Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“Blackfeller go walkabout to-morrowp’raps,” Wandin said. “Blackfeller like rabbit, rabbit like blackfeller. Stop one place long timegoodoh. Then little wind come and he no longer stop one place. He go walkabout or he sit down long time and die. Johnny Boss he leave Jimmy Partner and Abie in bush. Look, missus, Johnny Boss he hurry. Waffor?”

When John Gordon was a hundred yards from them, Mary waved to him to join them on this grandstand of fine red sand. She saw the evidence of the horse’s pace in the white foam flecking its shoulders, and then she saw her son’s face made almost ugly with anger. He sent the horse up the yielding slope of the dune and leapt to the ground before them. The horse neighed and, because the reins were not trailed to the ground, turned away and trotted to the yards and the drinking trough.

“All the rabbits are going,” Mary cried excitedly.

Gordon glanced at her, and she received a small thrilling shock at sight of his blazing eyes. To Wandin, he said:

“Have you and Nero been boning that beeg feller blackfeller p’liceman?”

Without hesitation, Wandin replied:

“Yes, Johnny Boss. Him find out too-”

A clenched fist, from the knuckles of which the skin was stripped, crashed to the point of his jaw, and Wandin spun round and fell on his face and chest upon the soft sand of the dune.

Mary stood quite still, her work-worn hands clasped and pressed to her mouth to stifle a scream. Gordon nodded to her, his face a grin of fury, and then ran down the dune and vanished beyond the house. Wandin, sprawling at her feet, called up to her:

“WafforJohnny Boss do that, missus?”

Gordon ran to the gate beyond the house, cleared it like a racing dog, and continued to run along the winding path to the aborigines’ camp. It was deserted, all were away watching the rabbit migration. From the camp Gordon hurried on round the lake shore, and so found Nero squatted over a little fire, an ebony gargoyle and as motionless as one.

Nero did not hear the white man’s approach. He did not even hear the snap of the stick trodden upon by Gordon. His mind was concentrated on the terrible work of killing a man miles away. He toppled over and sprawled beside his little fire when the side of Gordon’s riding boot connected with his stern quarters. As one awakening from a pleasant dream, with his hair and beard dripping red sand, he was picked up and shaken till his eyes appeared likely to drop from their sockets. Then he was flung backward to the ground; and, when he regained his breath and conquered his dizziness, he saw John Gordon squatting beside his little fire and rolling a cigarette.

“Wafforyoukickum like that grey gelding?” he whined.

“Go along to the house and bring Wandin. Run, you devil.”

Nero was long past the real running age, but he made a valiant effort to move faster than his usual gait, his mind most uneasy, his body a little tired from the enforced exertion. The minutes slipped by and Gordon smoked and seldom moved. The rage gradually subsided and left him a little ashamed. He did not look up when the soft crunching of naked feet on soft sand reached him.

“Sit down along me,” he ordered.

Wandin and Nero squatted on either side of him.

“Who told you to bone the blackfeller p’liceman?”

“Jimmy Partner, Johnny Boss,” replied Nero. “Y’see, Johnny Boss, that beeg feller blackfeller p’liceman him find tree and him find green hair from Anderson’s whip feller. Bimeby him find Anderson. Then him make things crook for our Johnny Boss.”

The final phrase, “our Johnny Boss,” spoke a volume of affection. Gordon stared into the small fire, finding it too difficult to look up into the two pairs of appealing black eyes.

“Why you not tell me you bone detective feller?”

“You tellum no point the bone any more, Johnny Boss. Long time back you tellum that. You say bone-pointing no play fair, likeum you said one time me nohittem Wandin with cricket bat feller that time Wandin hehittem me with ball feller. You only little Johnny Boss then.”

So for many days and nights these two, with others of the elder bucks to assist, most probably, had taken turn and turn about to squat over a lonely little fire and will another human being to death, because they thought danger threatened him, not themselves. They hated for him, not for themselves. By the white man’s standards they might be children, but they had employed a weapon fashioned by ten thousand generations, whilst wearing the crown named loyalty. Was he not one of them? Had he not been initiated into the Kalchut tribe? Had he not been entrusted with secrets so zealously guarded by the old men? An enemy was trying to harm him. The enemy must be destroyed. Gordon stood up and they with him. Anxiously they looked into his eyes and were overjoyed to see that the anger had gone from him.

“You no point the bone again, eh?”

Wandin caressed his jaw and Nero certain portions of his plump body.

“No fear, Johnny Boss. We tellum Jimmy Partner git to hell outer it.”

Gordon grasped Wandin by his left arm and Nero by his right arm, and drew them close to him.

“Me sorry feller Ihittem you. You good feller black-fellers. You my fathers and my brothers, but me I’m Johnny Boss, eh?”

“Too right, Johnny Boss.”

“To-morrow you all, lubras and children, go on walkabout Meena Hills. You stay out there till I tellum you come back Meena. Me, I take Jimmy Partner and Malluc. You bin tellum Malluc come along house. In the morning you tellum lubras come along store for tucker.”

A gaunt face and a round one expanded in cheerful grins.

“Now yousittem down all night anddrawum bones and eagle’s claws outer blackfeller p’liceman. You tellum little pointed bones and little sharp claws come outer him.”

“All right, Johnny Boss, we tellum so.”

Gordon’s hands squeezed hard before he left them and returned to the deserted camp, and then along the path back to the gate. Near the horse yards Jimmy Partner and Abie were unsaddling, and Jimmy Partner, forgetful of his enormous strength and wrestling prowess, left his horse and retreated.

“Come here, Jimmy Partner,” Gordon ordered.

The aboriginal hesitated for a moment, then advanced slowly to meet Gordon. When they were near Gordon held out his hand and said:

“I’m sorry I hit you, Jimmy, but you did wrong to get Nero and Wandin to use the bone. The results might be bad, not to the detective but to the Kalchut. Shake hands.”

Jimmy Partner grinned although to do so pained the bridge of his nose. He grasped Gordon’s skinned hand and Gordon did not wince.

“That’s all right, Johnny Boss,” Jimmy Partner said with surprising cheerfulness. “Your crack was only a fly tickler. I didn’t think I was doing any harm-to you.”

“To me, no, but to the Kalchut, the boning might have most harmful results. Don’t you ever again persuade the Kalchut to act without my orders. Better see to your face before you come in for dinner.”

“Me face! Oh, Abie did that when we were sparring out in the paddock. It was quite an accident, wasn’t it, Abie?”

And with knit brows John Gordon left them to walk over to the house.

More Facets

BONY was to remember all his life his awakening on the morning of the second of November. During the night something wonderful had happened to him, and for some time he pondered on what this could be.

The white roof of the box tent was dully opaque, for the sun had not yet risen. It was delightfully cool, and the flies that had taken up their abode with him still slumbered on the sloping canvas panels. Perched on the topmost branch of one of the protecting cabbage-trees, one of Australia’s leading songsters began its serenade to the new day, going through its range of four distinct tunes over and over again. This butcher-bird and two magpies had taken possession of the camp, greatly to the annoyance of the crows.