Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“I don’t know. What does it mean?”

“It is the announcement to me that I have been boned by the blacks.”

“What’s that!” almost shouted Blake.

Bony turned slightly to regard the policeman who saw in his eyes blue pools of horror.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said, and whistled.

“I see that you realize the seriousness of the threat behind the boning,” Bony said.

“Realize it! I realize it all right,” Blake replied. “I’ve never seen the thing done, but I have known men who have. Old Lacy knows of its deadliness. He once told me that he warned Anderson to be careful or he’d be boned. The old man’s a believer in the magic. Said he saw a white man die of being boned. Why don’t you give up the case and get back to Brisbane as soon as you can?”

“Give it up!” shouted Bony, springing to his feet. “What of my reputation, my personal pride?”

“Well, no one’s going to blame you for giving it up. You’ve been ordered to, remember. Anderson disappeared six months before you came here. It’s not as though his body was found and examined by you the day after he disappeared, when you might have discovered a dozen clues, when the scent was hot. Anyway, who’s to know that the man is dead?”

Bony’s body sank upon his heels, and for a moment he was silent and motionless. Then he said:

“But I know. I was sent here to find out what happened to him, what was done to him and by whom. Ha-um! It would be easy to follow your road. Away from the bush I might defy the magic, most likely I should escape it. But your road would be signposted ‘Failure.’ No one would blame me for obeying orders to give up the case; but I should know, I’d always know that I gave it up because I was unable to carry on, unable to solve it. No one would blame me but myself.”

Sergeant Blake did not speak when Bony finished, the index finger of his right hand pointing at himself. He still failed to understand the basis of Bony’s pride in accomplishment, although now he was sure it was not mere vanity. The Sergeant felt as one of an audience waiting for the curtain to go up. And now up it went.

“No, Sergeant, I couldn’t bear failure. Being what you are, you could never clearly understand what I am. You can have no conception of what I am, what influences are ever at war within me. Once I failed to finish an investigation, I could no longer hold to the straw keeping me afloat on the sea of life, beneath the surface of which the sharks of my maternal ancestry are for ever trying to destroy me. Once I am unable to admire the great Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, I become parted from my straw. Down I go into the sea to be claimed for ever by my mother’s race.

“Don’t for one moment think that I despise my mother’s race. At a very early age I was offered a choice. I could choose to be an aboriginal or a white man. I chose to become the latter, and have become the latter with distinction in all but blood. To fail now would mean to lose everything for which I have worked, and the only thing which enables me to cling to what I have is my pride.

“You cannot know of the eternal battle I fight, to lose which means for me and mine what we should regard as degradation; my family and I should fall to that plane on which live the poor whites and the outcast aborigines. Failure! No. Surrender to the fear of death by boning! No. The white man might say, surrender. My wife, who understands, would say, no. And so, Sergeant, I must go on. I must for the first time triumph over the absence of my greatest asset. I must work against time as well as against the insidious mental poison now beginning to be administered.”

Sergeant Blake regarded Bony with steady eyes. He saw clearly enough that in Bony’s attitude and speech there was no melodrama, no conceit or flashy show. The half-caste’s sincerity was beyond doubt. Blake had heard of the efficacy of the aborigine’s power to will death and achieve it in others. Now the Sergeant understood the basis of Bony’s reputation for success in his chosen work. He felt this late afternoon the shock of the battle Bony had mentioned, the battle which was a clash of inhibitions, loyalties, superstitions, instincts, love, pride and ambition. There sat a man of great courage, and almost eagerly, he said:

“You haven’t made much use of me, sir. Let me help more. Two’s better than one any time. Let me inquire among the blacks who’s doing the boning. It could be stopped. Why, theGordons would stop it.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Bony said very softly.

“Good! Now let’s get going. What shall I do?”

“You will not make inquiry of the blacks, and you will not mention the fact of the boning to theGordons. I will tell you why. My impression of John Gordon and his mother is excellent. My admiration for them is unbounded, for what they are doing for one Australian tribe is unique. I do not think that John Gordon was in any way concerned with the death of Anderson, or that he knows any particular of it. I think him innocent, but I have no proof. Until I have proof of his innocence I cannot permit myself to be beholden to him for any service whatsoever.

“Supposing you went to him, supposing I went to him, and asked him to intercede with the blacks for my life, and then I discovered that he had killed Anderson. Think of that situation. Neither you nor I would ever discover by inquiring among them which of the blacks were doing the boning.

“You have offered to co-operate with me, even after I have written out my resignation from the Force. You are whiter than your skin, Blake. I accept your offer, but still you must be patient with me, be content with the part I shall allot you. Oh, I shall want your assistance all right. Above all I shall want the contact with all that you represent. Will you try to meet me here at six o’clock every evening from now on?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Then I will be waiting for you. If I am not you need not wait for me, for I will be detained on my work. On your way back to-night I want you to stop at Pine Hut and there smash the battery jars inside the telephone box.”

A quick frown came into, then passed from the military face.

“Very well, I’ll do that,” assented Sergeant Blake.

Things Below the Surface

BONY made the two dogs his willing slaves by a method known to the aborigines. They were friendly animals, two rangy members of the great canine League of Nations. One looked something like a Queensland heeler, and in the other there was a distinct strain of the bull terrier. After making a fuss of them, Bony gently forced the nose of each up and into an armpit. Having freed them, he turned to the interested Sergeant, the dogs leaping about him.

“They’ll do,” he said. “They are of the mixed breed I wanted, intelligent, loaded with stamina and hunting mad. For weeks I have been the hunted; now I become the hunter. Aurevoir! I’ll expect you here to-morrow evening at six. Remember to smash those batteries inside the telephone box at Pine Hut, and then be indignant at the vandalism should questions be asked. Nothing of the boning to anyone, remember, and find out, if you can, who is the Kalchut medicine man. You will do all that?”

“I will. You can depend on me.”

And so Bony walked over to his horse and led it to the Karwir boundary gate, the two dogs jumping about horse and man, the horse obviously pleased by the companionship. Blake watched until they all disappeared among the trees beyond the fence.

At a walking pace, Bony rode for two miles towards Green Swamp when, abruptly, he swung his horse round, urged her into a gallop back over her own tracks, and shouted to the dogs. The mare snorted, and the dogs yelped into excited frenzy.