Bony and the Mouse

by Arthur W. Upfield

  The visitor having so rung the bell, the householder puts on his best demeanour and peers through the keyhole to see who calls. Observing that the stranger is unarmed and appears to be of friendly disposition, he sends forth one of his servants to look-see the visitor at close quarters and inquire his business. Thus, there approached Bony a youth who had undergone only early initiation, and able to understand English enough to assist with the sign language. He regarded the visitor with open curiosity, listened to the request to talk with Iriti, and retired to report. He returned minutes later, and escorted Bony to the main campfire, before which sat Iriti, Medicine Man Nittajuri, and five other elderly men. They were seated in a semi-circle, and the caller was invited to sit facing them.

  About each of these seven men was the passivity of this almost limitless land. In each was that stillness which Bony had encountered when gazing at the salt lake; the stillness of a bottomless gulf, the stillness of dark water down a deep well.

  How could modern man span such a gulf? Bony had tried so often and occasionally had partially succeeded, only by being human.

  He rolled a cigarette with exaggerated care. A little to one side, the young man known as Abie, Harmon’s tracker, was standing on the haft of a spear tipped with a ground-pointed dinner-knife, probably discarded by a white housewife. Actually the spear was gripped by his toes, and he could have brought up the weapon into his hand and thrown it faster than Bony could have drawn a pistol, had he carried one.

  He learned that he was expected to address the Council through the young man who had asked him his business, and sensed that this young man was one of those with whom Tony Carr had associated, and proved it on noting the gleam in the dark eyes when Tony’s name was mentioned.

  He began by saying that Melody Sam had sent him to ask why his aboriginal friends had left Bulow’s Range without telling him, and so soon after returning from their last walkabout. He reminded them of Melody Sam’s generosity down through the years, that Melody Sam had always welcomed them to his camp, and they had welcomed him to their camp, having sealed him into their nation, thus making him their son, their brother, and their father.

  He stared at them. They were not to be stared down; nor was he. Slowly, to give the interpreter time to work, he went on:

  “One day the young lubra working for the white-feller minister was out walkabout with Janet Elder. They came back through the mulga and they came to black-fellers’ sacred ceremonial ground. You never told the young lubra not go into the mulga. When she and white girl came to ceremonial ground, the lubra went back a little way and walked round it. She did not walk over it. She did not see properly the Great Snake’s eggs. She saw only the white stones from the great rocks. The white girl did walk over the ceremonial ground. As I tell you, the black girl did not.

  “What for you all go walkabout and then send one feller back to kill young lubra outside minister’s humpy? You tell me, eh? Lubra did not go over ceremonial ground. She walk all round. She did not see-look at Great Snake’s eggs. For why you say she die? She broke no black-feller law. You all broke black-feller law you kill her. Why? You tell me, eh?” He waved a hand to far-away hills. “All black-feller away over hills, away over spinifex, all black-feller know you all broke black-feller law. You all no good black-fellers. White-feller law! Pouf! Black-feller law you broke. You tell me, eh?”

  Bony had the feeling, to use a colloquialism, that the execution of the lubra was the result of intrigue conducted by rivals, and that to preserve the peace the elders had decided on her removal. Something of this nature had prompted the girl’s execution, for now the elders were regarding each other with deep unease, instead of watching the accuser.

  However, the murder of the lubra was less the business of white law than was the murder of three white people by a white man, and Bony was determined to use the first as a lever to unearth evidence to convict the white murderer.

  For a period the elders argued among themselves, and Bony made and smoked four cigarettes while waiting for them to give him their attention. He then rolled yet another cigarette, smoked it slowly, before he continued as plain expositor rather than accuser.

  “White-feller he come along and say for you to be his father and his brother, and if you don’t, then he tell Constable Harmon and Melody Sam you all killed young lubra. One feller kill, you all kill. You know that. If Melody Sam and Constable Harmon been told you killed lubra, they kick you all long way from Daybreak. No more tucker. No more tobacco. No more ceremonial ground. They take trucks and gather up Great Snake’s eggs and blow-’em-up rock hole, and dig-’em-up all dead aborigines.

  “So you so-high little black-fellers afraid this white-feller he play hell, and you agree to trade. He not tell on you; you not tell on him any time you look-see. When he killed Mrs Lorelli, you all say wasn’t Tony Carr’s tracks. You say same thing when white boy killed at Sam’s Find.” Now Bony risked a guess. “When Kat Loader was killed by feller in sandshoes, you follow tracks made by same white-feller make-think Tony Carr made them. You come to root he fell over, and then you see he forgot to make-think he was Tony Carr. But you don’t tell Constable Harmon. You all dead frightened white-feller tell Constable Harmon you killed young lubra. What you say to that, eh?”

  It had been meandering speech, but the hearers understood it through their interpreter, and the young interpreter became increasingly indignant, delighting Bony with the strong inference that the elders had engaged in an intrigue outside the knowledge of their people.

  What had they to say? After the medicine-man had threatened the interpreter and dismissed him, they had a great deal to say among themselves. At first they might have been discussing the weather, their voices low and their faces calm, but quickly it was apparent that anger was born, and the fury of it would rise like a tempest. Accusations were flung about like stones at a riot. Eyes flashed and white teeth gleamed; fists clenched and toes jerked, as though aching to snatch up a spear.

  Abie, who was still on guard, became a stone gargoyle, keeping his foot on the grounded spear. Bony, aware of Abie’s ability to act so fast as to deceive the eye, maintained his seat on his heels, and enjoyed the spectacle of this bull-ants’ nest he had stirred so effectively.

  Whatever he had begun was certainly drawing to a dramatic climax, the result of the schism he had introduced cleaving these old men apart from the young men who had been closely associated in friendship with Tony Carr. Now these old men were being drafted into separate yards, the one side supporting the young men, and the others which had backed the decision to liquidate the lubra.

  It was like listening on the radio to a running description in a foreign language of an all-in wrestling bout. And, in the end, it was the medicine-man, who was pinned. Unprepared for Bony’s visit and disclosures, he was not wearing his official regalia of gum leaves affixed to his forehead, the mantle or sacred drawing of the Devil’s Hand painted on his chest and shoulders with white ash mixed with grease. Even his magic bone, drawn through the nasal septum, had been left at home.

  Notwithstanding, he still possessed authority, and, as any politician in white civilisation, was a practised hand at passing the buck. He went into a trance, waved his arms and showed the whites of his eyes, and saliva dripped from his mouth, until abruptly he collapsed and appeared as one dead.

  Following the exhibition, there was silence among the group and about the camp. The silence was terminated by Iriti shouting an order, and from the camp several initiated men escorted one who was obviously mastered by fear, and they were followed by all the other initiated men. Standing, Iriti proceeded to smite himself with his fists, and harangue the crowd, finally pronouncing a sentence, which was acclaimed. The chief pointed to the sun, now low in the sky, and the accused man shouted defiantly, and ran.

  A woman wailed long and shrilly like a banshee. The crowd retreated. The medicine-man recovered and stalked to his own camp and little fire tended by his lubra. The old men dispersed, leaving Iriti to squat
again, and Bony to roll yet another cigarette. Abie and other initiated men gathered to eat and drink their fill to sustain themselves for the hunt which would start when the rim of the sun touched the earth. The hunted was a man of middle age. He stood not a chance.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Material for Legends

  FOR TWO hours Bony and Iriti had squatted either side of a small fire, until the bucks had eaten and waited for the sun’s rim to touch the western horizon. The conference had produced a bargain between them, and mutual respect as the representatives of modern and ancient cultures, rather than of the white and the black races of today. For neither had complete understanding been reached without earnest effort, as the young interpreter had not been called to this most confidential conference.

  When the belly of the sun caressed the earth, Iriti stood and raised an arm, to point after the condemned aborigine, and with impassive mien watched his young men race away like kangaroos into the surrounding scrub: his task of upholding justice was ended. But for Bony the ultimate triumph of the cat over the mouse was still to be won. None the less, Bony was satisfied with the bargain, and sure that Iriti would carry out his part of it.

  It was night when he reached the stone man end of Main Street, his mind now on the problem of Tony Carr. Passing the hotel, he could hear the voices of men in the barroom. As he rode into the police compound, Harmon appeared in the lighted doorway of his office, and called to him:

  “That you, Nat? Been worried about you.”

  “Rode farther out than I intended,” explained Bony.

  The policeman didn’t follow him to the horse yards, where he watered and fed the horse, and, having seen Harmon through the office window again at his desk, he crossed to the quarters to have hurried words with Esther, and arrange with her to take food to the escapee while he himself engaged the policeman in talk.

  For five minutes they discussed the gelding, a mere prelude to the tossing at Harmon of a few verbal grenades.

  “Did you know the aborigines cleared out this morning?” opened Bony, and Harmon’s hazel eyes dwindled to hard slits beneath the swiftly lowered brows. Shaking his head, he asked:

  “Something must have driven ’em. You know of a reason?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve been out to talk with Iriti. They were told to clear out by a man in this town. Iriti and his people will return tomorrow, and I have arranged for you and me and Sam and a few other citizens to meet them in conference at midday.”

  “You have!” Anger crossed the policeman’s weathered face, was restrained. “You know, Nat, I’ve been thinking about you. You wouldn’t be playing poker all by your little self, would you?”

  “As a corollary, that is what I have been doing. On your telephone you could contact Inspector Mann right now to confirm that I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, of Queensland, engaged on a special assignment. On the other hand, I advise waiting a while, firstly because the conversation would probably be noted by the person now on duty at the telephone exchange, and, secondly, there is an amount of work yet to be done which you and I could do in harness. Shall I go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know who committed these murders, and the motive, Harmon. But I haven’t enough evidence to advise an arrest, and what I do have would not be sufficiently conclusive to place before the Crown Prosecutor. Supporting evidence can be obtained from Iriti and his medicine-man, but you can clearly see the impossibility of presenting them as witnesses in a court. When they return tomorrow, we shall have to accept their statements through a young aborigine who speaks better English than your old-time tracker. Which is why at the conference we must have Melody Sam, and the postmaster, who is a Justice of the Peace. I expect you to hold yourself in readiness.”

  The large hand which had been hovering over the telephone was withdrawn, and that final note of authority completed the change from itinerant bushman to Superior, which the astounded Harmon had been watching.

  “We arrested the wrong man?” he said after a struggle.

  “You arrested the wrong man. I permitted you to arrest the wrong man for a reason which will be made clear.”

  “The right man: who is he?”

  “He will be unmasked at the conference with Iriti.”

  Harmon, who had been gazing steadily at Bony, abruptly stood and paced his office, and Bony patiently awaited his next query, in order to satisfy himself of the policeman’s acceptance of the situation. He knew that Harmon was now reviewing the immediate past, weighing his own responsibility, and assessing its effect on his career and, too, on his future relationship with Melody Sam and the people of Daybreak. Returning to his chair, he had no doubt of the truth of Bony’s statement.

  “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “I should have guessed it some time ago; would have, too, if you had been what you are now. Yesterday I couldn’t have imagined you being a commissioned officer. Now I can’t imagine you as a horsebreaker. Me, I’ve made a few mistakes in my time, but they’ve been genuine mistakes. I’ve always done my duty, and some might say a bit more than my duty. I was rocked badly when my wife was killed, and I am still rocked every time I look at my sister. All right, so what do we do now? We can’t wait until tomorrow, we can’t wait till after we hear what the blacks have to say, ’cos between now and then some officer might bail up young Carr, and one or other of ’em get hurt. You know how it is when a man’s on the run.”

  The hard blue of Wedgwood china had faded from Bony’s eyes, and about his mobile mouth was now a faint smile of approval.

  “I am glad for your sister’s sake, and yours, that you spoke like that. You need have no concern for Tony Carr. He’s safe enough. I have attended to that. He will remain where he is until tomorrow. You concentrate on who would be competent witnesses, to assist us in placing a rope round a murderer’s neck. Who understands best the language of this local tribe?”

  “Fred Joyce,” Harmon promptly replied.

  “Who else?” pressed Bony.

  “Well, young Carr could follow ’em, but he’s not here. Old Melody Sam can yabber to some of them. And I know a bit to get along with Abie, which is why I had him for my tracker.”

  “It’s going to be difficult, Harmon. I can go into court and swear that the man who murdered, when wearing those sandshoes to imitate young Carr’s walk, is so and so. Every police officer in the State would accept that, but would a jury? Would a jury accept as evidence statements on oath by half a dozen white citizens of Daybreak covering statements made by Iriti and his crowd? I doubt it. And to put those wild fellers on the witness-stand would be like poising a pat of butter on a red-hot needle.”

  “That’s all we have?”

  “Yes. Only the evidence of a police inspector, supported by a crowd of wild aborigines. We have no direct evidence, no fingerprints, and the motive without such evidence might not be accepted. But there is a chance, Harmon, that the murderer will convict himself, and we accept that chance because to delay action is like the wind smoothing out his tracks.”

  Bony rose to study the large-scale wall map of this enormous district. Place names were few; vacant spaces large and numerous. Only adjacent to the track to Laverton were there noted the few homesteads and wells. That track was the sole way of escape from Daybreak. He said slowly:

  “Tomorrow, at sun-up, Iriti and most of his people will start back for Daybreak. They should come into sight of anyone stationed at Sam’s Find at about half past ten or eleven. I’ll be at Sam’s Find. From your compound you can see the mine, and see me. When I wave you will know that Iriti is arriving. Then you will bring Melody Sam and the postmaster to this office to await my coming. No one other than those two. Be sure of that. Tell them they are wanted on urgent business, say, about the escape of young Carr. Clear?”

  “Yes. What about...”

  “No more questions, Harmon. No talking, and no action until you see me waving from Sam’s Find.”

  At the hotel, the cook having gone to bed and the
maids to their homes, Bony scrounged a meal in the pantry, and was in time to meet Melody Sam locking up for the night. To the inevitable question, Bony explained how he had ridden away out in the desert, and had misjudged the time.

  “Misjudged the time, me foot, Nat,” roared Sam, his grey eyes twinkling. “Sun shining all day, too. What’s coming to the boil, lad?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Bony evaded. “Tomorrow is the day, I hope. If I’m absent, don’t worry.”

  “What about stayin’ for a pitch, Nat?” Melody Sam suggested. “I’m not feelin’ like bed for a while, and there’s no one here.”

  They retired to the kitchen, where they sat at a table and drank innumerable cups of tea, as Sam was not ‘on the booze’. The old man reminisced, and Bony was content to listen and relax, and to be not disappointed on receiving nothing of value towards his investigation. He had come to admire this man who towered so high above his fellows, who was so much withdrawn in isolation, and yet could stand four square in any company he chose.

  It was after midnight when Melody Sam went to his room, and for the remainder of the night he maintained surveillance over and about the hotel. At break of day he took Sam his early morning tea tray, and carried out his usual chores. He had hoped after breakfast to have a few words with Esther Harmon, but was prevented when he crossed to the police compound to saddle Harmon’s horse.

  “Been thinking I dreamt about last night,” Harmon said. “Your plan still goes through?”

  “Yes. Keep an eye on the mine. You’ll see me there, and when I wave, bring Sam and the postmaster to your office. I suppose we couldn’t click on a million to one chance of someone at Daybreak able to write shorthand?”

  Harmon brightened, admitting he had done ‘a spot of it’. Bony beamed, and Harmon’s none too sure confidence in him strengthened, it being difficult to associate this agile, unassuming bushman with the shadowy personality among the top brass.