Bony - 29 - The Lake Frome Monster Page 2
The way in which Bony helped to secure the loads and get the animals to their feet satisfied Newton that he wasn’t a newchum to this work. From the neck of the last camel a suspended bell clanked rhythmically, and thus it wasn’t necessary constantly to turn about to be sure the string remained unbroken. The two men walked together, the nose-line of the leading camel in the crook of Newton’s elbow.
Once out of the home paddock the ground feed was more prolific, and the sparse scrub gave place to more robust growths. The way continued along a camel pad winding about low sand-dunes until eventually they saw ahead a party of aborigines. The natives were standing around four kneeling camels. The land at that point formed a narrow flat at the base of rising ground, capped with mulga, and amid the mulga was an open-fronted shed walled and roofed with cane grass.
The women about the kneeling camels were unloading the riding and pack saddles, the children were capering about them, while a man nearby was sitting on a box smoking a pipe. There were four dogs, which came to greet the newcomers with much barking. The man then stood and yelled at the dogs, and the children took the camels off a little distance, hobbled them and removed the nose-lines.
Fred Newton turned up the slope to the cane-grass shed where the camels were “laid” down, and this is where the man came to them. He was cubical and short of leg. There was no obvious mixture of the white race in him. When he spoke there was no trace of an accent in the voice. He was wearing dungaree trousers, a tattered shirt and his feet were bare.
“Good-day, Boss.”
“ ’Day, Nugget. How’s things?” asked Newton. This time Nugget helped to remove the loads, whereas he had sat smoking and watching his women and children unloading his own.
“Good-oh, Boss.” He roared with laughter and then: “Mary got a couple of dogs coming down this time. Aims to buy new dresses and things for the kids.”
With the ruling prices of dog scalps at two pounds each, two would not buy many dresses and things for the kids, but as these people set traps on the run north quite often they would collect a scalp on the down run.
“Nugget, this is Ed Bonnay. Ed, meet Nugget.” Gravely they shook hands. “Nugget, I sacked that loafing bastard down south. I want you to take over his section and get it in order. Ed will be taking over your present section.”
“Good enough,” assented Nugget without complaint, and added as though to illumine his nonchalance: “Ed’ll know what he can do with it soon as he sees Siberia.”
Chapter Two
Siberia
IT WAS explained to Bony that for every Sunday the men worked they could take a day off at a favourite camp, usually in the vicinity of a bore. Accordingly, Nugget and his family would spend two days here and he and the overseer would spend one sorting out the gear and effecting any necessary repairs.
Bony was not impressed by Nugget nor deceived by his apparent cheerfulness. There was not enough of the white race in him to produce staple honesty and too much of the black race to permit freedom from aboriginal superstitions. When it was dark he came to squat on his heels with Newton and Bony at their camp fire.
At the bottom of the slope the aborigines’ fire glowed redly. It cast shadows of moving men and children across the nearer buckbush of last year’s vintage, now dead and waiting only for a powerful wind to uproot it and chase it for miles. Beyond the buckbush, away deep in the dark of night, there drifted to them the musical tolling of the bells attached to feeding camels.
“Heard the Monster lately, Nugget?” asked Newton, carelessly.
“No, not for a couple of months, could be more.”
“Reckon there’s anything in the yarn that he stamped on the schoolteacher?”
“No,” replied Nugget, disgustedly. “The Monster ain’t no camel. He’s something no one’s ever seen before. He’s the result of a donkey mating with a wild cow, because he brays like a donkey, bellows like a cow, and covers the ground like a horse. Could have wings to him as no one’s ever got close enough to shoot him.”
“But if he flies how come he don’t get around this side of the Fence?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if some day he does,” Nugget predicted, gloomily. “That stampin’ on the bloke’s body after knocking him down or after he was shot was put up by young Frankie. You know what Post-hole Frankie is, Boss. Has visions and things. What happened was that a loose camel come on the body and pawed it, camels being curious.” To Bony he said: “Don’t you go camping on the far side, on the South Australian side, and if you go to Bore Ten for water keep your eyes skinned all the time you’re out on the plain country.”
“Isn’t that where Maidstone was killed, at Bore Ten?” Bony asked.
“That’s where he was killed, Ed. As I said, you don’t want to be caught on open country. You keep this side of the Fence unless you’re working on it.”
“I think it’s a camel and a wild feller,” Newton said. “Remember the time Billy the Larrikin and his camels were caught in the open by two wild camels that charged among his and created all hell before he shot one and creased the other so’s he cleared out?”
Bony reflected how times had changed in the Centre. When the Afghan camel drivers lost their work to the motor trucks, they had let their animals free to roam, intending to return for them if conditions changed. However, conditions did not change and they did not return. Their camels roamed over the vast Interior to breed and become a menace. Shooting parties were organized to deal with the problem, but there were still many left deep in the desert lands.
“What part do you come from, Ed?” came the inevitable question from Nugget. The cicatrices on his face denoted tribal relationship with the Orabunna Nation.
“Queensland coast north of Brisbane,” replied Bony, without looking up from the task of rolling a cigarette. The aborigine’s black eyes re-examined the stranger. Bony lit the smoke from an ember. “I get around. Worked in all States bar Tasmania. Was spending a cheque in the Hill when I heard there was a chance of work on the Fence.”
Bony hoped this explanation would suffice, but glanced up to find Nugget’s gaze passing over his clothes, his expression in the firelight hinting that the questioner would have liked to look at body cicatrices indicative of initiation. They were on Bony’s back, but he was not going to oblige.
“What’s this Siberia you mentioned?”
Nugget laughed outright, somewhat too heartily, Bony thought.
“Wait till you see it, Ed. Wait till you see Everest. The Boss calls it Everest, but it never rests. You get a windstorm and the buckbush piles against the Fence and catches the sand and raises her so that the Fence is only a coupla feet high. You lashes posts to the old ones, strings netting and wire to the proper height, and you comes back to find the next storm has took off the top of Everest and the Fence is twelve-fourteen feet high. So you can get to work taking off the top you put on last time.”
“Quite a job,” Bony agreed, believing his leg was being pulled.
“Yeah, you’ll say it is.”
“Don’t happen often,” Newton observed dryly. “Anyway, Nugget and his gang will find the south section so easy they’ll sleep six days of the week.”
The conversation fell into generalities concerning men and bores and local gossip. Bony smoked and listened and forgot nothing. He learned that the name of the new manager at Lake Frome was Jack Levvey. That he had only recently come to the area and had brought with him a full-blood aborigine woman who had already borne him two sons. He learned, too, that the name of the section man at the far northern end of the Fence was Looney Pete, that Looney Pete had religion, and often preached to his hat jammed on a fence post.
He was told that when at the top end of his section, where Three States met, Looney Pete lit a fire to boil his billy in New South Wales, tossed the tea leaves into Queensland and the meat bones or tins into South Australia. But Bony learned nothing he did not already know of the murder of Maidstone.
At ten o’clock by the Three
Sisters, evenly spaced stars, the three men turned in, merely unrolling swags beside the embers of the fire. It was a cold night in mid-winter. Wakened by a movement, Bony raised his head to see Newton loading his pipe; as there was no sign of dawn, he went to sleep again. Daybreak found Bony stirring the fire embers and starting a blaze. An hour later Bony saw one of Nugget’s women tossing wood on their fire, and shortly after Nugget arose and lit his pipe and warmed himself while the others worked preparing breakfast and re-rolling swags. The sun had risen when Nugget came up.
“The women and kids want to go into Quinambie for the day,” he announced. “You won’t want me, so I’ll go with ’em. The mokes will want watering anyway. Anything you forgot?”
Newton said there was not. The camels were brought. A tucker box was strapped to the lead riding camel, and various packs, among which Bony suspected were the dingo scalps. All the camels were strung together, and off they went. The two women led the train, the children played games as they ran and Nugget followed after, the boss of the gang.
The morning was spent sorting out the gear. First the riding saddle and the pack saddle belonging to the late-departed section man was looked over for repairs, and then the tools were examined. These, oddly enough, included a pitchfork and a garden rake. Then there was the baking of soda bread, or dampers, and more than half the fresh beef was sliced and salted.
Bony was now wearing go-to-work clothes of worn drill, and elastic-sided boots. His felt hat was disreputable, and had obviously been used to lift pots off the fire.
The aborigines returned just after sundown, the children tired and several of them clinging to the humps of the saddle-free camels. Bulging saddle bags carried by one of them denoted good shopping. One of the dogs limped badly and evidently had been in a fight. It seemed that a good day had been had by all.
By seven o’clock the next morning Bony and the overseer were leading their respective camels along the pad to the Fence. Bony was allotted two camels: Rosie was the leading riding animal, and Old George carried the heavier pack saddle. Soon they arrived at the Fence and turned north. The Fence, six feet high and seemingly never-ending at that point, passed over flats studded with annual saltbush presenting their blue-grey leaves to a grey-blue sky which threatened wind. Topped with two barbed wires above the netting, it looked an impressive barrier; as it was in fact.
The dog-proof Fence, as its name implies, was intended to turn back wild dogs from entering New South Wales, as well as to halt rabbit migrations. To Bony’s experienced eyes it was well maintained. The flats gave place to a long series of low, undulating sand-dunes, and there the new buckbush tinted green large areas which contained none of the old and dead weed of the previous year. The mulgas were stunted, as were the many other acacias, and they offered no protection against the westerly winds sweeping in from the desolate region of Lake Frome. Before noon they came to dense scrub and to one of Nugget’s camp sites. He had put up a windbreak of tree branches and wired together poles on which to erect his tent. To the east, so that sparks would not burn the tent and gear, was the usual fireplace; a pole supported by forked sticks, and from which were slung wire hooks to carry billy-cans above the embers.
Bony noted that Newton passed this place to stop and tether his camels to trees.
Having led his camels to other trees, Bony hooshed Rosie to her knees and removed the tucker box from the front end of the iron saddle. Newton, meanwhile, had lit the fire. The billy was filled from a water-bag and whilst waiting for the water to boil, Bony said:
“I saw dog tracks an hour ago on the far side of the Fence. Nugget set his traps on the far side, I suppose, to save his own dogs being trapped.”
“That’s so,” agreed Newton. The be-whiskered giant chuckled, adding: “Never do to catch a dog this side what’s supposed to be protected against dingoes. What d’you think of Nugget?”
“Usual type. Talks too much for a three-quarter-caste, and that hints at craftiness. Were he and his crew called to do any tracking on the Maidstone affair?”
“Don’t think so. He was camped when it happened.”
“How many windstorms have you had since it happened?”
“One. Came at the time it happened. Blew out tracks just after the blacks had done their stuff.”
“H’m! Leaves nothing for me.”
Shortly after lunch they came to Siberia. The undulating country ended at the foot of a sand range, and the Fence rose to take it like a horse at a jump. Beyond it the Fence descended to a narrow flat, then crossed it to take another hump. At the summit of this one it became evident that these ranges ran east-west and parallel, and the farther north they proceeded the higher and ever more ragged they became. The flats were bare of scrub, but the slopes carried the new buckbush, and the summits bore saltbush and wind-tormented trees. The ranges were not travellers, but permanent.
Everest had a flat top some hundred yards across. Here there were no trees. The foot of the Fence was clear of rubbish and grass. The Fence was strapped to one under it, and down on the flat they had just crossed was a stack of netting rolls and spare posts.
“Sixteen of these ranges,” said Newton. “Job is to keep the ground clean either side of the Fence. Hoe the young buckbush and rake it away to let the sand pass through the netting, otherwise the sand is caught and she rises like magic.”
“Nugget seems to have done a good job,” commented Bony.
“His women and kids do the job. He sits on his stern and smokes. Fine life for a married man with a family. You married? Any kids?”
“One of one kind, three of the other, but I’m not bringing them here. The Number One Rabbit Fence in WA is a king to this. The old spinifex might cut loose, but there’s no buckbush.”
“Charges the netting, piles and piles and then runs over into New South. You have to pitchfork the stuff over this side and let the wind carry it on.” Newton filled and lit his pipe, his eyes wandering to and fro along the Fence. “I did three years on this section before I was made overseer. There ain’t an inch of it I haven’t done something to. I’ll bet you’ll have had it, time you knock off.”
Siberia! Nothing like Siberia! A living hell on earth when a storm blotted out sight and thrashed a man with buckbush, the bush of all sizes, up to four times that of a football composed of brittle filigree straw.
“When on your own you want to have a rifle with you,” advised Newton. “Topping one of these ranges you never know what’ll be on the next flat. Could be a brush turkey. It rained once and covered a flat and there were two-three million ducks on it. Another time I got two dogs. Ever seen a penentie?”
“Something of a fable, isn’t it?”
“Not here it isn’t. Got a jaw like a crocodile, and a body like a monarch goanna. You see one you keep wide, and if you open fire do it from opposite side of the Fence. Better not try it if the camels are on the same side. You’ll lose them for sure, for they’ll never stop going till they reach Sydney.”
“Quite a run, Sydney being eight hundred miles to the east,” Bony said, laughingly.
It was again up and over and down, the animals lurching up the steep sides of the ranges. Arriving at the summit of the last range, they looked down on a wide flat to a gate in the Fence.
“We’ll camp here,” Newton said, at the bottom of the last slope. “Expect you’ll want to have a dekko at Bore Ten.”
They put the camels down where there was plenty of dead wood, and unloaded and off-saddled. The animals were hobbled and freed of their nose-line which ran to wooden plugs drawn through a nostril. The sacks of salted meat were slung from tree branches and then the men walked to the gate.
Scrub grew on this flat. They passed through the gateway and almost at once emerged from the scrub to see spread before them a vast naked space. There was the bore, the sunlight making a twinkling ruby of the water eternally gushing from its metal head. So clear was the air this day that they could see the steam rising from the narrow stream, and could see
too the wind raising ripples on a lake of water fed by the stream.
“There she is; here against this tree Maidstone leaned his motor-bike; the camera was hooked to a bough together with his water-bag. Those stakes along there a bit marks where his body was found. Don’t look like he was shot at night.”
Newton waited for a comment, but didn’t get it. He watched Bony survey the immense scene and return to look closely at the camp site.
“We’ll get back to camp, Ed,” Newton said, after a while. “Sun’ll be down soon, and we’ll water the camels at the bore in the morning.”
Chapter Three
Bony Takes a Second Look
CATTLE HAD made the plain about Bore Ten. Cattle had eaten out the herbage, had killed the acacias, by first eating the leaves, and then scratching themselves against the dead trunks. The land was scored, and dead beasts or tree trunks were the genesis of the miniature sandhills kept to that size by the westerlies which carried excess sand on and on to begin the real hills over which passed the Fence. The bore and the lake it created appeared less than two hundred yards distant that morning even though Bony knew it was a full mile away. Brown and white marked cattle were feeding on rising ground beyond the water.
As Bony led his string of two camels after the three led by the overseer, he felt physically buoyant and completely satisfied. The air was so dry and so clean he felt pleasure in breathing it. The sand under his feet cushioned them from fatigue, and like Newton he found walking infinitely better than riding Rosie, who wasn’t saddled anyway. To cap it all he was now face-to-face with the challenge of clearing up Maidstone’s death. Here, where the crime was committed, must surely be something that other eyes had missed.
He drew up beside Newton when the latter halted at two stakes driven into the ground marking the place where the Quinambie overseer had found the body. There was not a trace of a track by animal or man.
“Lying face down with the head towards the east stake,” Newton said, whilst cutting tobacco from a plug for his pipe. “Musta been making back to his camp near the gate.”