Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

Harry Lawton didn’t mount that horse. He rose up and into the saddle. He did not dismount to open the gate and close it when passing into Mount Eden country; he did that chore from the saddle. Then he waved and cantered into the mirage, which made him look like an ant on a grasshopper. And, automatically, Bony gathered his lunch equipment.

The fracas at the aborigines’ camp disturbed him because he was sure the cause did not lie in his signals, but in that absence of Charlie and Meena for which they had not given adequate account. That Wootton had sent a truck to take the injured to Loaders Springs indicated the seriousness of the fighting.

Meanwhile there was yet one more of Yorky’s camps to inspect, and if this provided no clue to the mystery of his whereabouts, the possibility of his having escaped from this vast Lake Eyre Basin was a strong probability. Again riding along the Mount Eden side of the boundary fence, he went back over the visit of Harry Lawton, and his own impressions.

There are many HarryLawtons in the bush country proper, even in these days when Australian youth heads for safe government jobs. The spirit of adventure burns brightly in theLawtons and they are free of the herd instinct.

Debonair youth! The spurs, the wide felt hat, the open shirt, the belt holding the array of small pouches, including a holstered revolver, the delight in the long stock-whip having a bright green silk cracker to produce loud reports, ranging from slow rifle fire to the rat-tat-tat of a machine-gun, all told the story of zestful youth.

Harry Lawton could have started the uproar at the aborigines’ camp, where there were several maidens verging on womanhood. From what Pierce had said, Harry Lawton would accept cheerfully many defeats if balanced by a few triumphs. But the odds were in favour of the cause lying in Charlie and Meena and the suspected association with Inspector Bonaparte.

The first wind gust reached Bony about two o’clock. The sun was then distinctly yellow atop a canopy of light grey haze. Instead of the willi-willies, growing clouds of red dust rolled over the land, and on coming to the ‘coast’ dunes Bony found all the crests smoking fitfully, as though the storm was stoking fires below. The fence began to switch-back over ranges of sand, so that on coming to the summit of a range he saw down on the flat a dilapidated hut built of corrugated iron, a windmill over a well, and a rickety horse yard.

Having hobbled the horses to wander over to the drinking trough and seek a meal from the deceptively inedible herbage, Bony entered the hut of some ten feet by ten in area. Here again were the iron oil drums in which were rations of flour, tea, sugar, matches and tobacco, tinned meat and fish. Here again were oddments of ropes. On a bench-table was a hurricane lamp, and in a corner opposite the open fireplace a tin of kerosene. All the ordinary possessions of an ordinary bushman, save that this bushman named Yorky suffered no losses from wandering aborigines.

The strengthening wind had already made the hut’s iron sheets give tongue, but the dim interior was entirely free of the tormenting flies, and gave instant relief from the compelling omniscience of limitless space. Bony brought his gear inside and dumped it on the single bunk, and made a fire for a brew of tea; for no sensible man will drink unboiled water if he can ignite a flame and has tea in his kit, and so reduce the danger of stomach trouble.

Presently, sitting on a case at the bench-table, and sipping scalding hot tea, he smoked cigarettes and worked at his ledger, trying to balance efforts with results.

Was Yorky holed up inside or outside this station boundary fence? Facts could not be ignored. Inside the boundary of Mount Eden were camps at a water supply, and containing food stores. Outside was nothing but waterless aridity, save in the deep holes in the bed of the Neales River, and that was fifty miles away, and in country where even the aborigines on walkabout starved. The answer was certainly not to be found by riding haphazardly hither and yon.

A less patient man would have despaired at Bony’s accountancy.

The Fugitive’s Story

THEBOUNDARYfence at this end, like that north of the homestead, terminated far out into the mud of the lake, and beyond the efficient barrier a line of old posts told of past years when the mud had been harder and the fence needed additional extension.

Bony sat on the shore-dune and looked at Lake Eyre. He was unable to recall anything more depressing than this vast plain of dark mud fading into the opaque vacuum of neither earth nor sky. This late afternoon there was nothing of the glamorous magic created by the mirage, nothing to break the flat monotony which brought him abruptly to question his sanity for sitting there and looking at it. Even the dunes were more interesting. They, at least, were actively shedding their headgear of sand and building elsewhere.

What at first he thought was a crow only gradually commanded full attention. The object was a long way out over the mud, and moved in a brownish haze. It wasn’t hopping like a bird, or walking like one, and minutes later it took size and shape to reveal itself as a dog.

Obviously it was a wild dog, but what it was doing there was not obvious.

Salt! Was that the answer? It might be, because there was no evidence of salt in Bony’s range. That it was a dingo was practically certain, and wild animals will often travel extraordinary distances and to extraordinary places for salt. Still intrigued, Bony realized suddenly that the sun had gone down, and he was conscious of the rising wind removing sand from under him, so that he was sitting deeper and deeper into the dune. The dog, the lake, the world could go hang this evil evening which night would blessedly banish, and he tramped down the dune to the flat where was the hut.

There wasn’t much of a wood supply, so he gathered sticks and dead roots as he progressed, and among the debris he picked up was a piece of board. The load he dumped beside the hearth, then made sure the lamp was full, and lit the wick. His fire was out and he built another, and then he strapped the bells to the necks of the horses, and shortened their hobble chains. The final chores done, he was returning to the hut when the wind brought to him a man’s sobbing cry.

On the crest of landward dune stood an aborigine. He was naked save for shorts. He carried no weapon. Standing there, his legs to the knees were almost obliterated by the flying sand-mist. Then he collapsed and plunged head-first down the steep slope, his body riding in an avalanche of sand.

He was trying to stand when Bony reached him.

“Why the hurry, Charlie? What’s the matter?”

There was caked blood on the left side of Charlie’s head, and splotched over his right shoulder. His eyes were glazed with fatigue, and now his legs were useless. Exerting tremendous effort, he managed to emit a sound like the word ‘hut’. Wrapping one of Charlie’s arms about his neck, Bony half dragged and half carried him to the hut, where he dumped him on the bunk, and stood in the doorway expecting to see enemies cresting the sand ridge over which Charlie had come.

No one, nothing, appeared. The wind brought the tinkle of the horse bells telling that they were feeding undisturbed. Behind him the rasping of the aborigine’s breathing was gradually diminishing, and he slammed the door and wedged it with the piece of case board. Then he fed Charlie water, a tablespoon of it, at long intervals.

For an aborigine to be so knocked out indicated how stern the chase had been, how relentless the pursuers. The pounding chest slowly ceased its labouring, and then came a succession of long sighs, and finally Charlie tried to sit up, and was pushed down.