Arthur Upfield - Death of a Lake

It was after five in the afternoon that Bony actually came in contact with the hands, for they and Martyr had been engaged in moving several of the huge flocks of sheep from the back of the run to those paddocks around Sandy Well. Even Lester, the rouseabout, was called on to assist, so that during the day Bony was the only man about the place. He suffered but one hardship: to keep track of the lies he told, for the way of the liar is, indeed, hard.

As is the custom, one of the women would tap the triangle with a bar to call him to morning smoko-tea and again in the afternoon. Lunch, which he took with them, was more formal. He was amused to find both mother and daughter piqued because he failed to progress according to their assessment of him.

At morning and afternoon ‘smoko’ they talked intelligently of everything excepting Ray Gillen, to whom he never referred, but as the days slipped by their interest in the falling level of Lake Otway sharpened. At the close of that first week of Bony’s employment, the Lake fell by four inches.

The men’s interest in the Lake was just as marked. Often they returned to the yards with only a few minutes in hand to wash before the dinner gong was struck, but always they scanned Lake Otway to note the imperceptible changes taking place. At this time of day, Bony was usually sitting in a broken arm-chair on the veranda of the quarters overlooking the Lake.

Then came that late afternoon when the first sign of volcanic emotion surged above surface. Bony sensed that the beginning occurred before the men returned from work, before they came trudging across from the horse yards where they had freed their mounts to roll on the sand and take their fill at the trough.

“I’m going in for breaking,” remarked Harry Carney when passing to his room. He was cheerful of voice, but anger lurked in his eyes.

“Yair, better’n stock-ridin’, anyhow,” agreed Lester, and sniffled. “You justhypnotizes a youngster for an hour or two each morning, and then lays off all afternoon in a comfortable chair well in the shade, with a book oraddin ’ up the dough you’ve earned. Wonderful job.”

MacLennon, stocky and powerful, said nothing. He stood at the end of the veranda looking down at the Lake, now as placid as a road puddle. Overseer Martyr appeared on the house veranda, also obviously interested in the Lake.

“Been hot today,” Bony remarked. “Mrs Fowler said at lunch it was a hundred and two in the pepper-tree shade.”

“Four hundred and two in the sun,” rumbledMacLennon. “I hate these windless days. Makes the flies real vicious.”

He passed off to the shower, and the Swede came and laughed at Bony and asked how it felt to be a ‘cap’listfeller’-asked with the usual roar of laughter. Witlow merely grinned and went in for his towel.

Presently Carney reappeared, cleaned and his fair hair slicked with water. He stood by Bony’s chair and rolled a smoke.

“No mail out, I suppose?” he asked, gazing down at the Lake. Bony shook his head, and Carney added:“ ’Bout time someone brought it. Hell! The Lake looks like someone’s poured gold into it.”

The gong thrummed through the heated evening air, and Bony took his old and tattered CharlesGarvice to his room. On coming out, he found Lester looking at Lake Otway, as Carney andMacLennon had done, and he called: “It will be still there after dinner.”

“Yair, that’s so, Bony.” Lester joined him and they walked after the other two men.“Going down fast, though. Another four weeks will see her out.”

“A pity.”

“Yair. She was beaut up to last Christmas, and when she was full there was no need to go down to the seaside for a cool-off beer. Given a good wind the waves would come curling ina white surf, and at night you could hear it miles away. It never seemed hot in the paddocks, when you could come home to it.”

“Have you seen this place when there’s no water?”

“Too right. Just a flat all over, covered with bush rubbish. Blasted heat trap, too. Water comes into her every seventeen to twenty years, and then stays only for three years at most.”

They ate without sustained conversation, what there was of it being carried on byWitlow and the Swede. They were, of course, tired from the heat and the burning sun and the pestiferous flies, but they seemed taciturn when a normal gang could have tossed chaff at each other. Only towards the end of the meal did one address Bony, and he was Lester, who inquired of his progress with a brown gelding. Bony was making his progress report when Joan Fowler came to the door leading to the kitchen and waved to Bony, saying:

“Cards?”

Bony rose and bowed.

“At eight?”he said, smilingly.

The girl laughed and disappeared. Bony sat down conscious of the hostility inMacLennon and Harry Carney. Witlow, the bow-legged, whimsicalWitlow, dryly chuckled, and his apparent friend, the Swede, jibed:

“Youtink Bony been pawing the ground whileswe’s been working all day?”

“Couldof been,” concededWitlow. “You can never trust these horse-breakers, Kurt.”

“What you reckon?” asked the Swede, grinning at Bony. “Better for us to sit in on cards, too-just to make sure hekeep all right?”

“Yair, better,” Lester put in. “Bony isn’t old enough to play cards with grownwimmen. He’d be fleeced for amonty.”

“Perhaps I shall need a little support,” Bony laughingly agreed.

MacLennoncrashed his eating utensils down on his plate, got up and left. In the silence, Lester sniffled, and Carney drawled:

“You can cut out the fleecing idea, Bob. Sounds bad.”

His round face was flushed and his eyes were void of the usual good humour. The Swede leered wickedly, opened his mouth to say something and shut it in pain whenWitlow kicked his ankle under the table.

That was that, and it fell out that Bony andWitlow were the last to leave the annexe. When crossing back to the quarters, the little man murmured:

“Keep your hair on, Bony. That Bitch likes to make trouble. You might be able to use yourself, but Mac’s an ex-ring champ.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll tread lightly,” Bony said, and added: “There wouldn’t be anything in treading on other people’s toes here.”

“Wise feller. They’re a funny mob. Best to let ’emcook in their own camp fire.”

Bony chuckled, and they paused to look out over the Lake and at the sea-gulls that came winging in to land with the henswho were waiting to be fed.

“Long way from the sea for the gulls,” Bony observed.

“Five hundred miles from the nearest salt water at Port Augusta. It could be they’ve never seen the sea.”

“Yes, that’s likely. Get the Swede to come in for cards. Safety in numbers, you know.”

Bony pondered aboutWitlow, and decided he would ask this stockman a few questions.

Fish and Fowl

ATTHECLOSEof the first week Bony had his first horse far enough in training to he ridden outside the yard and sensible enough to be trusted to permit its rider to concentrate on matters having nothing to do with a sparkling young filly.

Thus he gained freedom to examine Lake Otway, allegedly the scene of the death of Raymond Gillen. One morning he rode round the Lake, saw where the flood water had flowed into it at the northern end and where it had spilled over a sandbar into a creek at the southern end. He noted with interest the large area opposite the out-station taken over by pelicans for their hatchery and nursery, and where the swans had selected sites for their nests. Rabbits were everywhere in plague proportions, for the surrounding dunes and the slopes of the uplands outside the dunes were honeycombed with burrows. Often a ‘swarm’ of rabbits would dash ahead of him, and when he shouted they would burrow and he could see the sterns of animals at every hole, unable to get in for the crush. Everywhere, too, claiming every major shadow were kangaroos, and away up the slopes back of the dunes were black dots of countless emus.