AHMM, October 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Anything more you can tell me about why McGrath did what he did, Jane?"

  "No."

  Leonard thanked the woman and watched her almost run toward the shelter of the women's area. Then he trudged back to the trio of elders. Danny Wallaby glared up at the copper. “Get what you came for?"

  "Some of it. Who went with McGrath to Fitzroy Crossing?"

  Walter Carter looked up. “Me."

  And, according to the incident report, returned with the police to show them the body. “He just walked into camp and told you what he did?"

  Carter nodded.

  "What time of day was this?"

  "One, maybe two hours before sunset."

  Five, six in the afternoon. If they drove immediately to the police station they would have arrived at Fitzroy Crossing about midnight. But McGrath was locked up just after noon—meaning he stayed overnight in this camp, plenty of time to talk about what happened. “Did McGrath tell you why he killed the man?"

  "The dead man pointed a bone at him."

  Leonard nodded. “Did McGrath say why the dead man owed him money?"

  "Some work."

  "Or where the dead man got his money?"

  Carter's gaze sharpened as he probed into Leonard's eyes. Smith expected that and gazed back unblinking.

  "He did not tell me."

  Leonard let silence work for him. Then, “I need to see where McGrath killed the man. And you and me, Walter, we need to talk. Take me—we'll talk there."

  Carter's breathing paused. The other two were intensely aware of the Law Man without looking directly at him. Leonard watched Carter weigh losing status if he showed fear of a policeman or of visiting a death site. “It's a bad place now."

  "My law takes me to bad places. If your law is strong, it protects you there."

  The man grunted, then stood. “This way."

  There was nothing special about the site: an isolated savannah of kangaroo grass brittle with drought and dotted here and there by prickle bush, cotton trees, and tall termite mounds. It had been almost a week, but Leonard could see where vehicle tires mashed down the orange grass and wandering feet bent paths that converged on an empty flat spot. Walter Carter leaned on his stick and averted his eyes from the patch of broken stems.

  A circle of turned-over earth was at one corner of the spot. Leonard guessed it was the site of a purification ceremony. Such rites often made use of a fire pit and smoke from konkerberry leaves, though he had never heard of smoking a murder site. But his civilized education had left him ignorant of much lore; in the words of his mother's people, he had lost his Dreaming in the white man's world. “You smoked this place?"

  Carter glanced at the disturbed sand and nodded once.

  "And now the dead man's ghost is at rest."

  The Law Man said nothing; the results of his magic were secret.

  "Some things bother me,” said Leonard. “First, McGrath claims to be worried about the dead man's ghost. But if the ghost was smoked maybe he doesn't have to worry anymore.” He waited but the only reply was the calm gaze. “Second is money—the dead man paid McGrath for a job and promised more. But the dead man didn't earn any CDEP money. So where did he get money to pay McGrath? Or to pay a bone doctor to point at McGrath?"

  The Law Man blinked and turned silently to stride back to the men's camp.

  Leonard watched him disappear through the grass. Then he returned to his ute, spread out his swag, cooked his supper, and thought.

  * * * *

  The next morning, after six hours of slow driving, Leonard's ute ground up a dry stream bed between two shelves of rock. The Red Bluff Homestead, where McGrath and his wife worked, lay where the Great Sandy Desert met the St. George Range. During the Wet, the stream ran for months and cut off the homestead with flood and mud. This time of year, it was an arid and sun-scalded land that provided poor grazing for cattle. What little water remained was hard to find, and deep under the soil.

  Old tracks led up the embankment to weave through widely spaced shrubs, patches of green spinifex, and past tall rocklike termite mounds. Finally Leonard saw a cluster of buildings sheltered by gum trees. Behind the buildings, a bluff gave the homestead its name. Residence, sheep pens, outbuildings, two sun-worn caravans on cinder blocks, a stock tank and a windmill to fill it. By the time he halted, the two dogs had stopped barking and sidled head-down toward the ute with their tails wagging tentatively. A boy around eight or nine stood on the veranda and stared.

  Giving the dogs a few seconds to sniff his legs, Leonard nodded. “G'day. Is your dad about?"

  Without a word, the boy turned back into the house. A moment later, Leonard heard his voice, “Mum—"

  He went up the three plank steps and waited with his hat off, grateful for the aroma of eucalyptus and the breeze that dried the sweat in his hair. The heat and humidity, growing heavier each day as the weather built to the coming monsoon, explained Sergeant Cappiello's sense of urgency.

  Heels thumped. A woman in her late thirties and worn thin with labor and harsh climate stood behind the plastic fly strips guarding the door. “Something you need?"

  "G'day, Mrs. Howitt. I'm Constable Smith. Don't like to bother you, but I have to ask Mrs. McGrath a few questions. Is she about?"

  The woman's eyes were pale blue in her sun-browned face. “Elaine's gone."

  "Do you know where she went?"

  "Back to her people."

  "Would that be near Broome?"

  She shook her head quickly. “I don't know. Wherever her people are."

  Leonard looked around the yard. “Can I ask you some questions? You and your husband?"

  "He's out in the paddock.” Either respecting his uniform or the fact he was half-white, she remembered outback hospitality and nodded toward a scatter of large wooden chairs. “Sit down.” Over her shoulder, “Richard, go fetch your dad.” To Leonard: “You could use something cool to drink."

  "I could, Mrs. Howitt. Thank you."

  In the heat, insects creaked in the brush. Beneath the veranda a dog scratched, leg thumping the cool dirt. Flies hung languid and numerous in the humidity. Mrs. Howitt elbowed through the plastic strips in the doorway with two tins of beer cooled by damp stubbies. “Very nice,” said Leonard. “And much appreciated."

  The woman sipped and gazed at the heat-shimmering horizon. Her mind was on something else. “We don't have the death sentence anymore."

  Leonard took another drink. Capital punishment ceased thirty or forty years ago. “McGrath'll get prison. Sometimes that's worse than death."

  She glanced at one of the anchored caravans. “That's where they lived—six years, now. Barney was a good worker, him and Elaine both.” She added, “They have a son, Tommy—bright little fellow.” Then, “This is going to hurt him so much."

  "Did you know Billy Withers? Or about any business he and McGrath had?"

  "No. None of us did. They keep a lot to themselves, they do—live in two worlds.” She added, “I told Elaine that she and Tommy could stay, but she didn't want to."

  A crunch of boots scrambled the dogs from under the porch as Howitt came around the corner. His broad hat was stained with sweat and a dark V wet his shirtfront. “G'day. Me son says you're asking after Barney. How's he doing?” Mrs. Howitt went inside and came out with two more beers. Her husband threw one down his throat, then sipped another more slowly as he settled into a chair. “He holding up okay?"

  "As well as can be expected. Do you have any idea why McGrath did it?"

  "No. A bloody surprise—leaves me shorthanded at the worst time."

  "You didn't know he left the station?"

  "No. He came and went as he wanted, as long's the work was done.” He explained, “He had his own ute—his wife has it now."

  "She drives?"

  "Yeah—town Abo. Has some schooling, anyway."

  The tiny pee-wee call of a distant magpie lark drifted on the wind.

  "How'd you hear about the killing?"

&
nbsp; "Radiophone—Sergeant Cappiello."

  "Are there any bone pointers around that McGrath might have talked with?"

  Howitt's bushy eyebrows lifted. “Nearest permanent black-fella community's forty or fifty kilometers from here. But during the Dry, sit-down camps are scattered wherever there's a water hole. Is that what all this is about? Bloody witchcraft?"

  "Some of it. Are there any sacred sites around here?"

  "To them every damn thing's sacred around here.” His head jerked toward the bluff behind the house. “Used to be they'd go up there every year for a ceremony. Had to keep the cattle safe from ‘em!"

  "They stopped using the site?"

  "My father finally chased them off. Thirty years ago now, and good riddance.” Then, more philosophically, “Well, forty thousand years of walkabout and storytelling can put meaning in every rock. This station's sacred to me after only three generations of sweat, I tell you that."

  "Did McGrath ever talk of doing a job for Billy Withers?"

  "Never talked about Withers at all. Not to me, anyway."

  "How about to any of the other blokes?"

  "Aren't any.” His thumb jabbed toward the empty caravans. “Can't hire a white man to work out here. And since the bloody government makes us pay white-fella wages to the Abos, I can't afford any more blacks, either. And now Barney's gone."

  "Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Was McGrath worried or upset?"

  "Don't think so. He had his work, I had mine, so we only saw each other a couple times a day. Now I do both, and I have a lot more to do while it's still light."

  Leonard ignored the hint. “He didn't complain about feeling sick?"

  "Said something about not sleeping too well. I told him to work a little harder, see if that helped."

  "Did McGrath like working here?"

  "I'd say so. We treated them decent—they came back every year. This was their sixth season."

  "They didn't live here during the Wet?"

  "Not enough work then."

  Many stations cut to skeleton crews from November to March. “Do you know where they went?"

  "No."

  "And he never mentioned Billy Withers?"

  "I told you. No."

  * * * *

  Leonard drove down the streambed and pulled out near a clump of trees to camp. Rolling out his swag, he heated his billycan over the small butane stove as he fished his evening meal out of the Esky. Though his hands did the work, his mind went back to the murder site, its isolation, its fire pit, the ritual—probably a lengthy one—that protected the living from the angry spirit of the dead. By the time he finished washing up, he could not have said what he'd just eaten. But he did have the germ of an idea.

  The Bone Pointer, Walter Carter, had rituals and songs, but Leonard had a little magic of his own: the new satellite phone that had been issued for use in remote areas. The first call was to his cousin Thelma in Broome, the daughter of his mother's sister. The second was a message for Sergeant Cappiello, “Please check with the Kimberley Land Council for any claims involving Jiwarli land in the last two years."

  In the cool of morning as he fried his brekkie, he vaguely remembered falling asleep to the distant howls of dingoes. But his memory of talking with his cousin was sharp. The story of Billy Withers's death and McGrath's arrest had made the Broome newspaper and radio station. Elaine McGrath was at her mother's house in neighboring Goolarabooloo, and Thelma heard from a cousin living there that Elaine told a friend she expected her husband to serve only short time in jail. And that she was going to send their son to boarding school. It was hearsay, rumor, gossip, and worthless in court. But it added a piece to the picture Leonard was beginning to see.

  Later, as he drove toward Bore No. 7, Sergeant Cappiello rang his satphone and plugged in another piece.

  Leonard found Walter Carter seated in the men's area carefully picking pituri leaves from a pile of wiry stems. Leonard nodded “G'day” and sat on the sand across from the man. “You remember I had questions about the dead man and money?” When Carter did not reply, he said, “You're going to testify that the dead man asked you to bone Barney McGrath, aren't you?"

  The Law Man gently tugged a few more leaves. Then, “Yes."

  "There's no white man's law against ritual. But the court will listen to Indigenous beliefs and consider them during sentencing."

  More leaves went on the pile. Pituri, high in nicotine, was a potent bush medicine as well as ceremonial drug. Traditionally, the leaves were chewed for energy on long walks, as a preparation for fighting, as part of the circumcision rites. Leonard wasn't sure how this Spirit Doctor intended to use them, other than as an excuse for not answering.

  "But a lot more things puzzle me, Walter. Why did a gadia visit the dead man? What kind of job was it that the dead man could not do himself? Where did the dead man get money to pay McGrath? What happened between the time of the killing and when you and McGrath reached Fitzroy Crossing the next day?” He waited for a reply, but the Spirit Doctor picked at the branch in silence. “Maybe there was no bone pointing. Maybe the dead man had no job—or money—for McGrath. Maybe McGrath killed the man for some other reason."

  Carter looked up at Leonard and seemed to grow taller even as he sat. Leonard imagined heat radiating from the glistening black of the Spirit Doctor's face and neck. He stroked the satphone in his shirt pocket like an amulet and went on.

  "Maybe the reason has to do with the dead man filing a claim for part of the Red Bluff Homestead four months ago. He claimed that a Jiwarli ceremonial site was on that station and he wanted to excise that block of land. Use it to bring the remaining Jiwarli together again."

  Carter's voice was a murmur, “It's not only Jiwarli place. It's Yulparija too—been Yulparija from Dreamtime. Our Rai lives there, in the ground."

  "Rai?"

  Carter's shoulders lifted in a sigh, perhaps at Leonard's ignorance of his mother's lore. “Birth Spirit—Conception Spirit. The fertility of our people.” After a moment, he added, “Without it, our people will disappear. Like Jiwarli. Like so many others."

  "Do the Jiwarli believe their Rai is there too?"

  "No. It was ceremony place for them too. But I don't know their Dreaming, so I don't know what ceremony it was. Long time ago Yulparija Law Men and Jiwarli Law Men stopped fighting over that place. They said it could be shared because it held different Dreamings. But the dead man broke that law."

  "How's that?"

  "Like you said, he put a claim on that place. But not for Jiwarli—no Jiwarli left. It was for him: grog money."

  "But if he claimed it, couldn't you still share it?"

  "White man wants to mine that place. Put holes in the ground where our Rai lives."

  "Howitt?"

  "No. Howitt's grandfather promised Yulparija that the place would always be sacred if they did not fight him or kill his cattle. And Howitt promised me it would not be mined."

  Leonard scanned the possibilities. “The gadia who talked with the dead man wants to mine it? But it's a ceremonial site for the Yulparija, too! Couldn't you put a claim on it?"

  "You know the West Australia mineral law? What it means for Aboriginal land titles?"

  "Is that the law that says mine operators need permission from white land owners before they dig, but not from Aboriginal land owners?"

  Carter nodded. “Mining company can dig their holes on Aboriginal land. It means roads be cut across Howitt's station. His water used up for mining."

  Leonard considered that. “Howitt promised you he would not allow mining?"

  The Law Man said nothing.

  "Then you and McGrath invented the bone pointing story ... and Howitt paid McGrath to kill..."

  "No. He be giving Elaine McGrath money while her husband is in prison. Like McGrath is working for him, just working in prison."

  "Hell of a bloody job, that! So afterwards you purified McGrath and the dead man's ghost, and came up with this bone pointing story?"r />
  Again Carter said nothing. The silence left Constable Smith without a statement he could attest to and no confession other than McGrath's to be brought into court. “It's a gamble, Walter—and a big one—whether a white judge will take McGrath's self-defense plea. He could serve life instead of a few years.” He waited for Carter to reply, but the man just stared back. Finally, Leonard asked, “Did Barney McGrath do it himself, or did he have help?"

  Smith wasn't certain if the man smiled slightly or just clamped his lips. From Walter Carter's point of view, Billy Withers had been willing to drive off the Yulparija's Rai and had been killed in defense of the Yulparija people. It was a twisted argument, but this land had spirits whose demands White law could not satisfy. And there were things that police science could not teach.

  * * * *

  On the long drive back to Fitzroy Crossing, the air began to feel like wool and itched with electricity. Above the northern horizon a massive heave of cloud slowly boiled up to gleam against the hot sky. Below it, smaller clouds—flat and gray—scudded before. Inside the rising mountain, the roiling force was purple-dark with pink and blue flashes of lightning. The god of storms was once more bringing rain to the parched land, mixing the awesome terrors of cyclone, lightning, and flood with the blessings of fertility.

  The buildup was over, the monsoon was arriving—a mix of threat and life. The thought fit Constable Smith's thoughts about the murder of Billy Withers. If McGrath was happy with free room and board for ten or so years, then everybody except the mining company and perhaps Jane Withers was happy: white man's law was satisfied, McGrath's wife could move back to Broome, his son would have an education, Howitt would keep his station and its water, the Rai would keep its sacred home, and Walter Carter's Yulparija clan would survive. And Sergeant Cappiello would be happy to have no revenge killings.

  Copyright © 2009 Rex Burns

  Author's Note: Thanks to Terry Thornett for his key contributions.

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  Fiction: A GOOD CUPPA JOE by Joanne Dobson and Beverle Graves Myers

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