The Will of the Tribe Page 18

  Bony backed to the horse, and Captain advanced. Holding the rifle steadily upon him, Bony, with his free hand, unstrapped a bundle from the saddle and beckoned Captain to draw closer. Having tossed the bundle for Captain to catch, he said, “Take them to Tessa. She will need them.”

  Captain obeyed, and Bony watched the fallen stump stand up and, with her back to them, Tessa proceeded to put on the skirt and blouse and then the shoes Bony had brought for her having a clear purpose in mind. He had seen the girl fleeing from her pursuer, he had watched her discard first her shoes and, lastly, her panties, and he knew that, during this process, she elapsed by degrees into the near-primitive woman. He calculated that now, as she dressed in clothes she had been educated to wear with distinction, the primitive woman would be conquered by the sophisticated girl of the homestead.

  Using his feet, Bony bunched debris into a heap which he fired and added sticks. He unstrapped the quart pot and filled it from the canvas water-bag slung from the horse’s neck, set it to the fire and shouted, “Come on over and have a drink of tea.”

  Tessa came, limping and obviously exceedingly tired, but Captain declined the invitation. Her hair was dishevelled. Her face bore the marks of dust and perspiration. Her eyes were wide, and rimmed with dust. Without the foundations, the smartly-cut skirt and the light-blue blouse made her pathetic. Bony poured water on a handkerchief and she came to the verge of crying when wiping her face clean. From his tunic pocket he produced a comb and gave it to her with an encouraging smile.

  “It’s going to be all right, Tessa,” he told her. “Now we have to persuade Captain to wait with us for Constable Howard. Meanwhile, a meal and tea laced with sugar. I’ll get it. You call Captain.”

  It was now twenty-four hours since the girl had been carried into the dam, when she may have swallowed a little water, and Bony had purposely refrained from offering her a drink from the bag. Instead of calling she went to Captain, and Bony could see argument between them, the girl pleading, the man glowering. He dropped tea into the quart pot, removed it from the fire, and, having waited a full minute, divided the contents by filling the cup cap. Then he shouted again:

  “What’s the matter? Come and have a drink of tea.”

  Tessa snatched at Captain’s hand and began pulling him towards the waiting Bony. After stubborn refusal, Captain reluctantly permitted himself to be led, and Bony opened the parcel of food. He was on his knees when they stood at his back.

  “Here it is,” he said. “The pannikin for the lady: the pot for the gentleman. Sugar on offer. Spoon waiting. You must both be famished.”

  Not speaking, Tessa squatted on her heels, at once correcting herself by sitting on the ground and tucking her knees under the skirt. Without looking at Bony she accepted the pannikin of tea and eagerly began sipping. Beside her, Captain squatted, and fell to drinking the scalding brew. Presently they were eating and Bony was rolling a cigarette.

  When finished, Captain removed from his trousers’ pocket a plug of tobacco, papers and matches. He gazed at the papers a moment before tossing them into the fire, as they were useless after immersion in the dam. Bony offered cut tobacco and papers and, when smoking, Captain said, “Where do we go from here?”

  “Back to the homestead,” replied Bony. “You saw Gup-Gup’s signals?”

  “Must be getting wonky,” Captain said, regarding Bony with shuttered eyes. “So must you, Inspector. I see you’ve put the rifle back into the saddle scabbard, and I’m sure I can take you any time I want to. The rifle is what we badly need. You aren’t going to arrest me, so get that from your mind.”

  “Arrest you? I seldom make an arrest. Haven’t arrested anyone for years. I leave the policemen to do that. In the circumstances, it will not be I, but Constable Howard or Maundin’s bucks. Late last night I talked with Gup-Gup, having learnt the truth of all this business from your papers, and we reached a sensible understanding. Basically it amounts to this. The tribe is kept out of the mess, and you take the chance of going to gaol for a few years. I say chance because I am far from certain that the authorities will decide to send you there. I shall do my best to prevent it.”

  The shutters were raised to permit hope to flame in the dark eyes. Bony continued.

  “I was sent to find out how that white man came this far into the Kimberleys without having been reported and, also, what he was doing. The people who sent me are not interested in who killed him. However, the West Australian Police are interested, and it is up to them to arrest the killer. I think your worst problem is how to square with the Brentners for abducting Tessa.”

  For a long moment Captain studied Bony. He looked at the girl who was maintaining her gaze on the spiralling smoke of the dying fire. Wordlessly, he asked for tobacco and was rolling a cigarette when Tessa raised her eyes and spoke.

  “I wasn’t abducted, Bony. I ran with him. Instead of beating me into submission, he said he loved me. When he took my hand, instead of detesting him I knew I loved him. We ran together into Eden by the back door.”

  Tessa smiled at the still glowering Captain, and the weariness vanished from her face. Bony looked away, feeling he had no right to share with Captain that which lived in her eyes.

  “It simplifies a confused situation,” he said. “Now we can persuade Constable Howard to marry you. I can see his dust, too.”

  They stood to observe the dust cloud behind the black dot approaching like the flint head of a spear, the westering sun blood-red behind the dust. Captain gripped Bony by the arm, saying, “I’ll give up if Tessa says so.”

  “Of course I say so,” snapped Tessa, and then giggled. “You forced yourself on me, remember. Now you’ll have to marry me.”

  Captain released Bony’s arm and took Tessa’s hand, and they waited silently for Constable Howard and his trackers.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Assignment Completed

  BONY’S INSTRUCTIONS, plus pleas, in the letters he had left for Howard and the Brentners achieved an unspectacular homecoming for the fugitives. There was no one at the compound gate when the jeep arrived. The children were not in evidence. Mister Lamb was tethered to a bean tree. No Aborigine lurked about the out-buildings. The only person to be seen was Rose Brentner standing on the side veranda. And at this moment Jim Scolloti played his dinner tune on the kitchen triangle.

  “Captain, I am expecting you to be your age,” Bony said. “Clean yourself up and, after dinner, wait in your hut till called.” He took Tessa by the arm. “Tessa, come with me and keep your feet from shuffling.”

  Tessa expected banishment to the camp and, as she was led to the veranda, Bony could feel her trembling and sent a message of comfort through her fingers. Rose was calm, and a segment of history was repeated when she took Tessa’s hand and led her off to the bathroom ‘to be scrubbed down’.

  There was no time to change for dinner, at which neither Tessa nor the little girls were present. It was eaten in almost complete silence, Kurt Brentner wanting to know what had been done with the horse and being told by Howard that one of his trackers was riding it back. Afterwards, he accompanied the policeman and Bony to his office, a large man when set with them.

  “How far out did you get ’em?” he said demandingly.

  “About forty miles. They were making for Paradise Rocks. Tessa was all in, and I think Captain had had enough. There was no difficulty.”

  “Beats me,” declared Brentner, “not normal for Captain to run amok like that, or for Tessa to run away with him, willingly, so Jim and Young Col say. We’ve done everything for both.” His voice became a whip. “What happened. What in hell happened?”

  Bony’s eyes abruptly blazed.

  “The most wonderful thing on earth when, during great stress, a young man and a young woman realize they are in love. It is quite a story, and I want them both to be present, together with your wife. Will you call Captain, please?”

  Brentner strode from the room, grim and purposeful, and now Howard regarded Bony
quizzically, his eyes small, his mouth tight.

  “This affair has queer angles,” Bony told him. “Decisions will have to be made by the Top Brass, yours and mine, and it might be unwise for us to act together or alone. At this particular moment, I can say that motives behind the Crater crime are not really bad.”

  “You have tidied it up, then?”

  “Yes, Howard, I’ve done that. I am hoping to leave with you tonight to board the early plane tomorrow. I feel sure you will agree that when I’ve done with these people neither of us should stick out his neck.”

  Rose entered with Tessa, and he was saying he would be leaving later this evening and then asking if he might bid good-bye to the children, when Brentner came in with Captain.

  “Now that we are all here,” Bony said, when they were seated as he directed, “I am going to urge you to be very frank and truthful not only for your own sakes but for others. My investigation into the death of a man hasn’t been very difficult, and it was actually assisted by Captain’s flair for writing history. I was able to avail myself of his records soon rather than late because of that rough temper which he has, and which he must learn to keep under control.”

  Captain looked up from gazing at his immaculate tennis shoes to concentrate on Bony. His face bore no expression.

  “It is known that the Indonesians claim Dutch New Guinea as part of their Empire, and it is also known that subversion and infiltration have been going on in that part of New Guinea.

  “These Asians are confident they will eventually gain Dutch New Guinea through the Western Nations’ passion for compromise or appeasement, which of course is always accepted as weakness, and that, having gained this territory, they will proceed to work for the other half of the Island, governed by Australia. Following success there, they will demand, with grounds for hope, that the northern half of Australia should be surrendered to them. These are the views set down by Captain, who has as much right to record his opinions as any one of us.

  “This time last year the Asians sent emissaries into this quarter of Australia to make contact with the Aborigine tribes and to prepare the way for an important agent. Their job was to promise liberation by driving the white man out and throwing open the white man’s stores, thought by the great majority of Aborigines to contain unlimited supplies of food and tobacco. The emblem of the mysterious liberating power was a Buddha carved on ivory.

  “When two of these path-finders came to Deep Creek they were met with hostility which brought on a fight, Captain retaining the marks of this fight and Mr. Brentner noting the fact in his work diary.

  “Captain is undoubtedly an intelligent man, but he revealed lack of wisdom. Had he reported the mission of these two strangers ... noted by Mr Brentner as Aborigines ... subsequent events might not have followed. Had Mr Brentner dug into the cause of the fight, instead of noting it was merely an Aborigine affair, the present situation might well not have arisen. It becomes clear that both Mr Brentner and Captain were influenced by a determination to maintain the status quo of this Deep Creek tribe: the one having in mind the equitable arrangement by which he obtains stockmen when required, and the other having in mind the delaying as long as possible of assimilation of his people with a race unworthy of accepting them.

  “Permit me to digress. A few years after the last war I heard a legend which goes something like this. In the days of Alchuringa a being having the head of a dingo and the body of man hunted with another having the body of a dingo and the head of a man. They had caught a black fellow and were about to cook him on a fire when the Father of the Goannas slid down the smoke column, puffed the fire apart and, when safely ringed by flames, said, ‘The Aborigine was here before you. He will be here when the white man comes on walkabout. When the white man has perished he will still be here. Then will come the brown man who will walkabout for a long time and be good friends with all the black men. There will be plenty of tucker all the time.’ Having said this the Father of the Goannas puffed the surrounding flames out upon the monsters, who were burned up. He then climbed up the smoke column to the sky, and the black fellow escaped and ran home.

  “This legend came here to Deep Creek. I read it among those set down by Tessa. It is a false legend because no genuine legend contains a prediction. However, it has circulated very widely, having been passed from tribe to tribe, and it can be said that its purpose was to prepare the ground to receive the seed sown by the brown men.

  “Captain, tell me how you came to have an ivory Buddha.” Captain sat up a little startled. “It was under your bed-mattress.” “One of the strangers had it round his neck,” replied Captain. “I tore it off him. The one you said you saw in the tribe’s treasure house was taken from the other by Poppa.” Captain chuckled. “Those two fellers weren’t worrying about the Buddhas when they left.”

  “They were followed by the man found dead on Lucifer’s Couch,” Bony continued. “Who he was I don’t know, but Security identified him and, for its own reason, withheld the information from me. However, Captain states in his writings that he was definitely English and probably Australian. It is also recorded that he was a remarkable linguist, an expert on Aboriginal dialects, and a remarkable man in other respects, for he was able to travel through the most inhospitable area in all Australia without meeting opposition until he came to Deep Creek; not the main camp, but a secret camp two miles farther down.

  “He was an agent of a foreign government, for he, too, possessed a small ivory Buddha. What happened to him? He came with Maundin when that wild gentleman visited Gup-Gup, having been passed on to Maundin’s tribe by another farther south, and it appears that he didn’t enter the country via a seaport as, among his papers, there is mention of leaving Innamincka, near the border of New South Wales, as well as the date.

  “Captain was with the Elders who listened to him at the secret camp. He was enraged by the fellow’s promises that soon the brown men were to come and kill the whites, open the stores and hand out guns to shoot the cattle. Captain records that he spoke fluently in their dialect and gave evidence of thinking as the Aborigine does. His work was to germinate the seed sown by the forerunners, eventually found in Derby, in ground prepared by the false legend.

  “It would seem that he was accidentally killed at a send-off ceremony, during which the local Aborigines gave a display of boomerang throwing. Captain was not present at this boomerang throwing, but he says that the white visitor, instead of dodging a returning boomerang, ran and was struck on the head.

  “Having the reputation of being a fixer, Captain was sent for. Instead of reporting the affair to the police, action which would have resulted in inquiry, grave suspicion, and possible removal of the men to the Penal Settlement, he decided to deal with the body, as none knew who the man was or whence he came.

  “Gup-Gup and Poppa wouldn’t permit burial or destruction anywhere on their tribal ground, every inch of which being hallowed by custom and history. There was one place not important to the tribe, and Gup-Gup and Company found no objection to the body being taken to Lucifer’s Couch. The Crater was seldom visited by white men and, in case it was visited again by scientists interested in finding the remains of the meteor and mining for it, it was planned to stage the death of a man from thirst. Such an end would account for the absence of equipment.

  “Captain cut two poles, using a saw from the carpenter’s shop in preference to an axe which would have been heard at the house. Wearing moccasins of hessian bagging to minimise his tracks he conveyed the dead man by night and left him on Lucifer’s Couch. That would seem to be that.”

  Bony proceeded to roll a cigarette, and the silence was broken by Rose Brentner.

  “How were the poles used? Why poles?”

  “As an ambulance stretcher,” replied Bony.

  “Oh! Then that would mean two men. Who was the second man?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Second Man

  BONY SKIPPED Rose Brentner’s question, and addressed
himself to Captain.

  “On reading your account of the activities of these strangers I find support for it in the small notebook and the small Buddha hidden under your mattress. However, the story of the boomerang throwing at the farewell ceremony is at odds with the facts.

  “I wonder why you kept those articles, and I wonder why you wrote about the affair at all. From the condition of the ink on the paper I shall assume that you wrote the account after I appeared and began to prod people into action. That assumption lends further strength to the contention that the boomerang story is a fake.”

  Captain continued to sit easily in his chair. His face bore an expression of pained interest, but his eyes admitted nothing.

  “Did you interfere with the transceiver when the plane reported the man in the Crater,” Bony asked.

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to stop Constable Howard coming too quickly. Gup-Gup ordered a walkabout, and I wanted time to convince him it would be the worst thing to do. He wouldn’t listen, and then I had to get back to connect the power again before Mr Leroy came, and I had trouble getting Tessa away from the lubras when Poppa told them to keep her.”

  “That fits, Captain. Now tell me why you sent Mitti to get out to Eddy’s Well before Young Col and I.”

  “Wondered why you were going out there, that’s all. I had to know everything you did.” Captain crossed his legs and glanced at Tessa as though seeking admiration for astuteness.

  “That business cost the station a useful horse and much time looking for him. It was as well I was out there to observe Poppa and others cut up the horse and toss the parts into a mine shaft. You are too prone to underestimate people, Captain. You couldn’t remain still. You had to move when I prodded, and keep moving. Tell me, who was the other man who helped carry the rough stretcher?”

  “I’ll never say,” Captain vowed.