Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

He sat down on his stump, and instantly Bony said:

“Bimeby blackfeller trade. Bimeby blackfeller trade in whitefeller jail. You forget about Sarah, about that fight. Anything you do to Sarah, you all look out. Anything you do to Charlie, you all look out. You tell wild-blackfeller go back to camp, clear off your country, stay off your country, pretty quick. Palaver finish. Trade finish. Meena my woman. Tobacco your chew. Okee, all right!”

“Okee all right! Meena your woman,” agreed Canute cheerfully, obviously happy that the conference was ended.

Bony stepped forward to prove the proven. He stood before the King of the Orrabunna Nation and held out his hand. The blind man detached his hand from that of the Counsellor and reached forward. They shook hands.

Gravely Bony walked back to the car. Without speaking, he went backward into the seat behind the wheel and drove on towards Loaders Springs. Meena was puzzled, waiting for him to speak. For fifteen minutes Bony drove and then stopped.

He made two cigarettes, one of which he gave to the girl and then he said:

“You belong to me. I bought you with five pounds of tobacco. What Marie, my wife, is going to say doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Don’t tell her.”

“You don’t know why I bought you, do you?”

“Of course I do. You bought me because you desire me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Bony said, severely.

“Silly! What’s silly about it? A man doesn’t buy a lubra unless he wants her.”

“Or something else from her, Meena. You are my woman, remember. So you will tell me what I want to know. The other night I asked you a question. I asked you if you knew where Yorky is holing up, and you said you didn’t know. Do you know?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Meena angrily.

“I asked also if Canute knew where Yorky is, and you would not say. I ask you now if Canute knows. Tell me.”

Meena tossed the cigarette end beyond the open window, tossed her hair without regard to the pad, and sulked. Bony partially turned and slowly rubbed the palms of his hands together.

“These can hurt more than a waddy,” he said. “You are my woman, as I have told you more than once. What you tell me is no longer any business of Canute, so leave your side of the gulf and meet me.”

“Gulf! Whatd’you mean, gulf?”

“Never mind. Answer my questions. First, does Canute know where Yorky is?”

“Yes, he does. So does Murtee.”

“Does Charlie know?”

Quickly the girl shook her head.

“But Charlie knows that Canute knows?”

The head nodded.

“What else does Canute know?”

Reluctantly the girl turned to meet his eyes, tears in her own.

“We been trying to find out, Sarah and me. Ole Fren Yorky was always kind to Sarah and me. What for he went and killed Mrs Bell we can’t find out. Sarah and me are glad he wasn’t caught by Mr Pierce, and if we knew where he was we wouldn’t tell you.”

“I’d make you tell me,” snapped Bony.

“No, you wouldn’t. Nor make me blackfeller way, either.”

“But what of little Linda Bell? A white child, frightened, perhaps hungry, living like a dingo with Yorky.”

“She’ll be all right with Yorky. I know. Yorky is my father. There’s no white man good like Yorky.”

Bony sighed.

“There are times when I am a very poor policeman, Meena. I should take you from this car and beat you, and no one could interfere because you are my woman. It is said that your father, for a reason we don’t yet know, murdered an inoffensive woman and abducted her small child, and you are in sympathy with him. You don’t believe, do you, that Yorky didn’t shoot Mrs Bell?”

“I don’t know, Inspector, I don’t know,” she wailed. “He must have been mad or something. And now you make me want to help you catch him, and have him sent away and killed. Go on, beat me. I want you to beat me. I’m your woman. You bought me.”

She twisted farther round to bury her face in her arms, and gently Bony twisted his fingers in her short black hair.

The hell fired by the meeting of two races and ever open to receive him, he knew was open to take her, too.

“Would you like me to tell you why I bought you, Meena?”

Abruptly her face lifted, and she was looking at him with tear-washed and grey-flecked eyes.

“I bought you from Canute for Charlie.”

Bony Trades His Woman

BONYSTOODbefore the openfrench window of his bedroom and regarded the rising slope topped by the pine trees, and the slope was the rock he had not yet cracked although he had chipped it; the inscrutable surface of this land he was unable to delve into, although having scratched it.

Were it not for the possibility that the abducted child was alive, he would have enjoyed to the full the tussle with the aboriginal element behind his investigation into the murder of Mrs Bell, would have accepted the hardness of the rock, the imperviousness of the surface, as a test for his patience. What had appeared a long period of effort was actually less than two weeks, during which he had achieved more than Pierce and his half-hundred men had done in a month.

Now he would hammer and delve in other places.

Donning a gown and slippers, he opened the door and listened for sounds of domestic activity. As anticipated, it was too early for the staff to be at work, and silently he passed along the short passage to the living-room, and crossed to the kitchen.

He was smiling as he primed a kerosene stove with methylated spirits, recalling that he owned a lubra who ought to have been up long since to minister to his thirst, and that, when all was said and established, theCanutes and theMurtees got along very nicely, thank you. The sun about to rise, and the wife still abed! Enough to challenge any aborigine.

He was seated at the kitchen table drinking his third cup of tea and smoking his fifth cigarette, when sounds introduced the cook to her kitchen. Wearing a man’s gown she paused a moment to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and then banged the clock on the dresser and ruffled her hair back from her forehead. Still ignoring Bony, she left the kitchen, came back with kindling wood, lit the stove and departed for the outside wash-house.

She reappeared at the same inner door, and this time dressed for the day’s toil in a yellow dress, protected by a faded blue apron.

“You are up late,” Bony said.

“Sunday morning,” Sarah countered.

“There’s tea in the pot,” he coaxed. “I’ll make you a cigarette.”

She poured tea, brought it to the table and drew up a chair. He could not but note that her forearms were the size of his legs, and regretted he had not witnessed her performance with the tree. He estimated her weight at fifteen stone, and her age still under fifty. On her face were the cicatrices of her totem, and behind her dark eyes the shutters were already lowered to repel his attacks. She accepted the cigarette and evinced surprise when he proffered a light.

Bony sat at ease and regarded her. She came to the point of looking directly at him, and, expecting him to speak, became anxious when he did not. Dark eyes clashed with blue eyes and the table was a gulf between them. A glimmering of the truth met the mind of the primitive woman. This man was not one of her own kind, but, being a woman, her heart was bound to triumph.

“What for you trade Canute for my Meena?” she asked.

“Didn’t she tell you?”

Sarah shook her greying head. She had forgotten the tea. The cigarette burned unnoticed between her stumpy fingers. He could see the beginning of anguish creep into her eyes, but he withheld speech, and presently she said:

“What for? You are man from whitefeller country. What for you trade for my Meena? Meena’s my Meena. Ole Fren Yorky lie with me. Ole Fren Yorky my man. Ole Fren Yorky marry me blackfeller way. To hell with Mission feller.”