Arthur Upfield - No footprints in the bush

“The old man had a triangle put up. He didn’t shoot the blacks when they got out of hand. He didn’t poison them or hang them. He flogged them. Always said flogging hurt more than hanging, and that a live black was more useful than a dead one. I’ve never had to flog one since Burning Water became chief. The fellow today doesn’t count. He was an Illprinka man.”

“Do you use them as stockmen much?”

“A great deal. I employ a white overseer who lives with his wife and family at the out-station, a white men’s cook, and the old fellow you probably saw tending to the sprinklers. Other than those three all the work is done by the blacks. My mother used to train the young lubras to housemaid and cook, and my niece carries on with breaking them into house service.” McPherson sighed. “But you know how it is. Without warning a girl will vanish leaving her clothes behind, to be seen next day with the tribe. You can’t manage these people.”

“What about Burning Water?”

“Yes, perhaps I was too sweeping. Nevertheless, there is a part of them you can’t change. It might be because they’re too human. Well, Price ought to be here in twenty minutes.”

“How long has Price been stationed at Shaw’s Lagoon?”

“Two years. He’s a good man, intelligent. How do you intend to work with him?”

“With reserve-until I am sure of him. This is my investigation and I will not let up on it until I have put a rope round the neck of that pilot. I will not brook interference from Price, or from anyone else. I shall tell Price that the steering gear of Errey’s car failed when it was rounding abend, that it crashed against the hillside, caught fire, and then rolled down into the gully. By the way, is there a tracker attached to the police station?”

“No,” replied McPherson. “When the police want a tracker they ring me. Burning Water won’t permit any of his men to stay in Shaw’s Lagoon. I wish that blasted pilot would crash somewhere out in the open country.”

“Oh, why?” mildly inquired Bony.

“Because I don’t want publicity outside, you understand. It wouldn’t do me or the station or the blacks an iota of good. The annoyances to which they and I have been subjected are our affair, and we always have been capable of settling our own affairs without fuss.”

There were grounds for the squatter’s objection to the publicity such a murder of a police officer would obtain, because Bony was confident that the pilot of the airplane was behind the theft of McPherson’s cattle, the murder of two Wantella blacks, and other crimes. He now understood, a little more clearly, the mind of this man sitting with him.

That insistence on being able to look after “their” own affairs; that insistence that even the crime of killing was an annoyance, more than hinted that McPherson was jealous of the police and of police protection. Bony thought he could now understand the cause of McPherson’s hostility to any restrictions imposed from outside his own land save only those imposed by financial institutions. The man had been born of people still imbued with the idea of feudal rights and obligations, and all his life he had been cut off from advancing thought. He had stayed still, locked away out here; perhaps had never been to a city.

“I suppose you go occasionally down to one of the cities for a holiday?” he asked the squatter.

“Only once. I went to Sydney. Had a headache all the time I was there. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t even think properly. I came home again after a week. To me it was like being in a madhouse.”

“But Miss McPherson-”

“Flora goes to Melbourne for the first three months of every year. She’s different. She was brought up in a city, but she likes being here with us, all the same. Here’s Price.”

Bony accompanied the squatter to welcome the constable, and the three proceeded at once to the office, where Price asked:

“Sergeant Errey-how is he, sir?”

This policeman was a man. He possessed McPherson’s jaw, but he was bigger, quicker in movement. His mind worked more swiftly as could be seen in his tanned clean-shaven face and keen hazel eyes. He was dynamic and efficient. His manner of addressing Bony obviously impressed the squatter.

“First, here are my credentials.” Bony murmured.

Price’s fleeting smile was a shade grim.

“Following what you stated at the station four days ago, sir, I checked up through divisional headquarters. I shall be glad to render any assistance I can. But Sergeant Errey-”

“I greatly regret, Price, to say that Sergeant Errey is dead,” Bony cut in. Swiftly he told the story of the “accident.” “He had with him a passenger, a Wantella black named Mit-ji, who also perished.”

Price’s lean face revealed his horror.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” he slowly said.

“I know,” Bony almost whispered. “Still, that’s how it is. It appears that Errey was taking the black, Mit-ji, to Shaw’s Lagoon, for further questioning concerning the murder of two aboriginal stockmen. I will continue, not from where Errey left off but from where he began. You will have the sad duty of dealing with the wreckage and the bodies.”

“Were you the only witness?” Price asked.

“Yes. I will write my statement before you leave. I would like you to defer the inquest as long as you possibly can. I have several reasons for asking that. Er -I will be making my report to your Chief Commissioner, which you might post for me on your return to the township.”

“Very well sir.”

“I have a favour to ask of you, too. I don’t like to be addressed as ‘sir,’ ‘Inspector’-if you like, but I prefer merely the abbreviated name ‘Bony.’ You see, Price, I’m not a real policeman.

“Tell me,” Bony proceeded, “is there a squatter inside your district, or outside it, who flies an aeroplane?”

“An aeroplane! No. We have a visit from the Flying Doctor sometimes. His headquarters are at Birdsville, three hundred miles away.”

“Indeed! What kind of a machine is it?”

“Monoplane. A new one. Had it only six months.”

“What is its colour?”

Price frowned. Then:

“Light grey, I think. Yes, light grey.”

“Not a silver-grey. Kindly be definite on the point of colour-if you are able.”

The constable pondered, again frowned.

“No, I don’t think it’s silver-grey. I saw the machine only once-two months ago. Why, Mr McPherson, probably you can answer the Inspector. Dr Whyte visited you that time.”

Bony glanced at the squatter. McPherson had been standing in the door frame, his back to them. Now he turned to answer Price.

“Dr Whyte’s machine is a light grey in colour,” he said. “Yes, he was here two months ago. Came to see my niece, not me. They met in Melbourne last year. If you’re ready we’d better go over for dinner. It’s getting late.”

On the way across to the house, Bony said to Price:

“Is this Doctor Whyte a good pilot?”

“Yes, Inspector, and a good doctor, too.”

Flora McPherson warmly welcomed the constable, and Bony instantly saw another facet of her character in this meeting of youth with youth. This evening she was wearing a semi-evening gown of French-greyninon and her hair was done in a style less severe. She smiled at him; but it was to the policeman she offered her arm.

Bonaparte was destined never to forget that meal, served by efficient aboriginal girls, smartly dressed even to silk stockings and shoes. There were two serving direct from the kitchen; and although in the morning they might be missing and found in the camp as the good Lord made them, they disproved the lie that these people cannot be trained.

Bony was not displeased that Price and their hostess conducted the conversation and that McPherson was taciturn and answered questions monosyllabically. He was still feeling like a man bushed and the gleaming table and soft light, the smooth service and the atmosphere of solidity and security, failed to banish from his mind the array of grim men who watched from the canvassed walls.