Bony and the Black Virgin

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “The little feller wasn’t hers,” Pointer said. “That was Missus Dusty’s kid.”

  “There is the point of interest that she wasn’t branded in promise of marriage when she was much younger, even when a child. All the others are; all the others I’ve seen, anyway.”

  “Lottee is outstanding in many ways,” Pointer continued. “Very intelligent. She learnt to speak well, and she can write. Bosses her father and mother. She calls: they run to her. It was said, you know, that Tonto got his beating up for chasing her.”

  “Twenty-four, Robin told me.”

  “That would be her age, Bony. Time she was married, isn’t it? Fellers are a bit slower than they used to be in my time.”

  “Could be that they are a little more cautious,” argued Bony, and the overseer said:

  “Funny you should say that. Lottee has that ‘come hither’ look, but gives you the ‘go to hell’ look.”

  There followed a meditative period, ended by Bony saying:

  “Were you a young man, Jim, would you try to hang your hat in her hall?”

  Pointer’s prompt reply hinted thought along this line. He said:

  “Yes, I’d try. But I’d make sure that the door was kept open so I could get out like a bolting rabbit.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The House that Was

  JIM POINTER awoke when the dawn was heralding a day of sweet coolness in promise of the autumn. He could hear the birds all about the camp telling of the wrath of the Rain God, roused by the magic rainstones, upon that musty, withering, blasting Thing men called Drought. He saw Bony in the red glow of the fire, still in pyjamas, using the long-handled shovel to dig among the great pile of ash, and bring out several large lumps of baked clay. Sitting sideways on his stretcher, to slip his feet into boots, he heard Bony call:

  “Come on, Jim. The tea’s made for the first smoke, and breakfast is ready.”

  “You must have been up early,” Pointer said when joining his sporting companion without bothering to dress.

  “Couple of hours, Jim. I woke feeling meat-hungry after all the tinned stuff we lived on, and I cooked four succulent ducks for breakfast. Two Queenslanders and two Black ones.”

  Tea was poured into pannikins, and sugar added, and in the growing light the one smoked his pipe, and the other a cigarette. It would be a good day: a day begun otherwise was doomed to failure.

  “We go on, I suppose, trying to trace the car?” Pointer asked, mutely consigning the car to the Devil, for this was paradise for any man.

  “Not now, Jim. No talking shop yet. Let us cling to all this until the last second; the caressing warmth of a campfire; the pearly gleam of that sky; the rebirth of Life. Be careful not to step back without looking, because you might step on a teal duck feeding at the edge of the water.”

  “Certainly gets you in, doesn’t it?” Pointer said, sensing rather than detecting the forced cheerfulness in Bony’s voice. “I don’t wonder that the abos would rather starve than go and live in a government settlement and fatten on plenty.”

  Bony took him up. “Although they have lived in Australia, they have never possessed it; Australia has ever possessed them. All my life I have had to offer stern resistance, and my father was white. There are times when I sweat, fighting against the siren voice of this land we call Australia.”

  “I can easily believe it, Bony. I know I would never be happy once I left it to live in a city.”

  “The Spirit of this Land has you in its grip, all right.”

  “It has.” Pointer flexed his arm muscles and breathed in deeply. “Not only me. It’s got Eve as well. I’ve been on reduced salary for twelve months, and was offered twice the salary to work in a wool store down in Melbourne until the drought broke. Like the blacks, we’d sooner starve.”

  “I’m reminded of an assignment I was given,” Bony said, rolling his second cigarette, if one had sufficient imagination to name it a cigarette. “I was put to locating a feller from Austria. Had inherited a title and family estates, was a brilliant scholar, and quite wealthy in his own right. I had been on the assignment for a month, because the feller was a VIP, and one day I walked over a sandhill and beheld a scene worth painting. Down on the flat was a long and deep waterhole. Near the water was a rough hut. An aboriginal woman was cooking at a fire. Nearby a man sat on a box cleaning a gun, and he was as dark as the woman. Watching him were two children, one about three, the other about two. He was saying something which caused the children to laugh and the woman at the fire to turn her face to them and laugh with them. When I’d told the man my business, and presented certain documents, the man said: ‘You think damn fool, eh? You tell them in Austria that I’m going to be a damn fool till the day I die!’”

  “I’ve known white stockmen married to blacks. They seemed happy enough,” Pointer said thoughtfully. “Never any rows, arguments, fights.”

  “Quite so, Jim. They were married to a Something which the woman merely represented. Now let us be married to those ducks.”

  Stepping from their pyjamas, they walked into the water, Pointer wide of hips and thick of belly, Bony narrow of waist and with a stomach as flat as a board. Having dried and dressed, Bony proceeded to open the clay lumps. He tapped a line down one with the blade of the axe, then broke it open like the halves of an orange. The aroma which rose from that steaming interior! The clay covering had pulled away the feathers of the bird, and the skin, and, cupped like the flesh of the coconut, was breakfast.

  “It’s worth coming here just for this,” sighed Pointer, as he lifted the meat with a fork, so tender was it.

  “Another bird to tackle if you like, Jim.”

  “I’m going to be a stug. Look, if they could cook ’em like this in New York or London, they’d cash in on millions a year.”

  “And learn something from those awful Orstralians,” added Bony.

  “Frightful cree-churs,” mimicked the overseer. “I’m having another bird if I bust.”

  “Be careful, Jim. You have to drive.”

  Thirty minutes later, Pointer was driving the utility to the boundary-fence. There Bony indicated the place which had been cut and repaired, and asked for the overseer’s opinion of the work.

  The big man studied the method of joining the cut wires, and rubbed his fingers gently along each wire back from the join.

  “Chain wire-strainer was used, as you said, Bony. Joins expertly done. More efficiently than Nuggety Jack could ever do.” He stared into Bony’s watchful eyes. “You find a tree cut down, and the scarf will prove which man did it. You can see a fence, and tell which man built it. The same with this repair job. I know the man who drove the car and repaired this fence.”

  “Then don’t name him, Jim. We must cut it to go through, and repair the cut the best way we can.”

  “The repairs can wait. There’s no stock.”

  When they had passed through, Bony said:

  “On the far side will be the Rudder’s Well paddock. Drive direct to the fence, and we’ll follow it down to the road gate at Rudder’s Well. Might see the tracks of the car.”

  Pointer was silent and tense all the way to the next fence, where Bony said he would stand at the back to see better. They had now crossed the grey clay country of the ancient river-course, down which water had recently flowed to fill Lake Jane, and were again on the drier red sand and open country.

  “We may find tracks along this fence,” Bony said quietly. “Don’t colour the facts we have with the paint of your imagination. The business of the car driver may have nothing to do with murder.”

  “He was heading for Rudder’s Well,” Pointer said stonily. “Four miles from Rudder’s Well a man is found dead in a machinery shed. Three miles in the opposite direction his swag was burned with another dead man’s bike. You said you weren’t liking this. I’m not liking it, either.”

  Standing at the back of the driver’s cabin, Bony could see miles ahead, along the fence, the top of the mill at Rudder’s W
ell. Ceaselessly he watched the passing ground, patiently hoping for further signs of the car which had come into this paddock seven months before.

  As they neared the gate where he had waylaid and branded Tonto, the scrub changed from bull oak and mulga to box and canegrass growing on claypan soil. The canegrass recalled to mind the open shed at Rudder’s Well, and from that to the picture of the secret bower amid the tea tree. That would be away to his right, say two miles.

  Then he saw that which made him stamp a foot to stop the utility.

  “Angle to the west,” he shouted to Pointer. “Nose into the scrub at the end of the canegrass.”

  At the extremity of the canegrass, the branches of a box tree were blackened as by fire, and the new leaf growth was thick on the branches having now no finer twigs. Pointer stopped close to this tree, and through the windscreen he stared at a large patch of fire-stained ground. Behind him, Bony looked down on the square of blackened earth, on which lay twisted wire-netting and knots of plain wire.

  Pointer backed from the seat and Bony jumped down from the back, and both stood without speaking while reading this page of the Book of the Bush.

  “Peculiar place to build a canegrass hut or shed,” Pointer said, grimly. “Nearest water over half a mile away. What the hell would the Downers build a shed here for?”

  Bony took the shovel and scraped the earth away at one corner of the burned area. He uncovered the unburned end of a corner post. He stepped along two sides and assessed the area of the building that had been. It was fourteen feet by ten. The position of the knotted wires showed where the cross beams had been, to carry the thatched roof.

  “The place was burned down months before the rain,” he said. “No deep ash sludge, because the wind had blown off the ashes.”

  Bony left, walking towards the fence and the distant mill and well beyond it. Pointer took the shovel and began poking about with the tip of its blade. Presently Bony returned to say that no one at Rudder’s Well, or on the road, could possibly see the building as it had been.

  “Doesn’t look as though anyone lived here for even a night,” Pointer said. “There’s no refuse, no food tins, nothing.”

  “Could have been buried or carted away,” Bony countered.

  He went to the burned tree, studied its branches, faced to the south. The ground was sandy above a harder surface. He walked out from the tree, scraped the sand with the heel of his boot. Pointer joined him with the shovel.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “Oil. Give me the shovel.”

  With the shovel Bony scraped the sand from the undersurface. The oil was there. Under the windblown sand covering was the oil mark, proving where the car had stood. Pointer said:

  “Place must have been burned down on purpose, Bony. Anyway, there’s no bones among the wire. But why? Why build a shed or hut here? Doesn’t make any sort of sense. You any ideas?”

  “Yes.” Bony’s face was expressionless, and the overseer waited. “Not now, Jim. I want proof. Nearly midday. Let’s boil the billy and have lunch.”

  They spoke rarely during the meal, both standing and pensively gazing at the site of the fire, and trying to re-create the scene prior to the burning. After the meal Bony smoked three cigarettes before beginning the customary circling of the place, each circle wider than the one previously completed.

  He found where the canegrass had been chopped from the clumps. Found no marks of a truck or car, and the grass must have been bundled and carried to the building site.

  On rejoining the overseer, he said:

  “I have stood on this place and have circled it. I have communed with it, trying to reverse the progress of Time, to go back to when there stood a house, and what happened in it. Are you sensitive to things and places? I am, often. I feel no evil in this place; in this place which was, now is not, and never will be again. All right, Jim. We’ll get on back. Nothing here for us. Circle wide of Lake Jane. We won’t call on the Downers today.”

  They had been driving for an hour without a word spoken by either of them when Pointer stopped the utility and turned on the seat to look at Bony.

  “When we get home, what do we say, or do? There’s Robin, remember.”

  “We say we had good shooting, and we present the ducks as proof.” Bony rolled and lit a cigarette, then turned slightly to confront the overseer with blue, steady gaze. “Jim, listen. You know a little and guess a lot. I know a lot and guess a little. I told you I was looking into a fog. I still am. I cannot say to anyone: ‘You did this or that against the Law.’ Not yet. Therefore, we enjoyed our shooting trip, and we hope everyone at L’Albert will enjoy the ducks.”

  Pointer drove on.

  “A crime is often like the impact of a stone on water,” eventually Bony said. “From it spread ripples to affect in various ways innocent persons, and persons not so innocent. Because you know a little and guess a great deal, I believe you are jumping to conclusions. That is most unwise. Your girl may suffer hurt, or she may not. Be easy, Jim.”

  It was not till after five o’clock that they reached L’Albert, and while the overseer was telling about the shooting and displaying the bag, Bony sauntered to the office and spoke to Sergeant Mawby.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Inquisition

  ALTHOUGH Sergeant Mawby and Constable Sefton left Mindee one hour after Bony called them, they did not arrive until the next morning at seven-thirty. Midnight Long piloted them from the river homestead, otherwise they might have been delayed still more. A few hours’ sleep at Fort Deakin had helped on this tiresome journey.

  After breakfast the police party occupied the common room at the men’s quarters, and held a short conference.

  “I am gratified by your swift and willing co-operation, Sergeant Mawby,” Bony said at the opening. “That also applies to you, Constable Sefton. I shall remember it in my Final Report.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s been a pleasure to work with you,” responded Mawby, and Sefton nodded agreement.

  “Good! Now we’ll get to current business,” Bony continued. “You have gained information of a vital nature, which enabled me to crack this case of the two murders, for the murder of Dickson must be associated with the murder of Brandt. I use the verb ‘crack’ advisedly because I have yet to break open the case. It has been exceptionally involved, as you will learn, and it has presented difficulties in time and terrain which, you will agree, were not easy to conquer.

  “I am still uncertain of the motive for the two murders; and I’m still not crystal-clear on many points. Therefore, our proceedings must be in the form of an inquiry from which we may be justified in taking action. As we have to examine several aborigines, we will adopt the slightly unusual course of making a show of the inquiry. You agree, Sergeant? This is your State, not mine.”

  Mawby squared his wide shoulders, expelled his breath, and said:

  “You’re the boss, sir. Carry on.”

  “Then, Sefton, please inform Mr Long and Mr Pointer that we would like them to be with us. Immediately you have done so, round up all the aborigines and park them outside till required.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sefton’s dark eyes were amused, and Bony’s liking for him increased.

  Bony returned to Mawby.

  “I refrained from going over you to the Superintendent in Broken Hill, because I wanted to keep this affair in the family as it were.” The left eyelid drooped. “Mrs Mawby would doubtless find the change to the coast mountains beneficial for her sinus trouble, don’t you think?”

  Mawby sighed. “Now if you could wangle that, Inspector...”

  “One never knows what waits beyond the bend. Ah! Mr Long and Mr Pointer. I was hoping you would consent to be present. Perhaps even consent to assist us, unofficially, of course. Now, I sit here, with Sergeant Mawby to take notes for me, and the victims will be seated opposite to me. Please be seated by the wall there and refrain from comment. We are to deal with members of a most ancient race.
This isn’t a court, as you, Mr Long, being a Justice of the Peace, will know. Yes, Constable?”

  “The aborigines are outside, sir. All but the young woman Lottee Jack. Miss Pointer informed me that she saw Lottee Jack running into the bush.”

  “That is certainly a matter of interest,” Bony said aside to Mawby. “All right, Constable, bring the aborigine named Dusty, and then stand by at the door to see that none of the other aborigines clears away into the bush.”

  Dusty appeared, urged forward politely by Sefton, and was greeted with a beaming smile from Bony. He was invited to sit at the table, and this he did with a lithe grace and no sign of nervousness.

  “Now, Dusty, the Aborigines Department, which you know gives you people protection, has asked us to find out why you bashed up poor Tonto. I have to write a letter to them about this. I don’t want to make it bad for you with the Aborigines Department, so we’ll have to go slow, won’t we? I have been told that you and the bucks gave Tonto a hell of a hiding for lying down sick instead of going to Lake Jane and letting the dogs off their chains after Paul Dickson was killed. The other night I went out to Number Ten to ask Tonto if this was true, and he wasn’t there. Would you know where he is?”

  “No fear, Inspector,” replied Dusty without hesitation. “I told Tonto to stay there until we got back from getting the rain-making wages.” Dusty laughed loudly. “You see, Inspector, Tonto was out trapping a fox the other night and he ran himself into a wire fence. Got a lot of cuts on his face. Didn’t want Mr Pointer to see him like that.”

  “Well, Dusty, the Aborigines Department is going crook about Tonto being bashed up. You know that the Department could have you all taken down to the Settlement. You can’t go bashing up a young buck just because he was sick and he didn’t let the Lake Jane dogs off.”

  Dusty was now not quite so perky. He fidgeted in his chair, glanced at Sergeant Mawby, who was looking at the ceiling, then turned to look at Sefton, and finally turned to take stock of Long and the overseer. When again facing Bony he said: