Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

The John and MaryGordons are not rare in the inland, but the presence of an aboriginal at their table is so. Jimmy Partner was a splendid product of “beginning on them young.” He was a living example, showing to what degree of civilization an Australian aboriginal can reach if given the opportunity. He sat before this table upright and mentally alert. He ate with no less politeness than did the woman who had reared him that he might be a companion to her own child when it was evident he would have no brother. He spoke better than many a white hand, and his voice was entirely free of the harsh accent to be heard in the voices of many university professors, and other literate Australians. He could and did discuss well the topics found in the weekly journals that he read. His personal habits were above reproach. He was the crown of achievement set upon the heads of Mary Gordon and her dead husband.

At the close of the meal John Gordon reached for tobacco and papers and matches, but Jimmy Partner began his customary after-dinner service of washing the dishes whilst the “missus” attended to her bread batter. John crossed to the hen house to lock the fowls safely in from the foxes, and then in the dusk of advancing evening he passed through the gate in the wire fence and so trod the winding path taken by his mother that night of rain in April.

At the camp the tired children were playing as far distant from the communal fires as fear of the dreaded Mindye, that bush spirit ever on the watch to take black-fellows who wandered at night, would permit. The lubras were gossiping in a group near one of the bag and iron humpies and the men were talking gravely whilst crouched about another fire. All the children ran to “Johnny Boss” to escort him into the camp, a toddler clinging to each hand. The lubras ceased their chatter and, unabashed, smiled at him. The men saluted him with:

“Good night, Johnny Boss!”

Observing Nero squatted over a little fire a hundred odd yards distant from the camp, Gordon replied to their salutations, patted the toddlers on their black heads, and walked on to join the chief, his pace unhurried, his face lit by the lamp of prideful affection for all these sixty odd members of the Kalchut tribe.

Old Nero squatting on his naked heels before his little fire was not unlike an ant standing at bay before an enemy, when its body is upright and almost touching the ground. His little fire was being fed with four sticks that now and then were pushed farther into the glowing mound of red embers. John squatted likewise on his heels opposite the chief, so that the little fire was between them and the tiny flames made dark-blue the spiral of smoke rising like a fluted column between their heads.

“Good night, Johnny Boss,” Nero said softly, his black eyes regarding the white man casually but benignly.

When he spoke Gordon used a different language from that in which he conversed with his mother and Jimmy Partner. Nero, like others of the tribe, had been saved from becoming de-tribalized.

“Jimmy Partner he say you tellum big feller black p’liceman come to Opal Town,” he said, interrogatively.

“Too right, Johnny Boss. Wandin he bin tellit me mulga wire.”

“What Wandin mean beeg feller blackfeller p’liceman?”

Nero shook his whitened head.

“No tellum,” he replied.

“What he come for? Find Jeff Anderson, eh?”

“P’haps. He not say properly. He not make smoke signals. Nero not ready.”

Gordon fell to staring downward at the tiny glowing fire whose light reddened the fat old face so close to his own. A pair of old dungaree trousers covered Nero from the waist down, and the firelight revealed the flint cuts crossing his torso. Neither man rose to stand beside this aboriginal fire for relief of leg muscles. Neither found it necessary to obtain any relief from a posture so foreign to people less “primitive” than the race to which Nero belonged.

The fact that Nero had made this little fire held significance for John Gordon. Urgent affairs of state demanded that Nero, being the tribe’s head man, should commune with the spirits, and Gordon knew very well that the matter of importance now being considered was the purport of the message sent by Wandin in Opal Town without the aid of wires or a wireless transmission set.

“What time Wandin tellum you about beeg feller black-feller p’liceman?” he asked.

Nero carefully rearranged the tips of the burning sticks to give additional light, and then he drew with a finger point on the ground, a perpendicular mark from the base of a horizontal mark, the horizontal mark representing the shadow cast by the perpendicular one about two o’clock.

“You been tryinghearim Wandin again?”

Nero nodded, saying:

“Wandin, he no talk.”

They fell silent again, and over Nero’s shoulders Gordon saw the children gradually close in about the communal fires, and disappear one after the other to the humpies. The lubras began to do likewise until only the men remained in his sight. Usually a little boisterous, this night their spirits appeared to be repressed by the conference at the little fire.

Gordon was about to rise preparatory to returning to the house when several of the dogs began to bark. Those at the communal fire shouted at them, and from barking they fell to whimpering. Then from out the encircling blackness beyond the near box-trees, Gordon saw emerge the tall and gaunt figure of Wandin.

“Wandin come,” he said to Nero whose back was towards the traveller from Opal Town.

Wandin passed first to those about the communal fire, and one of the young men rose and brought him water in an old billycan. Wandin drank long and deeply, then, giving the billy back to the same young man, he crossed to the little fire and without greeting squatted between Nero and Gordon. Not until he had bitten a chunk of tobacco from a plug did he say, his voice low and guttural:

“Sargint pay me. Tellum git to hell outer it.”

Gordon offered no remark and Nero remained silent. At the expiration of a full minute’s chewing, Wandin went on:

“White blackfeller p’liceman come on mail car. He eat tucker along Sargint and missus. Then he havewongie along Sargint in office feller. White blackfeller wantum know ’bout old Sarah, an’ Sargint he tellum shegoodoh. White blackfeller him wantum know what time Abie he come go to Deep Well that time we go walkabout an’ sit down Painted Hills.”

A course of tobacco chewing interrupted the tale, Then:

“I sit down close office feller window. I hear beeg feller white blackfellow tellit Sargint he find out ’bout Jeff Anderson. The Sargint he look-see outer window and see me, an’ he tellit me go into office feller. In office feller I see white blackfeller. All flash like Johnny Boss when he go Opal Town. White blackfellow he wantum know totem feller all belong me. Then he do this-” Wandin pulled apart the throat of his shirt. “Then he say ah you beeg feller blackfeller, eh? You know plenty magic, eh, all too right. He laugh. Him plenty beeg p’liceman all right.”

Again Wandin fell to chewing, and Gordon knew full well that to reveal impatience would be to commit error. Then Wandin went on:

“Sargint him bin tellit me got to ’ell outer it. So I go sit-down and send message. Long time I send message. I say one beeg feller blackfeller p’liceman ’cosI nogabbit half-caste p’liceman. Bimeby him and Sargint go out to motor and go way out to landing fellerbelonga plane. I go, too. Bimeby plane him come and I look-see Young Lacy get out and bimeby him and half-caste p’liceman go in plane feller and fly away Karwir.”

Again Wandin became silent. Nero grunted but did not speak, waiting for Johnny Boss to answer the riddle.

“What name half-caste p’liceman?” questioned Gordon.