizon, the wind weakened to become a gentle breeze, and the flies kept to the shelter provided by the horses. At noon all the magic of this Earth achieved by the mirage had banished the ugliness of the previous day.
Now and then Charlie chatted, but mostly he walked silently, repeatedly glancing to the rear and even more often directing his gaze to left-ahead, at the shore line of the dunes. Morning passed. A fire and tea and tinned meat separated the morning from the afternoon, and two hours later they sighted the line of pine trees marking the position of the homestead.
“What about the dog pad you were going to show me, Charlie?” asked Bony, and Charlie chuckled and said it was three miles farther on.
Why had the shutters fallen behind his eyes when asked about that case board? Why the dawn of comprehension which had preceded the shutters? What had that board told this aborigine? That the board had brought his mind to understand what he hadn’t understood was amply proved. The trick of shuttering the mind without closing the eyes was ever annoying to the questioner, because it was a more emphatic refusal to answer a question than any words could be.
It was but a few nights back that under Bony’s questioning Meena had admitted that she did not know where Yorky and the child were, but when asked if she thought Canute knew, down came the shutters. Charlie had betrayed the same reaction, therefore it seemed that neither knew where Yorky was, but believed that Canute did. The board told Charlie a story, but Charlie dropped the shutters on that story.
The subject was occupying Bony’s mind when Charlie, still wearing the loop of light rope about his neck, called his attention to the dingo road. From the elevation of the back of his horse, Bony could see it, a thin winding ribbon slightly darker than the bordering mud, and extending to infinity. Dismounting, he strode to the junction of the pad with the beach, and could see the tracks of dogs going out and coming in. On the cement-hard beach were many marks made by dogs coming off the mud to free their paws of it.
Following concentration, Bony decided that the number of dogs was small, but that the age of the pad was old. The dog traffic had depressed the pad half an inch below the general surface, and when Bony stepped on to it, he found it decidedly harder than outside it.
“A good place to set a dog trap,” he told Charlie, and at this suggestion Charlie laughed, and spuriously joked that the dingoes hadn’t harmed any white feller, so why trap him? Bony walked on out, and found that the mud wasn’t soft till he had proceeded fifty odd feet. It was certainly a poser, why the dogs went out into Lake Eyre, and the answer couldn’t be salt, as salt patches lay quite close to the shore.
Again Bony mounted, and they left the beach and skirted the slope leading to the pines and the homestead gate beyond, which crossed the yards. Bony removed the rope from Charlie and they unsaddled.
“Let the horses go, Charlie, and then take my swag and the bags to the house veranda,” Bony instructed. “And remember, you are not to leave the homestead until I give word. I’ll speak to Mr Wootton about you staying here and doing odd jobs, and then we’ll have a good look at that head and decide whether it will do, or if it’s a case for the doctor.”
“You fix up with Canute?” asked Charlie, anxiously.
“I’ll fix him, Charlie.”
He found Wootton on the east veranda, and the cattleman was obviously freed from a load.
“Bonaparte! Glad you got back. We’ve had trouble here, as young Lawton told you. He said he’d found you at Number 91 Bore yesterday.”
“Yes. He was quite excited by the brawl at the camp. Said theabos had cleared out.”
“They did, but they came back today. I’ve kept Meena and her mother here for safety’s sake. Got in touch with Pierce, and he treated the affair very casually, I thought. Said the blacks often went to market, and that he never interfered unless to stop a feud, or a killing. When I told him there might be a killing as a result, he asked where you were, then said to give you a couple of days more before he’d move.”
“No one is dead?” mildly asked Bony.
“Don’t think so. A lubra came this morning to ask for some pain-killer for Murtee, but I couldn’t get anything from her about the rest. I never saw the like of it. They were lying about the camp, some unconscious, many of them bleeding, and all the children in bunches and yelling like mad. And here’s Meena. Look at her! Just look at her!”
The girl came forward and placed the tray of afternoon tea on a low table. As she again wore a black dress and white pleated apron, the observer had to go to the top of her head to find anything at odds with this smartly dressed maid. She looked at Bony at first shyly, and then with laughter in her eyes, and Wootton said:
“Show him, Meena.”
She bent forward to permit Bony to view the linen pad marking where she had lost a patch of hair by violent extraction, and Bony chuckled, saying:
“Not as bad as Charlie, Meena. Have you seen him yet?”
“That Charlie!” Meena laughed. “Charlie says that ole black bastard sent the wild blacks after him.”
“Meena!” expostulated Wootton. “You must not refer to anyone like that. What do you mean, sending the wildabos after Charlie?”
“I will explain that,” Bony interposed. “You, Meena, make Charlie take a shower and then look at his scalp and tell me what you and Sarah think should be done for it.”
“First pour the tea,” ordered Wootton. “Inspector Bonaparte must be tired and thirsty.”
This she did, expertly, gravely, and when she had gone the cattleman exploded.
“Don’t understand it, damned if I do. Look at her, clean as a new pin. Her clothes are right, excepting those red shoes. Speaks all right, too. Any city woman would give thanks for such a maid. And then what? A half naked Amazon clawing, punching, kicking, screaming and biting.”
“And thoroughly enjoying herself.”
“Without a doubt. Curious way to enjoy oneself. I saw a man with his ear almost torn off. And Sarah, our cook, brandishing a log of wood as big as a tree. Then there’s Charlie. What happened to him?”
“Someone dropped a brick on his head. Opened his scalp. I sewed it up last night. Don’t worry about the aborigines, I’ll deal with them. By the way, I’m low in tobacco. Can you let me have five or ten pounds in quarter-pound plugs?”
“Of course. But five… ten…”
“I’d like to borrow your car or a truck to run along to the camp for an hour. After, of course, we have eaten all these delicious scones baked for us!”