Man of Two Tribes b-21

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Get on. Why wait around here?”

  The wall proved to be an opportune spur, the wind coming from the rear being another, and Bony estimated their speed at almost three miles in that first hour. Then the wall appeared to be moving after them as fast as they walked, so that it was no farther back although it was smaller as the twisting action shredded it gradually, leaving a carpet of mush on the ground after it. As there was no suggestion of a spell, Bony kept moving for another hour, when two and a half miles had been added to the day’s total.

  A nasty day. Theabos would be reluctant to move out of their camp. Good!

  Continuing the next stage, they found it necessary to lean a fraction backward to counter the pressure of the wind, and walking seemed comparatively effortless. The wall followed them, not quite at their speed, until it broke, and the ends raced forward to curve inward until other portions broke and soon short sections were racing across the Plain like squadrons of golden cavalry, some moving faster than others, and often the slowest energised to run the fastest. One mass sped past the travellers, scattering its mush after it, growing swiftly smaller until it was in turn broken into bunches which formed into great balls. And the balls of straw became rapidly smaller until, with final collapse, they flattened amid the eternal saltbush.

  Thus was the disintegration of one of these mighty walls of straw, and after that there was nothing to distract the travellers’ attention from muscles beginning to complain now that the imagined danger was no more.

  Bony espied a belt of bluebush some hundred yards long, a small forest of trees three feet high on the sea of saltbush, and here was found shelter from the wind, but also increased heat from the sun, and small flies to torment them. Gratefully they sat on the ground, and only Maddoch assisted Bony to find dead bush with which to boil water for tea.

  Jenks cursed the flies, and Riddell declared he would go no farther this day, no matter what the flies did. Bony smiled at Maddoch, and Maddoch tried to return the smile but failed.

  “Make a cigarette for Myra,” Bony asked him, and squatted beside the fire and rolled one for himself.

  They must have come eight miles. Eight added to nine totalled seventeen. Those swathes of straw mush would obliterate what tracks they could not avoid making, also the broken bush his companions had left without thought that eagle eyes might see and read the tale. They were still not far enough from jail to be safe from the warders.

  The discomforts of this noon camp would, he hoped, be allies, and when the meal had been eaten, he relaxed and waited for the allies to do the prodding, permitting the fire to die when the smoke of it would have kept the flies at bay. He lay with his eyes closed, and pictured the Plain dwarfed to map reading size, and placed imaginary pins to mark Patsy Lonergan’s camps, and that far eastward position of the caverns. He had set out with the intention of following the third leg of a triangle, and he was confident that he was doing just this, the objective being Bumblefoot Hole, where there was water and a little food, and certain shelter.

  To locate Bumblefoot Hole would be to find the needle in the stack, but there was that ‘rock’, that point of high land beyond the horizon which would presently give him a bearing, provided he could bring its shape to coincide with the mental picture he had retained.

  The Plain was presenting a new face to this first of the summer windstorms. Coming down from the vast desert lands, it bore a light-brown dust which foreshortened still farther the encircling horizon, which painted the sun light red, which tinted with soft purple thesaltbush, and the bluebush it shadowed royal blue. The sky was white, like the belly of a shark. And the wind was silent, save where it hissed past the ears, and this sound seemed to be within the mind, and the pressure of it against the body was as a thrust by the unseeable and the unknowable.

  Riddell began to shout, and Bony opened his eyes to see the big man flailing his arms and fighting the flies, the filth of a nation streaming from his mouth in the frenzy of his desperation. Brennan said something, and in an instant they were exchanging blows. Myra looked at Bony and shrugged. Maddoch came to crouch before Bony. Tears were sliding down his dusty face and forming rivulets of light red paint. Flies were glued to the corners of his mouth, and were crawling into his nose and the corners of his eyes.

  “We’ll have to go back,” he cried. “The caverns are better than this.”

  “You go forward, not backward, Clifford,” Bony said sternly. “There can be no going back.”

  “But this… I had no idea, Inspector.”

  Inspector! It belonged surely to a previous incarnation, and he wanted to correct it, to insist that he was ‘Bony’ to his friends, and he remembered then that respect, even fear, must go with command.

  “What are those lunatics fighting about?” he asked coldly. Maddoch turned to watch when the combatants were separated by the stocky Jenks ambling between them and turning about as though no tax had been levied on his physical strength, to walk between them again.

  “We may as well go on,” Bony called. “We’ll take it easy, and hope for a hole or a cave to camp in for the night. What about it?”

  He risked the friendly question, yet was confident of their answer. Almost eagerly they agreed, and he handed his blanket roll to Riddell, andhimself carried the half-full water drum.

  The morale-slaying Plain took them instantly to itself, for they were like mariners leaving safe anchorage when leaving the belt of bluebush. No ship under them, no steel walls about them. Soon there was no place to leave astern and no place to steam ahead.

  There was only the nightmarish uniformity of flat plain kept steady by a cloudless sky. You can ride a camel, a horse, a jeep, and close your mind to this Nullarbor, find exquisite relief in the cinema programme the mind will screen. But on your feet, you have to walk with eyes open and the mind naked to reality.

  And when the sun said: “I’ve had enough of looking at you,” and turned to more interesting insects below, they had no cave, no hole in the ground, no bluebush amid which to crouch. The sky caught fire from the sun’s hot trail and the high-flung dust wove mighty draperies of scarlet before Space, shutting it out, as though blown upon by Evil itself. The colour in the folds deepened to magenta, then to black, and finally blessed night came.

  One tiny spark glowed in the darkness, tended by a man who pushed together the ends of burning sticks. About him lay the blanket-cocooned figures of restless sleepers. He was contented, not by food but by the miles he had brought those restless sleepers, this day which was thankfully ended.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Lucky Man

  THEsun rose with a bound and looked at them suspiciously. From somewhere centre of the Nullarbor to its western edgelay six narrow shadows, and a seventh which petered out at about a mile. The seventh shadow was cast by Lucy.

  There was no wind. No clouds. The air was cool, and there were no flies. It was one of those days when you wonder what the heck you are doing just where day found you. You wake, you stand up, and there you are. You wonder where you came from and where you are going. But the point is that if you are going anywhere at all, it will be by way of your sore feet which are somewhere at the end of your aching legs.

  Bony inspected not detectives, but a bedraggled and dejected squad. He had to refasten Maddoch’s blanket roll, and retie Myra’s blanket shoe, and sling the half-empty water drum to sit comfortably into the small of his back. The squad wanted to remain there for several hours. Maddoch urged the return to the caverns.

  “We are heading for a large depression named Bumblefoot Hole,” was Bony’s bait, “where there is water, plenty of it, and stores I left on my way north. We can camp there for a week if necessary. Now we have to keep moving because our only water supply is diminishing. So, come on!”

  The girl followed after him, and Brennan again was the rear link. Presently, Brennan began: “Left, right, left, right, left… left… left.” That helped quite a lot, and when Myra broke into ‘Tipperary’ and all joined
in, it was better still. At the end of the first hour, their spirits had risen, to sink again when they realised that the rest-halt was exactly the same as the breakfast camp, only there were no empty tins or fire ash. And at the next halt they merely halted. Company awaited them at the third hour’s halt-a colony of jerboa rats.

  Here they made a fire and brewed a half-billy of tea, and Bony did his best to interest them in the habits of this rodent bearing the scientific name ofLeporillus. Their houses were different in size and shape, but all were expertly constructed of woven bush, and all but two had roofs weighted with stones to defy the wind.

  Jenks banged the side of his foot against a house, and Brennan removed the stones from the roof of another, when out sped a rodent of the size of a common rat, leaping in hops, its long hind legs and short fore-legs giving it the appearance of the genuine marsupial.

  Bony allowed two hours’ rest. Maddoch and Myra lay face down, pressing their eyes into their arms to defeat the flies, which were not really vicious. Only Lucy was happy. She snuffled at the rats’ houses, and Brennan laughed uproariously when a rat bolted from the back door of one and a rabbit fled through the front door, and Lucy couldn’t make up her mind which to chase.

  Jenks was the most restless. He stood often to gaze at thePlain, eyes small, lips betraying nervous reaction to something his mind could not accept.

  “How far we come today?” asked Riddell. “Only seven blasted miles! And half the day gone! We onlydoin ’ fourteen miles a day?”

  “We should cover more when we become hardened, Joe.” Bony said.

  “Howjaknow we done seven miles?” pressed the big man.

  “By the sun we have walked for three separate hours. Walking speed of the normal man unencumbered is two and a half miles to the hour. As we are all encumbered and weary, I am being generous in estimating our speed at only a fraction under the two and a half.”

  “Then how far are we from them caverns?”

  “About forty miles.”

  “And how far to this Bumblefoot Holeyou beentellin ’ us about?”

  “I cannot say with any degree of accuracy, Joe. I am hoping it will be a little less than fifty miles.”

  “So!” Riddell pondered.“Oughtado it on our heads.”

  “Of course we’ll do it. And another hundred miles beyond Bumblefoot Hole. Were you doubtful?”

  “Well…”

  “We’ll get there,” he was assured, and noting the glint in the blue eyes, he turned to gaze with Jenks at the absence of scenery.

  “Think we bluffed theabos?” asked Brennan, sitting with Bony.

  “I’ll be more confident of that, say, tomorrow night. It’s quite possible, youknow, that they may never discover our departure. Having visited us the other day, they could think we were safe enough, and go off on their own affairs for several weeks. Think you could also carry Myra’s swag this afternoon?”

  “Sure!” drawled Brennan.“Anything to help a lady. Let’s get going.”

  Left… right… left. Nothing to look at. The endless shuffle of left foot… right foot… left foot. Eyes front and directed to the heels of the man ahead. Sing! To hell with singing. Talk! What’s the use? Daydream of city lights, of wallowing in beer, of a feast of women! Lights and beer and women! What in hell are they? Saltbush and jerboa rats! Crawling like lice on a two-bob bit! Better to have stayed with old doc in those caverns where there’s water and no flies, no need to think, only listen to old doc’s stories. Ruddy fool to take on this.

  It was after four o’clock when Bony saw a shadow where none should be, a black line some five hundred yards to the right. He veered towards it, and hope was born, grew to maturity when the shadow thickened, and he saw whatwas a miniature Bumblefoot Hole.

  Lucy ran on and disappeared, and presently they stood at the lip of a shelving bank, ending in a rocky floor sloping to the foot of a cliff at the far side. There were the shadows-of small eaves. There werea dozen old-man saltbush offering real wood instead of light brush, a fire to bake bread. If only water!

  “Looks good to me,” cried Mark Brennan. “A hole’s better than all of this Plain.”

  Bony agreed, and turned to share their relief. His brows straightened in a swift frown. His eyes narrowed as their glance swept over the Plain. Sharply he asked:

  “Where’s Maddoch?”

  They looked at each other, then down at the saltbush into the small depression less than half an acre in extent.

  “When I looked back about half an hour ago, Maddoch was walking ahead of you, Jenks. What happened to Maddoch?”

  The sailor’s eyes opened wide, despite the flies. He regarded Bony as though being asked the most ridiculous question. He glanced at Myra Thomas: he gazed all about him, his jaw slack.

  “Cliff!” he exclaimed. “He was in front of me at that. Where’s he got to? I don’t know. Must be down there. Must have got ahead of us without seeing him.”

  “You hit him with a rock or something?” mildly enquiredBrennan, and the subtlety of the suggestion didn’t even register.

  Bony focused the picture he had seen when last he had looked back. They had not been strictly in line of file, but Maddoch was certainly of the number of those who followed his lead. Everyone was walking with face down and shoulders humped under the load carried. It was probable, almost certain, that Jenks and Brennan who came after him had at the same time been mentally occupied elsewhere than on the Nullarbor Plain, and could, therefore, easily have failed to notice Maddoch drop out.

  “He’s gone back to the caverns,” guessed the girl.“Said he wanted to. The idiot.”

  “Ought to see him,” shouted Jenks, staring to the east, and Brennan agreed, although he gazed to the west, and Riddell, catching the idea, looked to the north.

  Bony was sure he could see any object within three miles, as high as Maddoch stood. Half an hour back, when he had seen Maddoch with the party, they were about a mile, or a little more, from this place where he was missed.

  Assuming that Maddoch had dropped out without being seen, and having the intention of returning to the caverns, he would start walking to the north, simply because it was opposite to the line ofmarch. But not for long would he continue northwards. Within minutes he would veer to the left or the right, according to which leg was longer than the other.

  There being no natural objects to guide him, to lure him, he would inevitably walk in a circle, the problem being how far would Maddoch walk before making a halt, after which he would set off on another circle.

  That he, Bony, could see a walking man clearly for three miles meant little on this tricky Plain, where distance is distorted, and sound judgment not possible.

  “You must camp and I’ll go back to look for him.” Bony led the way down to the floor of the hole. They helped to make a fire, and then Bony, noticing that Lucy’s muzzle was wet, found a rock-hole half-filled with water, and covered with green slime.

  “You may use this water sparingly to wash with,” he said, “but not to drink unless first boiled. Brennan, I am placing the drum of clean water in your charge. You see that bush?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I am not back by sun-rise tomorrow, make a fire under it. Make a smoke. Understand?”

  “Yes, but… you can’t leave us like this. What’ll we do if you can’t find your way back?”

  “Yes, what’ll we do, Inspector?” echoed Jenks.“If Maddoch chooses to clear out, let him go. He’saskin ’ for what he gets.”

  “Too right! Too ruddy right!” snarled Riddell. “Let him rot.”

  Bony stared at each man, stared them down.

  “Leave Maddoch. I can’t leave Maddoch. I don’t yet know who murdered Mitski, and I’m taking Mitski’s murderer all the way.”

  It is said that a man spends his life struggling to return to the protection of the womb, and it was this impulse which drove the little man who loved peace and security to seek the mother he had lost when as a small child he was left, sensitive and alone. H
e married, not the comforter, the protective mother, but a shrew, and the climax of the tragedy was inevitable.

  For Maddoch first the legal jail and then detention in the caverns had provided protection from the raw world he had feared. Although he would never admit it, even to himself, the period spent in jail had been the happiest of his life, and that spent in the Nullarbor caverns had given much in compensation for the unnecessary crudities. The craving for protection afforded by the known caverns had reached its peak when gazing upon the tiny houses of the jerboa rats.

  Inspector Bonaparte wouldn’t turn back, so he decided he must slip away and seek the warm comfort and safety of those caverns where there were no flies, no glaring sun, no torturing left, right, left, right.

  Gradually he edged himself out of the line; slowly he fell back, the last two men passing without lifting their heads. For a moment he stood watching them. Then he realised that at any moment the leader might see him standing there like a fool. Down he went to sprawl amid the saltbush, to lie still.

  Then he was running. The run became a trot, the trot a hurried walk. He glanced backward. The party had vanished. He was free to walk on and on to where Dr. Havant waited. Dr. Havant would be so pleased to see him, so happy to hear that Clifford Maddoch couldn’t bear to think of the doctor being so alone, and had come back to keep him company.

  Presently he was conscious that the sun had disappeared. H’m! Must have come a long way. Can’t be much farther to go. He tripped and fell hard on his chest, scrambled up and gazed about with bovine curiosity for what had snared his foot.

  However, it wasn’t so important, and he had yet to find Dr. Havant. The evening brought the horizon closer, and it was so quiet that he could hear the soft swish when a foot brushed a bush. Then it was suddenly moonlight, and he knew he must be close to the caverns for he had crawled from the caverns into the moonlight.