Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“Of course it would,” Young Lacy promptly agreed. “I came this morning because this afternoon the old man wants me to take a truck into town and bring out a load of paints and other stuff. I can bring out all you need this afternoon, and then go on to town. What about your personal wants?”

“Well, Blake is coming out this evening and he could bring the things I require. I’ll make out the list for you to take to him. As for the camp gear, I wonder, now. Could you bring a small tank for water? You see, having to put up a camp, I’d like to have it at the foot of the dunes where the north fence runs down to the flat country bordering the north channel. If you could-”

“Of course! I could truck the camp gear to where you want it, bring a tank over here and fill it and then leave it at the camp. No trouble.”

For the first time this day Bony smiled.

“You are most helpful and I thank you,” he told Young Lacy. “Ah, I’m feeling better already. I had a rotten night. A touch of the Barcoo sickness. You might bring out some aspirin and a bottle or two ofchlorodyne. This case is beginning to open up and I cannot afford to fall sick. By the way, how long now have your sister and John Gordon been in love?”

“About a year, I think. John’s a decent sort but-I say, how did you know-about them?”

“Guessed it,” Bony replied, casually.

“Well, don’t mention it to the old dad, will you? He thinks the sun shines out of Diana, and he’d go to market if he knew. You see, John’s comparatively poor to what Diana and I will be some day. He’s hoping that Diana will marry a duke or something, although how he can expect her to meet a duke here on Karwir I don’t know. And then, there’s another thing. Mother having died, the old man would be ditched without her, you understand. Things being as they are, Diana and John want to keep their affair quiet for a few years.”

“Yes, I understand,” Bony said, softly. “I have thought it might be that way. If your father would readily consent to their marriage, would they marry, do you think?”

The fingers of a brown hand combed the unruly red hair and hazel eyes regarded Bony frankly.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” replied Young Lacy. “If they married it would mean Diana going to live at Meena Lake, and she won’t leave the old dad. Karwir is willed to me, so John couldn’t very well come to live at Karwir. And there’s his mother.”

“Of course! I appreciate the situation, but matters will come right in the end. I had no authority to mention the affair, and I trust you will forget I did mention it.”

“Oh, that’s all right. Well, I suppose I had better get back. I’ll have to pack up the camp gear you’ll need. I’ll be out about three o’clock.”

They rose together from about the fire, and Bony accompanied Young Lacy to the machine; expertly turned into the light wind, it rose to fly away towards the homestead. As Bony walked back to his fire depression sat upon him, and, spiritually, he cried aloud against the fate that had made him what he was and not as the young airman to whom life was a living joy.

It would be at least five hours before he could expect to hear the hum of the truck engine; and, as men in Australia have done for countless ages, Bony squatted over a little fire and now and then absently pushed inward the burning ends of little sticks. He squatted in sunlight, and it seemed that he squatted in shadow cast by a blood wood-tree. It was his mind that was in shadow, this he knew. He could not force it into the sunshine, the spectrum of which contained the rays of hope, health, and ambition. He knew himself to be stricken with an illness not to be conquered by medicine. Hypnotism might succeed, but only in circumstances and in a place far distant and different from this.

Almost all his life this man of two races had sailed a sea over which he had been blown by the wind of ambition towards the Land of Great Achievement. But below the surface of the sea lurked monstrous things, shadowy things that waited, waited always to drag him under and down to a worse existence than that known by his maternal ancestors. And now his craft was discovered to be unseaworthy and was floundering, and the monstrous shadowy shapes were close to the surface waiting patiently to claim him.

The phrase “I am boned,” was hammered upon his mind. It was exactly the same as the phrase “I am sentenced to death.” His mind was ruled by the hideous implication of the idea expressed by the word “boned.” In sympathy with his state of mind, his nerves and muscles were beginning to rebel against normal unconscious control. He felt tired and ill, as a man does who is due for a bout of influenza. But the will to live, the will to achieve, was still strong, and with devastating suddenness it rebelled against the inevitability of the boning.

Bony was on his feet, as though lifted there by the sight of a death-adder. His handsome features were distorted by impotent rage, and facing towards Meena he began to shout:

“Kill me! Go on, blast you, kill me! I defy you to do it. You can’t do it to-day, or to-morrow, or next week or next month. I’m going to live long enough to finish this job. You kill me, you black swine! You can’t do it. I’m half white, d’you hear! I’m a million miles above you, and you can’t drag me down. I’m going to find Jeffery Anderson, and you can’t stop me finding him. I’ll find him. I’ll make him walk the earth and stalk about your camps and point a fleshless finger at you all. Go and tell that to old Nero and Wandin and all the others. You fools! You can’t beat me down, not Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Go on, do your worst and be damned to you. Go and tell Nero-”

As though a shovel-nose spear had entered his back, Bony collapsed to the ground. He writhed and moaned as though, seized by the shark-teeth of despair, he were being pulled down beneath the surface of this brilliant and colourful day. There was none to comfort him, to encourage him, in this land so empty of human beings. None watched, not even the men with blood and feathers on their feet. They knew; they did not have to watch. The dogs had stood stiffly to look in the direction to which Bony had shouted, hoping he was urging them forward to the hunt; but detecting the fearsome ring in his voice, they came to him, softly whimpering, one to lick his neck, the other to bury a cold nose in the hot palm of a hand.

And like a light penetrating the fog, the touch of one dog’s tongue and the other’s nose, and the sound of their soft cries, guided Bony back. He ceased his moans and the writhing of his body. He heaved a long-drawn sigh. He sat up to hug the dogs close to his sides with his arms, and the two mongrels whimpered their pleasure and wanted to lick his face. Presently Bony spoke:

“We mustn’t let go like that again,” he said. “No, not like that. Oh no! We mustn’t let the old bone take full charge like that ever again. After all we are men and we can die like men if and when we have to. To go down like that is just what the bone-pointers are trying to make us do. They want us to lie down and slowly perish without making an effort to resist them. We will resist them, won’t we? We’ve got to find Anderson who is lying somewhere not a great distance from us at this moment. We’ve got to find those who killed him. We’ve got to think not of ourselves but of the investigation, of Marie, of the boys, of old Colonel Spendor, who is my friend although he sacks me sometimes-the old Commissioner who has always believed in me, always secretly acclaimed me as the best detective in Australia, who has helped me to become what I am.

“Find Anderson, that’s what we’ve got to do, my dear old Sool-’Em-Up andHool-’Em-Up. We’ve got to smell him out of his grave, raise him up and make him tell us who slew him and why. We’ve got to work, to hunt day and night, to find Anderson and beat the bone. Oh curse the bone! Let’s forget it! Come on, let’s to work!”