Bony - 27 - The Will of the Tribe Page 8

  Hilda wanted to know what a boil was and Tessa re­minded her of a pimple she once had. Rosie thought she would make a toy spear and throw it against a large stone and then hurl it at Poppa, whom, for some reason, she dis­liked.

  Bony persuaded each of them to tell him a legend, and when Mrs Brentner appeared, to find out what was going on, Tessa was reminded of the time, and Bony made a fur­ther request.

  “Tell me the legend about the Crater, about Lucifer’s Couch.”

  Little Rosie frowned and Hilda appealed to Tessa.

  “There isn’t one about Lucifer’s Couch,” she said, putting down the pencil and gathering her notes. “I’ve never heard a legend about it, anyway.”

  “Too new, perhaps,” offered Rose Brentner. “True legends have to take place in the Alchuringa, and be handed down, and down … right into little girls’ beds. Now, off with you. Say good-night.”

  Hilda insisted on a good-night kiss, and Rosie claimed her right, and, following them from the school room, Bony was invited to the lounge for coffee.

  He could hear the cattlemen talking over the transceiver in the office, and the subject was the coming visitation of the political tourists. In this Rose was not interested at the moment, her mind being directed to Tessa.

  “She’s been telling me about you, Bony. Told me of your early career at school and university. She said she men­tioned her hobby of collecting legends, and, also, that she hopes to come home from teachers’ college and teach here. What do you think of that idea? I mean about the college.”

  “She gave me the impression of being very keen about it, and I think you should send her down. Always provided you have a relative or friend to take care of her.”

  “Tessa would be staying with my sister. I’m not concerned on that point. I’ve been wondering whether, if she goes down to college, she will be estranged from the Aborigines here when she returns.”

  “That could be an advantage when she comes back to teach. You are very fond of her, are you not?”

  “Very. The girl has a lovely disposition. About the college, though, there lingers in my mind a small doubt as to the wis­dom of it. For a boy, yes, decidedly: but a girl …”

  Bony did not press the matter, and Rose Brentner fell silent. They heard Kurt signing off, and a few minutes later he joined them.

  “Well, what’s the argument?” he asked. “Minister and party will arrive at Hall’s in about three days. I told Leroy we’ll be going in and would pick him up if his wife wanted to stay home.”

  “I think she would like it if the children and I stayed with her while you and the men went in to town, don’t you?”

  “If you want it that way.”

  “Then I’ll talk to her tomorrow evening.”

  “Good!”

  “We’ve been discussing Tessa and the teachers’ college,” Rose said. “Bony thinks that if her absence somewhat estranges her from the tribe it will be an advantage when she teaches here.”

  “About right, dear. Sometimes I think she’s too close as it is. We must accept the fact that she’s now a matured young woman. The call of instincts which are natural will sort of pull her more and more strongly towards her own people. Sending her away for three or four years will get her over a difficult period. Isn’t that what you think, Bony?”

  “It is what I think, yes,” Bony admitted without hesita­tion. “The incident in the day-house earlier this evening gave support to what we seem to agree upon. Meaning what would be best for Tessa, although our approach to agreement would not follow the same line of reasoning.”

  Brentner and his wife stared hard: the man frowning, his wife evincing slight perturbation. Bony proceeded cautiously, “It has been nice of you both to accept me almost on a family basis. I know, of course, that you have a deep affection for Tessa. I know, too, that you are both ambitious for her, and that you have sound reasons for being so. Thus anything which might hurt her would certainly hurt you.

  “We said a moment ago that the girl had reached matur­ity and would feel ever stronger the pull of the tribe, and that, if she spent a few years away, she would be streng­thened when making her own decisions. You would not want her to marry a white man. Have you thought whom she might marry?”

  “She could do much worse than marrying Captain,” Kurt asserted.

  “Even better to marry an Aboriginal parson or teacher,” suggested his wife. “There’s something on your mind, isn’t there, Bony?”

  “I’ve been wondering just how close Tessa is to her people. Has she given any sign of being in love with Captain, even of being attracted to him?”

  “Just the other way round, I think,” replied Rose.

  “Then I will ask you to treat what I am going to say in strict confidence. There is a solution, I am sure, which we will eventually reach. Now, you will remember that Tessa did not contradict Captain’s story of the man Lawrence running off with the girl he was about to marry. She did not contradict Captain when he said that Lawrence was at Eddy’s Well for water and was trapped at the shed by the appearance of Young Col and myself. Am I right?”

  Both nodded agreement, and Bony offered his final point.

  “It would seem that Tessa is much closer to the tribe than you think. In the first place the girl, Wandin, is already married, and, in the second place, it wasn’t Lawrence who ran from the well on being discovered.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Collaborators

  “I SUPPOSE you can support that extraordinary state­ment with proof,” Rose Brentner said, and her husband spoke harshly, saying, “Of course he can. Go on, Bony. Let’s have it.”

  “The girl bears between her breasts the chevron mark of the married woman,” Bony informed them. “The neck of the nightdress thing she was wearing slipped open for a moment. I expect she was told to wear it in order to con­ceal a mark. The man with her behaved according to the situation. He was very nervous and he tried continually to dig his toes into the ground. The floor is hard. I noted that the smallest and the next toe of his left foot are missing. The Aborigine at the well had no such loss.”

  “Well, I’m damned!” exclaimed the cattleman violently, and his wife sprang to Tessa’s defence.

  “But Tessa mightn’t know that girl is married.”

  “Course she’d know, Rose. She visits her mother in the camp. She’s not that much separated from them as not to know of a girl being married. Then the tale put up by Cap­tain. What’s your thinkin’ on that point, Bony?”

  “I’ll take you farther into my confidence because I be­lieve you could and will go along with me. First: two facts. Before daylight the morning after I had ridden to the Crater, an Abo had ridden a horse there and, at first light, tracked my horse and then me to the wall and over it to the floor. He rode the horse back to this homestead. I was out there and saw him, but not near enough to identify him. On my return to the homestead that morning I followed the Creek, and subsequently saw a lubra back-tracking me. Those facts speak for themselves.

  “This morning when we met at breakfast no one knew I would be riding with Col to Eddy’s Well. I didn’t know it myself. The horses were in the yard, thirteen of them. Two were saddled for the ride to the Well, leaving eleven. You asked me to tell Col to tell Captain to have the eleven re­turned to the paddock. We came home through that pad­dock, and Young Col said that a horse named Star wasn’t among them. We made sure Star wasn’t inside the horse paddock.

  “I’ll go so far as to say I think it probable that, after Young Col and I left this morning, an Aborigine rode Star to the Well with orders to arrive first and to watch what one or both of us did there. He would have to ride hard to arrive first. He probably tethered Star to a tree back in the grass. Now here is something of a flaw. When he cleared out on being discovered, he had time enough to ride Star back to the horse paddock before us. Why he failed in that, we shall know some day. The animal could have broken the tether. All this is supposition, but Star was not in the paddock when Co
l and I returned.”

  “All right!” Brentner said. “All right! You were tracked to the Crater. Why send a man to Eddy’s Well to see what you did, when he could have gone there tomorrow and tracked what you did?”

  “A good question without an answer at the moment. An­other good question having no answer for us at the moment is why Captain and Poppa put up that cock-and-bull story about Lawrence and Wandin. One possible reason for the yarn was to impress on us that the Aborigine we saw run­ning away was one of two lovers. The truth is lacking and no amount of bullying will extract the truth from the Abo­rigines.”

  “We could get it out of Tessa. Go fetch her, Rose,” snapped Brentner, his face reddened by anger.

  “Wait!” Bony was sharply commanding. “That we must not do, because we may be doing Tessa an injustice. By acting circumspectly the answers to these provocative ques­tions may be forthcoming tomorrow or the following day. I haven’t confided these matters to you without considera­tion of a problem in which we three people are deeply interested. That is the preservation of the relationship of this tribe of Aborigines with yourselves as representative of the white race. You wish that?”

  “Of course we do. Go on,” urged Brentner.

  “You have often asked yourselves why the body was put on the floor of the Crater?”

  “Often. Why put the body there at all beats me. There’s a million acres of open country and a hundred million tons of dead wood to burn it to dust. Why? D’you know?”

  “Yes, I think I do. I am convinced that it was put there by Aborigines, yours or the wild men, possibly those at Beaudesert, with firm preference for your local tribe, in view of their behaviour. Now don’t jump to conclusions. I do not say, or believe as yet, that the man was killed by your local tribe. I do say your Abos know who put the body there. If they did not kill and yet did put the body in the Crater, it might be possible to keep them out of the affair as being accessories. The authorities would not want to make a song and dance about them: bad politics.

  “Coming back to Tessa and Captain, we have the one dear to you and the other being of some importance in your lives. My assignment is to establish who killed that white man and how he arrived in this area without being reported. Until I am sure, I want to give your Aborigines the benefit of the doubt that they killed him. And I want your collaboration.”

  For nearly a minute they considered this request, Rose steadily looking at her hands resting on her lap, Brentner staring at his shoes. It was Rose who agreed for both.

  “How can we collaborate?” Brentner asked. “I’m feeling like being in my car with the wheels spinning and sinking into a bog.”

  “I’ve observed that every morning one of the Aborigines walks out into the horse paddock, which is a square mile in area and not very scrubby. He catches an old mare and rides after the other horses to bring them to the horse-yards at about seven. I’d like you to be at the yards when the horses are brought there and look Star over for evidence of hard riding. If the horse isn’t there, have Young Col and Ted look for him and make sure he didn’t get through the fence. If satisfied he didn’t break through the fence, then make a great fuss about him, and have riders out look­ing for him. Clear?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.”

  “Do it without making Captain suspicious that you are particularly interested in that horse up to the moment it is found missing from the paddock.” Bony turned to Rose. “Now, Mrs Brentner, I have a most interesting assignment for you, and I do hope you’ll undertake it. You have slept badly through worrying over the threatened punishment of the lovers. So, first thing tomorrow, you order Captain to report to you. You convince him you are most con­cerned about them, and you command him to take you at once to Gup-Gup. You will not be side-tracked. You will insist, stamping a foot to emphasize your determination if necessary.

  “Take Tessa with you. You will order Gup-Gup to marry the lovers at once, in your presence. You will insist. You will threaten discontinuance of the tobacco ration for the whole tribe if the lovers are not married in your presence. You will observe his reactions and those of Poppa. They should be amusing because Gup-Gup will not dare to give a man’s wife in marriage to a runaway lover. Thus we shall see how he wriggles to get out of that one.”

  “Gosh! That’s a beauty,” complimented the cattleman. “I’m all for it.”

  “And you, Mrs Brentner?”

  “Certainly, Bony. I find myself wanting to do that. I hate being deceived. I shall take Tessa with me, and she’ll break my heart if she deceives me.”

  “Put on the racial cloak Tessa is wearing, Mrs Brentner. Then you will learn that Tessa is battling against divided loyalty. It isn’t a pleasant situation for anyone. I recall to your mind what she admitted when questioned why she ran off that day. Instinctively, she obeyed what she thought was right, and the same thing would have influenced her this evening when she did not openly challenge Captain’s story of the lovers.”

  Rose looked directly into the blue eyes regarding her with the hint of appeal, and she knew in this moment that she would never understand Tessa as this man surely did, and the doubt vanished that he would act contrary to his pro­fessed approach to Aborigines.

  “To get back to Captain,” said her husband. “I’m beat there. He cramps me for the first time. He’s been brought up by white people, or near enough. He’s been educated by white people. He reads and writes in a place of his own, and is allowed to be pannikin boss who’s trusted. He’s nearly as far removed from the tribe as Tessa. If what we think is correct, then he’s just a double-crossing black bastard. The days of ill-treating a black are long past, but I’ve a mind to thrash it out of him.”

  “You know quite well, Kurt, that nothing is gained by thrashing an Aborigine. You know, too, that it would bring unhappiness to many people, including yourselves,” coun­tered Bony with calmness surprising to Rose Brentner. “Action springs from motive. We do not know the motive resulting in the death of the Crater man. We do know, or may think we know with confidence, that his murder was not actuated by greed. I said just now that Tessa was probably struggling against divided loyalty. It could be so with Captain. Therefore, charity and not condemnation shall be the motive actuating us tomorrow. I’ll employ a few clichés. We mustn’t rush our fences, or charge about like a bull in a china shop. Everything will come out in the wash.”

  “I adore clichés,” Rose avowed unsmilingly. “Kurt, you be­have. We have agreed to do certain things first thing in the morning. They will be more interesting than losing your temper and thrashing an Aborigine. You look for that horse. Leave Captain and Gup-Gup to me.”

  The powerful, square-faced cattleman who had thrived on battling with drought and flood and fire, who had fisted his way to and fro across these northern mountains and over the spaces of the arid desert, subsided physically and mentally and grinned like a boy found in an apple-tree.

  “The wife’s always right,” he admitted to Bony. “We start a race. I ride straight and true and hard. She rides round corners, stops to admire the scenery, rides on again and stops to do her hair. And gets first to the post. It’s always been like that.”

  “Well, it isn’t hard to take, is it?” asked the chuckling Bony.

  “No, not particularly.”

  “And you should agree that Bony is right too, Kurt,” added his wife using the other spur. Smiling, she turned to Bony. “And what will you be doing first thing in the morn­ing?”

  “Watching the sunrise. Employing my mighty intellect. Meanwhile you might manage to steal from the larder a few biscuits and a piece of cheese, a little tea and sugar and a quart pot to brew tea. And you, Kurt, could loan a pistol as I seem always to leave mine at home.”

  On retiring to his room, Bony was equipped for his ex­pedition to see the sun rise and, at one o’clock, he left the house by his bedroom window and slipped away from the homestead without rousing the dogs.

  Although the night was moonless he had to accept the risk of bei
ng observed by the glow of the meteors, which appear to be singularly attracted by this Kimberley country. The star-studded sky was their death-bed, and often they burned so brightly that the land was illuminated.

  Walking at night across a desert which isn’t as denuded of herbage as the Sahara is somewhat different from walk­ing a city street during a blackout. Here it was necessary to avoid the spinifex, the small areas of porcupine grass, the low bush and taller scrub trees, all traps to cause halt or floundering and all obstacles to catch and imprison wisps of wool from his ungainly wool shoes. Bony needed his good eyesight to avoid the traps and keep to the open sandy spaces. Direction was instinctive, and to follow a course re­quired no thought.

  The feeling of isolation in space without limits was, how­ever, strong. There were no landmarks to provide know­ledge of movement: no lift or depression anywhere on the circular horizon, determined only by the edge of black under the lighter tint of the sky. It was not unlike walking in fog rising to the waist. In the fog lurked the obstructions to be avoided and the open sandy areas to be crossed without hindrance. The stars hung suspended from the flat roof, upon which white and red arrows burned holes and fled until the sky hit back and consumed them. Race instincts plus inherited gifts enabled this man to cross the desert as though in daylight.

  There was no wind. The night was silent, void of sound. Bony created no sound, not even the tiny sound of feet crunching sand which occurs when a man is wearing boots. Once he fell into a dry water-gutter, its edges steep after the last flooding, the floor three feet below the surface.

  Shortly after this shaking he fancied he saw, immediately to the front, a moving object. He halted, sniffed the air with­out result, listened to the soft crunch of sand and heard nothing. Stooping, he sought to bring the object against the sky, and found this could not be done. Upright again, he thrust his right hand into the side pocket of his tunic and brought out the automatic. The object was there, without doubt. He could sense its proximity. If it would move again. … A meteor flamed. Six feet from him a large kangaroo was balanced back against its tail, its powerful forearms extended to the grip when one of its hind legs could dis­embowel a man with a foot.