Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

“Gosh, Joe! You’re a corker,” Harry said with great earnestness.

Bony laughed.

“I have the idea that the boss is merely testing you by putting you to real work, Harry. You see, if he thought of making you boss stockman, he would want to be sure of your character, that you would have strength of character to lead the men under you. In any case, why worry; why be depressed? As I pointed out, it is a beautiful day and you find yourself in good company.”

The young man’s expression of gloom persisted for another half-minute, when it swiftly changed to normal cheerfulness. He slapped Bony on the shoulder with his left hand and put on additional speed.

“You know, Harry, I think you are eager to get going on the business end of a crowbar and a shovel,” Bony murmured, or rather his voice sounded but a murmur above the roar of the engine. Harry turned to face his companion, and the truck shied violently.

“Me eager-! Cripes! What you mean?”

“To me it appears obvious. You seem to be so eager that you are endangering both our necks in order to reach the work as quickly as you can.”

The engine ceased its roar and the speed dropped to five miles an hour.

The grinning youth said, “I never thought of that.”

Dogger Smith

DOGGER SMITH HAD for many years lived in a worldall his own -a world in which human beings had a quite secondary part. Thesupreme being in this particular world was Dogger Smith himself, and the lesser beings were the wild dogs against whom he pitted his cunning and the wiles of his trade. Beings of much less importance were the other human inhabitants, but, notwithstanding, Dogger Smith knew every one of them intimately. He appeared to draw their secrets and the details of their lives out of the air, for he was seldom in touch with any human beings, black or white.

He was of immense stature, the most remarkable thing about him being the snowy whiteness of his full beard and hair. He might have been seventy years of age, and then again he might have been over a hundred. He was one of the “immortals” created in the 1860’s, hardened by a diet of meat, damper and tea, and an annual “drunk” at a bush pub. The remnants of these “immortals” are still to be found camped in the pensioners’ communities along the Darling, ancients blessed with agility and mental alertness to be envied by modern men of half their age.

Early this day he had arrived with a flourish at a narrow belt of mulga crossing a section of the fence which had to be repaired. The flourish was given by the roar of an ancient Ford engine lashed with fencing-wire to a truck chassis, clouds of following dust, and a really terrible stench. The grinding of iron and the dust having subsided, Dogger Smith made a fire and boiled a billy for tea.

He was oblivious, or impervious, to the stench, and drank black tea and smoked black tobacco in a short-stemmed wood pipe with evident appreciation. Being refreshed, he set to work cutting forked poles and straight poles and tree-branches, the whole of which he fashioned into an efficient wind-break. Having accomplished so much, he drank more tea and once more filled his pipe with the jet-black plug tobacco.

Harry West unwisely stopped the station truck to leeward of the decrepit Ford, and, as one animal, his five dogs jumped to ground with noses twitching with delight and raced up-wind to thedogger’s truck, where they pawed the ground and whimpered.

“Good day-ee!” roared Dogger Smith. “Come and ’avea drinker tea.”

“Gosh!” gasped Harry. “Yougotta dead horse on that hearse of yours? Cripes, she stinks something awful!”

“Haw! Haw!”came the bellowed roar. “That’s only my secret dog attractor.”

“Secret? There’s nothing secret aboutthat! She’sworse’n a loud-speaker at full blast. What’s it made of?”

“Coo! Like to know, wouldn’t you? Why, I bin offereda ’undredquid for that secret attractor. She’s caught more dogs than you got hairs on your head, young feller. Who’s your lady friend?”

“This here’s Joe Fisher,” replied Harry, to add with pride, “Friend of mine.”

“That is a wonderful dog-lure you have,” Bony said, looking again at the five dogswho were standing on their hind legs and pleasurably sniffing at Dogger Smith’s gear on the truck.

From above a height of six feet a pair of keen hazel eyes looked down into Bony’s smiling face. There was nothing rheumy about those eyes, and there was no mark of spectacles on the bridge of the big Roman nose.

“Glad-ter-meet-cher,” was the non-committal greeting. “You’re a stranger to this district.”

“Yes. I’ve come over from the Gutter for a change,” Bony admitted. “Er-that secret attractor has a very powerful influence over Harry’s dogs. I suppose you get used to it in time?”

“Well, she takes a bit of getting used to, I allow, but sheain’t socrook as the lure what Boozer Harris worked with back in ninety-two. I generallyparks the truck well to leeward, and I’ll shift her now you’ve come. Yougonna get water today, Harry?”

Harry decided that he would, and Bony, who decided he could not endure the stench a moment longer, elected to go with him. They unloaded the truck without discussing the weather, and then took the tank four miles away to fill it at a dam. During their absence Dogger Smith removed the offence and cooked the dinner-boiled salt mutton and potatoes.

The first night in camp Bony and Harry West were entertained by vivid descriptions of a dozen most gruesome murders, and Dogger Smith averred that never before or since his time had there been a cement-worker surpassing Deeming. Throughout the following day the dog-trapper proved that his interest in labour was equal to his interest in murders, and when the second evening of this association arrived Bony was indeed thankful that the sun did not permanently remain above the horizon.

The weather was clear and hot and calm, and constantly the detective looked for signs of the next wind-storm. As none appeared, he delayed his questioning of Dogger Smith in order not to arouse the old man’s suspicions and thus shut off a valuable fount of knowledge. It was the unfortunate Harry who unconsciously gave the lead when, a few evenings later, he complained of Martin Borradale’s decree of banishment to fence work.

“Iain’tgonna hear nothing against young Martin Borradale,” sternly said old Dogger Smith, his great white head thrown back and his hazel eyes hard with sudden wrath. “He’s the best boss you ever worked for, me lad, and he’s just the man to keep you young fellers in your places, like his father before him.”

“Oh, all right,” snarled Harry, really too weary to argue about it.

“Has the boss owned Wirragatta long?” Bony slipped in conciliatorily.

Anger subsided like a spent wave.

“Since his father died. He was born on Wirragatta. I mind the time he was born. It was on the third of January, 1910. The day he was christened I’ll never forget. Old man Borradale and Mrs. Borradale-she were a fine woman, to be sure-was that proud of having a son and heir that they give a grand party in the shearing-shed. Every man on the run was called in to the homestead the day before. Most of the townspeople were invited, too. The day of the christening there were barrels of beer and a special dinner, in the shearing-shed, and the barrels were tapped quick and early. Old Grandfer Littlejohn then was old man Borradale’shorseboy, old Grandfer even in them days being considered past real work. He always was one of them tiredsorta blokes. Any’ow, ’imand the woman wot was cooking at ‘Government House’ got that drunk that they hungonter each other on the dance floor and cried. And then Mrs. Littlejohn was told, and she came on the scene and started to screech at the cook, telling her in about ten thousand words that she was no lady. Then the cook, she hauled off and clouted Ma Littlejohn, and Ma Littlejohn, she clouted the cook. Then all hands fell down together and wentorf to sleep for two days and two nights.”