The Will of the Tribe Read online

  Scolloti pulled his ragged beard and sighed, saying, “Don’t get it. The worry is that if he mis-cues again someone is going to see it, and then the Boss is going to send him back where he come from when a real lamb. It ain’t natural for him to miscue like that. Could of done Toby a bit of harm, couldn’t he?”

  “Could have? I thought you said he did.”

  “That was nothing. No arms and legs broke. If the Boss heard it, him being in the rage he was yesterday and this morning, it’d be the partin’ of the ways for Mister Lamb and the kids. He got real sore at the blacks, includin’ Captain, about Star. Swore that one of ’em pinched the horse to go chasin’ after a lubra over at the Leroy’s. Told Captain it’s high time he got himself a lubra, anyhow, instead of moonin’ around like a sick eunuch. Sore? Cripes, he was sore!”

  “Captain hasn’t a lubra, then?”

  “Never did have as far as I know. Had a couple of tries at Tessa but was knocked back. She’s a clever little wench that one. You don’t know what goes on inside her. They say education ruins the blacks, but I reckon nothing can ruin ’em more than they are. As for Captain, well, it ain’t natural for a black to live in a place by himself and do nothin’ at night bar read poetry.”

  “Is that what he does?”

  “That and books on history. Gets ’em from the Missus. She gets ’em up from Perth. Why, he can write a better fist than me.”

  “I suppose that’s where he gets his legends to tell the children?” probed Bony, made happy by the trend of this conversation.

  “Must of. He tells ’em legends I’ve never heard of, and I’ve heard a lot in me time. You gets the chance to hear ’em when camped with a mustering team.”

  “Did you ever hear a legend about how the Crater was made?”

  “No, can’t say that I ever did. But then there wouldn’t be no legends about that. It happened a long time after the blacks started legends.”

  “Some say the meteor fell about six hundred years ago.”

  “Well, I can say it fell in 1905. In December of that year. There’s people who saw it fall, plenty of ’em. And heard it, too. There wasn’t anyone living out here then, of course, ’cept the wild blacks, and they was wild in them days. There was Joe the Stinker and his mate prospectin’ for gold in the mountains a bit east of Hall’s. They’s camped in their tent, and the light lit it all up and they went out, saw it fall and heard the roar of it. If it fell six hundred years back instead of less’n sixty there’d be blacks’ legends about it all right.”

  “The wild blacks would dream them up?”

  “Too right they would. “Course, Captain could make ’em, but he’s the odd bloke out.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Another Bout With Gup-Gup

  GUP-GUP sat on an empty sack beside his small fire, the tenuous smoke from which drifted slantingly to miss the head of Poppa. The lubras and the children were less vociferous this afternoon than was usual.

  Now and then Gup-Gup vented a soft grunt, and Poppa’s eyes would flash in anger. They had been thus engaged for an hour without uttering a word when the tip of a shadow passed between them and there was the white-feller policeman looking down at them.

  “The son of Illawalli first blinds those he seeks,” muttered the Chief. “One time it would not be so.”

  “One time a stranger would sign to enter a camp,” growled Poppa.

  “One time all Abos not such fools,” countered Bony before squatting on his heels and reaching for tobacco and papers.

  They watched him, his face and fingers alternately; watched him replace the tin of tobacco and the papers and light the cigarette. Neither spoke again, and the minutes piled to total twenty before Poppa lost the duel of patience.

  “Why have you come this day?” he sought to know.

  “Once in a far-away country there were two wise men who sat before a fire all evening without speaking, and, at the end, when they parted, one said to the other, ‘It’s been a grand night tonight’,” Bony said. “We sit here at this little fire and see many things in the jumping flame and the smoke which blows away to nothing. Do I ask you why you sit here in the sun all day? No, I see much in the flame of Gup-Gup’s fire.”

  Gup-Gup said, “Give it bacco, Boss.”

  “What,” softly exclaimed Bony, languidly spurting smoke at the Chief. “Run out of bacco already? I can’t believe it. Your lubras will still have plenty. How come you are short?”

  “Bacco ration not come,” growled Poppa. “Things are crook.”

  “That bad, eh! Well, you could both go to gaol. They hand out plenty tobacco in gaol. Not a bad place to be in. Bit lonely at night, though. No lubras to keep an old body warm, Gup-Gup. Bit of hard work for you, Poppa. But, as I said, plenty of bacco.”

  “Cunnin’ feller, eh?” Poppa almost shouted.

  “’Tisn’t hard to be cunnin’ with you two dopes,” Bony said pleasantly.

  “Cunnin’ feller,” Poppa repeated, and Bony proceeded.

  “Tellin’ yarns like the one about Lawrence and Wandin running away to Eddy’s Well. Saying they were to be married and Captain telling about them beating the gun. And Wandin married to Mitti all the time, and Mitti going crook in front of Missus ’cos he thought she’d marry Wandin to Lawrence.” Bony’s voice rose a couple of octaves. “What’s the matter with you? Go on, speak up. What’s wrong with you pair of cackling lubras? How come you get initiated as young men?”

  “Cunnin’ feller,” Poppa said again, and Bony tapped his forehead significantly.

  “Wonky! No doubt about your being wonky, both of you. You got it good. Good camp. Plenty of water. Plenty tucker. Plenty bacco. No work. All your secret places to visit. Your young men and lubras to initiate, and then have them keeping your wood piles high. And you’re that wonky you go and put over a tale of Wandin and Lawrence running off.”

  Poppa’s face was working hard at the rage eating him. The moth-eaten white beard and scant hair of his chief shook slightly in the sunlight, and the skinny claws of hands gently pushed the ends of the fire-sticks together. His face remained empty, calm as that of the ivory Buddha. Suddenly the dynamic Poppa was on his feet, and he was shouting down at Bony in his native language, eyes flashing redly like the fire in black opals, lips drawn back to reveal the teeth, already beginning to decay.

  Bony continued passively to smoke his cigarette. Gup-Gup spoke sharply, without looking up, and the tirade ebbed like a high wave, to leave the old man’s hissing breath like sand being washed by retreating water.

  Poppa squatted on his heels, and Gup-Gup put a hand inside the mouth of the dilly-bag of kangaroo skin suspended from his neck and produced a stick of tobacco and an old bone-handle clasp knife. Having nicked a chew from the stick, he replaced it and the knife and solemnly stared at his fire while his prominent jaw worked. After a spell of ten minutes of brooding silence, Bony continued with his prodding. “Then you go to kid Captain to tell the Boss it was Lawrence out at Eddy’s, and that he got sort of trapped by me and Young Col. You beat me. I don’t get it. A little boy carried by his mother wouldn’t have told that silly yarn to the Boss. And then you send Lawrence and Wandin with Captain to the Boss, saying they were to be married black-feller fashion some time. And them walking away out from the Boss and leaving all their tracks in the compound for me to see the next morning and know it wasn’t Lawrence out at Eddy’s but a feller called Mitti. You askin’ to go to gaol? Go on, say something.”

  They wondered this request for five long minutes, slowly chewing, reminding Bony of Mister Lamb, who appeared much more intelligent than either at the moment. Not that he under-estimated them, for there is nothing more spontaneous in the Aborigine than donning the mask of stupidity. Then came the break, proving that Bony’s guess was right. Gup-Gup looked up and met his eyes.

  “Like you said, it was Mitti out at Eddy’s,” he admitted, and Poppa became uneasy. “He’s the wonky feller, like you say we’re wonky. Never no good. Never work for the Boss. He
thinks he’s a wild feller sometimes. Sometimes he go bush for long time with no pants on, no nothing on, not even the pubic tassel. Not even throwing-spear or woomera.

  “All right. Then Young Col and you see black feller with nothing on at Eddy’s. You see black feller getting away quick into the grass. No pubic tassel, no spear, no woomera, no nothing. Mitti say he’s wild black, but you know wild black don’t get around with nothing. Boss, he go crook when Young Col tell him about Mitti supposin’ to be wild feller. Boss go dead crook for station black running about naked. Says he won’t have feller with no pants on. Only me, long as I stop in camp. Come night and Mitti still running around, so Captain gotta do something, and they have Lawrence and Wandin running around to put Boss off the track. Okay! Boss say black feller running around with young lubra all right by him ... out at Eddy’s.”

  “This Captain feller,” Bony prodded, “pannikin boss at homestead. Another wonky black feller camping at the homestead by himself looks like. He pannikin boss over you?”

  “Captain feller’s the son of my son,” replied Gup-Gup, his old eyes swiftly bright. “My son killed by the wild blacks. Captain be Chief some time.”

  Now Poppa spoke, “Captain pretty near white-feller-black-feller. We have trouble, Captain fixes it. Now we have trouble, Captain fixes it. Now we have trouble about Mitti running around naked, and Boss says nothing doing like that, and Captain fix more trouble.”

  “Captain didn’t. You all made a muck of it,” countered Bony, happy at luring these two from stubborn silence, yet unhopeful of extracting anything of value. “Now you have to marry Mitti’s lubra to Lawrence, and break all the taboos and have the young men and lubras laughing like hell at you.”

  “Captain fix that, too,” proudly claimed Gup-Gup. “Mitti went bush with his lubra. Be away on walkabout long time. No more trouble.”

  Bony waited for both men to look directly at him, then asked, “Did Mitti and Wandin go walkabout on station horse, Star?”

  The shutters fell. Gup-Gup tended to his fire-sticks.

  “Boss and fellers out looking for Star. Star got out from horse paddock.”

  “Then you be happy if they find Star. If they don’t track Star, then Boss will say Mitti took him. Then he’ll have Constable Howard looking for Mitti and put Mitti in gaol for pinching a horse. Trouble! Captain’s going to have a lot of trouble over that horse if Boss don’t track him up quick. Think Captain’ll fix trouble like that?”

  “Captain fix it, all right,” snapped Poppa.

  “Let’s hope so. What with a white feller found dead in the Crater, and you putting up the yarn about Lawrence and Wandin, and the Boss roaring about one of his horses missing. Captain is going to have a lot of work to do. Missus was telling me if the Boss can’t find Star he’s going to have you all pushed out of here over to near the Aborigines’ Penal Settlement, and you two, of course, inside the Settlement Gaol. Can’t go on.”

  Bony snatched up a blazing fire-stick, saying, “This one dead feller in Crater.” He snatched another stick, “this one trouble over Mitti and Wandin and Lawrence.” The third stick he plucked from under Gup-Gup’s nose, “And this one the missing horse, if he can’t be tracked. One, two, three, all together, make Constable Howard say you give him a belly full, you all head for the Settlement.” Placing the sticks as the Chief had arranged them and numbering each when so doing, Bony clinched with, “One no matter; two no matter; three no matter. But one, two, three, together like that, pretty crook for you all.”

  It was then he received a slight reward, for Gup-Gup was too anxious to deny the Crater affair, saying, “Why you say and say for black-feller trouble in Crater? Us black fellers been here long time, and no white-feller trouble put on us. You say we live good at Deep Creek homestead like we didn’t know it. What for we have white-feller trouble for nothing? You say we wonky fellers. You wonky feller all right. Crater feller not black-feller trouble.” Gup-Gup regarded Bony with keen eyes although his voice was mild. He added, “You big-feller policeman, you say, eh?”

  What motive did these people have for murdering a white man? The only motive, did they actually kill the fellow, which he was reluctant to believe, would be on moral grounds; certainly not for gain. They were too far advanced from their original isolation before the coming of the alien race to kill merely for the thrill of it, too soundly established on the white man’s threshold, and thus they would react with violence only to crimes against them, such as robbing their Treasure House or stealing a lubra. And even the latter crime would give men like Gup-Gup cause for hard thinking. Sitting there, eternally poking his fire-sticks, looking like a gargoyle, an unwashed Aborigine, he yet possessed an intelligence probably above that of many itinerant whites. The answer had to be loyalty to someone or something.

  Bony made another effort, putting down some of his cards. “You fellers say the Crater man not your black-feller trouble,” he said, speaking slowly. “Now you tell me, eh? What for you have tracker look-see what I did at the Crater, what for tracker went there before sun-up after I went there? What for you send lubra tracking me up the Creek same morning? What for you send black feller to stand outside my room at homestead? I say you don’t like me prospecting the Crater, you don’t like for me to find out who killed the Crater feller, who put him in the Crater. You tell me all these things, eh?”

  “Cunnin’ feller,” Poppa said softly.

  Nothing further was said. The fine points of the white man’s law, such as being accessories after the fact, or even before the fact, could not be appreciated. The silence of an unbridgeable gulf descended upon them like a fog, barring him out and barring those two into their own limitless prison beyond the gulf. He smoked another cigarette before abruptly leaving them.

  Instead of returning to the homestead he walked out into the desert and to a low range of sand-dunes, and sat on a ridge facing to the east and the south. He was feeling depressed, not by failure or from frustration, but through a sharp sense of his own limitations and inability to cross the gulf separating these people from himself. It wasn’t the first occasion in his career when, confronted by this gulf, he had felt resentment that his mother had given him only half of himself from her own race, the other half was bequeathed by his father; and so he was placed upon a schism restraining him like hobbles fastened to his feet.

  The sun was low over the mountains, and the dunes cast their ragged shadows, away to the east, and, far beyond them, was his own shadow like a pointer indicating Lucifer’s Couch. Well, if Gup-Gup and Company told the truth when denying killing the man in that Crater, then they must be acting loyally towards those who did. It must have been a white killing, and the people for whom they acted in loyalty must be among those at the homestead. For whom? All or only one man at the homestead? If only one, to which of them would they be loyal?

  Lucifer’s Couch was again a bar of gold lying on white velvet, thrust back from him by the sheet of rose-pink desert spotted with dark-green. And the sky was taking to itself the darkening tint of indigo to conform with the magic colour-scheme concealing reality.

  Behind him sounded the hooves of galloping horses and, turning, he saw Young Col and an Aborigine riding homeward. Young Col waved and shouted, “Who wouldn’t be Inspector Bonaparte?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bony Champions The Aborigines

  AT DINNER this evening Bony heard of the failure by the musterers to locate the absent horse. Brentner and each white stockman had taken a black stockman with them and, thus in pairs, had ridden all day in an effort to cut the animal’s tracks. All had to report no result, and each had hoped to find a lucky pair back before their own arrival at the yards. They were mystified and angry when they met at table, and Brentner wisely left the subject to his two assistants.

  “I reckon Inspector Bonaparte pinched that moke,” Young Col said, speculatively regarding Bony. “He’s away on walkabout and Star is missing. It follows, you know, deductive reasoning. When are you going to bring h
im back, Bony?”

  “Matter of fact he went lame and I left him at Beaudesert,” Bony replied. “It’s why I didn’t get home until late this morning.”

  “And us working all day and wearing out the seats of our pants looking for him,” avowed Old Ted, winking at Tessa. “Nice how-d’you-do wasting the Company’s money in wages! You must have grown wings to the blighter and flew him to Beaudesert. Got lame in one of his wings, I suppose.”

  “Ran out of petrol more likely,” submitted Young Col, watching Old Ted. “Anyway, now that that Star mystery is solved, Mr Brentner, who are you letting go to Hall’s for the conference tomorrow? Me, I hope.”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I haven’t even decided if I’ll go,” replied Brentner, a trifle shortly. “I don’t like this Star business. Horses don’t vanish on me and get away with it. What with our own blacks going wild and the wild blacks wild all the time, the country is going to pieces. I had Captain with me and he acted like he had the stomach-ache all day. What did you fellers do? Go to sleep under a shady tree until it was time to come home? Horses can’t walk around without leaving tracks. One pair of us must have crossed ’em with our eyes shut.”

  The three men fell into moody silence. Rose Brentner glanced at everyone by turn. The children concentrated on the meal, and the young Aboriginal girl watched Brentner with what Bony thought was admiration. Presently Bony said, “Saying that you thought Captain must have had a tummy-ache, gives me an idea about the missing horse. I see that the horse paddock contains a fair number of low trees and a good deal of desert scrub. Supposing Star had a tummy-ache and was lying down separated from the other horses. He might still be lying down: by now he might be feeding with the other horses. If you like, I’ll ride over that paddock tomorrow. I once knew a horse that would deliberately lie down when he saw anyone coming for him, and another horse I knew used to hide behind a tree.”