The head stockman, who was leading a saddled mare from a yard, led her to his employer. He was looking hard and efficient this morning.
“Any idea where old Patsy worked his last trap line?” Weatherby asked, and Ringer smiled and kicked dust.
“Dunno,” he replied. “Ole Patsy cunnin’ feller all right. Tommy seen camel tracks other side of the Splinter … jus’ before the rain. Could be, old Patsy worked them saltpans out there.”
“All right, Ringer. You get going, and don’t forget to look-see at Mason’s Hole.”
“Those traps hardly worth going after, even if you knew where to look,” remarked the younger Weatherby while rolling a cigarette. Casually Bony turned to him, his face empty of expression as they expected. This younger Weatherby seemed to be stronger in character than the other, and about him was an aura hinting at a far different background. Although dressed for riding and with that horsey appearance common to all cattlemen, he lacked the ease of movement.
“Better find ’em all the same,” persisted William Black. “The lawyer said I had to bring in everything belonging to my uncle.”
“Not worth the trouble and time,” stressed the younger man. “Still, if you want it that way …” Sliding off the rails, he walked away to the house, his body upright, his legs straight. The elder Weatherby said:
“Old Patsy pottered about this country for years. Where he set his traps no one bothered to ask. If you must go looking for traps, Black, just to satisfy a lawyer, then you’d better make for the Splinter and pick up the camel tracks from there—if you can, because it rained seventy points since Tommy was out there.”
“Where’s this Splinter, Mr. Weatherby?”
“You take the Rawlinna track out by the blacks’ camp for about three miles. At the three-mile there’s a branch track out to a bore, six miles on. There’s no track beyond the bore, but keep on for another twelve miles when you’ll come to an upthrust of rock we call the Splinter. No water except in shallow rock-holes. You’ll have to take what you can and go easy on what you take. Claypan water is too salt for men, but the camels can exist on it.” Weatherby slid to the ground. “Anyway, complete that inventory and we’ll fix it before you leave. You take my tip and forget the traps.”
Bony remained on the rails like a man confronted by a problem. Lucy came and slipped under the bottom rail and pranced daintily about the camels in the yard, passing between their large flat pads with the familiarity of established comradeship.
The request for the inventory of Lonergan’s property was reasonable. There wasn’t much to it, and it was not intended to include the contents of a small and battered suitcase found under the bunk.
The willingness to have the camels yarded was also reasonable, as was the recitation of the difficulties surrounding the location of the dead man’s traps. The attitude to him, William Black, of the Weatherbys was normal. The entire atmosphere of this homestead was normal, too.
There was, however, one oddity. The previous day the head stockman said that the wild dogs were working north of the homestead. This morning the head stockman had supported Weatherby’s contention that the dogs were working over the salt-pan country to the west.
Returning to the old trapper’s hut, Bony completed the inventory and checked the tinned foodstuffs and other items Lonergan had left within the saddle-bags and the tucker-box. Then, taking the stout calico ration bags, he crossed to the rear of the house to purchase what he needed.
An aborigine maid told him to go to the store where Mrs. Weatherby would serve him, and he had waited minutes when the younger woman appeared and led him inside. The questing eyes gazed upon him without interest, and her expression gave him the feeling that she never really smiled.
“Now what is it you want?” she asked sharply, and so began the business of buying flour, sugar, tea, tinned meats and jam, salt and sauces, tobacco in plugs and cigarette papers and matches.
“P’raps Mr. Weatherby would set the bill against what’s owed to my uncle,” suggested William Black, and the woman nodded agreement and pushed forward the docket for him to sign. “I’ve fixed up the list, too.”
“Then I’ll make it out in duplicate. Wait.”
She typed with professional speed whilst Bony leaned against a stack of cases and wondered if he had actually seen her before coming to Mount Singular. Her husband, the younger Weatherby, intruded into his mind and rang a tiny bell which produced no answer to its demand. The machine spilled the papers and the carbon, and Mrs. Weatherby dipped a pen into ink and proffered it, saying:
“You write very well, Black.”
That was a slip, a small slip, in the building of the character of an itinerant half-caste, a faint flaw in otherwise perfect work, and he experienced annoyance added to that occasioned by the failure of the bell.
“Liked writing at school,” he said. “Not much good at anything else.” He signed both typed sheets, and regained his hand-written list. “Mr. Weatherby’ll sign, too,” he said. “The lawyer …”
“Don’t bother with them, Black.” Her large eyes were mere pools of brown and expressed nothing, and Bony wondered at the utter lack of entity. “I’ll have Mr. Weatherby sign right now, and you can take a copy before you leave. All lawyers are fussy persons, and you needn’t take much notice of what they say.”
He managed a shame-faced smile at his own stubbornness, thanked her in a casual manner and carried the rations back to the hut, where he proceeded to set out the gear ready for packing on the camels. Lucy ran to meet him on his arrival at the yards.
The noseline, a light line to which a loop of twine was attached, was expertly tossed over Millie’s head which was drawn down to slip the twine loop about her nose-plug. She wanted then to chew Bony’s right ear, but there was no viciousness. The free end of the noseline was dropped to the ground while Curley was being attended to, and, to Bony’s amusement, the dog daintily took hold of the line and led Millie to the yard gate.
Curley had to be dealt with differently. He held his great head high, and his eyes flashed with sudden rebellion as Bony approached him. As a youngster he had been cruelly treated, when the plug through the nostril had been torn out in his effort to avoid blows to his head. Like the cat, the camel can never be wholly conquered, and like the elephant, its memory is everlasting.
Bony managed to grip the end of the short rope dangling from the halter, and he pulled on this to bring the beast’s head low enough to couple the halter line. The dog, leaving Millie at the gate, came and barked at Bony, and he dropped the line, which Lucy gripped by her teeth and, docilely, Curley followed her to join Millie.
She couldn’t lead both camels at the same time, and so Bony took them to the hut where he ‘hooshed’ Millie to her knees beside the riding saddle she was to carry. She didn’t go down with any sign of happiness. In fact, she was playing a game and any intelligent student of camel psychology could follow it.
Now and then she pretended to make the attempt to rise. The saddle was lifted over her hump, and she pretended that it hurt. She moaned protests as the saddle was being strapped under her chest and down under her snakelike neck. One would think she was being subjected to gross indignity, and the act was put on solely for Curley’s benefit. Curley was the bad boy who had to be roused so that when his turn came he would be in a tantrum and perform to anger this biped who was putting her to work. Horses cannot think like that. Beside the camel, the horse is brainless.
As planned, Curley was ready for the fray when his turn came. Me pranced and bellowed when the halter line was hauled down and he was ordered to ‘hoosh’. He fell on one knee, and up again, to kneel on the other. He roared and danced; and Millie looked on, and her eyes plainly said to Bony: ‘How are you liking that?’
Bony unhurriedly took up a loading rope and tossed one end behind Curley’s legs, and Curley knew that to rebel any longer would mean being tied down. So, without being ordered, he fell to his knees, grunted, and settled himself beside hi
s pack-saddle. The game was over, and Millie sneered her contempt. A lion! Baa! Just another lamb.
The pack load must be accurately balanced. To each side of the straw-stuffed pack were hooked the saddle-bags and water-drums. On top were piled the spare rations, the swag, and the tent, the load then being roped. Through the rope was thrust the axe, and, to counter-balance the weight, the dozen iron tent pegs and telescopic pole. The riding saddle of iron was furnished with a bag cushion to sit behind the hump, and in the fore-part was strapped the tucker-box carrying food and eating utensils in current use. Another bag containing a fry-pan and billy-cans was fastened to this saddle and balanced by the rifle slung from the opposite side.
All this took a little time. The gear was in fairly good condition, but the rifle was a jewel, and had been the pride of old Lonergan’s heart. A Savage, point 25, a high-powered weapon, it was kept and carried in a soft leather case.
“Seems that you know how to work these brutes,” remarked the elder Weatherby, who had approached from Bony’s rear. “Here’s your signed copy of the inventory. Still determined to look for the old feller’s traps?”
Nodding, Bony gazed at his feet, then glanced up and past the big man’s eyes.
“Have to give it a burl, Mr. Weatherby. Make a try just to say I did. I take the track out past the blacks’ camp for three miles, then leave the track and follow one going on due west to hit the bore. That right?”
“That’s right. And twelve miles on from the bore to hit the Splinter. There’s no permanent water beyond the bore.”
“I’ll give it a burl, anyhow.”
“If you must.”
Careful to the last, Bony kicked at the dust, gazed about the homestead as though sad at leaving it, essayed a shy smile, and said:
“Reckon I’ll give a day out from the bore lookin’ for them traps, and then I’ll make south down to Rawlinna.”
“Good idea. Waste of time looking for them, Black.”
Bony urged the camels to their feet. He tied the end of Curley’s halter line to the riding-saddle, took up Millie’s noseline and proceeded to lead the string of two away from the homestead, out by the motor shed, past the men’s quarters, which appeared wholly unoccupied, and then skirted the aborigines’ camp, comprising bag humpies, lean-tos and smoking camp-fires about which squatted men, women and children, silent, watchful and interested in the departing strange man from the Diamantina.
Ten minutes later Bony was still walking, the noseline hung from the crook of an arm. Millie was resignedly chewing cud. Curley continued to moan. Lucy ran on ahead, constantly looking back.
And so began the search for Lonergan’s last trap-line, that camp he named Big Claypan, from which he had seen the unknown helicopter, the search for a dust mote in a vacuum.
Chapter Six
Lonergan’s Pals
IT is not pleasant to know you are being followed. Footsteps behind, that alter their rhythm when you do, have a peculiarly sinister import, especially when the night is dark and street lighting inadequate. Bony could not hear footsteps behind his short camel train, for the winding track was soft underfoot, but his suspicion was born of expectancy, and steadily nurtured by the birds.
The track was like a snake’s trail, meandering through clumps of gimlet trees, skirting an occasional rock knob, crossing shallow depressions bearing thick waitabit and jamwoods.
When they had travelled more than a mile, Lucy ran off into the scrub and waited for them to follow her lead.
Neither pausing nor calling to her, Bony continued right ahead, and at once Millie began to tug gently against the noseline and softly moan objection to going forward. Curley was even more reluctant. He bellowed and walked sidewise, pranced and tucked his hind quarters under his load, hopeful of it becoming unbalanced and falling from him.
Careful not to betray any curiosity in that turn off, Bony determinedly continued along the track, compelled by Curley’s behaviour to glance constantly backward, and at the same time seeking for a hint of an unknown follower.
There are two causes for camel rebellion: leaving the home paddock, and travelling over country not recently visited, if at all. Like the dog, they wanted to take that turn-off—merely a pad now washed out by the rain—because that was the way old Lonergan had previously taken them. To the northward, not to this westward country of salt-pans.
Outwardly the camels were resigned when the track branched, the main branch continuing away to the south. Bony followed the lesser track which would take him to the bore, six miles farther on, and decided to continue walking as he would have better command over the camels who, although now docile, still had fire in their eyes.
Now and then he stopped to test the ropes on Curley’s pack, pretending nervousness of the balance of the load, the while he listened to the birds whose persistent warning of the presence of someone back along the track convinced him that the follower’s job was to be certain that he did head for the bore.
Why this interest? The head stockman had said the dogs were working to the north of the homestead, then, in support of the Weatherbys, that the dogs were numerous to the westward. And, further, that an aborigine had seen the tracks of Lonergan’s camels westward of a rock upthrust, called the Splinter.
Why this effort to prevent him, William Black, from going northward? It was to the north of the homestead that Lonergan had his trap-line. Lucy and the camels plainly said so. Gold! Was gold behind the conspiracy to get William Black out of this country and back to Rawlinna? Old Patsy could have been on to gold. He could have mentioned his ‘find’ to the Weatherbys, although it was most unlikely he would divulge the locality. Or were they, despite the normalcy of their homestead, associated with that mysterious helicopter?
They had never mentioned to Easter that Lonergan had seen this helicopter. A tit-bit of bush news, it was most likely he had spoken of it, and for reasons of their own they had decided to let the subject die with the old man, unaware of the diary he kept.
Anyway, he, William Black, was being seen off the premises. That was now certain, because although some birds are arrant liars in matters concerning their own affairs, they never lie to each other concerning the activities of bipeds, and quadrupeds like dogs and foxes.
The birds told Bony that the follower gave up when about three miles from the bore, but there remained the necessity of leaving proof on the track that he and the camels actually did reach the bore, and proceed beyond it. And so, all the way the camels left proof on the sandy top-soil.
It was past two o’clock when he reached the bore of the non-flowing type, necessitating a pump and windmill to work it. It was not pretty country, being semi-arid, drab in colouring, the scrub stunted and almost useless for stock. There was water in the line of troughing, but no wild dogs had visited this place since the rain of a week or two back, and none of their tracks were on the road from the homestead.
After a meal and an hour’s rest for the camels, Bony led them directly to the west. There was now no road and the farther he proceeded the poorer became the country. Despite the recent rain, there was no surface water.
Six miles beyond the bore, Bony decided to camp for the night at the edge of a depression, and unloaded the animals amid the low scrub and took them to the saltbush where he hobbled and belled them.
As customary, they stood facing each other and conversed with their eyes, clearly exchanging views about this new master, this ugly country which might spring nasty surprises on them, and the general cussedness of life. Lucy squatted beside Bony’s fire and watched them and, when the conference was over, both camels pretended contentment until they thought the man had forgotten them, whereupon both abruptly headed eastward for the homestead paddock, making for low scrub where they could be detected only by the dwindling sound of the bells.
A loaded camel will walk all day at two miles and a half to the hour. A hobbled camel will travel one mile in an hour when controlled by the insatiable urge to return to some place or
other. Here is a land where distance is measured by the hour, where only the initiated can hope to move from one point to another, and where only the bush masters can find water. There were no landmarks, just dun-coloured scrub with an occasional green-black tree growing a little taller. There were no rabbits, and, Bony was convinced, the dogs and foxes had deserted a long time since.
Before sundown, Bony went after the camels and brought them to camp, where he tied them to stout scrub trees for the night. The slight westerly wind dropped, and only the occasional clank of a bell disturbed the complete silence. This land was deserted, even by the birds.
They left camp the next morning before sunrise, both camels still resentful. In case anyone at the homestead might determine to track William Black as far as his first night camp, Bony led the animals directly to the south-east and towards far distant Rawlinna, thus registering his decision to abandon search for the traps and to return to Norseman. Two miles he proceeded on this course before again turning to the west, and following another mile, turned to the north to begin a giant curve which would bring him to the Nullarbor Plain some twenty miles to the north of the Mount Singular homestead.
Long distances, many miles and many hours, to thwart a trailer.
Immediately they headed northward the camels became Little Lord Fauntleroys, although they were hungry and had no cud. Lucy expressed her happiness by trotting ahead. The sun shone warmly, the flies were less irritating, and thus all was well. Bony was able to ride, and Millie walked with a swing like a girl taking pleasure in swirling her skirt to best advantage. Curley swung along behind her, head high, eyes bright, hungry and no longer rebellious.
Toward four o’clock they reached open grassy spaces, and narrow belts of wattles, in late golden bloom, and a few minutes later Lucy sat down abruptly and smiled up at Bony. She sat on a narrow camel pad which the rain hadn’t entirely obliterated, and here Millie evinced desire to follow this pad to the homestead. He had to dismount to compel her to follow him to the north, and half an hour later, he sighted five sandalwood trees beyond which was nothing but the sky.
Bony - 21 - Man of Two Tribes Page 4
