Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

“That’s true. Someone else made those tracks, Charlie, to be sure that a whitefeller would find them. It just happened that no blackfeller saw them. Do you reckon they were good enough to trick Bill Harte and the others?”

Charlie pondered, gravely serious.

“That Bill Harte good bushman,” he said. “Them tracks pretty good, too. I reckonBill’d fall for ’em?”

“And the otherwhitefellers would, too?”

“Yair, quicker than Bill Harte.”

“Now you go down and wait for breakfast. Whisper to Meena that perhaps Yorky didn’t shoot Mrs Bell, but is taking the blame for it. Don’t tell Meena anything more than that.”

Decision to Dynamite

THEREACTIONSof Charlie and the women to the prints made with Pierce’s plaster cast were identical. They were shocked by seeing what they thought were Yorky’s tracks, and astounded by the probability that the original prints declared to have been clear behind the meat-house had been made with a pair of Yorky’s old working boots.

Yorky, leaving Mount Eden for a spell at the township, would most certainly leave his working clothes and boots in one of the rooms at the quarters. Thus anyone could use the old boots to make the prints, and smooth out his own tracks as he retreated.

The expert tracker, however, does not limit himself to the actual imprints of the feet. He takes into consideration the angle of each foot from the imaginary dead centre line, as well as the distance separating the prints, revealing the length of the stride, and which leg is shorter than the other.

It is possible for a forger to make exact imprints of a man’s boots, but he cannot forge the spaces between theplacings of the man’s feet accurately enough to deceive an aborigine. The aborigine himself could not make a perfect forgery on all counts.

Constable Pierce, wise man, did not make plaster prints of individual tracks, but had made an extensive cast including two left and one right boot-print, and therefore the prints shown to Charlie and the women were exact replicas of those made behind the meat-house.

Why it happened that no aborigine saw the tracks behind the meat-house could be understood. First Harte had found those tracks. He had taken Arnold to see them, and Eric Maundy. Wootton had seen them, too, but Wootton was no tracker. When Pierce arrived, he was told they were Yorky’s tracks, and he saw what he had been led to expect to see. So, the overall acceptance of the forged tracks being genuine, why bother to have them checked by the aborigines urgently needed for the task of tracing Yorky and the child?

Nothing squared in this investigation. It was like a semi-deflated bag, which, when punched, bulged somewhere. The only person who could have no motive for forging those prints was Yorky.

Questions: Who forged them and why? Why, if not to create conviction that Yorky had shot Mrs Bell and taken the child? Instead of one murder, there could be three murders? By the aborigines or the whites?

Bony had waited for the sand dune to come to him. He had prodded a sleeping mystery and it had stirred. He had continued this investigation according to the rules laid down in the practice of crime detection. And now he was convinced that his efforts were being frustrated by a force which the rules had not taken into account. This being so, he showered and dressed in a mood which seldom bothered him.

In the living-room he found Wootton making notes at his radio bench, and the cattleman’s mind was busy with the news he had received from a station to the northeast of Lake Eyre.

“Water still pouring into the lake down the Diamantina and Warburton, as well as Coopers Creek,” he said. “Could be a mighty flood if those rivers continue to run.”

“When did water last flow into the lake?” Bony asked.

“Three years back, but the lake hasn’t been properly filled for fifty years, I believe.” Wootton sat and unfolded a napkin. They chose a cereal from the impeccable Meena. “It would take a hell of a lot of flooding to fill this lake.”

“How do you account for the fact that the shore this side is still moist enough to cover a man’s boots with mud, only a short way from the beach?”

“A question I asked a geologist. Pass, the sugar, please. Feller called around shortly after I came. Stayed a week. Interesting ideas. Main point seems that a time long ago Lake Eyre was a sea, with hills and dales and holes and things like under other oceans. Then the sea dried out, sort of, leaving the lake still holding water. When that dried out, all the water left was in the holes and things. Get me?”

“Yes. Thank you, Meena. Bacon and eggs, please. Oh, yes, and coffee.”

“Right. The original bottom of the lake is composed of the stuff that forms claypans, like the strip of beach all round. On top of that the wind has blown dust and sand and mullock in which frogs and fish and things have lived and perished, and added their remains. In other words, on the top of the original hard ground there’s this thick layer of mud. So what? Meena, I’ll have bacon and eggs, too. Well, when the water from the rivers and creeks flows into the lake, it spreads only a little way on the top because most of it seeps down to spread first between the hard bottom and the top mud, as well as having to fill up the deep holes and valleys. So that a heck of a lot of water must flow before the surface of the lake this side shows signs of it, and even then it will appear first under the mud.”

“So that in three years, even longer, without rain, the lake doesn’t dry hard even close to shore.”

“That’s about the strength of it, Inspector. Meena! Meena! My coffee.”

The girl brought the coffee, and stood behind Bony’s chair. She waited for his toast rack to empty, then went to the kitchen for more, making no effort to be so attentive to the cattleman.

“Could I use a horse this morning?” Bony asked. “Mine is too slow. And I don’t want a flash one, either. I have work to do. And I need a sugar sack.”

“Of course. I’ll tell Charlie after breakfast. Meena! More toast. What’s the matter with you this morning, Meena? Why all the attention to Inspector Bonaparte, and damn little for me?”

Meena apologized, and departed for more toast. Bony said:

“You have not heard that Meena is now my woman?”

“Meena your woman!” Wootton’s green eyes opened wide, and he squared his thick shoulders. “Don’t get it.”

“Yesterday afternoon I bought her from Canute.”

“You did! Didn’t know he owned her, although someone did tell me she was promised to Canute when she was a baby. Oh, so that’s why you wanted the tobacco. Reckon you got her pretty cheap. What do you think, Meena?”

“Might be too dear, too.”

Mr Wootton’s eyes passed over her, from head to red shoes and again to her face. From her he looked at Bony, saying:

“Yes, you bought her cheap. May I ask for what reason?”

“Make a profit on my bargain. Meena, please leave us. I am not going to tell secrets, nor will you.”

The girl came closer, took up Bony’s used plate, smiled at Wootton, and almost ran from the room, delaying the giggle which escaped after she entered the kitchen.

“Secrets!” murmured Wootton.

“Lovers’ secrets,” Bony said, busy now with a cigarette. “Tell me. I saw that your fences at one time extended farther into the lake than they do now. How long ago was that?”

“Years before I came here. Could have been when the boundary fence was first built. That was in 1923. I do know that. Many of the original posts still standing. Much of the netting had been renewed. But it’s still a good fence. You ride along it?”

“Visited Yorky’s old camps. Rations at all of them. D’you keep a check on your rations store?”