Arthur Upfield - The Mountains have a Secret

Theflug-flug of horse-hooves awoke him to see, riding past him on the far side of the fence, a stockman. He was not markedly different from a thousand other men employed on pastoral properties, save that he was better dressed. Instead of slacks, he wore riding-breeches and leggings having a brilliant gloss, matching the brown boots. His open-necked shirt was of good quality, and the horse he bestrode caused Bony’s eyes to sparkle. Not common with the thousand stockmen used for comparison, was a repeating rifle in a polished scabbard attached to the saddle, and when the rider dismounted at the gate and the horse moved round, Bony saw attached to the other side of the saddle a compact wire strainer and a pair of shears within a leather case.

The man was on normal duty riding the fence, inspecting it for defects, as men are employed on government vermin fences. He walked his horse to a tree beside the road and neck-roped it to the trunk, and then, producing tobacco and papers, he proceeded to manufacture a smoke. The sun still shone from a clear sky, and the late afternoon was restfully peaceful.

Like Br’er Rabbit, Bony remained snug in his little bower, although he did not have Br’er Rabbit’s obvious reasons for cautiousness. The stockman was young and fair-haired, keen and probably intelligent, but Bony continued to lie low. There was an indefinable something about the rider which divorced him from all Outback stockmen, and, try as he would, Bony could not detect it.

Having smoked the cigarette, the rider made himself another. He did not draw close to the gate and he appeared to have no intention of hurrying to the homestead, where his fellows would now have knocked off for the day.

Bony heard and saw the returning Buick before he did. The road being straight and well surfaced, Simpson drove at a mile per minute, and when he stopped the car just before the metal road strip the rider raised his hand in a careless salute before passing behind the car and arriving at the driver’s lowered window.

Simpson’s face registered subsiding anger. The younger man’s face registered change from good humour to concern. What they said Bony could not hear, but it was evident to him that Simpson rapidly explained what had put him out and that the other listened with sympathy.

Thus a full minute passed, when the younger man stepped back and Simpson put the car into gear and moved it slowly over the metal strip. The gate began to open. The young man called loudly enough for Bony to hear:

“Don’t envy you your job.”

Simpson nodded that he had heard and drove through the gateway, the car leaped forward to take the mountain grade at a speed clearly indicative of the driver’s mood. The gate clanged shut, and the rider rolled his third cigarette.

Ten to fifteen minutes passed, for Bony disturbed by a crow which was unpleasantly suspicious of the clump of scrub in which he lay, when he heard the approach of another horseman coming to the gate from the opposite direction. This second stockman was as nattily dressed as the first. He also bestrode a horse which made Bony’s eyes light with admiration. Like the first, he had a rifle in its scabbard attached to the saddle. He was older, grey of hair, stolid and stern.

The younger man freed his horse and mounted. Again he raised his right hand in greeting and the other returned the salutation, before the horses came together and were walked at a smart pace along the road to the homestead. Then it was that Bony detected the indefinable difference with the common run of stockmen.

They rode not with the easy grace of stockmen, but with the stiffness of soldiers.

The picture of the luscious valley and the magnificent homestead, the fenced paddocks, divided by the well-kept road, the electrically controlled entrance gate and the efficient fence, and the two horsemen returning to their quarters, was somewhere not quite true to the Australian scene. In balance and proportion, yes. It was its atmosphere which was not truly authentic, and Bony was mystified and therefore troubled in mind.

He wondered how often the boundary fence was patrolled. He assumed that the two riders had left the homestead together to reach the fence on the far side of the homestead, and there to part and “ride the fence” to meet at the gate. It would certainly be uneconomic not to inspect such a fence regularly and maintain its high efficiency.

The sun said it was twenty minutes to six when Bony left the clump of scrub and made his careful way upward along the mountain slope, and on reaching the crest overlooking the hotel he sprawled for a little while behind a bush, watching the way he had come and the birds about him, to see if they had an interest in other than himself.

Not that he suspected having been trailed or observed at any time since leaving Inspector Mulligan. The country about the Baden Park Hotel and Lake George was uncultivated, unfenced, unstocked, but somewhere in its virgin close was the reason why Simpson had ordered him to leave. Somewhere beneath the carpet covering the great amphitheatre must be evidence proving the fate of two lost women, and Bony believed that it was the possible discovery of such evidence which had motivated the licensee.

The fiery sun was threatening the stilled waves of distant mountains as he made his way along the back of the range, his mind concentrated on the business of progressing without leaving tracks, and thus needing to choose firm granite slabs and tussock grass, which would almost immediately spring up again when his weight was removed.

He came to a wide crack in the face of the range, and down this crack he proceeded from ledge to ledge, to reach its shadowy bottom, and then down along its sharp decline to where it emerged at the base of the mountain face. Thereupon he needs must progress diagonally down the basic slope of the range in full view of anyone at the bottom, a risk he had to accept, for there was no other way within several miles.

His descent brought him behind the little mountain of rocks in which he had established his secret camp. The pile was at least two hundred feet in height and was composed of rocks, not one of which weighed less than a ton. The base was honeycombed with rough passages between the rocks, the passages, save one, being irregular in width and length. The one led to the very centre, and just before it ended there was a narrow branch passage giving entry to the cave which he had made his headquarters.

Gathering wood, he carried it to his retreat, his boots crunching upon the rock chips littering the passageway and then sinking a little into the sandy floor of the chamber. He made his fire between two boulders forming the walls and went out again with his billy and quart-pot for water. The sun was setting, and the little mountain and the great mountain face behind it were painted russet and purple. To his joy, he found a rabbit in one of his snares deep in the scrub beside the whispering stream.

Half an hour later the damper loaf was rising within its bed of hot ashes, and he was dining on bread baked the previous night and grilled rabbit, withmilkless tea as the wine. He was a king in his palace, the bright-eyed rock lizards his courtiers, and, on the ramparts without, the changing of the guards-the night birds taking over duty from the day birds.

The cries of the guards without could not reach him in his granite chamber, were not strong enough to penetrate along the granite passages and down through the multi-shaped crevices through which entered the waning daylight. Although the chamber smelled dankly and the sand floor was damp, it was just pleasantly cool. Its massive solidity gave the feeling of restful safety to a man who, for fourteen hours, had striven to avoid the eyes of enemies.

When he had eaten, the light was cloister-dim. The little fire no longer produced flame, but the red ashes gave out comforting heat. It could not be thought that Bony had lost the art of squatting on his heels, his slim fingers being employed with paper and tobacco, for the balance was maintained with the ease of one who had not sat in a chair for many years. His gaze passed to the small heap of grey ash which the rising damper had cracked open and, through the cracks, was sending upwards spirals of steam having the delectable aroma of baking bread.