Arthur Upfield: The bushman who came back

Arnold could see Eric mounted on his horse, and the horse was standing almost motionless in the centre of the square fashioned by the buildings. The animal’s legs seemed a hundred feet high, and Eric appeared to be sitting on a barrel, causing Arnold to chuckle, because never was he bored by the tricks played by this remarkable land.

Attracted by the dogs’ behaviour, wondering at the stockman’s most unusual stance, Arnold pressed on the accelerator, arriving at the motor shed, where the iron was to be stacked, in a cross cloud of dust and squealing brakes. Eric dismounted, and led his horse to the man standing beside the grounded dogs.

“Been hell to play,” he said, the slow voice failing to hide shock. “No one here but her. The kid… I can’t find the kid. Mrs Bell’s over by the kitchen door. I covered her up. I…”

“What happened?” asked Arnold, his steady voice not matching the concern in his eyes.

“Don’t rightly know. Exceptin ’ that Mrs Bell’s been shot dead. The boss…”

“Was set to leave for town,” supplemented Arnold. “Let’s look-see. How long you been back?”

“Quarter hour, half hour, I don’t know. I got to the yards and saw the crows by the kitchen door where no crowsoughta been. So I rode over and saw what it was. I yelled and screamed for the kid, but she didn’t come out from nowhere. And no one else either. I don’t get it. I tell you, Arnold, I don’t get it.”

“We will. Anchor that horse somewhere. Wait! Keep the horse. May want it in a hurry.”

Arnold glanced at his shadow, subconsciously noting the time, recalling that his employer usually returned from town between five and six. A great number of crows were circling about, dozens more were perched on the house roof and on the round roof of Linda’s playhouse. What they had done to the dead woman’s neck and arms… It was Mrs Bell without a shadow of doubt. Arnold gently replaced the bag over the body and stared into the troubled eyes of the rider. The dogs slunk away. Eric said:

“I did right covering her? Then I got back on my horse and shouted for Linda. Got the jitters sort of. Expected someone to shoot me. What’re we to do?”

“Find the kid. Where have you looked?”

“Nowhere. Just shouted. Them crows! Shemusta been shot this morning.”

“Take a hold, Eric.” Arnold’s voice was quiet, and it calmed Eric Maundy. The slight twitching of his lips firmed to grim anger. “We’ll look-see in the house first; there’s no one else around, accordin ’ to them crows.”

Inside the kitchen, they called for the child, waiting for her reply. Here, where the wind was baffled, the silence was hot and familiar. Their shouts fled away into the rooms beyond, to crouch in corners and wait for them. When they entered the spacious living-room they were halted by the wreckage of the expensive transceiver, and by the smashed telephone instrument. It was the first time Eric had been there, but Arnold had often serviced the telephone.

There was no further damage. Nothing had been disturbed. Eric found the axe with which the instruments had been destroyed, lying under a chair where it had been carelessly flung.

The dust was crossing the open square, tinting the buildings, brazing the hard clay ground. Above, the crows were streaking black comets against the glassy roof of white flame. Eric said:

“More ruddy crows than when we kill a beast. Blast ’em!”

Arnold made no comment, and Eric followed him in a further systematic search, beginning at the canegrass meat-house, trying the locks of the office and the store room, proceeding to the playhouse.

The four dolls were on the table, Ole Fren Yorky toppled and lying on his back. The place was in its usual tidy disorder, familiar to both men. There was nowhere here for Linda to hide. Leaving, they looked under the floor, knowing they could see beyond the structure, hoping against vanquished hope. They had finished with the men’s quarters, a building containing four bedrooms and a common-room, when Arnold saw young Harry Lawton dismounting at the stockyard gates.

His shout stopped the young man from freeing the horse, brought him to them, large spurs jangling, red neckerchief flapping.

“You’ll want your horse,” Arnold said. “There’s been a shooting. Mrs Bell is dead and Linda has vanished.”

“Hell!” exploded Harry. “Linda couldn’t have shot her ma. What else happened?”

“Ain’tthat enough?” demanded Eric, and waited for instructions from Arnold.

“You fellers get going. Ride around. Look for tracks. Look for… you know. Look for Linda. Somebody came after the boss left for town. The bloody crows didn’t shoot Mrs Bell.”

They obeyed without question that steady authoritative voice, and Arnold went back to the quarters and leaned against the front wall and chipped at a tobacco plug. He was cold deep down in his mind, so enraged that, now no one was near to see, his grey eyes were wide and blazing.

The question tormented him. Who had done this grim thing? A traveller? Hardly. No tracks went beyond Mount Eden, save the little-used track to the old homestead called Boulka, and he himself had just come in by that track. A traveller was as rare as an iced bottle of beer on the centre of Lake Eyre. All the blacks were away on the Neales River, fifty miles to the north. The nearest town, Loaders Springs, was more than forty miles to the southwest, and the nearest homestead was something like a hundred and ten miles away round the southern verge of the lake.

There was left… what? Five white men who had eaten breakfast here at Mount Eden, and any one of those men, including himself, could have returned, unknown to the others, and murdered the woman. And the kid? No… no! That Arnold wouldn’t accept. Every man of them loved Linda. Knowing he would find no tracks, Arnold yet sought for tracks of strangers, or tracks betraying unusual movement out of time.

He was trudging about the hard, sand-blasted ground when Bill Harte joined him. Neither spoke, both staring into the eyes of the other. Harte was small, wiry, bow-legged, and iron-fisted. Under the weathered complexion lay the barest hint of mixed ancestry. The tight lips parted in what could have been a snarl, but his voice was low and clipped.

“Met Eric on the way in,” he stated. “Told me. No sign of the girl?”

“No sign of anything, Bill. You see around. You’re better than I am at it.”

They walked to the body, and Harte lifted the bag.

“She was running when she was shot,” he said. “She was running from the kitchen door, and whoever shot her was standing in the doorway. Betcher on that. Prob’ly wasrunnin ’ to grab up Linda. Lindamusta been in her playhouse when it happened. You looked there, of course?”

Arnold didn’t reply to the obvious. Harte moved away, almost at the run, crouching to bring his eyes closer to the ground, and the big man, watching, realized that he was a mere amateur tracker beside Bill Harte. All the others were superior to him, too, but then all of them together knew less than he of welding iron or repairing a pump.

What to do now? Something had to be done with the body. It had lain there for hours, and the ants were investigating it. Arnold judged by his shadow that it was close to five o’clock, when Wootton’s return could not be far off. Harte was running about the outbuildings, like a distraught dog. The others were nowhere in sight. Yes, something had to be done beside just standing about. The boss might be late, mightn’t get back till after dark.

From the carpenter’s shop he brought several wooden pegs and a hammer. The pegs he hammered into the hard ground so that they outlined the body, then he dusted the ants from it, turned it over, and for a space looked down upon the pained face and the wide grey eyes in which revolt against death was so plain.