Bony and the Black Virgin Read online

  “Well, in that case, Tonto, I’m sorry I marked you. Wouldn’t have done if I’d known you took sick.” Tonto brightened in the warmth of this expression of sympathy. “Suppose you knew why you were told to loose them.”

  “Didn’t.”

  “But you were belted around for not doing what you were told.”

  No reply, merely the glint of firelight in the corners of Tonto’s eyes.

  “Why belt you around?” pressed Bony hopefully. “The dogs are dead, anyway. And what’s a few dogs after all? They didn’t belong to Nuggety Jack, or Dusty or any other black-feller. Are you sure you were belted around for not loosing the dogs? Were you belted around for something else?”

  Tonto went on strike, but he should have closed his eyes. He was beginning to understand that he had fallen into a trap, and his eyes gave him away.

  “Pretty soon Nuggety Jack is going to see my tracks here, and know you and I had a little talk,” Bony pointed out. “What say you go on walkabout for a week? Tell you what, Tonto. You go on down to Mindee and see Sergeant Mawby. I’ll telephone to the sergeant and tell him to give you a job at the Police Station, cleaning up and that sort of work. He might make you his tracker. I know his regular tracker cleared off down to the Murray. What do you think of that?”

  “No ruddy good. The sergeant he lock me up.”

  “But he won’t when I tell him to give you a job.”

  Tonto was melting from the fire of rising anger. And anger cutteth a man off at the knees.

  “All right, then. What are you going to do? Sit here and wait for Nuggety and the boys to bash you for talking to me, for telling me you went sick instead of loosing the dogs?”

  “To hell with you. You got me into this. You...”

  “Who told you to follow me around Rudder’s?”

  “Nug ... I’m not saying. To hell with you.”

  “Well, you’ll carry the bag,” Bony unnecessarily pointed out. “You stay here and be half-murdered by the boys, or you clear off down to Mindee and have the sergeant keep you from being half-murdered, or you go off on walkabout, anywhere you like. I’ll tell you something, Tonto. If I see you in L’Albert, I’ll have you in jail for ten years for not letting those dogs go.” Bony held up with his left hand two plugs of tobacco. “I’m leaving these here for you. When I’m gone, grab ’em and go for your life.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Duel

  IT WAS ten o’clock when Pointer and Bony returned to L’Albert from what Bony felt had been a profitable trip. Knowing his country, the overseer had been able to reach a spot within two miles of Bore Ten before it became dark, and the return journey had been comparatively easy by following the tracks made during daylight.

  Instead of informing Pointer what had transpired at Tonto’s campfire, Bony took him further into his confidence relative to the tracks made by the car or utility in Rudder’s Paddock, and which had been responsible for leading him and the dog to the gilgie hole.

  In view of Tonto’s admissions which brought Nuggety Jack into this still shrouded picture, Bony wanted to know whether the aborigine had petrol at the time Paul Dickson had been killed. Pointer was positive that Nuggety Jack had no petrol, and that his car was then being drawn by a couple of horses, while Bony was sure that the car the tracks of which he had followed had been jacked to get started, and was, therefore, petrol-driven.

  On returning to the homestead, Bony had asked permission to use the office, in which to write reports and meditate. He had gone direct to the office, and now was seated before the large-scale wall map, and sideways to the table desk.

  On this map of the northern portion of Fort Deakin, called L’Albert, with Lake Jane to the east and Jorkin’s Soak to the west, was noted all the bores and wells and connecting roads or tracks, as well as ranges of sandhills, water courses, and depressions having collected water during the last hundred years. Someone, probably a previous investigator, had written in pencil the name of everyone living within this area at the time Paul Dickson was found dead at Lake Jane.

  Bony had read in the Official Summary several theories covering these two murders separated by eighteen miles of near desert, and he had listened to further theories given by the Downers, and the Pointers, and all of them he discarded because there was no basis of fact on which they were built.

  His own investigation had been advanced to the point that the two murders had been an inside job, meaning that they had been committed by some person or persons within the area covered by that wallmap.

  No police investigator, no local person, had put forward a plausible motive for killing first Dickson, and then Brandt. Even now, at this stage of his investigation, Bony could not presume a motive having any degree of plausibility. However, he felt justified in seriously considering the theory that both murders had taken place at the same place and time, and that the body of Brandt had been conveyed eighteen miles to another place for burial in order to (a) lead the police to believe that Dickson had been murdered by Brandt, and (b) direct police activity to hunting down Brandt and prevent police focusing attention on this locality and those who lived here. Had not Brandt’s body been found, the police would have hunted for him until writing off their investigation altogether.

  Now, owing to the behaviour of an aborigine named Tonto, plus Tonto’s disclosures, he, Bonaparte, could focus his attention upon Nuggety Jack, and his Medicine Man, Dusty.

  Bony swung himself to sit square to the desk, and he rolled six cigarettes before lighting one and drawing to him Pointer’s work diary for the previous year. The first date which held him was August 1st, and read: ‘Nuggety Jack came in with dog scalps and was credited with £26. He asked for petrol and it was refused on the score that the fuel supply was low.’ In parenthesis, Pointer had written: ‘Jack is doing all right at Bore Ten. Persuaded him to leave fifteen pounds of the dog money in credit as the future is going to be hard for him as for everyone else.’

  The account of the visit by the police to investigate the death at Lake Jane occupied so much space that a blank page had been gummed into the book, and another entry told of the visit to Lake Jane by the writer and his wife and daughter to see the water flowing over the Crossing and into the lake’s dry bed. And in brackets: ‘First time the women had ever seen water running into Lake Jane. We all went paddling on the Crossing. And met in the centre the two Downers who paddled back with us to our side where the billy was boiled. Quite a happy little picnic.’

  Another entry read: ‘Mr Long asked to be driven out to see Eric Downer and their sheep. Took five 40-gal. drums of petrol and engine oil, in case needed by the Downers. Called at their homestead, and proceeded to Rudder’s Well. Country out there looks plain terrible. Found Eric D. camped about three miles from Well, and cutting scrub for about 500 sheep where he’s carting water for them, to save walking. Left the petrol and oil with him. He might pull the sheep through. If it rains.’

  Weeks afterwards Pointer had written: ‘Robin ran over to the Downers. She reported that Eric D. had killed the last hundred of their sheep for the wool and hides. Later, on phone, Mr Long agreed it had been a great battle. Told him Robin says she read somewhere that a battle is never won until a battle is lost.’

  “How true,” murmured Bony. “How many battles did I lose before I won one.” He was deep in meditation when there was a knock on the door, and Robin asked if she might come in. Bony opened it, and she entered carrying a supper tray.

  “As you are too busy to have supper with us, I’ve come to have supper with you. May I?”

  “Assuredly,” assented Bony, and hastily pushed aside the open diary to make place for the tray. “We’ll sup in harmony, and fire questions at each other like bullets in a battle.”

  Each sat sideways to the desk, and the light from the oil lamp fell upon her sleek black hair, and showed her oval face to advantage. She wore a white sheath dress which also enhanced her figure. In this light the golden flecks in her eyes were pronounced. She lo
oked at Bony quizzingly, taking careful stock of him, from his hair, so like her own, to his long fingers. The moment held a spell, which she broke by leaning forward and reading the entry in the diary he had last read. The vivacity departed, and sadly she said:

  “That was a terrible thing, Bony. I think of it often: killing the last of those sheep; and all that Eric went through and saw and heard before.”

  “That was the battle he lost. What was the battle he won?”

  “He hasn’t won the battle yet, Bony. That’s still to come.”

  He watched as she poured coffee into the china cups, then said:

  “Might I be frank? Do you think we could be friends enough to be frank with each other?”

  He found those dark eyes had the power of probing equal to his own, but he met them as though engaged in a duel, and awaited her answer expectantly.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “You see, I don’t know you. To me you are an entirely new experience. You remind me sometimes of a man who worked here called Harry Thrumb.” Their eyes continued the duel. “His father was white and his mother was black. He was better-looking than you, and he had what we used to call ‘sex-appeal’. But he was superficial. No higher than many of the school-taught aborigines. You’re not in his class, Bony. You’re not in any class I’ve ever come in contact with. So I don’t know about being frank. Not now, if ever.”

  An impish smile was born on his dark face, and without severing the eye-lock, he said:

  “Well, do you like your coffee cold?”

  That broke it, and she managed a soft laugh, saying:

  “You see what I mean? You’re not in any class I’ve met before.”

  “Then let us fence. You won’t object to that, I’m sure. We should both be good at it.”

  “I’m not too confident.”

  “I shall be the first to cry for mercy. Sugar? I suppose you miss your horses these days?”

  “I do, but it won’t be long before we have the horses home. The herbage is springing fast.”

  “And soon the drought will be merely an unpleasant memory.”

  “It will ever be a nightmare to me. Something I shall always remember and shudder at.”

  “Why, then, keep those pictures of it to remind you?”

  “I may not keep them, or some of them. They represent more than the agony of animals.”

  “The battle that Eric lost was the same battle you lost?”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t battle to save sheep.”

  “Not sheep. Something else associated with the battle to save sheep. What has come between you and Eric?”

  The vivid face fractionally darkened, and her eyes hardened. Without looking at him, she said:

  “Don’t you think you are being too venturesome?”

  “Yes and no. Just now you told me I am outside your experience. You are within mine. I am older than you by many years. You are fighting a battle following a battle. So is Eric Both of you lost one battle and only you hope to win this one. Perhaps Eric doesn’t realize he’s also fighting this battle, the one you are engaged in, but he will. It is because I don’t like the odds that I am a little perturbed. They say that the formula for making successful films is quite simple: ‘Girl finds boy. Girl loses boy. Girl gets boy.’ You found Eric. Then you lost him. Now you have to get him back. To make a happy film, Robin.”

  “I don’t see that it can possibly concern you, Bony. But you are right. Something did come between Eric and me, and that was the drought. Shall we talk of something else?”

  “No.”

  “Your pardon!”

  “You heard me. I said ‘No’ because it wasn’t the drought which came between you and Eric, but something during the drought.” Robin attempted to stand, but his hand restrained the action. “Don’t go, please. Let’s talk it out.”

  It was the new quiet voice of authority which now kept her seated, for here was a man she had not seen before. The easygoing, faintly teasing, politely pleasant Bony was no more. No longer was there about him the air of one conscious of being one degree lower in the social scale because of the accident of birth. Robin tried to remind herself that after all he was a half-caste, like Thrumb, like the others. Then she realized she was being silly, and alarm flowed into her mind, as it must into the mind of the rabbit at the instant the jaws of the trap snap upon its foot.

  “I would, indeed, be crudely impertinent to probe into your personal problem were I not gravely perturbed by the feeling that it is associated in some way with the larger problem on which I am engaged,” he said. “Even so, I would not speak of it to you were I not beginning to fear that other hearts than yours might be broken.”

  “What do you mean?” she heard herself ask.

  “All of us have that sixth sense commonly called intuition,” he went on. “Women have it stronger than men, and aborigines have it stronger than white women. I have it, that sixth sense which warns of a danger to come, which is a premonition of approaching disaster. Intuition isn’t knowledge, and I am unable, therefore, to tell you in words what it is I fear. I can say, and shall say now, that you are not withholding from me, a policeman, information of concern to my investigation, but you are withholding what amounts to a suspicion of something which might be of value to me.”

  A stillness had settled about Robin Pointer, and her eyes were void of expression, as though determinedly refusing him access to her thoughts.

  “I admit to one weakness, at least,” Bony said, and now he was less stern. “Quite often it creates for me a disadvantage. I am too easily influenced by sentiment. You have been nice to me, and so I am unable to probe, to test, to cross-examine you merely because the subject might be of assistance in my official investigation. You don’t disarm me, because I was never armed. To use a common term, I am passing the buck to you.”

  “There is nothing for me to tell you,” Robin said, figuratively shaking herself. “I may have a suspicion, and I’m not even sure that I have. It is all so vague that—well, I couldn’t put it into words. Do you suspect me of something? Why did you ask why I had had my hair cut at the time of the murders?”

  “At the time of Dickson’s murder,” he corrected. “You have an admirer in Constable Sefton, and he mentioned to me how much the new style suits you. You will recall that at the time I asked the question we were fencing. When fencing, all is fair, don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t think I do.” Robin gazed searchingly at him. “I don’t think I shall ever want to fence with you again. D’you think that my heart is broken?”

  “No. Only that it could be. It will depend, perhaps, very greatly on yourself. For illustration. This office is now full of cigarette smoke. It depends on yourself whether you open the door to fresh air or continue to be slightly uncomfortable. The past drought is not unlike the air of this office, but the door is opened by the rain, and all the world is again fresh and lovely. Now you could paint a picture of sand dunes covered with green grass and herbage and massed with flowers. Why did you paint that one you titled ‘Never the Twain shall Meet’?”

  “Because the East is the East, and the West is the West; the black and the white. And never can they meet deeply, spiritually.”

  “Kipling could have been wrong. The qualifying adverb is the error. It should have been ‘seldom’, not ‘never’.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “I won’t accept that. It is never, never, never.” Standing she took up the supper tray. Tears were in her eyes, and anger in her voice. “I didn’t want to fence. You made me. Goodnight.”

  Bony opened the door for her, and when again he was seated he told himself:

  “The odds weren’t even. I wasn’t fair.”

  Chapter Twenty

  A Virgin!

  FOLLOWING many months of having to use hard well-water for household laundry, the coming of the rain to fill the house tanks was indeed a blessing.

  At seven the next morning, Mrs Pointer and Robin were planning to give the aboriginal wa
sherwomen a full day, being careful to keep from them fragile articles, so easily damaged by energetic zeal.

  The workers arrived at seven-thirty. There was Mrs Nuggety Jack, elderly, small and bossy. There was Hattie, the wife of the Medicine Man and Chief Rain-maker, a woman of vast proportions, talkative, and a constant giggler. They were accompanied by two boys who were to chop wood for the coppers, to keep the water boiling that so much steam would be raised as almost to asphyxiate any human being in the laundry. These people invariably underdo it or overdo it. By 8 am the works were in full production.

  At a safe distance, i.e., from the wood heap, Bony watched the steam pouring from the laundry door and windows, and with him were the two boys assigned to feed the coppers. At first they were suspicious of him; when this vanished, they were as full of questions as a hive is of bees. Firstly they wanted to know where he was born. Secondly they wished to know what inspector’s rank meant, and finally they skirted about the subject of the murders, and wanted to hear what he had found out about them, and who he was going to arrest. Neither was unsophisticated, Robin having taught them the three R’s, and Nuggety Jack having a battery radio set.

  Now and then one of the washerwomen would emerge from the steam and shriek for more wood. Eventually there was trundled from the laundry a wheelbarrow loaded with washed clothes, the vehicle being pushed by the fat lubra, and escorted by Mrs Nuggety, who directed the way to the many clotheslines. Much argument ensued, Mrs Nuggety being a born organizer who insisted that sheets occupy one line, the blankets another, with a third given to the unmentionables, while the Medicine Man’s wife was obviously inclined to be casual enough to drape the washing over the wood heap.

  Bony felt his day was well begun, and that his present occupation was preferable to tramping about at Rudder’s Well. The two boys, aged about fourteen, wore only drill shorts. The women wore coloured kerchiefs over their black hair; their skirts were hitched above their knees; their cotton blouses flapped open at the neck and the sleeves were rolled as high as possible. Eyes were bright and coal black. Teeth were large and white, the chocolate skin was bedewed with perspiration. Nothing is so elevating as the feeling of being important.