No footprints in the bush b-8 Page 10

  “There has been no wind for a week to break a tree branch to fall on the telephone line,” Bony pointed out. Then he added a question that in view of Burning Water’sphysique, was strange. “How do you feel?”

  For a full two seconds Burning Water stared into the blue eyes of the lesser man, and then he repeated the question. Bony said: “I feel like a dingo when danger threatens from down wind, a danger he can’t smell or see. I am uneasy. It is like the quiet of evening when the thunder clouds are gathering in the west.”

  Only now did the black eyes of the chief reveal concern now that possible danger was communicated to him by another. Bony could see his mind at work searching for this possible danger as the dingo’s nose will work in similar effort.

  “Tell me,” Bony said, quietly, “what view can be gained from the tank stands?”

  “Only the plain to the south. They are not high enough to let a man see over the scrub on the high land. But there’s a tree at the head of this gully which gives a view all round. It’s less than half a mile away.”

  “Ah! Let us walk to that tree and see how the world looks.”

  Together they walked along the gully bed to avoid the deep water gutters bringing flood-water into the main stream.

  “Is Itcheroo in camp?” asked Bony.

  “Yes.”

  “He will bear watching. However, we may find a use for him in certain eventualities. During the Great War, so I understand, the British authorities purposely left spies at large so that the spies could transmit false information. No doubt shortly after The McPherson left the homestead in his car this morning Itcheroo conveyed the fact to an Illprinka man who, in turn conveyed it to Rex McPherson waiting for news of the smoke signal, announcing his father’s capitulation. That we have not a spy in Rex McPherson’s camp is a distinct disadvantage, isn’t it?”

  Burning Water grunted assent, and, when he offered no comment, Bony spoke again.

  “A living Itcheroo would be of greater value to us than a dead Itcheroo. Therefore, because The McPherson is absent, kindly refrain from sending him back into a tree or a stone or whatever it was he came from. Whilst you have been lying down in the shade and thinking of pleasant things, I have been thinking of nasty things and of nasty men whom you and I together will have to fight.”

  “Without The McPherson I am like a man bushed,” growled Chief Burning Water. “He is my chief and him only do I obey. I wait for him to say: Do this or do that. I suppose it has become a habit, like the bad habits the old McPherson’s wife used to tell about.”

  “I understand,” Bony said. “Is this the tree?”

  This tree, a magnificent white gum, had long been used as a lookout by the Wantella tribe. Steps had been cut into trunk and branches where difficulty in climbing had been met, whilst in the fork of the topmost branch a platform had been constructed, looking like an eagle hawk’s nest.

  Bony first gazed to the west and the north, and there was no need to look elsewhere. Beyond the edge of the carpet of scrub extending to the horizon rose columns of dark-brown smoke, columns separated into sections, section following section upward to merge into mushroom-shaped clouds tinted with gold by the westering sun.

  “Now, what do you make of that?” asked Bony, a hint of triumph in his voice, that hint betrayed in the voice of those who delight in saying ‘I told you so.’ “I can make nothing of them. Can you?”

  “Yes. I can read,” replied Burning Water. “You see that signal far beyond the others to the north-west? That says come to big corroboree. All the others are saying they will.”

  “Oh, is that so? When there are men like Itcheroo over there one would think that sending up smoke signals was unnecessary.”

  “There are few Itcheroo,” Burning Water pointed out, truthfully. “The number of answering signals would say that the Illprinka tribe is much scattered.”

  “So they would,” agreed Bony. “So they would. On the sand map you drew for me you placed a waterhole far to the north-west. That sending smoke would be in line with that waterhole, eh?”

  “Yes. It’s probably a pick-up signal from the one at the waterhole which is a hundred and forty miles from here.”

  “Oh! What’s the waterhole like, the country round it?”

  “It’s a small lake filled quickly by two creeks, and when it is full it is very deep. It’s a place for water-birds and all round itlie big sand-dunes. The waterhole southward of it on my map is a hundred miles farther to the west and not so good. There is a chain of deep holes on a creek which begins and ends in about six miles.”

  “Ah! And the waterhole at the westward end of the plain?”

  “That is closer to us-about a hundred miles away. Water lies in deep channels along the edge of a big cane-grass swamp. I have been to that waterhole. The cane-grassswamp-dry, of course in ordinary seasons-covers’ land almost as much as McPherson’s Station.”

  “Good hiding place, evidently.”

  “All the people in the world could walk into that cane-grass swamp and be hidden for ever,” answered Burning Water, whose knowledge of the world’s population could be nothing but vague.

  Standing on the swaying platform of boughs and supporting himself by holding to one of the two natural supports, Bony turned to gaze eastward, when he saw almost below the tree a large clearing in the scrub, in the middle of which tiny black figures moved about a low bush humpy.

  “That is the Wantella ceremonial ground,” Burning Water explained. “Those down there are of the White-ant Totem. They are going to have the ceremony of the White-ant tomorrow. I am glad it is the White-ant ceremony, because it will not take longer than a few hours. The ceremonies in series taking days and nights to perform often weary me.”

  Bony’s interest in those about the humpy in the clearing swiftly passed, and returned to the smoke signals, which portended a period of quiet in the Illprinka country. The Wantella man waited on him, alert now like a most suspicious dingo, apt to see danger where danger did not actually exist.

  “Can The McPherson read those smoke signals?” Bony asked.

  “As I can,”came the answer.

  “Tell me. Before those raids on The McPherson’s cattle, Rex McPherson sent a letter to his father telling him to retire and give the station to him, or he would steal the cattle. Do you remember how long after the letters were received that Rex McPherson did steal the cattle?”

  “Three or four days at the longest. The McPherson told me that it appeared Rex McPherson made all his plans before writing the letters.”

  “And don’tyou think that having sent The McPherson a letter last night he will strike again in a day or two?”

  “Yes. The McPherson swears he won’t hand the station over to his son. I expect it is why The McPherson hasn’t come home yet. He’s planning to keep his cattle from being stolen.”

  “You may be right-that the cattle will again be Rex McPherson’s objective, Burning Water, but it may not be this time. It may be some other: for instance, it may be the abduction of Miss McPherson.”

  Burning Water caught Bony by an arm, pulled him so that he came to stand chest to chest and looked up into black eyes now large and angry.

  “I had not thought of that,” he said. “I see now why you feel like a dingo in danger from down wind. You are like The McPherson. You look into the days that are to come and plan for them.”

  “And I try to look into the minds of distant men and read them as you read those smoke signals,” Bony added. “Listen. The McPherson goes outback in his car after breakfast this morning. Itcheroo sees him go and he sends a mulga wire to an Illprinka man, who tells Rex McPherson that, instead of sending up the smoke signal saying he will give his son the station, The McPherson has gone outback in his car. This afternoon the leaders of the Illprinka tribe send up smoke signals calling all the tribe to a waterhole a hundred and forty miles away. They wouldn’t be doing that if Rex was going to make another raid on The McPherson’s cattle, would they?”

 
; “You reason like The McPherson, my brother.”

  “I reason better if he, reading those smoke signals, thinks all the Illprinka men are retiring to that distant waterhole to hold a corroboree. The situation, my brother, is certainly not clear, but it makes me glad I reached a particular decision when gazing on the tomb of your sister, Tarlalin.”

  Chapter Eleven

  McPherson Moves

  AS Burning Water had said, a squatter seldom can be sure, on leaving his homestead, when he will return to it. So many problems arise without warning to demand instant attention that a projected absence of a few hours may extend into several days.

  When McPherson left his homestead, the morning following the visit of the aeroplane, his intention was to run out to Watson’s Bore, where there were a dozen male aborigines working as stock-men. There was no telephone at this hut situated midway between homestead and out-station on country appearing to the uninitiated as semi-desert despite the growth of buckbush, cotton- and flannel-bush, and the green-sprouting tussock-grass.

  The bore itself was half a mile from the hut on lower ground denuded for miles of scrub by the cattle. Situated on the north-western edge of the Great Artesian Basin, from its inverted L-shaped above-ground iron casing flowed every twenty-four hours half a million gallons of steaming water, forming the genesis of a creek which in turn had created a lake amid distant sand-dunes.

  McPherson reached the hut a few minutes before eleven o’clock to find a solitary aborigine to greet him-one named Titchalimbji, shortened to Tich to savebreath. Tich was rotund and oily but clean. Ever cheerful, he was a man who, grown up with McPherson, had evinced a keener interest in cattle than his fellows, and finally had been promoted to boss musterer.

  “Good day!” he shouted, hurrying from the hut to the car.

  “Good day, Tich! All the boys away?”

  “Too right!” exclaimed the boss musterer with immense satisfaction. “I push four of the loafers across to the Basin to have a look over them breeding cows. The others I tell go away out to Hell’s Drift. I bin thereyestiddy. Ground bog enough to trap a rabbit. You come in have a drink of tea?”

  McPherson nodded and followed the fellow into the hut, at one end of which was the open hearth and a few blackened cooking utensils. In the middle was the long table flanked by forms, and at the other end on the floor was a toss of blankets left by the occupiers of the communal bed they had slept in.

  Tich made tea in a blackened billy and McPherson filled a telescopic cup he took from a pocket. Seated on a form, he helped himself to sugar and then proceeded to cut chips from a tobacco plug, the cold and empty pipe dangling from his lips against the full grey moustache. Seated opposite him was Tich, waiting for gossip, wondering, hoping. His eyes were big as he stared at the ignited match held to the pipe bowl, and they became still bigger when McPherson’s hand slid into a waistcoat pocket and brought out a cigar.

  “You like cigars,” stated the squatter as though there could be no argument about it.

  “Too right, boss! You give-it that one, eh?”

  McPherson proffered the cigar and a fat hand reached forward and accepted it. The round face was expanded in a grin of anticipated pleasure, and into the wide mouth went half the cigar, to be masticated by strong but tobacco-stained teeth. Presently Tich swallowed, like a camel, and said:

  “You fetch out tucker, boss?”

  “Yes. You bin hear about Sergeant Errey and Mit-ji?”

  “No. What about?”

  The squatter related the grim details as given him by Bonaparte, and during the recital the expression of good cheer never once left the round black face or the round black eyes. When he had done, Tich said cheerfully:

  “Who you think that plane feller, boss? Rex?”

  “Yes, Tich, it was Rex,” McPherson admitted, sadly and desperately. “He’s put himself beyond the pale. He flew over the house last night and dropped a letter ina treacle tin. He wrote in the letter he was going to hit me again and hit hard this time. There’s another policeman at the homestead now, a big feller half-caste policeman who is going to catch Rex-or thinks he is. He won’t, because we’re going to catch Rex ourselves.”

  “Too right we catch Rex you say so, boss,” eagerly asserted the aborigine.“We cunning fellers all right. You bring here Jack Johnson and Iting from out-station. Ole Jack he cunning feller. Best feller in Wantella mob, any’ow.”

  The fat face continued to bear the expression of cheer, but in the voice now was definite entreaty. McPherson smoked for several seconds without speaking. Then:

  “All right, Tich. I’ll go on out for Jack Johnson and Iting. I’ll have to fetch extra saddles and bridles. You can come out for the rations, and then you can go after the spare horses and yard them. We can ride to the boundary and let the horses go there. They’ll be a drag on us in the Illprinka country.”

  Tich, having taken the rations into the hut, walked out into the night paddock after the night horse, and on it rode away into the horse paddock accompanied by his excited dogs and yellinghimself with excitement. McPherson drove away and covered the fifty miles to the out-station in an hour and a half, to be welcomed by Mrs Nevin and her two children, and by the blacks who were camped above a water-hole farther down the creek.

  “Tom out, Mrs Nevin?”

  “Yes, Mr McPherson. They’re moving cattle from the north-west corner, as you said to do last night. You’ll stay for lunch?”

  “Thank you. But I can’t stop long. Tell Tom I’m taking a couple of saddles and bridles, and Jack Johnson and Iting back with me. Meanwhile I’ll write him a note and leave it on the office table for him.”

  The woman suspected the strain, seeing it in his eyes, hearing it in his grim voice, but wisely she refrained from inquiry and bustled away to prepare the meal. The two small girls accompanied the squatter to the office at the end of the veranda, unafraid of him, babbling gossip about a calf they were rearing and about a newly-robbed galah’s nest.

  The great McPherson spent a minute chatting with them, and then asked for silence while he wrote a letter to “dad.” They stood beside his chair, silent and tense, waiting for him to finish the letter before continuing their chatter. He wrote:

  DEAR TOM.

  Stay at home till you hear from me. Shift the blacks into the sheds and keep them from going away. I am expecting trouble from the Illprinka. Rex has threatened again, and we know what he is. I don’t think he and the wild blacks will come here, but you can’t take chances. I am leaving five hundred cartridges for the rifles on the shelf above the door. If Jack Johnson and Iting are not away I’ll be taking them with me. Flora will be all right at the homestead. That inspector will be there and he’s no fool, but I’ve got to beat him and deal with Rex myself. You know how it is. So long!

  The letter, sealed into an envelope, he left on the writing table and, talking about calves and young galahs, he was accompanied by the children to the car from which he took the boxes of cartridges and returned with them to the office. From the veranda he shouted for Jack Johnson and Iting.

  A black urchin told him Iting was away with the men, and a chain of voices extending down the creek took up the cry for Jack Johnson. Presently he appeared, a man as tall as Burning Water but walking with a slouching gait. Over-long arms dangled from massive shoulders. Aprognathous jaw, a pimple of a nose, a protruding frontal bone and deep-set eyes, combined to make a face truly ape-like. A thin piece of bone was thrust through his nose, and from the forehead-band of red birds’ down dangled five gum leaves.

  Jack Johnson, one-time sparring partner to the young McPherson: now the Wantella medicine man. Jack Johnson, the most horrific looking aborigine in the back country: yet famed for his patient good humour and skill in healing. His voice was gruff:

  “Good day, boss!” he greeted the squatter.

  “Good day, Jack. I want you and Iting to come with me to Watson’s Bore, but they say Iting is away after the cattle. You come all right?”

  T
he deference to the aborigine’s wishes was significant. It indicated an understanding of aboriginal affairs which to the aborigines are of as great importance as affairs are to white people. That Jack Johnson wore only the pubic tassel announced his non-employment by the station, and, his freedom of action. Yet there was no hesitation in his voice-or in his mind. The McPherson wanted him. That was enough.

  “Too right, boss! What we do, eh? Cattle ride?”

  “No, Jack. I want you to come with Tich and me and the others. We’re going out into the Illprinka country.”

  Now the black eyes gleamed and the lips parted to reveal grinning teeth.

  “You go without me, boss, and I kick up a hell of a row,” the fellow said, clenching his enormous hands.

  “I wouldn’t go without you, Jack Johnson,” McPherson said softly, affected by the man’s loyalty of which he had never felt doubt. “But not a word to any one, understand? Fetch a couple of saddles and bridles from the harness shed, and put them in the car.”

  Again, quite willingly, he talked of birds and animals with the two little girls who clung to his rough hands. They passed into the house where he chatted to the lonely woman of things he thought would interest, but when she looked at him he sensed the uneasy fear in her mind concerning the renegade son.

  The woman and her two children emerged with him from the house half an hour later and accompanied him to the car about which was gathered that portion of the Wantella tribe temporarily camped here. In the back seat of the car sat Jack Johnson, bolt upright, solemnly important, proud of the distinction.

  There followed a scene illustrative of McPherson’s closeness to these allegedly primitive people. From the car he took a five-pound box of plug tobacco and presented each lubra and each buck with a gift. He knew them all, their names and their totem and their relationships; his knowledge of the last was extraordinary. He asked one old woman how her rheumatism was, and another how her burned leg was getting on; if this young man had taken that young woman to wife; and another when he was going to be sealed into the tribe. And the while he spoke to them the two white children clung to the hem of his old coat and the white woman chatted and laughed with her black sisters. When he drove away it was to the accompaniment of men’s shouts and women’s shrill cries of farewell.