Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

“He’s got two children. Eric is twenty-five and probably the most popular man in the district. Old Lacy dotes on him, gives him lashings of money, but the young fellow has kept his balance. He learned to fly a plane several years ago, but was dished somehow for the Air Force. Flies his own plane about here now and keeps the station books. Diana, the daughter, is just twenty years old. She’s been back from school two years and now runs the homestead. If you’ve got an eye for beauty she’ll make you happy.

“So much for theLacys. About the time Old Lacy took up Karwir, a John Gordon made a station north of it that he named Meena, the homestead being situated on the east shore of a fine lake of water. This year it’s bone dry. He and Old Lacy had a struggle for the possession of Green Swamp, and when Old Lacy got it, the first Gordon was embittered for life. His son carried on after him until twelve years ago when he was killed by his horse. The son’s wife, a fine type of woman, then carried on the place until their son, the present John Gordon, was old enough to take his father’s place. They are respected people. They don’t mix much with local people, but they have maintained a kind of tradition begun by the original Gordon who made himself a protector of the blacks out there, the Kalchut tribe, an off-shoot of the Worgia nation. They will have no interference with the blacks, and because Meena is at the end of the road, and a desert lies beyond it, they and their aborigines are most favoured.

“TheMackays are different from either theLacys or theGordons. Their place is about the size of Meena, only three hundred thousand acres, but their land is much poorer. Mackay himself was stricken with paralysis fifteen years ago, and his wife died four years ago. There are three boys and two girls in the family, ranging from twenty-five to sixteen. The boys are wild and they seem always to have more money than the place could provide them with. That’s about all I can tell you, I think.”

“Quite good, Sergeant. Now we have the background against which Anderson lived. Tell me about him.”

“All right. When Anderson disappeared he was about thirty-five years old. He came to Karwir to jackeroo when he was fifteen or sixteen, and he’s been a jackeroo ever since. Old Lacy was always a bit hard on him, and he gave him his biggest knock in refusing to promote him to the overseership a few years ago when the overseer left. When Young Lacy came home it was expected that the old man would sack Anderson, but he didn’t.

“Anderson was a wonderful horseman, a big, fine-looking man spoiled by a vicious temper and a cruel disposition. The first trouble with him was over a young aboriginal whom Mrs Lacy employed as maid. There was hell to pay over that. The present Gordon’s father and Mrs Gordon created ructions, and refused to permit any female aboriginal to tread on Karwir ground. Then followed another trouble when Anderson beat up an employee named Wilson, known as Bill the Better. Wilson was in the hospital for nine months. Old Lacy paid all the expenses, paid compensation to Wilson, and when the money had been spent, took him again into his employment. Bill the Better is the Karwir groom to-day.

“There was an affair concerning a horse that had to be destroyed, but I never got the rights of it and it was hushed up. Then came an ugly business concerning a blackfellow named Inky Boy. It happened two years back. Inky Boy was employed to look after the Karwir rams. For years Karwir has been running sheep as well as cattle, Anderson one day found half the rams perished in a fence corner, and Inky Boy asleep in his hut. He took Inky Boy out to a tree, tied him to it, and flogged him with his stockwhip until he was almost dead.

“No report of this affair reached me until it was all settled up. Young Lacy was sent to St Albans in his plane to bring out the doctor. TheGordons went over and demanded the carcass, and after the doctor had done what he could they took Inky Boy to Meena and nursed him back to normal. After that no black was allowed by them to work on Karwir.

“You see, theGordons were just as keen to keep this affair from me as were theLacys. They feared that if it leaked out the busybodies down in the cities, who think they know all that’s to be known about our blacks, would agitate for official interference with the Kalchut tribe, probably to the extent of having them moved to strange country on some reserve or other.

“And so Anderson got off scot free. As Inky Boy made no complaint to me, and as I didn’t get to know of it until months after, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“In those circumstances, my dear Blake, you acted wisely,” Bony interjected. “Proceed, please.”

“Well, as I said, Anderson was a fine horseman, a good cattleman, and a passable sheepman. As far as his job was concerned, he knew it. But-Old Lacy knew him. Besides being a good horseman, Anderson was a wizard with a stock-whip. He used it to satisfy his sadistic lust, to give and to witness paid. No one in the district liked him. No one could understand why Old Lacy allowed him to stay on Karwir. After the miss over the vacant overseership, Anderson became sullen, and drank more than was good for him or any man.”

“What is your private opinion about Anderson?” Bony asked.

“Well, as the man is probably dead-”

“I appreciate your reluctance, Blake, to answer my question; but we have to get down to the foundation. Character if often a pointer.”

Still Blake hesitated, filling his pipe and lighting it before replying. Then:

“I think that had life been easier for Anderson he might have turned out differently. From what I’ve heard from time to time, I think that Old Lacy was always too hard with him. Anderson had the right to expect promotion when the overseer left, and, after it was refused, he followed the downward road. When a big man, as Anderson was, becomes governed by passion he is an ugly proposition. I never liked to see him come to town; I always liked to see him leave it. He never gave us any trouble, and that is about all I can say in his favour.”

“He must, then, have had many enemies?”

“That’s so,” Blake replied. “But I’ve never heard of any threats against his life, and I haven’t seen the finger pointing to any particular person who might have engineered his death.”

Abruptly Bony left his chair again to study the wall map. On returning to his seat, he manufactured one of his badly made cigarettes, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and said:

“You mentioned in your report that on the morning of the nineteenth of April you discovered that your tracker had gone back to the tribe. Also that it was learned that he had accompanied the tribe to Deep Well where an aged lubra was dying. Did she die?”

“No. She got better. Still alive and now with the tribe at Meena Lake.”

“About what time did you, or one of the constables, last see the tracker the previous day?”

“I saw him at ten o’clock on the evening of the eighteenth, the day Anderson rode Green Swamp. I went as usual to the stable to see that the horse kept there for duty had been properly fed and bedded. Abie-that was his name-was then asleep on his stretcher in the adjoining stall.”

“How did he receive word about the sick lubra?”

“I don’t know. Mulga wire, I suppose.”

“This Meena Lake is how many miles from here?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“You missed him the next morning, at what time?”

“Half-past seven.”

Bony looked beyond the Sergeant and out the open window. For nearly a minute neither man spoke.

“I suppose that the old lubra out at this Deep Well was really ill. Did you ever check up on that point?”

“Well, no.”

“We’ll have to. An old lubra is reported ill at Deep Well which is forty-two miles from this place where Abie is employed as a tracker. During the vital night it is raining hard, and Abie walks twenty-eight miles to Meena Lake, and a further fourteen miles to Deep Well to find the woman not dying. On the face of those facts the blacks made an extraordinarily bad mistake. You know, my dear Blake, I am already becoming interested in this case. There is another point.