Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

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!”

Bony Buys a Woman

WANDIRNA, CHIEF of the Orrabunna Nation, alias Canute, ordered a eucalyptus bath. He was feeling unwell, what with the rheumatism and the pounding of Sarah’s feet on his stomach, and felt the need for the cure invented by his ancestors long before the original King Canute played the fool with his nobles.

The lubras had brought back from their temporary exile masses of young gum tips, and with these they lined a shallow grave which had been heated by burning wood. Water was sprinkled on the gum leaves and through to the earth, which at once emitted clouds of steam. Finally, when the temperature had cooled slightly and the heated leaves had become sodden, a lubra escorted King Canute and invited him to step down into the grave.

He lay there at full length; a short, fat, white-haired old man, entirely naked save for the ragged beard covering the upper portion of his chest. Steam laden with eucalyptus oils, strong enough to asphyxiate a steer, rose from the interred, who huffed and grunted and snorted, but stuck it out. The temperature then falling slowly, the victim gave a stifled order, and the lubra placed gum branches over the grave to seal the healing elixir.

Canute, who was now feeling wonderfully soothed, ventured to stretch one leg and then the other, then his arms, and rejoiced that all the nagging pains were no longer tying knots with his muscles. Ah! It was good to be a king. He yelled for the lubras to help him out.

Nothing happened. The lubras were deaf or something. He shouted again. There must be a lubra to remove the top branches and hold in readiness for his hot and rejuvenated body a military overcoat supplied by the Protector of Aborigines. He was not fool enough to stand and meet the chill air of late afternoon.

“Ah!” The branches were being removed, those over his feet first. The outside air told him this. Then, instead of his lubra’s voice, he heard another he had remembered.

“Get out, Canute.”

With the suppleness of youth, the King arose and stepped from the grave… into the military overcoat held ready for him by D. I. Bonaparte. By an arm he was drawn away and urged smartly to the communal camp fire tended by the awed lubras.