Bony and the Black Virgin Page 17

  “Tonto’s lazy feller. Cheeky, too.”

  “You know how it is, Dusty,” Bony proceeded after cogitating. “You’re the Medicine Man. You say for Tonto to unchain Lake Jane dogs, then Tonto must unchain ’em. That’s Blackfeller Law, isn’t it?”

  “Too right, boss.” Over Dusty’s lean face slowly spread a grin which had little of humour in it. He broke into low laughter. “You cunnin’ feller, all right, Inspector. Too bloody true.”

  “I’m only trying to get you fellers off the hook, Dusty. Now you go outside and rub your churinga stones against your forehead, and think up a yarn I can send down to the Aborigines Department.” Bony turned to Sefton: “Ask Nuggety Jack to step in for a moment.”

  Sefton knew his job, and he was outside before Dusty could say two words to the head man. Bony took the sergeant and both manager and overseer into his questioning gaze.

  “Tell me, please. Was Tonto thrashed because he failed to obey the order to free the Lake Jane dogs after Dickson was murdered, and before the Downers arrived home from Mindee?”

  “Although Dusty didn’t admit so in words, it’s obvious,” replied Long, and Mawby smiled, saying: “You cunnin’ feller, all right, Inspector. Too bloody true.”

  “So we begin,” Bony said briskly. “Oh! Come in, Nuggety Jack. Sit down ... there. Make yourself easy. Want to ask you something.”

  The head man, of cubic proportions, caused the chair to creak. He smiled widely, first at Bony, then at Mawby, and Mawby winked, and Nuggety did likewise. Abruptly, Bony frowned.

  “What’s all that noise out there?” he demanded of Sefton. Nuggety Jack replied, laughing again.

  “Only my missus yowling, Inspector. She thinks you’re gonna chop off me head.”

  “Chop off your head? Why?” exclaimed the astonished inspector.

  “Well, you know what women are,” responded Nuggety, loudly laughing, and winked again at Mawby. “Different to what it usta be. In the old days a feller belted his wife every morning and was the boss. Now the Department says you mustn’t do that. And the women they say, ‘You never do no work. I washes me fingers to the bone for Missus Pointer and you all grab the bacco.’ Women!”

  “Ah, yes, women!” smiled Bony. “Always on a feller’s back. Still, it wasn’t women I wanted you to tell me about. I’d like to know if you have seen any strange feller about the run lately.”

  The smile remained, but the black eyes became crafty.

  “Only stranger feller’s been that white bloke killed over at Lake Jane. You know, that Dickson feller.”

  “I know about him.” Bony frowned. “What about the Jorkin boys at the Soak? Ever see them?”

  Nuggety Jack was a different proposition from Dusty. He shook his head, continued to smile, but lowered shutters behind his black eyes.

  “If it wasn’t one of the Jorkins, who was it who camped with you out at Number Eleven—you know, the camp in the black oak?”

  “Oh, that feller!” Memory flooded into Nuggety’s face. “That was long time back. ’Bout this time last year. That was Ed Jorkin. He was out kangarooing. I remember him.”

  Mawby didn’t fail to observe the shutters behind the black eyes, and wondered what the heck Bony was leading to. Of the others, only Pointer saw the trap being prepared for Nuggety. The woman outside continued to wail, and sympathizers were wailing with her. Bony wrote a note importantly, and passed it to the sergeant. The sergeant read and whistled astonishment. He passed the note to Sefton, and Nuggety returned his attention to Bony, the smile vanquished, the unknown growing to become terror. Bony brought the tips of his fingers together and looked sternly over them at the head man.

  “You could be on your way to jail for a long time, Nuggety Jack. You one big liar, eh! Those Jorkin boys run around in old bombs. That feller who camped with you that time out at Number Eleven was driving a truck!”

  “A truck!” exploded Nuggety Jack. “Why didn’t you say that before? That feller didn’t do no camping. He took out a dozen bags of chaff for the horses, ’cos Mr Pointer wouldn’t sell me no petrol ’cos the store stock was low. Eh, Mr Pointer? That’s right. You remember?”

  The overseer remained silent. Bony said clearly and calmly, as a judge on his bench:

  “Who was the truck driver?”

  “Stranger to me, Inspector. Come from Broken Hill. Just brought that chaff, that’s all. Unloaded it, had a drink of tea, then went off back.”

  “What was his name?”

  “What the hell!” shouted Nuggety, and stood. “Look you...”

  “Constable, arrest that man.”

  Sefton was swift. Nuggety Jack couldn’t see them, but he could feel the irons imprisoning his wrists behind his back.

  “Take him out and anchor him to something solid in the machinery shed, Constable,” ordered Bony. “Then bring in his wife. Must stop that screeching.”

  The wailing became universal when the prisoner emerged into the sunlight. Mawby had become anxious but still retained confidence in Bony. Bony stood and crossed to Pointer.

  “Jim, we must be easy with this woman. She will not be fearful of you, and you can treat her gently. You have followed the trend of my questioning. You are au fait with the outline of our recent trip. You know who drove that truck. I am asking you to take my place to disclose the whys and the wherefores.”

  Pointer was greatly troubled. He said:

  “Don’t you know the whys and the wherefores?”

  “Yes, but I must have confirmation.”

  “Very well.”

  Bony sat against the wall with Midnight Long, Mawby expelled caught breath. The Fort Deakin manager stared at the floor between his feet.

  Mrs Jack, small and usually so energetic and bossy, was brought in and seated by Sefton. The row outside continued. The woman was sobbing loudly, and Pointer leaned across the table and patted her comfortingly.

  “It’s all right, Florrie. Now be quiet for a while. If Nuggety Jack’s in trouble, then we must try to get him out of it. Nuggety won’t answer our questions about what happened out at Eleven Bore that time you were camped there and a feller came on a truck and borrowed his car. You just tell me all about that. Go on, now. There’s nothing much to cry about.”

  The lubra gazed pleadingly at Pointer, the tears streaming down her withering face, and in that moment the overseer hated the policemen, Nuggety Jack, and himself.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Slaves of the Bush

  IT WAS eleven o’clock, and on his veranda John Downer stood to welcome the travellers in the car which stopped at the steps.

  “Good day!” he shouted. “Come on up. The kettle’s boiling.”

  Sergeant Mawby alighted and Bony appeared. They mounted the steps together and John gave them warm welcome, and appeared not to be perturbed by their unsmiling faces.

  “Come on in,” he cried. “Eric’s getting morning lunch. Great day, eh! All green and fresh, and don’t the grass grow?”

  They followed him into the kitchen, to see Eric standing with his back to the stove.

  “May as well all sit down,” Mawby said heavily. “Inspector Bonaparte has something to deal with.”

  He was watching Eric, legs like springs coiled ready for triggering, and he manoeuvred to sit at the table side with him. It was pathetic how the joyousness faded from John’s face, to be replaced by perplexity.

  A complete silence fell, as three men watched one rolling several cigarettes to place in a little pile. The blue eyes regarded John for a long moment, and then examined Eric, who had slowly made but one cigarette.

  “I’ll talk to you, Eric, because I believe you can assist me in my investigation of the deaths of Paul Dickson and Carl Brandt,” Bony said. “That happened a long time ago, but the print in the Book of the Bush doesn’t quickly vanish.

  “On September 8th, last year, you and your father reached Mindee, at the start of your annual holiday. On September 18th you left Mindee, ostensibly to travel to Broken Hill, whe
re you have friends, leaving your father in Mindee. That morning you left Mindee you purchased two 40-gallon drums of petrol, an 8-gallon case of engine oil, a chain wire-strainer, and certain foodstuffs and clothing. Ten miles along the road to Broken Hill, you branched off on a track taking you to the Northern Road, and you proceeded then as far as a point two miles from Jorkin’s Soak, where you left the road and drove across country to Bore Eleven. Would you care to tell me why you did that?”

  “What the hell are you driving at, Bony?” shouted the old man.

  “Quiet, Dad. Leave this to me,” Eric said, and turned to Bony. “I could not discuss my private affairs under these circumstances.”

  “Then I will continue, Eric. After crossing Walton’s Creek you drove to the gate into Bore Number Eleven Paddock. You parked the truck among a clump of black oak, where Nuggety Jack was waiting with his car, which had been hauled there by his horses. With him was his wife, his daughter Lottee, Dusty the Medicine Man, and Dusty’s wife.

  “You serviced Nuggety Jack’s car, and you loaded it with spare petrol and food, for a trip of some days. With Lottee Jack as your passenger, you drove the car to the Blazer’s Dam Paddock, through the gate for a mile, and turned off on a field of gibbers. On coming to the boundary fence, you cut that, and repaired it with the chain wire-strainer. Then you crossed the Lake Jane homestead paddock to a canegrass shed or hut which is within half a mile of Rudder’s Well, but cannot be seen from the Well or the road to it. Am I right?”

  “Go on, lad. Tell him he’s making it all up,” urged John, and when Eric remained stonily silent: “Damn it, is it true?”

  “It’s true enough, John,” Bony said.

  “So what if it is?” shouted the old man. “What’s wrong in running off with a black wench? Fine-looking lass. Caught my eye more’n once. Made me wish I was young again. Nothing in seducing an abo wench. Crikey! Plenty of that done down through the years. Wenches like that’ll lie down for a plug of chewing-tobacco.”

  “Stop it!” shouted Eric, now on his feet, his fist raised to his father. “Shut up! You keep your dirty mind out of this.”

  “All right, lad. All right. No need to blow your top.”

  With his left hand Mawby pulled Eric down to his chair, keeping his right hand beneath the table edge. John was seething with anger, not wholly directed to Bony.

  “After a period spent at that canegrass hut,” Bony went on, you and Lottee Jack returned to the camp in the black oaks, and from there you drove back to Mindee. You arrived in Mindee on October 5th, and on the 10th you came home with your father. It is presumed that Brandt and Dickson were murdered on or about October 1st.”

  Bony waited for Eric to speak, and old Downer sat silent and constantly clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “On the first of October, Eric, you and Lottee were living at that canegrass hut which is within half a mile of Rudder’s Well and less than four miles from this homestead, where the body of Paul Dickson was discovered by you and your father. And this is not country on which live thousands of people per square mile.

  “In the late afternoon of the 12th, Sergeant Mawby and Constable Sefton, with Mr Long and two aborigines, plus a tracker, returned to L’Albert, the aborigines sent up a smoke signal to Nuggety Jack and those with him, telling Lottee that she had to meet you as soon as possible. I am reasonably sure that on leaving the grass hut you burned it down, and that Lottee, or both of you, fashioned a love nest among the tea tree one mile this side of the hut. There you met Lottee and cut her hair, and the hair you burned between two sandalwood trees, and buried the ashes as an aborigine would have done.

  “You were married to Lottee blackfeller-style, and at that ceremony a lock of her hair was cut and presented to you as Lottee’s man. She was wearing that lock of hair as a charm when Dickson was murdered, and he clutched it in his hand when he died. It wasn’t noticed until you returned from Mindee, when both your father and you saw it.

  “You foresaw that that lock of hair would be a vital clue if you didn’t do something about it to confuse the issue, because scientific examination would prove from whose head it came. It was brilliant of you to take from your mother’s Treasure Chest those two locks of hair, the one preserved from your own head and the other from your father’s. To make that appear as robbery you also removed the watch, and disordered the kitchen to make it appear there had been a struggle between Dickson and Brandt.

  “Had you stopped at that point all might have been well with you, for you did slew the police off the trail. The hair cut from Lottee’s head was long, and so you cut her hair short just in case the police did associate her with the hair in Dickson’s hand. Your really great mistake was when you brushed out the tracks about the love nest in the tea tree, for then you carried the tea tree branch to the sandalwoods, where there was no tea tree, and left it there after brushing out your tracks and burying the fire ash.

  “Sergeant Mawby will be taking you into custody on suspicion for the murder of Dickson and Brandt. When you were living with Lottee at the grass hut, you were discovered by one of those two men.

  “He was killed to preserve the secret of your marriage to Lottee under Blackfeller Law. To your consternation, the other man appeared when you had a body on your hands, and he was killed. You burned their swags and Brandt’s bike in a gilgie hole. You arranged Dickson’s body in your machinery shed, and you took the body of Brandt eighteen miles to bury it in a sandhill. Thus you staged the murder of Dickson by Brandt. Unfortunately for you, a wind storm blew the sand off the body, which was found by Pointer. But you had something like six weeks’ start before the police were brought back from chasing after a dead man, and you were confident that no investigation would succeed in bringing the facts to light. You had never heard of me.”

  Bony stopped speaking, and lit one of his cigarettes.

  Seriously, Eric said: “You are certainly one out of the box. But tell me: why should I have killed those two men when Lottee and I were married, even in blackfeller fashion?”

  “Because your early environment was too strong to permit you to acknowledge a liaison with an aborigine woman. You have many strengths and many weaknesses; one weakness being the dread of what is commonly called ‘loss of face’, in your case, what will your old school friends say of you; what will Robin Pointer and her parents say; what will all the people of Mindee and your friends in Broken Hill say, when they hear you are living with an aborigine?”

  “You are less than half right, Bony,” Eric said earnestly.

  “I know that.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. My mother having been an aborigine.”

  Sitting with his elbows on the table, and his chin resting on his entwined fingers, Eric Downer regarded Bony with peculiar intensity, and Bony regarded him with slight uneasiness. Throughout this interview Eric had not reacted as all those others had done when listening to the case built against them. He betrayed no sign of fear. On the contrary he was now as a man from whom a load of responsibility has been lifted, and for the first time he appeared to Bony without any inhibitions. Even his father was looking at him curiously, almost gladly, as though realizing his son had recovered from a dangerous illness.

  “You made remarkably few mistakes,” Bony went on. “None of them were silly, because no full white man would have recognized them. For instance, had you been frank with Robin, had you told her of your love for Lottee and your subjection to a power which emanated through Lottee, I am sure Robin would not have painted ‘Never the Twain shall Meet’, and would not have betrayed in many little things her suspicion, amounting to certainty, that you were in close association with Lottee. She was hoping that your infatuation would pass, when you would return to her.

  “No full white man would have suspected that the bashing of Tonto was connected in any way with the death of your dogs and the near death of Bluey, following the murder of Dickson. When Tonto admitted his dereliction of duty, you stood forth, because no abor
igine would account the matter as worthy of thrashing Tonto nearly to death. It was your righteous anger, roused by the unnecessary cruelty to animals, which betrayed you.”

  Bony sighed, and Eric continued to look at him without fear, and without perturbation.

  “I give you a credit mark, Eric,” and Mawby frowned as though he disapproved of giving credit marks to any criminal. “Your spurious attitude towards the aborigines in general might, had it not been for those other slips, especially that of tossing aside the tea tree branch in the wrong place, have delayed my investigation by many months. Your scoffing at the rain-making was in accordance with your environment and school background, but it was spurious in any man so closely associated with the aborigines as you were.”

  Eric glanced at the clock, then with his chin still resting on his fists he closed his eyes. Bony struck a match, although his cigarette was alight, and Eric’s eyes remained closed for another forty seconds. On again looking at Bony, he smiled and nodded his head at something giving him satisfaction. The others remained still, silent and watchful.

  “Shall I tell you why you acted as you did in this affair with Lottee?” asked Bony, and Eric shrugged. “Where another white man could take a black woman with a laugh of indifference at public opinion, you could not face public opinion. Another white man deeply loving a black woman could marry her openly and to the devil with public opinion. But not you, and, I do believe, not even Lottee. The only concession you made was to go through the aborigines’ marriage rite, and keep that secret. Now listen to me finding excuses for you.

  “You found yourself in the grip of a power you couldn’t resist. You knew it was wrongful to submit, precisely as the alcoholic is aware that for him it is wrong to drink. I know this power. I have had to fight it all my life. I know men who were like you, and men who have been as I am, strong to resist. Robin Pointer has sensed it; we can see that in her paintings. I should be the very last to condemn you for surrendering to this power which we call The Spirit of the Bush. I do condemn you for the weakness you have displayed by paying servile deference to public opinion. You wanted to have your cake, and to eat it.