Arthur Upfield - The Mountains have a Secret

At some place outside the cave a stone clinked against another.

The brown fingers ceased movement, the body of the man solidifying into a bronze image of “A Stockman Taking His Ease”. Stones do fall one upon another. Twice, once in the night and once in the day, Bony had heard the rumble of rocks crashing down a mountain face. The wearing elements leave rocks balanced precariously on ledge and point, and the moment must come when the wind and rain and the heat and cold will topple them over.

It was growing dark within the chamber when yet again a stone fell against another.

The precious cigarette was thrust into a side pocket. From the other side pocket came an automatic pistol. As a sleeping bullock will wake and with one action be in full stampede, so Bony rose from his heels and was in the passage outside the chamber, his back pressed against a rock, his head turned that his eyes could watch the perpendicular line of a corner.

A dingo! He doubted that it was, for a wild dog treads as lightly and as surely as a cat. It might be a rock wallaby. It might be a man. It might be merely the action of the falling temperature dislodging granite chips.

The light was going fast, being drawn upward through the granite sieve. The silence was a Thing roaring its menace into the brain of a man. Imagination was a weapon turned against him.

Was Imagination creating the slow-growing bulge on the line of that passage corner? Was Imagination creating with a granite chip and a sound a living Thing which skulked just beyond the corner, which…? Was Imagination creating a steady glint of light at the corner line and at the height of a man’s eyes?

Bony was like a plaster of pitch within the shallow crevice in the rock wall. The bulge seemed to grow upon the corner line, grow with the inevitability of a stalactite until at the end of a hundred thousand years the left side of a man was revealed.

With nerve-shattering swiftness the man came round the corner-to be frozen by the sight of two glittering eyes above the black shape of a pistol.

Not even in this situation was Bony’s diction unusual. He said:

“Glen Shannon, I presume. Place your weapon on the floor and then support the roof.”

The ex-hotel yardman sank down on bended knees, placed his pistol on the ground and stood up with his arms above his head.

“What’scookin ’?” he asked, and Bony returned the only accurate answer:

“Bread.”

Shannon’s Play

AS it would be infernally dark within a few minutes, the encounter was exceedingly inopportune. A man can easily be bailed up in daylight, or at night with the aid of a torch, but the limitation of eyesight is a fatal disadvantage in total darkness.

Ordering the American to step back, Bony in his turn sank on bended knees to retrieve Shannon’s weapon, his eyes never leaving the man nor his pistol wavering. Even then he had with great reluctance to accept the probability that Shannon had a second weapon hidden in his clothes and the certainty that Shannon had somewhere on his person more than one throwing knife.

“This country owes your country a great debt,” he said. “I should hate having to mark my personal recognition of it by shooting you. You must believe that, and also you must believe that, should you attempt a hostile act, I shall shoot to kill. Turn about and proceed to the outside entrance.”

The American turned round, keeping his arms high. He said as he moved along the passage:

“I don’t agree that you owe Uncle Sam much. It just happened that you Australians were somewhere in betweenTojo’s stern and Uncle Sam’s boot. What do I do here-with my hands?”

“Lower them and go on. I’m right behind you-and I can still see.”

“Hope you’re not pointing the gun at my kidneys. I’d prefer it between the shoulder-blades.”

“You have no choice. It will probably be in the back of the head-if you risk anything whatsoever.”

One close behind the other, they emerged into the open and Shannon was ordered to sit with his back against a rock and his hands upon his knees. The evening still held light. He was without a hat and his fair hair was roughed and dry. His trousers from the knee down were badly slashed, denoting several days and nights in the bush. Recognition widened his mouth.

“I had an idea when I saw you at the shanty that you weren’t just touring,” he said. “Well, I guess it’s your play.”

“And I guess it’s your play, Shannon. What are you doing here and why were you after me?”

“I wasn’t after you-particularly. Didn’t know you was you until this minute. Just happened to see you go in, and as you didn’t come out, I decided I’d have to nail you for identification, sort of. Would have too, if I’d used my brain as Pa taught me to use it. I got myself up going round that corner of rock, making it so my gun hand came last. Say, what’s your part in this script?”

“You are not clear to me, Shannon, and I don’t want to have to take you for a long walk to Dunkeld,” Bony said sharply. “Your intervention the other night when that wrestling fellow attacked me, although most welcome, does not square with your constant observation of my movements. There is another matter which puzzles me, and that is your hasty departure from the hotel. It’s up to you to make yourself clear and to keep your hands firmly upon your knees.”

“Well, you aren’t at all clear to me, either. You might be a cop, but you don’t talk like one. There’d be plenty of chances on the walk to Dunkeld. Seems we’re both up a tree, don’t it?”

There was no heat in the drawling voice and neither anger nor fear in the frank blue eyes, but beneath the voice and deep behind the eyes dwelt resolution which nothing would break. And then came decision to dissolve the stalemate, for he was convinced it was stalemate and that he was not unequally placed by Bony’s wavering pistol.

“All right! I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’m looking for a pal of mine.”

“Indeed! What is his name?”

“Her name is Mavis Sanky.”

“Ah! Go on.”

“She got herself lost in this country some time back. Queer country, too. I don’t much like it. Been lost in it myselfmore’n once. There’s no beginning or end to it. However, there is plenty of water running through it, and afella has only to climb a mountain to find out where he happens to be. Funny thing about it is that my girl was used to the bush, her people being sheep owners.”

Shannon’s voice dwindled into the silent evening, and Bony’s voice entered into it.

“What you say is all public property.”

“Yes, I ’spectit is. But what isn’t public property-yet-is that Mavis was my girl. We met in New Guinea. She was then in your Army. We planned to be married, but the war sort of took us apart. I wrote a couple or three times after I was sent on to the Marshalls. There I met a Jap and was a bit careless with him. He blew up and I was back in the States when I realised how silly it is to be careless with a Jap. I wrote acoupla times more to Mavis, and because she didn’t write to me I got sore, not having sense enough to realise that wartime letters can take a year to go anywhere.

“The Army shipped me back home. Ma was sick. My kid brother was away with the Navy. The war stopped and Ma died. Pa took it badly, so did the sisters. Then one day nine letters came from Mavis, some of ’emwrittenmore’n a year before. I wanted to set about getting her over to the States so we could be married, and Pa had a spare ranch up his sleeve for me. However, Pa said to go and get her, as he reckoned it wasn’t right to expect a girl to cross the world to reach me, what with floating mines andgov’ment restrictions and the rest, and because all theShannons went after their women with their heads down and their boots on and didn’t wait to be chased by ’em. Then Pa fell ill and sort of delayed things. Time I was ready to start, a letter came from Mavis’s pa telling how she had been lost. Pa said to get going fast. So I came over by air.”