Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“ ’Courseall the blokes were after her. When she was a baby, according to old Dogger Smith, there was a lot of talk about her being taken away from the tribe, and people reckoned she would have been took, only her motheruster cook at ‘Government House’, and she got old Borradale to put a spoke in somebody’s wheel. Anyway, as I said, Miss Borradale had a lot of influence over her, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with any bloke, black or white. I fancymeself a bit, and I tried pretty hard to hang my hat up on her, but it was no win. Even Hang-dog Jackuster shiver and shake when she spoke tohim, and the funny part about it was that she wasn’t afraid of him. You’d think she would have been scared stiff by a bloke with a dial like he’s got. There was one man, though, who could have got her if he had thought about it.”

“Oh! Who?” purred the interesteddetective.

“The boss. I seenher looking at himmore’n once when he wasn’t looking at her, and she didn’t know I was looking at her. Sheuster stand still-quite still-and look at him… like… like…”

“Like what?” Bony softly asked.

“You ever been in love, Joe?” surprisingly asked Harry West, and he appeared to find the distant town interesting as he put this question.

“Of course. I am still in love.”

“Well, then you’ll understand. Aliceuster look at the boss with her blue eyes shining like stars-like-like my Tilly looks at me sometimes. Itries to remember how she looked them times, not as she looked when me and the boss saw her dead.”

The young man fell silent, and, having given him a few seconds, Bony urged him to proceed.

“The evening before, Alice had been up at ‘Government House’ jabbering with the maids. It came on to thunder andlightnin ’ and the night was as black as the ace of spades. Anyhow, Alice stayed put till the dry storm had passed over, but even then the air was thick with sand. We blokes had gone to bunk. It was no use any of us asking to take her to the camp, because she would have refused and run off, and even I couldn’t catch her. I tried one afternoon, kiddin ’ I’d kiss her if I caught her, but she left me at the post.

“At the time, a recent flood down the creeks had left filled to the brims both Junction and Station waterholes, and there was a wide stream of waterconnectin ’ them. Alice had to walk up this side of the river and cross it above Junction Waterhole to reach the camp, which was on the far side. Not one of the blacks heard her scream out-if she ever did-and the camp from the place where she was strangled was only sixty-odd yards away. Anyway, old Billy Snowdrop, wot’s supposed to be the king of the tribe, came running to the homestead, where me and the boss and Dogger Smith was talking by the stockyards.

“For quite a bit, Billy Snowdropkep ’ up a jabbering we couldn’t understand about a banshee orbunyip what lived in the creek trees near the camp. After Dogger Smith grabbed Snowdrop’s whiskers and shook him up we gets it that early that morning Sarah was on her way to the homestead to do the washing, not having enough gumption to know there wouldn’t be no washing done that day, when she finds Alice dead under a gum-tree. Well, we ran back with Billy Snowdrop to the body. Aw-it was crook all right. It mightn’t have been so crook if Alice had been old and ugly. I don’t like thinking about how she looked that morning. No, not even now.”

“Did no one know whowas her father?”

“Not that ever I heard.”

“What was done after you were taken to the body?” Bony asked.

“The boss sent me back to the homestead to drive the car into Carie and bring back Lee and Dr. Mulray. He wouldn’t let me go near ‘Government House’, or tell Donald Dreyton to telephone from the office, for fear of upsetting Miss Borradale, who got upsetbad enough when she did hear. As I was leaving, the blacks were rushing across the river above the waterhole, and Billy Snowdrop was yelling for all of ’embar one or two good trackers to keep back.”

“Did they find any tracks, Harry?”

“By then the wind was raging like hell let loose. Therewas no tracks for even them to find, and it started them off talking about thebunyip.”

For a spell they walked in silence.

Then Harry said,“ ’Course, we all reckons abunyip is a kind of blackfeller’s bush ghost. When Simone heard of it he laughed at the blacks, and when they kept it up he roared at ’emand told them to shut up about their fool banshee. Ever since then I have thought there might be something in thatbunyip idea. Old Dogger Smith reckons there is, anyway. He fell out of Ma Nelson’s pub one night a bit the worse for wear, and he got slewed and ended up at Nogga Creek, where he thinks it’s as well to camp. He swears he dreamed hearing a banshee orbunyip laughing at him from up in the tree he was camped under. Queer old bird, Dogger Smith.”

“In what way?”

“Well, for a start, he’s about a hundred and fifty not out. Then, when you camps with him, he keeps you up all night talking about murders. He’s great on murders. Thereain’tno one in this district he don’t know all about. He knew ’emwhen theywas babies, and he knew everything about their pa’s and ma’s before ’em. He’s a corker all right, but he’s got sense with it.”

The sun’s flaming aftermath was drenching the township with colour, and they had vaulted the boundary-fence in preference to opening and shutting one of the gates, when Bony asked:

“What men were at the homestead when Alice was murdered?”

“Men? Oh, me and Dogger Smith, Bill the Cobbler and Hang-dog Jack.”

“Only four of you? How many were there when Frank Marsh was killed?”

“Lemmethink! Yes, the same four and Young-and-Jackson and Waxy Ted. Cripes! That was a night!”

“Indeed!”

“Too right! The day before Frank Marsh was killed Waxy Ted got a fiver fromTatt’s. What does he do but invite all hands to town that evening Frank was murdered. It happened that Lee was upset about something and wasn’t in a good mood, and Mum Nelson gave orders to James that the bar wasn’t to be opened up to the general public. It was no good Waxy Ted trying to get a drink, ’coswhen he’s half-stung he will insist on singing ‘The Face on the Bar-room Floor’. So me and Bill the Cobbler, we took the fiver to the back door and persuades James to hand out thirty bottles of beer, which we takes to the mob parked at the Common gates.

“Hot? It was a hell of a night, and after we had neckedmore’n half the beer we wasn’t even cheerful about it. So we decides to stagger back to the men’s hut and polish off the rest, and just as we were about to start, along comes Frank Marsh. He was a decent bloke. He was working and camping at theStorries ’, making water-tanks. Anyway, when he arrived on his way to town we had to open up another round of bottles, so that by the time we parted from him it must have been around ten o’clock. Gosh! We didn’t think then that poor old Frank would belying dead at them gates next daybreak. You know, Joe, things are getting worse than crook. Me and Tilly is afraid to walk out after dark.”

“You don’t think Barry Elson committed these crimes?”

“No, I don’t, as I said at dinner. The blokewot’s doing them must bestrongish. Alice and Frank and Mabel were reasonably well set up, and it would take a stronger man than Elson to kill them with his bare hands. Tilly backs me up in that.”

“Ah, Tilly! Did she like the ring?”

“Too right, she did. She’s still talking about it. She reckonsit’s miles better than the one Ma Nelson gave Mabel Storrie, and that was a bonzer.”

Iron Hands

AT DAWN THE following Tuesday the wind began rapidly to freshen from the north, and when the pale-yellow sun rose sluggishly above the rim of the world it cast not black, but dirty grey shadows. By noon the sand waves were rolling over the bluebush plain, and the deadbuckbush again lay piled against the fence that Detective-Inspector Bonaparte had slaved to clean. The sun went down in a brown murk, but among the men opinions of the next day’s weather were divided.