Bony - 29 - The Lake Frome Monster Page 4

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Good enough!”

  “What’s the Frome manager like?”

  “Something like Nugget, only white, that is if you could get the sunburn off him. Clean-shaven when he shaves, which is about once a week. Not like Commander Joyce, the Quinambie boss, but then his homestead ain’t like the Quinambie one, either. Not much more than a permanent bush camp. Levvey don’t seem to care. I was rather sur­prised he’d got the manager’s job when I first met him.”

  “The run bigger than Quinambie or not?”

  “Not quite as big. Certainly not as well supervised. Supposed to be owned by an English company.” Newton paused to light his pipe. “Levvey gets on well with the natives, while Commander Joyce at Quinambie doesn’t do so well with them. Mind you, Joyce is good with white men and he’s got a good overseer under him.” Again the deep chuckle. “Us common men don’t get asked inside at Quinambie.”

  “Joyce does seem to be rather aloof.”

  “Too right! May be partly his wife. I don’t think she likes this part of the world very much. Ah, well, I think I’ll turn in.”

  Bony and Newton parted at sun-up the next morning, and Bony made a mental note that the following Thursday was five days ahead. Newton told him to expect him again in a fortnight, or thereabouts.

  “Be good!” he said in final parting.

  So began the north trip, Bony’s camels watered and con­tentedly chewing their cud and rolling along like ships on a beam sea.

  Bony was becoming familiar with their little ways. Neither was vicious, both accustomed to their section, and they gave little trouble until after the fourth day without watering. It was then that Rosie became restless and Old George put on an Act.

  Every morning, following a drink at a bore, Old George when brought to camp would stand watching Bony. He now carried two five-gallon water-drums, which at times had to last six days. This supply had to be eked out by the man, and thus the daily average of two gallons had to meet both cooking demands and personal washing supply.

  The first time Old George put on his Act charmed Bony. Bony rationed himself to three pannikins of water in a dish, and immediately he poured this amount Old George would shuffle forward in his hobbles and wait for the dish of used and soapy water to be presented to him. This he would drink avidly, toss up his head and at once bring up cud for chewing. That was what he needed, his cud to be moist­ened. Thereafter he could manage to get through the day. Rosie disdained such service. After her fourth day she would fidget when being saddled and loaded, sink herself low to ground so that her surcingles would not be passed under her until shallow channels were scooped with a shovel. When this was going on she would moan like a tortured soul, attempt to sink lower, flinch and generally stage a sit-down strike. In addition to the iron saddle which was divided into two compartments to take the hump, she carried the tucker box at the forward end, whilst coils of wire were hung from either side. Old George, the bullock, carried about five hundredweight of gear including the heavy pack saddle.

  Australia owes an untold debt to the camel which was first imported in 1866 by Sir Thomas Elder. Camels were able to penetrate waterless regions impossible to horses except after heavy rain. It is on record that during one such expedition the animals went without water for twenty-four days. Subsequently, camels were imported in large num­bers, together with their Afghan attendants who habitually ill-used them, making them cantankerous and spiteful.

  A man working alone with camels has so many risks to accept that he cannot take chances, or many of them, with his camels; and so it was that the men on this Fence treated them with understanding, and it was proved that the camel when so treated was ever docile.

  The men hardly ever rode the lead camel as it would be too much for the camel to be constantly brought to its knees. The rider walked with the nose-line of the riding camel looped in an arm, the nose-line of the pack animal being attached to the leader’s saddle; the warning bell about the camel’s neck gave instant warning if it broke away.

  The constant routine of existence on the Fence suited Bony’s mentality. He could think as he walked and as he worked and as this was the most favourable time of the year there wasn’t a great deal of work to be done. He hoed and raked and at places tossed buckbush over into New South Wales. He found quickly the knack of climbing over the Fence without tearing his clothes or becoming caught in the barbed wire, and so his days were pleasant and his nights spent in restful meditation.

  Bony reached the northern end of his section at Bore Ten gate late on the fourth day after he had parted with the overseer. He had not been in camp more than an hour when he saw a man approaching whom he immediately took to be Needle Kent. The soubriquet was obviously apt, for this man was six feet tall, as thin as a fishing-rod, and as nervously agile as an unbroken horse. Before Needle reached the gate, he waved both arms and shouted:

  “Day-ee, Ed! How’s things? Glad to meet you.”

  He crossed the road and laid his camels down near Bony’s camp.

  “Black Newton was telling me about you,” he continued to shout, now without necessity. “Said he’d put Nugget and his mob down south. Did he tell you your section is the worst on the Fence?”

  “Something of the kind,” Bony admitted.

  “Something bloody awful when she blows hard. I know, I had a summer of it. You can have it, and how!”

  He unloaded and freed his camels in hobbles, and on bringing his tucker box to the fire found that Bony had made a fresh billy of tea. He spoke normally now, very fast, his words sometimes bubbling out as they will when a man is shut off from human companionship for too long.

  “Did you hear the Monster last night? Away out on Lake Frome country. I heard him just before daybreak, bellow­ing and roaring like he’d swallowed a blackfeller’s camp fire. From what I could make out he was headed away from the Fence, which suited me all right. Heard about him, I suppose?”

  “Hope he stays out that way,” Bony said, filling the other’s pannikin and offering the sugar tin. “No, I didn’t hear him.”

  “How you liking the job?” This from Needle.

  “All right, so far.”

  “Good time of the year. I’ve been on it too long. Got to talking to meself. Bad enough talking all day to the camels. I see you got Old George. He’s a character, if ever there was one. You campin’ here long?”

  “I thought of camping here tomorrow,” Bony replied. “Have to water and fill up the drums. Besides, I need to do some washing.”

  “Same here. We’ll do it in the morning after Levvey goes through to Quinambie. You seen him yet?”

  Bony shook his head.

  “Flaming character is Jack Levvey. Gets around with the abos. Brings out me stores. He’ll be passing tomorrow about eight, and then we’ll make for the bore.”

  Chapter Five

  Needle and His Dates

  SHORTLY AFTER eight the next morning they heard a utility approaching and both went to open the gates for it. With the driver was a youngish lubra nursing a baby, and at the back were a young gin with two children and an aborigine youth still in his teens. After the customary “Good day-ees” Bony was introduced.

  Jack Levvey was built on Nugget’s lines. Although a white man, he was not much lighter in colour than Nugget himself. He was too heavy and his neck was too short for long expectancy of life, but when he spoke his voice though clipped in word-ending denoted an alert mind. His blue eyes met Bony’s masked blue eyes.

  “Glad to meet-cha,” he said. “Anything you want brought out?”

  “Perhaps a little fresh meat,” Bony suggested.

  “Oh, we’ll be bringing that. Mail, of course.”

  “If there is any.”

  “Too right. All right, Needle, where’s your list?”

  “Right here, Jack.”

  Levvey checked the list. The woman beside him un­ashamedly fed the baby. The children in the back were silent and solemn-eyed, and t
he young abo maintained his gaze upon his boots. He was wearing spurs and his clothes were flamboyant. Since leaving the showroom the utility had obviously never been cleaned. In the back beside the passengers were a few steel posts, a coil of wire and pliers and strainers—the usual mark of’ the station dweller who has to do his fencing repairs on the spot and often unex­pectedly.

  There were more “Good day-ees” and “See you laters” when the travellers moved on. Bony and Needle returned to the camels that had been brought in and proceeded to load the pack animals with water-drums, and tied to each towels and spare clothes. The camels were formed into a string and Bony walked with Needle. So far he had said nothing about Maidstone.

  “Funny about that bloke getting shot, eh?” Needle said, jerking his head to the tree where Maidstone had last camped. “Don’t seem no object shooting him unless he happened to recognize some cove or other what didn’t want to be recognized. Didn’t rob him or nothing. Just shot him. You hear about it?”

  “Yes, the Hill was full of it. Newton told me, too. The police talk to you?”

  “They was still on the job when I come south. Parked back there. Two detectives. One of ’m a sergeant. Wanted to know where I was when the shooting was done.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Said I was up at the Ten Mile, and so what. He wants to know what rifle I’m carrying and I tell him I only got one and it’s a Winchester. He sparks up at that. Had I done any shooting lately? What had I shot? Mind you, this was almost a week after the murder was done, Ed, and I didn’t know nothing about it. It hit me when I found the police camped just this side of the gate among the trees.”

  This was substantially what the police had gathered and reported, and Bony had read. Needle had visited Bore Ten the day before it was presumed Maidstone was killed.

  “Anyhow I comes south and I goes to the bore for water for me and the mokes, and later on I works here, but that must of been about two days before the bloke comes along on his bike and gets his.”

  “Did you draw stores from Jack Levvey on that trip?”

  “No, he tells me time before not to expect him as he’s got work to do out at the lake. I don’t need no stores anyway, and when I comes down again there’s Jack with the police at their camp. He got stores for me that day.”

  “Who told you about the murder?”

  “The police, after they asked a lot of questions. Jack added a bit more when he come back from Quinambie.”

  “As you said, Needle, it’s certainly a funny sort of busi­ness. The police don’t seem to have got anywhere.”

  “Police are all right in towns, Ed. Booking you for speed­ing or having one too many they’re real good at. No good in this country. Why, the day before they got here it blew a bit and wiped out the tracks. The wind made me some work, too. I got buckbush same as you.”

  By this time Bony and Needle had reached the bore lake. The camels took on water, and then were laid down and the drums filled. Bony said he wanted to bathe and Needle offered that while he did, he, Needle, would stand by the animals. Removing his clothes, Bony walked into the water and at fifty yards from the shore sat down with the lake up to his middle. Soaped and rinsed he came ashore feeling a new man, and Needle followed his example after Bony was dried and dressed.

  At Needle’s suggestion, they went back then to the bore head, where they hung various articles on the end of a long stick and held them under the gushing water.

  “Not more’n half a minute for underclothes, Ed, or they’ll fall to bits in no time.”

  Half a minute was enough in water loaded with salt. The clothes came out almost as white as when new. They treated spare trousers to the same testing, keeping them in the gush less than one minute. Then carrying wet clothes on a forearm, they returned to camp and hung them to dry on branches.

  “Washing clothes is no problem here if you’re handy to a bore,” remarked Bony.

  “Only thing what ain’t no problem in these parts,” agreed Needle. “What say we put on a stoo for midday dinner. I got onions and dried vegetables. You got any spuds? Have to do with salt meat as the fresh won’t get here till sundown.” He rattled on: “I always has’ta have a three-course dinner. Soup à la Bovril. Salted Boeuf. Dried Vedgies à la Mildura. Damper and bloody jam for sweets.”

  “Table d’hôte,” commented Bony. “Very sustaining, if nothing else. Yes, I’ve plenty of potatoes and also some tinned tomatoes we can add for colouring. Let us to work. You married?”

  “Only when I goes to town. I make jolly sure I catch up on my eating, too. Usually eat at the pub or one of the cafes down Argent Street. She ain’t what she used to be. The Hill, I mean. Gettin’ too respectable these days.”

  The men emptied the oddments for the stew into a billy, tossed in salt and pepper, added water and slung the billy over the fire. It did not matter that the meat required twice the cooking time of the tomatoes. Needle continued to give his opinions on modern town life:

  “Wot mucked up the Hill, same as Adelaide almost, is the ten-o’clock closing. When the pubs were shut at six, there was always a bit of fun at night getting round the sly grog shops. Have to keep your eyes peeled for coppers in Adelaide, but not so much in the Hill. I goes down to Adelaide sometimes, and now if I asks a bloke the time or where’s such a place, he gets to looking over his shoulder for a policeman. They’re that suspicious.”

  “Prowlers and slashers, Needle,” said Bony. “In Sydney they tell me sleeping in the parks isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be. Do you go to Adelaide often?”

  “Run down when I go to the Hill. More often than not I gets the train back to the Hill the same day. No one to talk to. Different in the Hill. You can talk to anyone in the Hill.”

  “The Hill is certainly more friendly, Needle,” said Bony, rolling a cigarette. “Did the sergeant recognize you up here?”

  “Too right he did. Said it was a small world and where was I on the night of June Ninth? I asked him what it had to do with him and that if I told him he wouldn’t be any the flamin’ wiser. So he says if I draw him a sand map he’ll be overwhelmed with knowledge. So I draws him the sand map, and he still don’t know if he’s comin’ or going. The day after he talked to me he tosses in the towel and goes back to the Hill.”

  “Anyway, just where were you on June the Ninth?” Bony interjected. “Like the bloomin’ sergeant, I don’t know which way I’m headed myself in this country. All this ‘up’ the Fence and ‘down’ the Fence. North and south would make it much easier.”

  “Look!” Needle said earnestly. “I’ll tell you something to surprise you. The morning of the Ninth, I was camped across the road in the scrub a bit. That day I watered the camels and loaded up on water. That was in the morning. I got back here about tenish, and as I’m not expecting Jack to get me rations I packed up and went up—that’s north to you. That night I camped at the Ten Mile, having repairs to do, and I’m camped there when I hears the duffers going by. Must been two in the morning.”

  “The duffers? What duffers?”

  Needle spat, shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  “I shouldn’t of said nothing about that, Ed. I was keeping it dark. Don’t want to get mixed up in it. Anyway, a coupla days later she blew hard and I had a deal of work to do at the Fourteen Mile, and then when coming south again there’s not much to do and I knows I has to get back here on the Thursday to meet Jack going to Quinambie. That’s the day I meet the sergeant instead.”

  “Did you tell the sergeant about the duffers?” Bony asked mildly.

  “No fear. Tell that bastard nothing. Told Newton, but he can keep his mouth shut. Hope you can, Ed.”

  “I can be discreet.”

  “Discreet! I’ll have ten to one on that one. What race is it running in? You’re a rum one, Ed. Sometimes you use words like no fencer I ever knew. Yes, they was duffers all right. Making down to Bore Ten with a hell of a lot of beasts. Judging by the sound could have been up to two hundred. Follerin’ th
e Fence they were.”

  “But wouldn’t they know of fencemen being camped right beside the Fence?”

  “More’n likely. But they’d also know that most fencemen realize that cattle sometimes get on the move at night by theirselves. It ain’t unusual, Ed. I’d have took no notice at all if it hadn’t been for the clinking of hobble chains slung from a horse’s neck. Same as them now on the camels.”

  The animals were lying down. Habitually, when not in use, the two sets of hobbles are strapped together and then strapped to the leading camel’s neck.

  “Them hobbles was around the back of a pack-horse or a spare going down with the riders. It was that dark I couldn’t see, and I wasn’t going to rush to the Fence and sing out a goodnight. Leave ’em to it, I says, they weren’t my cattle.”

  “And that was very early on June the Tenth?”

  “ ’Bout two in the morning. Could be guessin’, though. As I says, it was a dark night. No stars out. Nothing.”

  “No watch?”

  “Couldn’t be bothered lookin’ at it,” replied Needle. “No cause for it. Nothing to do with me if all the Quinambie cattle is pinched. I’m keepin’ out of it, as I tells Newton and now you. And you take a tip, Ed: what the flamin’ eyes don’t see, the heart don’t do no grievin’ about.”

  “Were the cattle moving fast?” Bony pressed.

  “They were moving all right. I reckon they were aimed to get at the bore lake before daybreak. No chance of anyone being around at that time. It was too early for Jack or his boys, and too early for a fenceman to be going for water. Yes, they’d get ’em to water before daybreak and then drive ’em down to the south-east to get ’em away from the Fence by daylight.”

  “You are sure of your dates?”

  “Too right!”

  “Then they would have passed this gate and crossed the track beyond it, eighteen hours after Maidstone got here from Quinambie?”