The Mountains Have a Secret

by Arthur W. Upfield

“It’s always open to visitors. Come on in. We can garage your car and bring in your luggage any old time.”

  Bony followed Simpson to the veranda, and the great yellow-crested cockatoo in its cage suspended from the veranda roof politely asked:

  “What abouta drink?”

  Farther along the veranda a human wreck in a wheeled invalid chair called out:

  “Good day to you!”

  “Good day to you, sir,” replied Bony.

  The invalid propelled his chair forward and Bony paused on the threshold of the door to gaze down into the rheumy eyes of a man past seventy, faded blue eyes gleaming with the light of hope. The white hair and beard badly needed trimming.

  “My father,” said Simpson within the doorway. “Suffers a lot from arthritis. Gentleman’s name is Parkes, Father. Going to stay a few days.”

  “What abouta drink?” shrieked the cockatoo.

  The old man raised his head, failed to obtain the required angle, spun his chair until he did, and then shook a bony fist at the bird. Fury twisted his slavering mouth and his voice was like a wire in wind.

  “If I could get outa this chair I’d wring yer ruddy neck.”

  To which the bird made a noise remarkably similar to that described as a “raspberry”.

  The son chuckled and Bony stepped into a small hall, to be surprised by several large oil-paintings on the walls and a large-scale pictorial map of the locality, which at once promised to be interesting. Part way along the passage beyond, Simpson showed the new guest into a small lounge off which could be seen the bar. Here it was dim and cool, and the floor and furniture gleamed like ebony from constant polishing. Bony called for beer and suggested that Simpson join him. Simpson said:

  “Come from Melbourne?”

  “I don’t live there,” replied Bony. “Don’t like it and wouldn’t live in a city for all the wool in Australia. I own a small place out of Balranald. In sheep, but not big. Haven’t had a spell for years and I’m enjoying one now, just dithering about here and there.”

  “The Gramps are different to your class of country, I suppose?”

  “They’re certainly that. I lease a hundred thousand acres, and I can see across the lot of it with a pair of binoculars, it’s that flat. Fill them up, will you? You get many people this way?”

  “Not so many,” replied Simpson from the pump. “Mostly regulars. Come once or twice every year, chiefly for the fishing at Lake George, and to get off the apron-strings for a necessary change.” He set the glasses upon the narrow counter between bar and lounge and lit a cigarette. “The tourists don’t come this side of the Gramps. Country’s not opened up like it is over at Hall’s Gap. Our visitors are solid and good spenders, and in between parties we have an easy time of it.”

  “The place is probably all the more attractive on that count,” averred Bony. “What’s the road like across to Hall’s Gap?”

  “It was only opened last year,” replied Simpson, exhaling smoke and calmly regarding his guest. “It’s still rough and dangerous for cars with faulty brakes. A hundred thousand acres you have! Lot of country. How many sheep d’you run?”

  “Oh, round about ten thousand. It’s not like the country I’ve crossed since leaving Melbourne, you know. Still, it provides a living.”

  Simpson chuckled and took the glasses back to the pump.

  “Better than hotel-keeping,” he said. “By the way, you might find the old man a bit of an ‘ear basher’, but don’t let him worry you. He’ll put it on you for a drink, but you’d oblige by knocking him back. Booze has been his ruin, and now he’s not quite right. Says silly things and imagines the world’s against him, and all that.”

  The refilled glasses were set down on the counter. Beyond this quiet room were occasional sounds: the screech of the cockatoo, the cawing of a passing crow, the clang of a tin bucket, the crowing of a rooster. To Bony the atmosphere was familiar, but there was a shade of difference between this hotel and those others beside the Outback tracks. For one thing, there was no dust in this place, and for another the pictures in the hall were too good to be housed by such a building and too large to adorn so small a hall.

  There was an oddity about Simpson too. In view of the fact that there had been no guests prior to his own arrival, the licensee seemed to be too neat and too expensively dressed. Groves had said of Simpson that he was a “bit flash”, and doubtless the phrase was meant to apply to the man’s habitual appearance.

  Despite the evidence of fast living, Simpson was still athletic in movement, and the dynamic depths of his character could be felt by the sensitive Bony. He said:

  “Like to see your room?”

  The room was entirely to Bony’s liking, the window opening on to the veranda whereon the invalid reigned in his wheelchair. They went out to the car and garaged it, and Simpson assisted the new guest with his luggage, proving himself a warm host, and afterwards showing the way to the bathrooms and quoting the meal schedule.

  “We usually have dinner about half-past six when times are quiet,” he said. “If you don’t want another drink just now, I’ll do a few jobs waiting my attention. Might take a ride on a horse I’ve bought. Haven’t tried him out yet.”

  Bony assured him that he would be quite all right, and, having unpacked things for immediate use, he made his way out of the building by a side door and crossed to the bridge spanning the creek. The sun was westering, its rays painting with amber and grey the iron face of the range towering high beyond the hotel it threatened to engulf. There was a track going away past the hotel towards the range which could not be beyond a mile away.

  About the hotel and the clearing which it lorded was an outer silence emphasised the more by the small sounds living within it. The singing of the little water went on and on, accompanying the voices of hidden birds, the barking of a dog, the cry of the cockatoo. Three minutes later, seeming to emerge from the outer silence, came the humming of a car engine, low and almost musical.

  At first Bony could not pick up its direction. The sound died away, lived again for a moment, and again sank into oblivion. A long thirty seconds passed before he heard it once more, and then could decide that the machine was somewhere at the foot of the range. Presently he saw it swiftly appear from the back-drop of bush and come gliding towards the hotel along the track which skirted the creek. It stopped at the side of the building, and Simpson appeared at that door by which Bony had left.

  Although not “car-minded”, Bony saw that the machine was a particularly sumptuous Rolls-Royce. A uniformed chauffeur was at the wheel, the passengers being a man and a woman. Simpson walked to the side of the car and spoke to those within through the open window. What he said Bony could not hear, and it was the woman who betrayed the fact that he was speaking of the new guest—a mere involuntary movement of her face.

  Then Simpson was standing back, standing upright, stiffly. The car began to move. It curved past the corner of the building to cross the clearing, and Bony received the impression of a stern masculine face and that of a woman distinctly handsome. The woman did not look at him, but the man did with one swift sidewise glance. The bush swallowed them and the car on its way to Dunkeld.

  In all probability they were the Bensons of Baden Park, but their identity was of less import to Bony than the obvious fact that his map was inaccurate. On his map, the turn-off to Baden Park Station was half a mile beyond the bridge, on the road to Lake George, and not at the hotel.

  He lingered on the bridge for five minutes or more before sauntering to the front veranda steps where he was greeted by the cockatoo with “Nuts!” There were chairs backed against the wall, and he sat in one near old Simpson, who visibly brightened at the prospect of talking with someone.

  “A beautiful place and a beautiful day,” Bony commented.

  “’Tis so,” agreed the ancient indifferently. The tired eyes took in the new guest from his black hair to his shoes, and into them crept that gleam of hope. “You got any brass?”

 
; The Yorkshireman’s name for money was startling, for there was no trace of the Yorkshire accent in the quavering voice.

  “Not very much,” he was told, Bony recalling the request made by the son.

  “Pity. No one seems to have any money. You got any guts?”

  “Not much of that, either. Supposing I had—if you mean courage?”

  The old man glanced furtively at the open window next to Bony’s bedroom. Then he moved his chair closer and whispered:

  “I know where there’s lashings of booze. Jim and Ferris are going off to Dunkeld tonight, and the old woman goes to bed about ten. What say we raid the spirit store? It’s only just along the passage and I’ve got a key. Had it for years. They never found it on me. They don’t know I’ve got it. Inside the store there’s stacks of whisky and brandy and wine—stacks and stacks. Let’s have a night tonight, eh? I ain’t had a real drink in years and I’m as dry as a wax match. We could lock ourselves in there and drink and drink. Shall us?”

  The voice was coaxing, wheedling. The eyes were now wide and imploring. The prisoner in the chair was a prisoner in a dying body. What an escape the prisoner envisaged, what an escape for an hour or so! There was pity in Bonaparte’s heart but no relenting, although he said:

  “I must think it over.”

  “Think it over!” scoffed the old man. “Think over a proposition like that! Free grog and as much as you can down in a coupler hours! And you want to think it over! The modern generation’s soft, that’s what it is. No guts—no—no_____What d’you say your name is?”

  “Call me John. What’s the matter with you?”

  “With me!” was the indignant echo. “Nothin’s the matter with me, young feller, exceptin’ me arthritis and a touch of gout now and then and a hell of a dry throttle. I’ve got good health and plenty of guts, and I ain’t afeared of raidin’ a spirit store like you are. There’s the ruddy spirit store and I got a key to it. All I wants you to do is to go there with me after the old woman’s in bed and open the door for me ’cos I can’t get up at the lock. I tell you there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with me.

  “Nuts!” murmured the cockatoo with astonishing appropriateness. It mumbled something and then yelled: “What abouta drink?”

  Chapter Three

  The Prisoners

  “REACH me down that fowl,” pleaded old Simpson. “Lemme get the feel of his neck in me hands. They only hang him up there to mock at me and put on me the evil eye. They don’t want me to get well and be the master in me own house.”

  Tears of self-pity rolled down his withered cheeks and into the unkempt white whiskers, and Bony said:

  “Have you lived here very long?”

  A palsied forearm was drawn across the watering eyes; the old man’s lips trembled. Bony looked away for a moment or two and then was presented with a picture of youth and virility and courage.

  “Afore you was born,” came the words of the picture, “me and the old woman came here back in the year one. There was no roads to anywhere then once we left Dunkeld, only a bit of track coming through these mountains to get into Baden Park. Every mile of that track was harder than twenty miles over plain country.”

  Memory was wiping away the ravages of the years, overlaying the features with a make-up to re-create a man of yesteryear. The voice lost its quavering, was steady, and the eagerness of the pioneer flared into the light blue eyes.

  “I was young in them days, and the old woman was younger than me. I druv six bullocks in a dray and she druv four horses to a buckboard. She was carryin’ Alf, too. Took us all of a fortnight to make the thirty miles. I had to build two bridges in them weeks, but Kurt Benson promised me land and a fair go if we could make it.

  “We made it all right, and just in time. Settled right here beside the crick. The clearing here now was a clearing then, and when we had let the bullocks and the horses go that first evening, the old woman got her pains. It was raining like hell and cold. They want hospitals now and doctors. Soft, that’s what they are now.

  “Any’ow, we cleared the land back from the crick and grew grapes and fruit. Benson, the present man’s father, was a good man and true. He helped us all he could, and later on he got us the licence and set us up, advertising in the papers for us, helping with the track and all.

  “The first child got drowned in the crick when he was three, and Jim came along then and afterwards Ferris. We did well, me and the old woman. This all belongs to me, you unnerstand, and I ain’t dead yet. Jim’s been at me for years to give it to him, but there ain’t a chance. I signed a will and they don’t know where it is. They’d like to know, but they never will, not until after I’m gone. If they knew where that will is they’d burn it, and one night they’d leave the door of the spirit store open.”

  “What for?” Bony asked without keen interest, for the story he had heard was not an uncommon one. The old man’s voice sank to a sibilant whisper.

  “So’s I’d get inside and drink and drink and drink and never come out any more. Then I’d be another body in that spirit store, all stiff and cold. You wouldn’t let me stay in there and drink and drink until I was dead, would you? You listen and talk to me, you do. The others won’t. Jim won’t let ’em. Jim tells ’em that I’m balmy, he tells ’em I imagines things. He calls ’em away from me and leaves me to be tormented by that ruddy fowl. And his mother’s back of him.”

  The cockatoo whirred its wings and screeched, and it was as though the cacophony wiped off the make-up, burned out the re-created man.

  “Get to hell outa here!” yelled the bird.

  The wisteria hid the veranda steps from Bony and the invalid, and they did not observe the approach of two men who came up the steps. They were dressed in riding-breeches, brown boots and leggings, and both were wearing wide-brimmed felts. Spurs jangled. One of the men laughed. They were young and lean and hard and stained darkly by the sun and the wind.

  “What about a drink?” each asked of the cockatoo, the first with a foreign accent, the second with the clipped tones of a city-bred man. The bird replied with a raspberry and hung upside-down. When the men had entered the building the old man whispered:

  “They’re Benson’s men.”

  There was no apparent reason why the information should be so announced. The voice was tainted by fear, but there was no fear in the old eyes now regarding Bony with clear steadiness. He fancied that he saw mockery in them.

  “D’you get many callers?” he asked, and the previous expression of self-pity flashed into the withered face.

  “Not this time of year. Christmas and Easter we’re full up to the doors. They don’t let me sit here them times—not now. Didn’t mind it much when Ted O’Brien was workin’ here and me and Ted uster talk about the old days. But Jim got rid of Ted. Said he drank too much. Caught him dead drunk in the spirit store first thing one mornin’.” The tears again rolled downwards into the whiskers. “Ain’t got no one to talk to since Ted O’Brien was sacked. You’ll talk to me, won’t you? You won’t believe I’m balmy and steer clear of me, eh? Let’s be cobbers, and one night we can raid the spirit store. Let’s raid it tonight. Jim and Ferris are going to Dunkeld tonight. I heard Ferris tell the old woman about it.”

  The conversation fell away into a monologue of complaints, and presently the two riders came out, followed by Jim Simpson. For a little while they stood above the veranda steps, talking in low voices, and when the man had gone Simpson came along to Bony and the old man. His smile did not include his father.

  “We’ll be serving dinner at six tonight, because my sister and I are going to town,” he said. “It’s half-past five. Will you be wanting a drink before dinner? I’m asking because I’d like to get dressed.”

  “No, thanks. Afterwards, perhaps,” Bony decided.

  Again Simpson smiled, although his eyes remained cold. He said:

  “My mother isn’t feeling very well today, so perhaps I could leave a bottle or two in your room?”

  “Yes, that�
�s an idea. You might let me have a bottle of whisky and some soda water. I’ll be going to bed early.”

  Simpson nodded assent and then looked down at the old man, who had said not a word:

  “Now then, Father, I’m putting you to bed before I dress.”

  “Don’t wanta go to bed,” shouted the invalid. “Too early. Hours yet to sundown.”

  “Well, you’ll have to go,” Simpson said sharply. “Ferris is dressing and Mum isn’t so well. She won’t want to be bothered with you after she’s cleared up.”

  The son moved to the back of the chair and winked at Bony.

  The father shouted that he could put himself to bed, that he needn’t go to bed ever, that he could sleep in his chair anywhere and any time, that Bony could put him to bed later. Despite his protests, he was wheeled away round the far corner of the building, one frail hand thumping an arm rest, the mane of white hair tossing with rage. His voice became blanketed, and Bony guessed he had been taken into a room just beyond the corner of the building, but he could still hear the protests, which availed nothing. Then the old man’s voice sank away into a murmur, and Bony thought it strange that not once had the son spoken after disappearing with the invalid.

  The feeling of pity for old Simpson was being qualified by interest in him. Why would his son not allow him to talk to guests? He did not appear to be non compos mentis. Slightly senile, perhaps. Irritable and often desperately miserable, without doubt. Who would not be so when suffering from such ailments? He wanted merely to talk. And if a guest didn’t mind putting up with him, why was he denied?

  Was it because he was likely to divulge family matters to any stranger? Possibly. Almost any family is jealous of its cupboarded skeletons. To deny the old fellow drink was wise, but there could be another interpretation. A smile touched Bony’s eyes. The subconscious had dictated to the conscious mind to order a bottle of whisky, when Bony seldom drank spirits. A dram might unloose a tongue to tell more of the spirit store and a body within.

  The ethics would have to be determined later—if it became necessary, and that seemed doubtful. After all, an invalid who holds possession of property he is incapable of managing can be a martinet, and damaging grit in any business. The father a confirmed invalid, the son did have responsibilities in his mother and sister.