Arthur Upfield - Man of Two Tribes

“You’ve heard that even the stationabos hate being out on the Nullarbor, I suppose,” Easter went on. “Not only because of Ganba, but because there are wide areas where stock and horses won’t pass over, and that spells underground cavities in the limestone, doesn’t it? You really interested in caves and things?”

“No,” admitted Bony. “I have inherited horror of darkness in a hole, yet I do not suffer from claustrophobia.” He chuckled. “There it is, the fabulous Nullarbor Plain. All is visible, but what of those things that are under it? Up here we have space and sunlight and warmth. But no protection from the storms. Here there is nowhere to hide, no sanctuary, not even a tree to press your back against so that Ganba doesn’t creep up on you. It would be decidedly unnatural for a man to enjoy such nakedness when standing on a bald world.”

They ate cold roast beef and bread well buttered, and each was attacked by a thought neither would ever admit. The jeep was a good companion, was the little secret thought. When Easter stood beside it, the crown of his felt hat was the highest point within the completely unbroken, completely level horizon.

Not yet was Easter accustomed to the change which had taken place in the previously dapper Inspector Bonaparte. The smartly-cut grey suit had been changed for a worn drill shirt tucked into almost skin-tight trousers of greygaberdine. The trousers were grubby in the right places denoting habitual contact with a horse, and although there were no spurs to the elastic-sided boots, their condition also hinted at much riding. Here in the broad sunlight his parentage was more obvious.

Bony sensed the scrutiny. Easter said:

“Have you decided how you will contact me after I leave you at Mount Singular?”

Bony looked shyly away from the big man. “I don’t know, Mr. Easter,” he drawled. Kicking a small stone, he regarded with apparent interest the jeep’s tyres. “I’ll be all right though.” He laughed, superficially at nothing at all, gazed out over the Plain, anywhere but directly into the policeman’s eyes. Continuing to kick at the stone, he repeated: “I’ll be all right, though.”

“By heck!” exploded Easter. “You’ve got the caste off to a T.” Then suddenly serious, he added: “No offence meant.”

“None taken, Easter. You know I once read a book about a very successful man who discovered that his mother was a quartercaste, and he so despaired that he hanged himself. How stupid! Why, he had every reason, in fact, to be proud of his success, like me. I am at the top of my chosen profession, Easter, despite all the handicaps of birth. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, Easter. With never a failure to his record. I never knew my father, and in any case it’s a wise manwho does, according to someone. I never knew my mother either. She was found dead under a sandalwood tree, with me on her breast and three days old. As you know, few go far in this country without the push of family, money, and social influence, but I have found my road in my own way, at my own pace, and no one tells me to do this or that.”

“You have to admit, sir, that you’re unusual,” commented Easter.

“I know it. In spite of my parentage, I am unusual. Or is it because of my parentage?”

They packed the tucker-box and moved on under the midday sun. Later in the afternoon the horizon to the north-west to which they were travelling gradually humped into several blue-black pebbles, slowly to become rocks, to rise still higher from the sea to form the headlands of a coast when the Nullarbor was the bed of the Southern Ocean.

As the ship at sea, so did the jeep begin to skirt this coast, and soon they passed between two islands bearing trees, and a little later entered a wide inlet where the scrub on the high land either side came down to the beaches of narrow claypan belts. Abruptly the jeep turned into a beach and ran up between the scrubtree to undulating country.

“There is something I want you to do on your return to Chifley,” Bony said. “Report the date you left me at Mount Singular. Add my last instruction to you, which is to make no attempt to contact me. Address the report to BoxSS11, G.P. O., Adelaide. Clear?”

“Okay,” Easter replied. “About a mile to go, that’s all.”

The track was now winding over the slight undulations bearing tussock grass, bluebush, currant and tea tree, and above all, the spaced bull-oak and the lesserbelar. Cattle country, good cattle country.

Then the roof of a house appeared above the lower scrub, and eventually sheds and small dwellings.

The homestead was orderly, conspicuously tidy. About the main house of one storey and wide verandas was a white-painted picket fence, and when the jeep stopped before the main gate they could see the flower beds beyond and blooming rose bushes and water sprinklers which kept the creation alive.

In accordance with his role, Bony remained standing beside the jeep when Easter passed through the gateway to the front door. Before he could reach it, two women dressed in white appeared round the angle of the house to welcome him with obvious surprise and pleasure. What he said Bony could not overhear, but Easter also played the game right by not mentioning his passenger when invited to enter the house.

It was now about three-thirty, and Bony smoked two cigarettes and nothing happened. With the nonchalance of the aborigine, he loafed about the jeep and surveyed the place from the main house to the distant stock and horse yards. He could see a lubra taking washing from a line, and several aboriginal children playing under a distant oak. A little brown dog came to make friends with him, and a flock of black cockatoos came and departed with harsh caws.

Eventually, round the outside of the picket fencecame an aborigine, walking with the effortless grace of the true wild man. Fully six feet in height, he was proof of good living. He wore an American-type wind-cheater, dungaree trousers tuckered into short leggings, and elastic-sided boots heavily spurred. A wide-brimmed felt hat completed the outfit.

Although fifty, he was clean-shaven. On both cheeks were cicatrices denoting manhood, and the hole in the septum through which is drawn the wand of the medicine man when in action told his rank. Over the wide face spread a smile not registered by the large black eyes. White teeth flashed when he said:

“Missus say for you come in for drink of tea.”

“All right,” Bony returned, looking shiftily at everything bar those black eyes. “A drink of tea would go good.”

Set beside Easter, D. I. Bonaparte was never insignificant. Set beside this fat aborigine, William Black felt himself a midget.

“You Kalgoorlie feller, eh?” probed the guide as they followed the fence.

“No. Diamantina.” They were passing under a sugar gum, and Bony slipped off his shirt and undervest for the black eyes to feast on the cicatrices he bore on chest and back and upper arms.

“My father was brother to old Patsy Lonergan,” he explained. “Patsy just died in Norseman. I come along for his camels and gear.”

He prodded a forefinger into the fat covering the stockman’s ribs, and they both laughed.

JustAnother Homestead

HAVINGbeen served tea in a tin pannikin and cake by an immense aborigine woman in the men’s meal hut, Bony returned to the jeep where he had to wait for Easter only a few minutes.

The policeman appeared with the women, and they came together along the iron-hard path made from pounded ants’ nests to stand for a moment, exchanging final messages. At the time Bony didn’t know that these two women were sisters, and there appeared nothing in common to lead anyone to assume the relationship. The elder was large and genial, her eyes being grey and her mouth generous. The other was smaller and slight, her dark hair closely cut. Her eyes were large and intent, and her smile was obviously forced.