Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

“Not a strict one. Why?”

“Sarah hand out much to her tribe?”

“Not that I know of. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m wondering what Yorky is living on.”

“Tucker on homesteads over in New South Wales, even across in Western Australia by this time. Surely you don’t think he’s hanging around Lake Eyre, do you?”

“I have no proof either way. I hope to have it this afternoon. But the footprints behind the meat-house and stated to have been made by Yorky, I have now proved to be forgeries.”

Wootton was obviously astounded.

“Those tracks were not made by Yorky,” Bony went on. “Three aborigines support that opinion.”

“But everyone, including Pierce, says they were.”

“Did any aborigine see them when they were brought back from the Neales?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think so. Everything was so rushed. Wait. Pierce had his tracker with him. I did see him looking at the tracks.”

“The police tracker isn’t a localabo. He might or might not have noted Yorky’s tracks in Loaders Springs. Anyway, he would not be as familiar with Yorky’s tracks as the locals.”

Thoughtfully the cattleman loaded his pipe. He said:

“What does that infer?”

“I’m not sure… yet.” Bony rose. “Will you have that horse brought in for me?”

“Right away.”

Wootton was decidedly disturbed. Having instructed Charlie, he sat at his office desk for an hour without attending to the litter of documents. It being Sunday there was no smoke-oh for the men, but about ten o’clock Meena came to tell him that tea was made. He went with her to the kitchen, then asked:

“What’s all this about the Inspector buying you from Canute?”

The girl smiled demurely, and her mother laughed loudly, but the cattleman could see no joke.

“I suppose you know that the Inspector has a wife where he comes from, and sons almost young men?” he pressed.

Both women laughed, and to neither question would they give answer with words. He was irritated by this evasion, and knew it was futile to be so. He felt that a good deal had happened here on his own territory of which he was ignorant, and that also irritated him. No man likes being a kind of pawn in his own business.

Wootton was again in his office when he heard the thudding of hoofs, guessed that Bony was back, and waited expectantly. A few minutes later Bony entered the office, to put down on the desk the sugar sack he had borrowed. He had taken it away empty; it was now half-filled and tied securely.

Bony asked for sealing wax, and Wootton watched the string knots heavily loaded with wax and sealed with the imprint of a thumb. Then the blue eyes were regarding him seriously.

“The contents of this bag are of value impossible of assessment,” Bony said. “Could you make room for it in your safe?”

“I think so,” assented Wootton. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t wish to sound mysterious, but it would be best for you not to know. Maybe I shall ask you to give it back before tonight. I hope so. Under no circumstances hand it to anyone else, excepting Constable Pierce. He may be here later.”

Wootton took the bag to his safe, rearranging account books and oddments to make room for it. He was further irritated by the secrecy of Bony’s sealing wax.

“Would you like to keep the safe key?” he asked with asperity.

“Thanks, but that wouldn’t do.” Bony smiled disarmingly.

It was warm inside this room despite the window and door being open. They could hear the low roaring of a willi-willi, and within two seconds a wind rushed on the building as the core of the whirlwind passed behind the men’s quarters. The dinner gong, a triangular length of railway iron beaten with an iron bar by the mighty Sarah, broke the tension.

“I have to wash-brush,” Bony said, and left the cattleman to follow more leisurely.

Wootton was already in the living-room when Bony entered to use the telephone. A minute later Bony was speaking to Pierce.

“About those footprints, Pierce. Did your tracker see them?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Did he make any comment?”

“No.”

“He accepted them as Yorky’s, you think?”

“Must have done. He didn’t say they were not Yorky’s. Why?”

“Well, they aren’t Yorky’s. Theabos here tell me they are not, and they should know.”

“But… I don’t get it, Inspector.”

“I don’t yet. The job was done well enough to deceive the men here, and yourself, but they didn’t trick theabos. I understand that not one of the localabos saw those tracks at the time. Correct?”

“That’s so. We put ’emall on the hunt as soon as possible.”

“All right, leave it for now. Another thing. If I don’t contact you by six tonight, come out here. I’ve given myself a difficult assignment. There is a sugar sack deposited in Mr Wootton’s safe which must be returned to the owner should anything happen to prevent me contacting you after six.”

“Sounds grim. Who’s the owner?”

“The contents of the bag will tell you that. Be on hand, I’ll ring again at six. I’m in the position of the man who, having tried to push the house down, has decided to blow it up.”

Extracting Information

CANUTE, KINGof the remnants of a past civilization, had the game sewn up. Not for him a crown wobbling on an uneasy head. Not for him financial worries, domestic worries nor the problem of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Like his ancestors, Canute knew all the secrets of living without heart disease or stomach ulcers.

This afternoon he reclined at ease on an old bag spread in the shade of a wattle, and chewed tobacco. A small boy was shooing away any stray ant, and the chief lubra was baking yabbies caked with mud and buried in hot ashes. It was a beautiful day, in dark shadow; a wonderful existence for a man. It would have remained perfect had not a remembered voice said:

“Take a little palaver with me, Canute.”

The King sat up, drew his feet under his thighs, grunted his displeasure. The little boy ran off to the lubras now standing amazed that the big-feller policeman had entered camp without their awareness of his approach.

“We have yabber-yabber, eh?” suggested Bony. “You tell Murtee and that old fellow who is your eyes, and the other old men. Then we all yabber-yabber, eh?”

Canute shouted, and from various deep shadows men stretched and yawned, belched and muttered, momentarily froze on seeing the visitor squatting beside their Chief, and obeyed the order. The visitation was accepted as a tribal affair, and the King was led to his throne and his advisers grouped themselves about him.

The case brought by Bony the previous day was still there, and he seated himself and again, with slow deliberation, fashioned a cigarette, lit it, and stared at each man in turn. There was Canute, heavy from easy living, grey of hair and beard, still powerful, probably still under seventy. There was his eyes, a very old white-haired and white-bearded man named Beeloo, who was a human lath and crippled, but mentally on top. There was Murtee, the Medicine Man, about forty years old, savage of aspect, still savage in mind, his tongue pierced and his body carved with flints, as befitted the holder of such office. Finally, there were six other men, all older than sixty. Not one had attended a whitefeller school.

“Youtellum those wildabos go back to camp?” Bony asked; and Canute nodded, on his face a sullen expression, ill-fitting his normal jovial nature.

“You smoke for them again, and you all be sorry,” threatened Bony. “Which feller not go walkabout up to the Neales? Come on now, you tell pretty quick.”

“All blackfeller went walkabout that time,” declared Canute.