The Sands of Windee

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “It cannot be, Illawalli,” he said a little sadly. “Yet do as I ask. for I have had you carried on the emu’s back that you might do it.”

  “Have no fear, Bony. As the missionary at Burke turns the leaves of his book and reads the signs therein, so will I read the pictures in the mind of Moongalliti. Say, now, am I getting old?”

  Bony was idly watching the goanna waddling over the ground, its gait belying its tremendous speed when hard pressed by a dog. Idly, his mind occupied by the possibilities of Illawalli’s power, could he but possess it without the damning condition, he watched it make a small circle, then stand still for a second before raising itself on stiffened legs and swelling out its neck to an alarming thickness.

  A rabbit drew near and crouched down facing the goanna. Another joined it, also crouching and looking into the bright eyes of the reptile. Then at short intervals other rabbits came and gazed at the goanna till presently there was a complete ring about it. Rabbits were scurrying towards the reptile, and after a little while a second ring was formed outside the first. When that was completed a third ring was formed, and yet a fourth, a fifth, sixth, and seventh. Seven rings of grey fur, and in the centre the motionless, evil-looking, gigantic lizard.

  Seven perfect circles, one within the other! Bony watched, and saw possibly a thousand rabbits move as one, so that they sat up on their hind legs. As one, that host of rabbits bowed in deep obeisance to the monarch seven times. At this point remembrance came to Bony and he laughed. He realized that Illawalli was hypnotizing him. Yet knowing it, quite aware that what he saw did not really exist, nevertheless he continued to see it as plainly as though it did exist. In spite of what he knew, he plainly witnessed the rabbits disperse as they had formed the circles, and when the last had gone he watched the swelling of the reptile’s neck subside, saw the long grey-green body sink nearer to the ground, then proceed on its way.

  “You are yet strong in spirit,” he said, chuckling.

  “You say to yourself that ole Illawalli is a great man,” the ancient countered.

  “I did,” Bony admitted. “There is nothing hidden from you, O reader of men’s minds! Come, let us go back, and you read me the mind of Moongalliti.”

  They arose and walked to the camp in the quiet stillness of the newborn night. Arrived at the camp, they found that the hunters had all returned and were eating in the light of several large communal fires. When they joined Moongalliti, Illawalli handed to him a few berries from a box-tree, after he had made many mystic signs over them. And Moongalliti took them and chewed, and because he was given faith he was cured.

  The three sat alone and maintained a long silence. About them the tribe ate or wrangled or conversed with much laughter. The wrangling was only sporadic, the laughter continuous. Children chattered and shrieked, dogs yelped and growled over titbits tossed to them, and the scene was lit by the glowing fires that tipped the tree-leaves with scarlet and put out the stars above.

  Bony broke the silence that had settled about him and his two companions. He said to Illawalli:

  “You’ member Arney? He killed a blackfeller near Camooweal little time ago. Black trackers caught him on the Diamantina, and when a white policeman was taking him back to Camooweal in a motor-car he escaped.”

  “Ah!” Illawalli sighed non-committally, for he had never heard of Arney.

  “Yes. On the way Arney attacked the policeman who was driving the car, nearly killed him, and escaped. They haven’t caught him yet.”

  “Ah!” Illawalli said for the second time, but there was something very significant in the sound of this second “Ah”. Bony felt satisfied. He knew then that the fictitious story regarding Arney and the policeman fighting in the motor-car had brought to the surface of Moongalliti’s mind the story told by Ludbi. And, having set memory going as a wound-up clock, Bony fell into silence again. Moongalliti did not speak; he was making a cigarette, and whilst he made the cigarette Illawalli was reading his thoughts as one reads the printed page. A minute elapsed. Then Illawalli sighed as though he awoke from a long sleep. His forehead was damp with perspiration, and he rubbed his hands as though they were cold. When he looked at Bony, the half-caste saw in his parchment-like face the faint light of triumph.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Strange Lady

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Illawalli disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived. His visit to Windee had been arranged with creditable expedition and privacy by Sergeant Morris, so that none ever knew that the old man had been police-conducted. Illawalli returned to his tribe by slower but none the less interesting methods of locomotion, and the excursion proved to be the crowning experience of his life.

  The day after Illawalli departed. Bony learned that one of the station trucks was leaving for Mount Lion to bring back a load of rations. Instead, therefore, of walking in company with Jack Withers to the site of the new stockyards he and the cross-eyed man were building, he sought and found Jeff Stanton in the station office.

  “Morning, Jeff!” he drawled pleasantly. “I hear Ron is going into Mount Lion this morning, and as I want some clothes, will you allow me to go with him?”

  Stanton relit his half-consumed cigarette before replying: “I’ve got no objection, Bony. You’re on contract work, and time is your own. But I’m paying Jack Withers wages. Can he get along by himself?”

  “Most easily. He knows exactly what to do.”

  “All right. But don’t forget to come back.”

  Bony smiled at the significance in the other’s voice.

  “I will return in order,” he said. “But I had better take ten pounds. Father Ryan is sure to tax me. Besides, I run no account at the stores.”

  “Ten pounds, Mister Roberts,” Stanton snapped, and, while the cheque was being written, he said to Bony: “You come from Queensland, don’t you?”

  “I was born and educated there.”

  “Then what possessed you to come to New South Wales?”

  “Change of scene chiefly.” And then, as though to qualify this statement, he lied blandly: “Also to get a holiday away from my wife.”

  “Humph!”

  Roberts placed the cheque-book before him, and Jeff Stanton signed the form filled in for ten pounds. When taking the cheque Bony sensed that his employer was not satisfied with his explanation; a faint glint of suspicion remained behind the grey eyes fiercely regarding him beneath the white pent eyebrows.

  Whilst walking from the office to the waiting truck loaded high with kangaroo skins, the property of Dot and Dash, he wondered how Jeff Stanton had become suspicious of him. That it was merely suspicion, and not fear, Bony was satisfied. But what it was, or what had occurred to start the suspicion, as well as to cause the change in Marion Stanton’s attitude towards him, the detective was unable to understand. Unless it were that Stanton and his daughter were fully cognizant of the details of Marks’s disappearance.

  Ron, the fresh-faced Englishman, climbed behind the truck steering-wheel on seeing the half-caste hurrying towards him. He was a stalwart youth, not much over twenty, and represented the cream of the British immigrants, those who penetrate to the heart of Australia in preference to slaving for a “cocky” (small farmer) for next to nothing or wandering about a city in a ridiculous quest for non-existent work.

  “Old man a bit off-colour this morning?” he asked, as though fully convinced of it, himself.

  “Not more so than usual,” replied the smiling Bony.

  “He’s a card all right, but I’m sure there is not a better man to work for in this country or in England. Pays me four pounds a week and keep to drive this truck, when other squatters only pay two-fourteen-eight, arbitration wages. What I can’t understand is that, although he pays big wages, he has become a millionaire. It is not as if he has only just started to pay big so’s to get rid of some of his cash. Jack Withers says he has always paid more than anyone else, even when he was battling on his first selection.”

  “It is not a difficult p
roblem,” Bony said reflectively. “There is no waste, nor is there any deterioration going on through neglect of plant. As for the wages aspect of the affair, I remember a parable in your Bible, which once I read from cover to cover, which illustrates a fundamental truth. I refer to the saying—the precise words escape me—that bread thrown on the waters will return greatly increased. Only a very few big employers have realized that, and they must smile inwardly in these days when the universal cry is, ‘Wages must come down’, whereas the universal cry should be, ‘Waste and inefficiency must cease.’”

  “You’re right there,” Ron assented. “There’s old Jones on the other side of Mount Lion. He’s got to pay the Arbitration Court wages to white men, so he employs nigs at less than a pound a week, and he sees to it that they spend their pound a week on tobacco and clothes which he sells them. Well, you know what nigs are. They’re good workers when worked alone, but no good when worked in a mob. Old Jones employs a mob. They were supposed to look after his stock, and they became too tired to overlook a bunch of expensive rams and show them their way to water, so that the rams hung in a corner of a paddock and perished. Sixty-seven of ’em, and they each cost eight pounds.”

  “‘A fool and his money...’” quoted Bony.

  “True enough. But there’s a deuce of a lot of fools in this unsettled world. By crumbs! Remind me to call on Mrs Swale for a parcel for Miss Marion.”

  About half-past ten they reached Mount Lion, where Ron pulled up outside the police-station to obtain from Sergeant Morris the necessary permit to dispatch, per storekeeper’s truck, the kangaroo skins. Bony stayed on the truck seat whilst the Englishman was within the sergeant’s tiny office, and through its window he could hear Morris’s barked questions as though Ron and Dot and Dash were habitual criminals. Carrying the permit, the truck-driver emerged with a slightly flushed face, and when he joined Bony it was to say, a little resentfully:

  “Poor down-trodden England can rightfully boast of the civility of its police, at least.”

  “Never mind,” murmured Bony indulgently. “You can always counter incivility with politeness.”

  “Well, I’ve got to see Hugo about the back loading, but we’ll have a drink first.”

  Within the hotel they discovered Mr Bumpus entertaining a lady over a glass of beer, and at their entry host and guest straightened up and abruptly stopped what obviously was a most confidential conversation. The Englishman called for the drinks, and while Bumpus served them Bony examined the lady cautiously through a mirror behind her.

  She was of medium height and dressed fashionably but loudly. Her face was rouged and painted in no niggardly manner, her hair was yellowish golden, and from even a short distance her age appeared to be about twenty-five. Bony’s penetrating observation, however, stripped her of the appearance of youth created by peroxide and rouge, and he saw in the mirror a forceful woman nearer sixty than fifty years of age, a woman of vitality and not without character of a kind.

  Having served them, Bumpus sidled along the bar to his previous position opposite her, and without the slightest self-consciousness she produced a florin and requested that his and her glasses be refilled. It was so odd for a woman to drink openly in a public bar that Bony found Ron winking at him; but then the oddity was lessened by the fact that Mr Bumpus’s hotel was situated in Mount Lion, and not in the thriving city or town. They were on the verge of leaving, when the woman ceased her low-spoken conversation with the publican and approached Ron. Bony she ignored.

  “They tell me you’re driving for Mr Jeff Stanton,” she said. “I want to see him. Will you give me a lift to Windee?”

  “Yes—why not?”

  “When are you starting back?”

  “After lunch.”

  “All right, I’ll be ready. Here, mister, fill ’em up.”

  So Mr Bumpus refilled the glasses, and Ron and Bony gravely wished that the lady might continue to enjoy good health. Politely the Englishman offered to “shout” in turn, but the woman declined, saying:

  “I travelled all yesterday from Broken Hill. Reckon I’m tired, and I’ll have a lay down before lunch. See you boys after. So long!”

  Smiling at each in turn, she swept from the bar with a swish of knee-high skirts, her figure helping to support the lie regarding her age. On her exit, Bumpus winked significantly and Bony smiled with obvious mirth. Said the publican:

  “Queer party! Got hopeless last night on whisky, and all the morning drinking beer. Stands it better than I could.”

  “What’s she here for?” Ron inquired.

  “Dunno. Wants to pay a visit to Jeff Stanton. Bit of a hard doer. P’rhaps she wants a job cooking or house-maiding.”

  “Ah well! We’ll take her out. I must go and hunt up Hugo. See you later, Bony.”

  Whilst the half-caste followed Ron outside the hotel, he paused on the sidewalk to roll a cigarette and to scheme to interview Sergeant Morris without being observed. The street was deserted when the Englishman entered Hugo’s weatherboard store, and silent, too, until the cockatoo in its cage hung from the store veranda roof observed with its usual distinctness: “How dry we are!

  It was then that Bony, looking up, saw Father Ryan coming out through the whitewashed wicket-gate in front of the sergeant’s house. The little man obviously had cut short his studies on seeing Bony through his window, for he was dressed in tussore silk of a bright yellow colour and wore a very much used Panama hat. There was geniality and purpose in his gait when crossing the road.

  “Good day, Bony!” he greeted, with his wonderfully sunny smile.

  “Good morning, your reverence!” Bony replied, with a slight bow. “Being such a warm day, would you care for some refreshment?”

  “I honestly believe I am entitled to refreshment this hot morning, but I rather fear meeting a somewhat extraordinary lady who arrived here last evening.”

  “The track is clear. She has retired to her room,” laughed the half-caste.

  “Then I no longer fear”—and, taking Bony by the arm, the little priest drew him through that door which led to Mr Bumpus’s private room. When the publican followed them in, Bony looked interrogatively at Father Ryan.

  “A glass of wine, Mr Bumpus,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Bottled beer,” stated Bony.

  Mr Bumpus withdrew.

  “What is your opinion of the visiting lady?” questioned Bony softly. Father Ryan’s eyes clouded.

  “My opinion is hardly formed,” he said. “Obviously she drinks to excess, and yet there is something very straightforward in her manner as well as her speech. I approached her to solicit a subscription for my benevolent fund, but before I could speak she said to Bumpus: ‘A drink! A drink for the Church! A double whisky!’ I was obliged to drink at least half the spirit, for which I do not care; and during the rest of the half-hour I was with her I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”

  Mr Bumpus came in with the drinks on a tray. After he had offered the wine to Father Ryan and taken his drink off the tray, Bony placed thereon the cheque for ten pounds and asked Mr Bumpus to change it.

  “I suppose Mount Lion does not see many strangers?” was Bony’s next question.

  “Well, no, excepting the mail-car passengers, and invariably they stay only one night. Really, I think the last visitor we had was a fellow named Marks, the man who got lost in the bush and presumably perished. A very sad and a quite mysterious affair.”

  Mr Bumpus came back with Bony’s change, which he counted out on the table in notes and silver. Bony was about to pick it up, when Father Ryan cut in:

  “It might be as well to subscribe ten shillings to my benevolent fund,” he said jovially. “You will find it a sort of insurance against indisposition.”

  Bony chuckled, and offered a pound note, saying:

  “I was fully expecting it to be more.”

  “You have yet to prove yourself. I may have to raise the premium, but I sincerely hope not. Come! If you will accompany me to
my rooms, I will write you a receipt; also I have a volume by Nietzsche in which he says a lot about human progress being an illusion, and that mankind advances and retreats alternately in historical cycles. This, I think, from something you said on the tin-kettling night, is something like your belief. I am much afraid you are a Pagan.”

  “Perhaps. Anyway, I believe with some of the Greeks that every event in the past will be repeated in the future,” Bony rejoined gravely. “I am forced to that belief by Nature, since cycles of life are so pronounced among animals. And man, after all, is but an animal.”

  “You are wrong,” the little priest said stoutly. “So was Machiavelli when he said that, as human passions are always the same, so their effects must be always the same. You must read Bernard Bosanquet and ponder on what he has to say about idealism.”

  Reaching the wicket-gate, Father Ryan, talking volubly, was leading Bony to the side-door of the house when Sergeant Morris called loudly for the half-caste to go to his office. The priest’s hand fell on Bony’s forearm, his appealing eyes looked up into the dark face, and he said softly: “Come and see me when the sergeant’s business is over. I want to talk to you, for I realize you are a man of intelligence. It is many years now since I talked with an intelligent man.”

  “I shall be delighted,” Bony assented. “But I shall bring my friends, Marcus Aurelius and Virgil, with me.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “A Little Experiment”

  “I HAVE some official letters for you,” stated Sergeant Morris in his crisp manner when greetings had been exchanged and Bony was seated. “How did your experiment with Illawalli turn out?”