Bony - 02 - Sands of Windee Page 23

  “You are now the commander of this party, Dot,” remarked Dash, after they had ridden for half an hour in silence. “What are we going to do?”

  “Go back, face the bulls, and tell ’em to be damned,” was Dot’s instant reply.

  “Do not let us become wearied by fruitless argument, my dear man. Let it be final that there is to be no going back.”

  “Well, there is no reason why you can’t go back.”

  “Please, Dot, no further discussion on that topic. We go together. Where do we go?”

  “You’re the most obstinate cuss wot ever drank beer. How­somever, west o’ here is Freeman’s Run. Windee’s west boundary is marked by the border fence. There or in South Australia we’ll strike the track from Freeman’s homestead to Nullawil. It’s a hundred to one ole man Freeman ’as bin told of the fire and will be sending orl ’is ’ands to join up with the Windee push to smother it. We’ll ride that track till we hear ’em acomin’. We’ll then leave it and head north-west. They will ride over our tracks so that even Bony won’t foller ’em, champeen tracker an’ orl.

  “On the north-west boundary of Freeman’s Run there’s a ole friend of mine cooking for two boundary-riders. ’E won’t go to no fire, ’cos ’e’s nigh seventy years of age and rheumaticky. From ’ere to ’im is about forty-seven miles. We’ll ’it ’im to-morrow at noon. We’ll rest up till nightfall, and then head into the Never-Never. Understan’, when we leave my pal we git off the station country on to the open country, and when once there we got to chance the water-’oles.”

  “Do you mean that we shall have passed beyond the edge of the settled, fenced country?” asked Dash.

  ‘Jest so. Up away beyond the stations is that scattered that it’s possible ter get to Darwin without passin’ through a gate or climb a fence.”

  “But surely we have not to make for Darwin?”

  “No. We’ll hole up on the shores of Lake Eyre.”

  “What sort of a place is that?”

  “Hain’t you never ’eard about the shores of Lake Eyre?”

  “No.”

  “Well, jest you imagine what this yer world will be like millions o’ years ahead, when the earth ’as kinda run down and there ain’t no sea-tides and no people, no nothink but insects and sand and mud and withered things wot look like trees; a place where the souls of orl the bad blokes and blokesses hover about awaiting ’ell—and then you’ll git Lake Eyre. It’s a place wot must make even Satan feel the draught up and down ’is back. Just the sort of place fer us, ole pard!”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Bony’s Dilemma

  DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR Napoleon Bonaparte was helping to load rations from the store on the second truck when he saw Marion Stanton standing nearby watching the operation. With Bony was the driver and a second man. Mr Roberts remained within the store. It was whilst the driver was busily engaged in arranging and stacking the load and the second man was inside that Marion gave Bony a note, before walking away. Not until the loading was finished did Bony get a moment of time to read the message unobserved.

  “I want to see you before you go. Come to the north end of the house.”

  The opportunity to slip away presented itself immediately after­wards, and he found the girl waiting for him in the doorway giving entry to the north veranda. Without speaking, she beckoned him to follow, and led him into the house and to a room that in furnish­ing was between a drawing-room and a study. It was her own sitting-room, which no one ever entered excepting when invited. She herself closed the door.

  “Sit down, Bony. I want to talk to you,” she said.

  Bony sat down. He saw that the girl’s face was very pale, and there was emphatic evidence that she had been crying. Her voice was tremulous, and because he saw that she was hurt the half-caste detective’s sympathy at once went out to her. Patiently he waited for her to speak again, his face revealing the sympathy he felt. Then:

  “Someone told me—I forget if it was you or my father—that you are an expert tracker. Are you really?”

  Wondering, Bony acknowledged it. “In Queensland I have shown aptitude in that direction,” he murmured.

  For what seemed to him a long time she gazed at him with disconcerting steadiness. It was a silence which he broke.

  “If you want me to do any tracking for you, Miss Stanton,” he said quietly, “I shall be very happy indeed to serve you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” For a moment Bony was nonplussed. Then with com­plete frankness he answered: “Because you, who are the daughter of a millionaire, a white woman and lovely, have been kind, not condescendingly kind, but with the kindness of an equal, to me, a—a—a nigger. Because you are the one white woman who has been kind to me that way there is nothing I would not do to show my great appreciation of it.”

  For a further many seconds she regarded him in silence. Bony again wondered, but veiled from his eyes the alertness of his mind to meet a second shock. It did not come—yet.

  “Remembering the incidents of this afternoon, you know how the trooper set off on horseback with Moongalliti and Warn to arrest Dot and Dash,” she said slowly and utterly without passion. “Have you any idea what kind of trackers those two are?”

  Bony began to wonder what lay behind this fresh turn. With­out hesitation, however, he replied:

  “I have only the faintest idea, based on the fact that these two men were present at the search for the missing man Marks, and that it appeared then that their tracking ability was poor. But, they having gone after Dot and Dash, what are they to do with—us?”

  To this counter-question Marion made no immediate answer. Watching her intently, Bony saw that she was making up her mind to say that for which she had brought him there, and think­ing carefully the words she would use. Before him he saw a very resolute woman—saw, too, how like she was to old Jeff Stanton when he stood outside his office and addressed the whilom strikers.

  “Supposing Moongalliti and Warn failed to find and keep on the tracks of Dot and Dash, they might ask you to do the tracking; in which, of course, you would succeed?”

  “I should be astounded were I to fail,” he said, a victim to his vanity. It brought to her face a ghost of a smile, and seeing it he added: “Both Moongalliti and Warn are full-blooded aboriginals, Miss Stanton. It is well to remember that, and also to remember that I am a half-caste. The aboriginals are clever trackers. Indi­vidual feats of tracking by them are amazing. Nevertheless, the aboriginal’s intelligence is not very high, and in him imagination is almost non-existent. He will follow what his eyes reveal to him. From my mother I have inherited the black man’s vision and the black man’s passion for the chase, as well as his bushcraft. From my father, however, I have inherited imagination and reasoning power. When there is nothing which a black man’s eyes can see he comes to a halt. I go on, because I reason this and imagine that, and presently come again on the tracks which were lost. I have followed tracks three months old.”

  “Then, were you asked to find Dot and Dash, you would find them?” was her question, spoken with a shade of anxiety.

  “I have no doubt about that,” he said simply, and this time there was no hint of vanity in his voice. He spoke as he would if stating his belief that the sun would rise on the morrow. He added that which brought a flash of fear into her eyes. “Do you wish me to track Dot and Dash?”

  “Bony——” He saw her bite her nether lip. His question had

  brought her to the point which had been responsible for this con­versation. “Bony—oh, Bony!—can I trust you? Can I?”

  For a moment he failed to respond. The appeal in her face made his pulses jump into a racing throb. It occurred to him that he had never seen her look so lovely, and the vision wiped from his mind memory of what and who he was. He forgot entirely that he was a half-caste, that his skin was ruddy black, and that he was also a detective-inspector of the Queensland Police. His own voice sounded strange in his ears. It seemed as though another man
was speaking. The voice held a tone of hauteur.

  “I might remind you that just now I said there is nothing I would not do for you. Now permit me to repeat the word ‘nothing’ with emphasis.”

  “Thank you, Bony; you make my task easier.”

  “Forget that it is a task, Miss Stanton, and command,” urged this extraordinary man grandly. He saw her smile, and thrilled to the loveliness of her. Her words came in a rush.

  “I want you to volunteer to track Dot and Dash, or in some way to prevent Moongalliti and Warn from getting them.”

  “That will be easy. I shall not fail to bring them in.”

  “But I don’t want them brought in. I want them to get away, and I want you to volunteer to track them, so that you can make it possible for them to get clear, even if you have to mislead the police.”

  It was then that Bony stared at her, subconsciously noting how her lips remained partly separated, as though she was frightened by the words she had uttered. He remembered then who he was, and what he was. He remembered that he it was who had ordered the apprehension of these men. For seconds he was mentally stunned by her appeal. And then his old command of himself returned. Into his mind came flooding back all the alertness and all the cunning which so largely made up this man Bony.

  “Why do you wish this?” he asked coolly.

  She sensed the change in him, but, seeing she had gone too far to withdraw, proceeded to fight on as her sire would have done.

  “That is a question I would rather not answer,” she told him. He felt the stiffening in her attitude. “You said you would do anything for me. Do this without questioning. Please, Bony!”

  “The circumstances are unique, Miss Stanton. Knowing your position in life, and knowing, too, that of Dot and Dash, you must excuse my feeling some surprise. Wait, please! In Queensland I have by no means a poor reputation at tracking—a reputation of which I may be excused for feeling proud, as I have never yet failed in tracking-work set me to do. You decline to give me a reason for asking me to do what would destroy my reputation, what would cause the finger of scorn to be pointed at me. I feel sure when you understand how much you want of me that you will give me the reason why you wish it.”

  Whilst he was speaking he saw the blood mount slowly to her cheeks and brow. He saw her hands clasp tightly and the fingers work in and out among the others. Genuinely astonished by her request, he failed to divine the motive that prompted it. The motive might be one of many things. Was it fear that prompted this request? Did she fear something consequent on the arrest of these two trappers? If so, then he had let her out of his net too soon. If so, then he had failed dreadfully on one point. He had failed in his reading of her character. And failure in anything stung him always, lashed his self-esteem, struck at his vanity, tended to make mock of “the greatest detective in Australia”.

  “You will not do this which I ask unless I explain why I ask it?”

  He nodded. “You ask a great deal, Miss Stanton. Give a little. The more powerful the reason of your request, the more enthusi­astic will I be to accord it.”

  “You will promise never to repeat a word?”

  Again he nodded. Beyond the house he heard Jeff Stanton roar­ing his name. Then he heard that which brought him to his feet, spoken with bowed head, softly:

  “It is because I—I love Hugh Trench.”

  He stood as a man of stone. Even his eyelids remained seemingly fixed whilst he stared down at her bowed head.

  “You love—Dash?”

  He saw her head sink a little farther in acquiescence.

  Old Jeff Stanton continued to roar out his name, but Bony hardly heard. He could hear hardly anything but Marion Stanton’s slow sobbing, and think of nothing but the fact that this woman, to whom he owed so much, loved the man he was hounding down.

  Chapter Forty

  The Necessity for a Wedding Present

  PRESENTLY OLD JEFF ceased to cry Bony’s name and the man himself heard the sound of a motor-engine roar for a short space, slow down when the driver changed gears, speed up again, slow once more, again speed up and its sound grow faint. The truck had gone without him.

  Still he did not speak, nor did Marion raise her head. He heard footsteps coming along the corridor without, listened with strained intentness to their passing beyond the door, and to the gentle tapping that followed. To them came Mrs Poulton’s voice.

  “Marion!”

  Bony began to think the girl would never speak. Then quickly she stood up and, whilst looking at him, said:

  “Yes, Mrs Poulton. What is it?”

  “The master is just leaving for the fire. He would like to say good-bye.”

  “Tell him I will come at once.”

  They heard Mrs Poulton departing, and, when her steps sounded no more, Marion gazed steadily into Bony’s blue eyes, saying:

  “Well, will you do what I ask?”

  Bony’s face was drawn. Had he been white, his complexion would have been whiter than usual. Then:

  “You present me with a mental battle,” he said slowly. “Leave me here while you farewell old Jeff. You must give me time—indeed you must. You ask of me a hard thing, a far harder thing than you can guess.”

  And so that she should not see the pain in his eyes he turned away from her, and was but dimly conscious of hearing the door open and close behind her. His feet almost faltering, he reached a chair placed beside a writing-table, and, sinking into it, covered his face with his hands, his head falling forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

  If ever a man was impaled on the horns of a dilemma, Bony then was that man. The tip of one horn represented pride; the tip of the other, a fierce admiration for the pure and the beautiful.

  Pride! Yes, pride in achievement. He had been born with the white man’s blood in him and, as is sometimes the case, a skin as white as his father’s. From an early age he had felt his superiority over the other little boys at the mission station, most of whom were black, or of that dark putty colour there is no mistaking. At eighteen years of age he had fallen in love with a girl at the high school both attended. Life and the passion of life were opening to him as a flower-bud will open, and he revelled in his power to make the girl love him.

  With the inevitability of fate his long-dead black mother claimed him from the grave, claimed him and held him. He was bathing with several companions one afternoon, and one of them remarked how peculiar it was that his legs were darker in colour than the upper part of his body. The horror, the agony, which succeeded that afternoon! The realization, the knowledge that, after all, when he had been so certain that the black strain in him would never show, it was at last asserting itself!

  His soul in torment, he told the girl of his mixed ancestry. At first she would not believe it. To her honour, however, she clung to him for a year; but at last, when the colour mark had crept up his body and reached his face, she had to believe. Even so she would have married Bony, had he permitted it.

  But Bony put her from him. The act cut out of his life tem­porarily all the joys of youth save one, and that one the joy of knowledge. Yet always was he acutely aware of his inferiority to the full-blooded white man. He strove and excelled the white man in one thing: knowledge; he equalled the white man in one other thing: personal honour.

  The hereditary influences that had battled for him ever since his early manhood wearied him at times to the point of exhaustion. He seemed never to escape them, never to be free from them. He had so wanted to become a great scholar, had so dreamed of becoming a famous Australian; and, when the call of his mother, and through her the call of the vast bushlands, clashed within his soul, he knew his ambitions to be but dreams, and his dreams the epic of absurdity.

  His mental gifts and natural faculties, plus fortuitous circum­stances, led him into police circles. The life of a detective, especially one specializing in bush crimes, suited his complex racial make-up, and to this calling he had given his talents gladly, and lived for it and of it. The wh
ite man’s ambition denied him, the black man’s life repugnant to his finer instincts, there was but one thing left. Pride of achievement, pride of success, the joys of mental victories. His tremendous vanity was bred from his absolute immunity from failure. Never had he failed at a case entrusted to him, and in con­sequence he sat in the seats of the supermen.

  And now this! For the first time since he had renounced the love of his youthful sweetheart he had met a white woman who never had looked down on him from a higher plane, who aroused in him the ecstasy of the worshipper of beauty, who had made him forget his inferior birth and status, and who recognized unreservedly his spiritual superiority. Knowing not who he was, she had besought him to fail in a case, had urged a service that would mean but one thing. And that thing was that his chiefs would know he was as other men, as other men who sometimes failed.

  There was the torturing point of these two horns drawn together into one. This case of the missing Marks was all but complete. It was the deepest mystery he had ever had to unravel. It revealed almost the perfect crime. He was morally certain that he would complete this case as he had completed all others. Yet, knowing that, and because of Marion Stanton, was he to go back to Head­quarters in Sydney and admit failure, and then on to Colonel Spender, in Brisbane, and admit to him as well that he had failed? Easily could be visualize the Chief Commissioner’s expression of astonishment, of disbelief, and finally the look of disillusionment deep in the fierce grey-blue eyes.

  Failure! What a word to include in his vocabulary!

  If he allowed Dash to escape, it meant that Dot also would escape. Should he drop the case against Dash, it meant he would have to drop the case against his partner and that third man whom Ludbi had seen fighting with Marks in the runaway car. There was no way of saving only Dash. There was no way out for him, Bony. There was no loophole of escape for him from his plighted word that he would do anything for the white goddess to whom his spirit went out in worship.