Arthur Upfield - No footprints in the bush

“I go back,” he told Whyte. “From here I should reach the house in the cane-grass by two o’clock. All the Illprinka men may be out there where you picked us up, and if so I’ll get Bony from Rex. I’ll make a fire to tell you where we are. Goodbye, Miss McPherson.”

He smiled into her wide eyes, wide because his leaving and the reason were fully understood. Then he disappeared from her sight over the side and dropped to the ground. Whyte, leaning over, saw him lacing on the Kurdaitcha boots. He spoke to Loveacre and the machine began to move away. Burning Water vanished among the scrub.

Curtains

IMMEDIATELY Rex McPherson obtained Bony’s pistol he shouted to the Illprinka man to release his stranglehold.

“Keep still, Mister Napoleon Bonaparte,” he ordered, emphasizing the prefix as Bony had done. Maintaining aim at Bony’s heart and his gaze at Bony’s eyes, he gave orders to the Illprinka man, who ran outside and could be heard shouting in the native dialect. Tootsey came in, accompanied by the naked lubra.

Outwardly calm, Bony was warmed by self-reproach for the easy manner in which the initiative had been taken from him. He had given Flora and Burning Water a five hours’ start, but he planned to give them at least eight hours’ start, representing twenty miles before the inevitable pursuers were unleashed.

With half-inch rope used for lashing camel packs, the Illprinka men swiftly and efficiently secured Bony to his chair, and then departed with Rex. They could be heard outside shouting eager assent to Rex, who was telling them not to bother with tracking the fugitives, who would be certain to keep to the valley and head for the homestead. Like a pack of dogs giving tongue, they set off on the hunt, their voices rapidly dwindling. Tootsey lowered herself into one of the cane chairs and the naked lubra squatted at the entrance. Within fifteen minutes Bony was sleeping.

When he awoke sunlight was streaming in through the wide entrance, from which the cane-grass curtain had been removed. Tootsey was setting the table for breakfast. The pain had gone from Bony’s right foot, but he could not be sure whether this was due to the numbness produced by the rope binding the leg to the chair or if it indicated that the wound had discharged all the poison. He certainly felt very much better, mentally and physically, and he was wondering if he would be given breakfast, when Rex McPherson entered.

“Good morning, Mr McPherson!” he said.

“Ha, Mr Bonaparte! Good morning! I trust you spent a comfortable night,” returned Rex, unsmilingly. “Well now, as this will be your last day, and as I want you to be feeling very well, I suggest that you join me at breakfast. Tootsey! Unbind Mr Bonaparte’s arms, but see that his feet and legs are secure. Now, Mr Bonaparte, grilled chops and coffee. Don’t attempt to throw the knife.”

“Your kindness would not permit such a display of bad manners, Mr McPherson,” Bony said lightly, adding, when his arms were free: “Ah! That’s better. In a moment the circulation will return. That coffee smells delicious.”

“I never fail as a host,” boasted Rex, still without smiling. His body was passive and he had control over his face and tongue, but his flaming eyes betrayed the unbalanced mind. Bony took up the coffee cup with fingers aching with returning circulation and drank. The question he put might be supposed to have been the last to interest him.

“You own sheep as well as cattle?”

“Yes, I have a small flock,” admitted Rex. “Mutton sheep are more economical than store cattle when there are only two of us-myself and the cook. The blacks have their emus and kangaroos. As I mentioned last night, I have a plan to deal with you in a manner which should interest us both. I am going to take you up five or six thousand feet and tip you out over the swamp. You will have time to reflect, on your way down, on your stupidity in interfering with what didn’t concern you.”

“What time is this interesting event to take place?” inquired Bony, already experiencing the glow produced by good food and drink.

“Probably this afternoon,” Rex replied, and Bony could see he was enjoying the thrills of the sadist. “I have a little more work to do to my engine, tuning, you know. Then I have to extricate Flora and Burning Water from a stalemate.”

“Indeed! You have, then, had news of them?”

“Yes. I kept an old man back from the chase to receive progress reports, and a mulga wire was received an hour ago saying that Burning Water had taken Flora to the Illprinka’s sacred storehouse. Do you know what that means?”

“It means that the Illprinka will not attack Miss McPherson and Burning Water while they remain in that sanctuary.”

“Just so. It means also that Burning Water has condemned himself to death, and henceforth not for a moment will he be able to consider himself safe from an Illprinka spear. Even in his own country he will not be safe, for his own people will do nothing to protect him, even to warn him. I suppose you planned for them to reach that sanctuary?”

“Only as a last resort. Burning Water must have been hard pressed.”

“Yes. He beat my bucks by a head, as it were.”

“Fine fellow, isn’t he?” Bony said.

“Damn fool to condemnhimself like that. But he was always a little soft. Used to be the little Lord Fauntleroy I understand. His sacrifice, as I suppose he’ll think it, will be in vain because the blacks will watch until he and Flora are driven from the place by thirst.”

“They may be picked up by Loveacre,” suggested Bony. “I understand that a plane could be landed quite close.”

“There is just a chance of their rescue by Loveacre, but only a chance. I’ll be out there by twelve o’clock, and then I will destroy Loveacre’s plane with a bomb or two. That done we can leave them to the Illprinka, and you and I will go up over the swamp. I have heard it said that a man falling from a great height loses consciousness, but I don’t believe it. You will be conscious until the moment of impact.

“I am going to have you taken to the hangar where I can keep my eyes on you whilst I work,” he said, and gave Tootsey an order. “I shall be behind you all the time, and should you make a break, I’ll shoot you not through the head but through a kidney. You are going to take that journey into the swamp where you’ll never be found.”

Tootsey and the naked lubra freed Bony’s feet and legs, but for several minutes he was unable to stand. Then, with a lubra either side of him and grasping his arms, he was semi-dragged from the room and along the skirting claypan to the hangar. There they bound his wrists behind his back, bound his arms to his sides, pushed him down on to the stretcher bed, bound his ankles and legs, and bound him from neck to ankles to the stretcher itself.

The place both astonished and interested Bonaparte. There stood the beautiful silver-grey aeroplane revealing with its shining surfaces the devoted attention of a man whose reason was certainly unseated by the obsession for power. The recent high wind had smothered parts of a long bench with sand grains, but no dust was now adhering to the aeroplane. Rex, dressed in mechanic’s overalls, was working on his engine from a wheeled platform. Bony could see a lathe and a tool rack, and there was a handcart loaded with cased petrol, which indicated that the petrol store was not inside the hangar.

An hour passed, during which Rex never spoke. The lubras had gone. The wind maintained its soft whine in the walls and roof, and other than the occasional cawing of a crow and the clink of metal against metal this world of shadow andsunbars was, indeed, peaceful, until a naked aborigine entered and ran to speak with Rex.