Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

The evidence provided by the trees went to prove that a party of boys had often played follow-my-leader by swinging themselves along the branches of at least twenty trees. Either the boys, or one man, had made a kind of tree-trail over a long period of time, on each occasion making much the same jumps and using the same hand and footholds.

Along the dry bed of the creek Bony walked to the Broken Hill road, knowing himself safe from observation, his eyes glittering when the sunlight shafts fell on them. For two hours he climbed trees, and at places trod a blazed trail among their branches, a trail blazed for such ashe to see and reason upon.

At odd hours throughout the whole of the next week, Bony climbed trees, finding in them many things of profound interest which had no possible bearing on his investigation. He came to know Nogga Creek from Junction Waterhole to Catfish Hole and up along Thunder Creek almost to Storrie’s house. His work resulted in astonishing knowledge having a direct bearing on his investigation-knowledge given him chiefly by the galahs and their habits.

These rose-breasted, grey-backed parrots favour box-trees in which to nest, those along the two creeks joining to become Wirragatta River having been especially favoured for countless years. And this was the story told by the galahs…

During the late summer, autumn and winter these birds congregate in large flocks, when they feed together on the distant flats and roost together in adjacent trees. Towards the end of July the units comprising the flocks become imbued with the nuptial madness. Their harsh cries become more harsh and louder still. Their feats of wing become more daring and brilliant, it appearing to the observer that they determinedly “show off” like the male lyre-bird and the male peacock. Then, within the space of a week, the flocks break up into pairs, and during the courting period the old nesting-holes in the trees are cleaned out and prepared for the eggs and the young birds.

Countless generations of birds use the same nest-holes every spring. The holes, of course, have their genesis in the work of the borer and thebardee*. The rain continues the rotting of the wood, which is pulled out by the birds back to the living walls of wood. To the bottom of these nest-holes is sometimes the length of a man’s arm. *A beetle larva of Australia, Bardistuscibarius, that bores into plants and is used as food by Aborigines.

The only enemies of the young birds were formerly the wild cats, and now the domesticated cats run wild, and the defensive measures taken by the parent birds to defeat the cats will be attributed to instinct or reason according to the views of the reader. Like all close observers, Bony voted for reason.

When a nest-hole is first prepared, the birds tear away the bark from about the entrance, and, if the hole is at the junction of a branch with the trunk, they clean off the bark about the branch for several feet. With distended combs and much vociferous screeching, they beat and beat their wings against the exposed wood until it is polished to the glass-like surface of a dance floor. No cat, therefore, can possibly find foothold to reach the nest-hole and then claw out the squabs. Every year thereafter the bark-cleared spaces are repolished in this manner.

As previously stated, Bony found many galahs’ nests in the trees along Nogga and Thunder Creeks. At this time the nesting-season was well past, and the young birds, having learned to fly, had with their parents joined into flocks.

Along Thunder Creek and along Nogga Creek, eastward of Catfish Hole, the nests provided the detective with indubitable evidence that they had housed young birds this last season, but in those nests in the trees from Junction Waterhole to Catfish Hole there was found no such evidence. Instead, the wisps of grass and feathers deep in these particular holes were old and brittle. Not onlythe last nesting-season, but at least the season before that, the birds had not used the nest-holes along this section of creek.

It had already become obvious that along this section of trees-from Junction Waterhole up to Catfish Hole-in which the galahs had refused to nest, a party of boys played follow-my-leader and had blazed an easily followed trail among the branches. Either boys, or one man, had made and subsequently used this trail.

The age of the trail was established for Bony by the galahs. About the edges of the wing-polished spaces the bark had grown and overlapped them. With his knife, the detective conducted countless experiments on this overlapping bark until he proved to his entire satisfaction that the birds had not nested along this section of Nogga Creek for four years. The boys, or the single man, by climbing from tree to tree repeatedly, had frightened them from doing so. The trail, therefore, was at least four years old-from two years before Alice Tindall was murdered.

Bony never seriously considered the trail to have been made by a party of boys playing follow-my-leader. He had become convinced that it had been made by a man, and, too, the man who had killed Alice Tindall and attacked Mabel Storrie.

Why did this man climb these trees and swing himself along from branch to branch? Why had he not done his tree-climbing along other sections of the creeks? What, indeed, could be his object? No man would be likely to experience pleasure by doing this. There were no bees’ nests to rob of honey, and for years there had been no young galahs to take from the birds’ nests. His object could not be to leave on the ground no tracks at those times he killed, for did he not always select a night when the next day was certain to be wildly stormy?

And so the galah’s story presented Bony with a singular problem. Why, for at least four years, had a man used the trees along a section of Nogga Creek as another would use a garden path? Try as he might whilst he worked, cleaning the boundary-fence ofbuckbush, Bony could not solve it. The only man he could imagine doing this “tree walking” was the Wirragatta cook, Hang-dog Jack, and Hang-dog Jack, besides being a human travesty, was also a terrific contradiction.

Bony’s mind was still gnawing at this bone late one afternoon as he walked down along the creek road to the homestead after a day’s labour, when there overtook him young Harry West astride a fearsome brute of a horse all a-lather with sweat and still sprung with viciousness despite a gruelling gallop.

“Good day-ee, Joe,” shouted Harry, even as he slid to earth to jerk the reins over the beast’s head and fall into step beside the detective.

Harry West was young and tall and graceful as Adonis, if not so handsome. He was reputed to be the best horseman in the district, and the discerning Bony had quickly noted Harry’s natural ability to do well those things he liked doing. With a small-bore rifle Harry could bring down crows on the wing. With a stockwhip he could flick away pins stuck into a table without disturbing the flour scattered about them. But, although he had attended school until the official leaving age, he was unable to compose a simple letter. He was remarkably proficient in counting hundreds of sheep passing through a gateway, but was beaten by a simple problem sum. In his opinion, any work not able to be done from the back of a horse was exceedingly degrading. Bony was considering the removal ofWest, Henry, from his list.

“She’s come, Joe,” Harry said, the blood mounting into his tanned face even as his hard elbow prodded Bony’s ribs. The smart felt hat was pushed back and there was to be seen a greased “quiff”, which, however, was a poor sort of thing compared with that so carefully and expertly trained by James Spinks, Mrs. Nelson’s barman.

“Who has arrived, Harry?” Bony asked mildly.

“Who? Why, you know. The ring! She came by this morning’s mail.”