Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

“You want to marry Meena, Charlie, and old Canute say: ‘No, you don’t. Meena’s my woman. I got her when she was a baby. I bought her from her father.’D’you know who Meena’s father was?”

Charlie frowned, then shook his head.

“Does Sarah know?”

Now Charlie grinned, saying:

“She’d know nothing like that for sure.”

“Then who did Canute get Meena from when she was born? I don’t think Meena was promised to Canute ever. I think it’s a yarn. Having visited the white man’s halls of culture called ‘the pictures’, you’ll have heard the word ‘Sucker’ and will know just what it means. You, Charlie, Sucker Charlie.

“Long time ago, and when I look back I’m astonished how far back on my tracks it was, I met my Meena,” continued Bony, and instantly Charlie’s interest was increased. “My Meena was lovely and soft and warm, just like your Meena could be for you. But my Meena made out she didn’t want me. You know, let me kiss her on the tip of her nose and only that. You know what theseMeenas are, I’m sure.

“Well, a long time went by, and I only ever got as far as kissing my Meena on the tip of her nose. Then one day the Missioner came, and I asked him straight if he’d marry me to my Meena. When he said ‘Yes,’ I grabbed my Meena and ran her to the Missioner, and he read out the words, and when he asked me if I would, I said, ‘Yes,’ and when he asked my Meena if she would, and she wouldn’t answer, I pinched her bottom till she did. D’you know what I did then?”

Celibate Charlie was caught.

“I dragged my Meena away from the Mission, and away from the camp, and soon she didn’t have to be dragged any more. She ran with me, and presently we came to a creek. Beside the creek was a great place where tobacco bush grew all round a billabong, and among the bush were ducks laying eggs, andwaterhens mating, and ibis standing in the water catching silver bream. Then I made a humpy of bush and gathered leaves to make the ground soft and warm. Andd’you know what, Charlie?”

“What?” pressed the entranced Charlie.

“Why, now I’ve got one son who’s a doctor missioner away up in Queensland, and two more sons as well. Of course, you won’t have any sons, and you won’t have any Meena in a nice warm humpy. Because you’ll be in jail. That’s if you won’t tell me what I want to know. Then what? Why, Meena will be looking for Charlie, and Charlie will be locked up in jail, and then she’ll come to thinking she’d like to have babies, and some other blackfeller will be waiting for her, and he won’t be so silly as to make me lock him up in jail.”

By no means without imagination Charlie pictured his Meena in the arms of a rival while he himself languished in durance vile. He had never been in a whitefeller’s jail, but he knew there were no women in them, and once there he couldn’t go on walkabout whenever inherited instincts commanded.

Seated on the ground, he rested his back against the pack-saddle, and by bringing his free hand close to the cuffed one, he managed to roll a cigarette and strike a match. It was almost dark, but the air was still heated by the hot earth. The stars were dancing their summer jig. A wedge of ducks whirred low, decided that the artificial lake was too small, and sped upward and away into the profound silence. Now and then Bony fed the small fire from Yorky’s reserve wood-pile, and the reflection of the lazy flames shimmered upon both faces, framing them within the shape of the bough shed.

Wise in the ways of the bush and its inhabitants, yet Bony was tricked. He had thought it possible that Charlie would be tracking him in company with a mate, but as the hours passed, and as Charlie had evinced no confidence in rescue, Bony dismissed the thought. His mind being intent on manoeuvring Charlie into a mood of co-operation at least, and full confession at most, he was unaware of the stalker.

And as it turned out, so was Charlie.

Bony’s task was not an easy one. He could meet a white man and know exactly how to deal with him. He could have met a wild black man and would have known how to deal with him too. In either case, a matter of plain psychology based on the race and character of the subject. Although Charlie was a pure-blooded aborigine, he was a complex being, occupying a place between the wild aborigine and his inhibitions and superstitions, and the fully civilized aborigines who in many districts near the cities of Australia are justly entitled to ‘Mister’ and ‘Missus’.

Therefore: how much was Charlie influenced by Canute and the Elders supporting the chief, and how much by the Missioner and Mr Wootton and Constable Pierce? Bony believed that by placing Charlie midway between these two groups, then moving him half way to the left towards Canute and his Elders, he would have Charlie correctly positioned.

“I tell you something, Charlie,” he said, when Charlie gave no sign of co-operation. “Suppose you say you are my friend. Then I can’t tell old Canute how you made a mess of tracking me, and I won’t say anything about that to anyone else. Then all the lubras and the little gins won’t laugh like hell at you. So we say nothing about that, and you tell me why you been tracking me, eh?”

Charlie mutely shook his head, with a faint sign of reluctance, and Bony added to the bribe.

“Suppose I tackle old Canute, Charlie. Suppose I tell him I know he and Murtee been pointing the bone, and that I’ll have them put into jail for it. Who did they point the bone at last time?”

“Dunno,” replied Charlie. “Perhaps it was at old Moses over on Titigi. Perhaps it was up on the Neales. Anyhow, old Moses he died pretty quick.”

“That’s it,” agreed Bony. “Well, I tell Canute he and Murtee pointed the bone at Moses. Old Moses died. That’s murder, Charlie. So I tell Canute like this. I say: ‘Look you, Canute, old feller, you’re too old to take Meena and Charlie loves Meena, and Meena loves Charlie, and they want to be married by the Missioner, all straight and square.’ Then old Canute he say: ‘You go to hell. I got Meena when she was born. Meena’s my woman.’ And I say: ‘All right, Canute, then you go off to jail for all your life. I know you murdered old Moses by pointing the bone at him, and I’ll tell the white feller judge all about it. Then you’ll be hung.

“ ‘Now I’ll tell you what, you silly old coot. You let Charlie have Meena, him being a young feller and able to look after her, and I’ll say nothing about you pointing the bone at Moses.’ ” Bony smiled at Charlie, and Charlie was seeing a little of the light of common sense. “Do we trade?”

“No,” countered someone behind Bony. “You take that thing off Charlie’s wrist. Go on, take it off.”

Swiftly Bony turned. He found himself looking into the barrel of his own automatic. The barrel was wavering, and the safety catch was still on. Above the hand holding the pistol was the face of Canute’s Meena.

Bony’s Guests

ACCORDINGTOpersons who are brought to trial for murder, guns go off of themselves, and quite often a jury actually believes it. Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with firearms knows that you must pull the trigger to discharge such a weapon, and to do that you have to curl a finger about the trigger. Still fewer people appear to understand that many types of firearms are fitted with a safety device, and that if the safety catch is in position no amount of trigger-pulling will bring about the desired explosion.

When Meena pointed the automatic pistol at Bony, it was instantly obvious that either she was ignorant of this type of weapon or had no intention of permitting it to go off of itself and commit murder. Her wide eyes and stern mouth, although presenting a new facet of her dark beauty, warned Bony that he was fortunate that the weapon she held was not a waddy, for waddies are also claimed to rise and fall of themselves, but are much less lethal.