Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

“So theabos are after you,” said Bony.

“Yair. Wild fellers. Ole Canute brought ’em. Smoked for ’em. They nearly got me, and I’d already had enough in a brawl in our own camp.”

“Calm down, Charlie,” Bony urged. “All safe here with me. I’ll get the billy going, and we’ll eat, and then we’ll talk. Head ache?”

“Like hell.”

“They try to spear you?”

“Tossed a couple at me.”

“Theymust be annoyed.” Bony slung the billycan on the hook over the fire, then dug into a saddle-bag for aspirin, and cartridges for the automatic. Fortunately, the iron hut wouldn’t burn, and the iron was in fairly good condition. There was the point that the aborigines’ spears could be driven through the iron, but this he doubted as he knew of no precedent. Giving Charlie two tablets and a small amount of water, he said:

“Met Harry Lawton today. He told me there had been a fight in the camp night before last. Is that where your head was injured?”

“Crack on the head in that fight. Shoulder gashed by a spear when it whanged past me.”

“Close as all that, eh? Must be serious. These wild fellers, where did they come from?”

“Other side of the Neales. They must have travelled fast to of got down here in the time. First thing I know of ’em, I’m having a drink at the bore where you met Harry. Four of ’em. I cleared out fast.”

“You were still on my tracks?”

“Yair.”

“How come you were in the camp when the fight took place? You were not on my tracks then.”

Charlie sat up despite Bony’s motion to lie still. His scalp was opened and would need stitching, and the sight of the wound recalled Bony to having seen somewhere in the hut a packing needle and twine. The shoulder wound looked less ugly, but had bled much, and the final tumble down the dune, having added sand to perspiration, completed a picture of sufficient grotesqueness to make a man laugh-or shudder. Charlie rolled a cigarette, and Bony lit it for him, and waited for the reply to his last question.

“Your bloody smokes started it,” mumbled Charlie, “I was keeping well back, like you said, when I seen ’emgoing up, and ’costhey was in line I couldn’t read ’em, but I knew they was sent for Canute. They sort of stonkered me.” The whites of Charlie’s eyes betrayed the inherent fear of the inexplicable, and explained his following actions. “So I sit down and wait to see Canute’s smokes, and when none came, I worked it out I ought to go back to the camp and find out what to do.”

Now the eyes gleamed, and the nostrils flared.

“I got back when Canute and Murtee and the Old Men were having a palaver, and the first thing Murtee says to me is about the tracks we left at the bore camp the night before. That Canute, he’s acunnin ’ old bastard. He got to know about Meena tracking me, and he sent young Wantee off tracking her. And Wantee told him all about us camping with you.

“They had Meena hobbled to a tree with a bit of old rope, and Murtee tells me theygoin ’ to knock her on one knee to make out it’s an accident, instead of smashing both knees ’cosPierce would be a wake up. And while they’retellin ’ me, I seen a tomahawk biting into a tree, and I grabbed it out and ran to Meena, and she seen me coming and put her leg over the tree root, so’s I could chop the rope off her with one hit.”

Charlie was re-living the scene. The nerves of his face were jumping, making his eyes roll, and his mouth was wide and grinning. His arms illustrated the description of what followed.

“There’s Murteeyellin ’ to the mob to get me, and all Igot’s a tomahawk. They don’t like that, and knows I’d of sunk it anywhere I could. I’m ready for ’em, and then the next thing happened was Sarah. That Sarah! Seems they’d tied her up to a tree too, and Meena got her loose.” Charlie laughed. His voice rose to excited shouting. “Sarah, she’s got a tree all to herself, and she wops it against Murtee’s head like she’s Ma Kettle and Murtee don’t argue. Then the mob is on to me. Rex islookin ’ for it, and I’mdecidin ’ where I’ll bury the tomahawk in him, when Meena gets between and goes to blind him with her fingernails. Anyway, I gets in a smack with the flat of the blade, rememberin ’ just in time that Rex and me is mates. And out goes Rex.

“There’s old Canute yelling what to do, and the mob’s getting close to him, and me in the middle. I can hear that dirty black bastardtellin ’ ’emnot to kill us, and then I gets a wallop on me head and I’m out. Next thing I see is Sarah standing on Canute’s belly. Then she jumps up and down on it, and Canute don’t do any more yelling. I see Rex up on his feet and he’sbashin ’ young Whistler who’s tearing out Meena’s hair, and after that what come in front went down, and I had a waddy instead of the tomahawk, and I don’t know how. Anyway, they’re going down as they comes up, and suddenly there’s not so many, and it’s getting dark after a couple of ’emsort of rolls over the fire.

“After a bit the truck come with the boss and Arnold and the others. We’re all stonkered by now, but that fool Jimmy Wall Eye makes a swipe at Arnold and Arnold woodens him. That finishes the deal, and after finding there’s no one dead, but a lot of ’emstill sleeping, they go off back to the homestead, takin ’ Sarah and Meena with ’em.

“Nextmornin ’ we all clear out. You know how it is, Inspector. All the lubras get the young gum leaves and mash ’emwith their teeth, so’s they have a mouthful of pap, and they push the stuff into cuts and wounds and plaster Lake mud over the lot. Canute, or someone, tells ’emto leave me alone. I can go to hell, and think I’d better go bush while things cool down. Think best I can do is to go back totrackin ’ you, and I’mdoin ’ this when I see Canute’s smokes and the smokes what the wild blacks sent up. Canute called for a corroboree, but the next thing was them wild fellers coming at me at the bore. They’ll be around somewhere now.”

“A good fight, eh?” dryly commented Bony, and Charlie grinned.

“You’retellin ’ me. That Sarah! Heavy as aridin ’ hack. And both feet up in the air and down on Canute’s belly.”

“And she used a tree as a waddy?” Bony chuckled.

“Mustapulled it out of the ground, a dead stump ten feet long,” shouted Charlie. “That Sarah!”

“And Meena really enjoyed it?” pressed the delighted Bony.

“I’ll say. That Meena! That Meena!” Charlie rocked with ecstasy of the memory. “You should of…”

The hut wall received a terrific blow and cut short the story. In the ensuing silence both men froze against the backdrop of the wind, and at a distance a guttural halting voice shouted:

“You come out, you Charlie feller. Big-feller policeman, you stop there. You all right.”

Bony aimed his pistol in the direction of the voice and sent a bullet through the iron. There were no more shouted instructions. Even the wild blacks would know better than to attack openly a representative of the white man’s law: Could they lay hands on Charlie, he would disappear and never be found.

They dined off Yorky’s tinned herrings in tomato sauce, and drank much tea heavily laced with sugar, and then Bony suggested treating Charlie’s wounds.

“They’re all right,” laughed Charlie as though it were a joke. “They’ll keep.”

“Don’t argue,” snapped Bony. “You must have the scalp stitched up. Can’t go on looking like that. Make Meena sick.”

“That Meena! You reckon so?”

“I certainly do. I’ve got some salve. Let’s see if Yorky has any antiseptic”

They poked about, and Charlie came up with a can of tar.

“Hereyar. Heat her up and it’ll do. Sew me up like a camel. Okee?”