Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

That night none of the gins sought Bony for food and a little “bacco”; even Runta’s love had failed, weighed down by the lead of an enormous meal; and Bony, seated on a petrol-case at the kitchen door, sighed and smoked innumerable cigarettes.

The sigh was not inspired by the absence of Runta, nor by relief at her absence. He sighed because it was one of those times when within him war was waged between the spirit of his father and the spirit of his mother. During these times of spiritual strife his black ancestry invariably almost won. The one influence that decided the battle in favour of the spirit of his father was his love for things beautiful and his loathing for things ugly, an influence passed to him by both his parents. Although his base complex urged him towards native savagery, he could find in it nothing of real beauty, nothing of the beauty he had discovered in the white man’s art, in the white man’s striving towards ideals of cleanliness and purity and achievement.

This night Fate offered a salve for his spiritual wounds. He was reading at a late hour Mendel’s treatise on Heredity in Flowers, when at the door of his room appeared the almost naked form of Moongalliti.

“Goo’ day-ee, Bony!” he said cheerfully.“Gibbitbacco.”

Laying down the book, the half-caste examined histin, and, finding it less than half-full, gave it to the chief and from a box obtained a full tin. He was wondering what lay behind this visit. Then:

“Minefren ’, Mertee,” Moongalliti mumbled, and there beside him stood the visiting chief. For a while all three were silent, when suddenly Moongalliti said: “Mertee, he tell-um me plurry liar. You let um see sign, Bony.”

Bony understood, and, rising to his feet, pulled up his shirt and allowed them to see the initiation cuts on his chest. Mertee, apparently satisfied, grunted; then Bony turned round, and the ensuing silence was at last broken by Moongalliti’s triumph.

“Plurry liar, eh?” he said cheerfully.

Again Mertee grunted. Bony rearranged his shirt and, sitting back on the bed, slowly began to remove the tin-foil from the airtight tobacco-tin. Moongalliti took a huge pinch of tobacco from his tin and began to chew. Mertee obtained the tin with determination, and presently he also was chewing. After a little while Moongalliti said:

“Wot you say, Bony?” He pointed first at himself, then at Mertee, and finally at Bony.“Orlsame. Youcomealonga sign stone? You’mtak ’ place sun get-up. Mak’ Ludbi an’ Warn an’Quinambieorl same us?”

Bony slowly smiled, his blue eyes alight. Why not? Why not for one hourbe as they were? Why not ease his soul-hunger of the craving to dive deep into the mysteries of their cult? Still smiling, he left with them. The moon was almost at its zenith. They walked along the creek-bank beneath the leafy box-trees, as their gods always walked in the fairy world of silver and shining dewdrops. At the camp three youths joinedthem, and the party went on along the creek for half a mile, then turned out on the plain for a further half-mile, reaching then the hummock of ironstone.

Bony and the chiefs scrambled to the summit-the three young men stayed below. On the summit the three began to remove a thick layer of weather-corroded stones and rock rubbish, and after nearly twenty minutes’ labour uncovered a level floor of rock squares approximately four yards each way. The rock squares were much broken andchipped, bearing witness to the centuries that had elapsed since they had been laid. Yet on the eastern side was still to be seen, chipped deeply on the squares, a perfect circle, large enough to enclose a standing man’s feet. The preliminary labour completed, old Moongalliti pointed to the circle; and Bony, thrilled to the core, bathed in the glorious moonlight, threw aside his white man’s clothes, and naked stood within the circle. He faced to the east and held up his arms in a sign.

The precise ceremony that followed cannot be described. No white man knows, and no black man yet has been a traitor. An observer on the ground below might have seen the three young bucks join the three on the summit. He might have seen those six figures moving about, and assumed, when three figures only could be seen, that three laid themselves on the square of squares. He would have seen naught else, nor heard a single cry, yet in the morning three young bucks wore on their backs a plaster of mud and herbs kept in place by swathes of old rag.

How came that cult, with a resemblance to Freemasonry, to Australia? Who and what kind of a man was he who brought it? Did the cult date from times when theLemurian continent joined Australia to India? It was a mystery too deep for even Bony to penetrate.

He fed his men on time the next morning, debonair, shaved, and cheerful. He cut up sheep’s carcasses with a glittering butcher’s knife as expertly as probably he had cut human flesh with a sharp stone but a few hours before. The battle of influences for the mastery of his soul was ended, and he knew once again, within as well as without, the blessed tranquillity of peace.

And indeed, it was a day of peace. The blacks lay in the shade, gorged and slothful. Even the children were less exuberant, and the dogs yelped only in their nightmares.

It was long after midnight when uproar broke out in the blacks’ camp. It awoke Bony, who, standing at his door, listened and smiled and felt glad that he was Bony after all. He guessed shrewdly that in the blacks’ camp one of the bucks had been flagrantly caught in the act of making love to another buck’s gin, belonging to a tribe not his own.

Aftermath

DURING THE NIGHT the uproar down the creek broke out sporadically, and when dawn lightened the sky Bony, with Jack Withers, who was as much interested as the half-caste, made their way to the scene of the commotion. They found the two tribes on opposite banks of the creek, the women and children behind the men, the women screaming shrilly and their lords howling guttural threats.

“Wonderwot’s stung ’em,” said the man with the awful squint.

“Woman! Woman undoubtedly is the cause of it,” Bony opined. “Ninety per cent of murders, riots, and private fights are caused by woman-peace-loving woman.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if youain’t right,” Withers said in his slow drawl, as though Bony’s statement conveyed an entirely new idea. “Ole Moongalliti looks terrible narked, and Merteeain’tlookin ’ too cheerful.”

The chiefs occupied front places. Moongalliti, attired only in a loincloth, clutched a heavy murrawirrie in his left hand, and three or four wooden spears, with iron-hard, needle-pointed tips, in the other. Mertee was similarly armed. The bucks behind each were armed likewise with spears andmurrawirries. Of the opposing armies only Moongalliti was really angry. The bucks’ faces were sullen, and appearances indicated that the majority of them would much prefer peace with honour, and a few more hours’ sleep to recompense them for the time lost during the night.

Moongalliti was walking up and down before his bucks, his face continually turned towards Mertee, his white hair and beard matted, his long thin legs looking like jointed ebony rulers. From his wide mouth flowed a stream of unintelligible jargon, which a child could have seen expressed insults, invective, and lurid curses.

“My! Ain’t he going some?” chuckled Withers.

“It will end in a brawl,” said Bony.

“Hope so. Ain’tseen a dog-fight for years.”

“Nor I. It will amuse me,” agreed Bony calmly. “In a few minutes the spears will begin to fly. I suggest we climb this tree to gain a better view.”

“I’m on”-and in thirty seconds Withers was on a comfortable branch, which gave him a grand-stand seat. Bony climbed up beside him.