Arthur Upfield - Sinister Stones

“Officially, Miss Breen, I am bound to support your view of wild men’s justice. I merely outlined what has happened to Jacky Musgrave’s body and to your boss stockman. We must recognize that the wild men became convinced that O’Grady was one of two men involved in the murder of their fellow; that they didn’t kill his horse and kill him for the mere thrill of the chase. That O’Grady bolted indicates a guilty conscience, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it does. I’d better have all ourabos in here tonight.”

“And I must be off,” Wallace added.

“It will be dark in half an hour,” Bony pointed out. “How are you travelling?”

“Utility. Don’t worry about me.”

“Might be as well to stay till morning.”

“Yes, you’d better stay, Jack,” added Kimberley.

Wallace stood, his mouth taut, but indecision in his flat grey eyes.

“I’d better get along home,” he persisted as though to convince himself. “The oldpeople’ll worry if I don’t. You’ll be all right with the Inspector, Kim.”

He moved to the door, looked back, shrugged at what he saw in Kimberley’s eyes, and went out. They heard his engine roar to life, and they sat on and listened till the noise surrendered to the claws of approaching night.

“Idiot,” Kimberley said. “He’s gone towards Nine Mile Yards, and the wild men are between here and the Nine Mile Yards, you said.”

“Yes, in two parties,” Bony agreed. “Now let us look to ourselves. I suggest that the women and children be brought into the house, and that the men shut themselves into the kitchen. There are heavy shutters to all the windows… they could be closed?”

“Yes, I think so. They haven’t been moved for years. They haven’t had to be… not in my lifetime.”

At the house end of the covered way to the kitchen, Kimberley clapped her hands. Black humanity poured from the kitchen, flowed towards them, and Kimberley shouted in their own dialect. Immediately she was understood, women and men shouted at each other. The women came across: oldbeldames, stout lubras, and slim young girls; youths and children of all ages; and Kimberley shepherded them into her house, where but a selected few had ever before been permitted in domestic service.

Bony crossed to the men gathered about the kitchen. There were now thirty-seven men and eight youths who had been initiated into manhood. He herded them into the kitchen and gave orders to close the heavy shutters to protect the two large windows.

The younger men understood English, and Bony chose a man whose face bore thecicatrice of full initiation. He asked pleasantly:

“What’s your name?”

“Blinker.”

“Then you come with me, Blinker, and loose all the dogs. You will be all right… with me.”

Bony produced his pistol and Blinker was instantly assured. Together they walked into the gathering gloom, down to the creek, and loosed all the blacks’ mangy dogs, and, proceeding to the sheds, loosed from their kennels half a dozen Queensland heelers. Joying in their freedom, the dogs raced about the homestead, engaged in a general fight, and were left to give warning of marauders.

That the wild men would actually attack the homestead was doubtful, for even those deep in the great southern desert have learned to respect the machinery of white man’s law.

Entering the kitchen with Blinker, Bony paused to survey this gathering of aborigines whose lifelong association with white folk had tended to eliminate their bad qualities and improve their good ones. He smiled at them, frankly and laughingly, banishing the natural reserve of people unspoiled; for all these station aborigines are maintained by the homesteads in return for the labour given by the men, and thus have not been debased by money.

“Why you feller binflighten, eh?” he asked them.“You no binkillum Jacky Musgrave, eh?”

“No fear,” replied Blinker.

“You bin know whokillum, eh?”

Bony searched their faces and, beyond faces, their hearts. All returned his gaze, and there was no shuffling of feet, no soft laughter to hide embarrassment. An old man who looked to be a hundred and probably was little beyond sixty, had his tongue pierced, proving him to be a magic man. Again Bony smiled at them, and nudged Blinker to follow him outside, there inviting the stockman to sit with him and rest his back against the kitchen wall.

“Why didn’t you go to Wyndham with the cattle, Blinker?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Went as far as Camp Four with the cattle and then Jasper caught up with Stan and Frypan and oldStugger, an’ they took over from us.”

“Oh!” Bony purposely remained silent for a full minute before putting his next question, again casting the baited line.

“Didn’t the boss stockman go with you to Camp Four?”

“No. He was out with Jasper when we left the Nine Mile Yards.”

“And he wasn’t with Jasper and the others when they got to Camp Four?”

“No. He had to stay home for a spell.”

“H’m! Now he’s cleared right away, they tell me. Never said where he was heading. What time of day was it that Jasper and Frypan and Stan andStugger took over the cattle?”

“ ’Boutseven. Cattle was off night camp, any’ow. I was riding on a wing.”

“And who told you to come home? Jasper?”

“No. Ezra did. Jasper took over the other wing.”

Again Bony deliberately refrained from casting his line until a full minute had passed.

“Anyway, Blinker, you’re better off home having a spell. Were you talking to Jasper or the others that morning they took over?”

Blinker laughed, softly, easily.

“No fear,” he replied. “Ezra saidgo home; we come home.”

“No argument, eh?”Bony chuckled. “Sure it was Jasper and not Silas you saw that morning?”

Blinker this time laughed heartily.

“Too right,” he said. “Silas don’t have black whiskers like Jasper.”

“Good for you, Blinker. You go inside and tell that magic man I want him.”

The Machinery of Justice

NOINTERIORLIGHTINGescaped from the house or the kitchen when Kimberley Breen emerged from the front entrance and accepted the chair Bony placed for her on the veranda. The dogs were silent. At least two were close, for they could be heard scratching at their stick-fast fleas. At a distance a cow bellowed and from distance still greater came the answering bellow of a bull.

“I’ve put the women and children in two rooms,” Kimberley said, and paused as though giving Bony the opportunity to comment. “And I’ve locked the store-room and the living-room.”

“A wise precaution in view of the delicious cake you keep in that hat box under the sofa,” Bony said. “I doubt that many southern women could bake a cake like that you gave Constable Irwin and me the other day.”

“It’s one of my mother’s recipes. I’ve had plenty of time to learn cooking, you know. Jasper’s better at it than I am. Several of the lubras are good cooks, too. I taught them. It wasn’t easy. Do you know who killed ConstableStenhouse and his tracker?”

“Do you?”

The counter was played softly, robbing it of intended significance, and Bony waited for the next move.

“No, I don’t. Wish I did. You coming here with Constable Irwin, and now coming alone, makes me fear… for us. You see, usBreens have always been a happy family. We’ve mostly been content living here among these mountains where we were born, and with aborigines who belong to us as much as the cattle on our country. And now ConstableStenhouse is killed and you come, and the wild desert men are here, so it seems we’re threatened with something we don’t understand. Do you know why ConstableStenhouse was shot?”