Bony - 29 - The Lake Frome Monster

by Arthur W. Upfield

  First the wind took off the old leaves from the gums and teased the acacias, gluing them to the netting, and then prodded the dead buckbush until it broke the filigree balls from their stems and rolled them over the ground to the Fence. Soon they became a mile-wide procession, charging the netting, smashing themselves against it, becoming the foundation of a growing wall of yellow lace.

  Bony was on the undulating country south of the sand ranges, and with the pitchfork worked to toss the buckbush over the Fence into New South Wales, where the wind carried it away. It was a losing battle, for as he moved forward the bush was plastered against the Fence behind him, and eventually he surrendered to the wind and took his camels to the shelter of a stand of cabbage trees. There he removed the loads and freed them in hobbles, but they promptly lay down with their rumps to the wind.

  Along the lee-side of the Fence herbal rubbish remained undisturbed, but the air was filled with flying red dust and the sun itself turned red. It was as though this western strip of New South Wales were below the lip of an endless dam. Hour after hour the buckbush came flying past Bony and when he looked towards the Fence he could see nothing but the yellow wall over which sailed the bush in large tangled masses, some of it to blast his tree, and some the rumps of the kneeling animals. It continued to blow the remainder of the day and well into the night.

  Towards morning the wind died away and the camel bell denoted that the animals were up and feeding. At break of day Bony rolled out from under a tarpaulin laden with sand, built a fire and boiled water for tea.

  To westward, what at first appeared as a dark sand range emerged as a gigantic wave of grass, and all the work Nugget and he had done was now undone.

  All day he forked buckbush over into New South Wales. The next day he had to take his camels to water and on returning he raked up the debris into heaps and burned it. When Overseer Newton came along he had cleaned the Fence for two miles.

  “How you liking the job?” asked the be-whiskered man, his dark brown eyes gleaming with humour.

  “I don’t think I’m going to like it,” was Bony’s verdict.

  “What’s the fence like farther south of my section?”

  “Not too bad down there. This’ll be about the worst. Of course, Everest could be buried or have its summit blown off. How are your mokes for water?”

  “They filled up the day before yesterday.”

  “Then I’ll camp the night with you.”

  At sundown, Bony ceased work and joined Newton who was baking a damper loaf, and together they boiled salted meat for the morrow and dined on cold meat and potatoes. They talked of the alleged duffing and Newton said that if there had been any duffing the stolen beef had not passed through any gateway on his length of Fence.

  “I thought I had better report it to my Superintendent, and as there was some matters I wished to talk over with Joyce, I went to the homestead the other day with the excuse of an upset tummy. Told him who I was and he co-operated well enough. So did his overseer—I had to take a chance there. There is one point I missed. The name of one of the abos who accompanied the overseer when he found the body was Posthole Frankie. D’you know who the other man was?”

  “Yes, Charlie the Nut.”

  “Charlie the Nut is the local Medicine Man?”

  “You’ve said it, Ed.”

  “I also heard from one of the hands that Needle Kent is given to romancing. D’you think this yarn about the cattle rustling was imagination?”

  “Could be. Needle does imagine things. I’m not going to say he deliberately lies, but he should take a spell from the Fence and get away down to the Hill. He doesn’t even go to Quinambie for his rations and sees no one bar me for months at a time.”

  “I arranged to meet him at the top end. Spent a day with him.” Bony lifted the lid of his camp oven to inspect the baking damper. “Needle could have been mistaken about the dates of that movement of cattle. He could have fancied he heard hobble chains clinking. He was adamant that he would not report the incident and he advised me not to take notice of what he inferred was a slip of the tongue when mentioning it.”

  “Well, I don’t take much notice of him,” Newton said. “He’s somewhat unreliable even when telling me about his work and what not. The only thing in his favour about the cattle is that there were cattle tracks across the road when Joyce went out to look for Maidstone. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the cattle were being driven.”

  “Joyce was not sure if any duffing was going on at the moment. Needle told me there was now and then.”

  “Sooner believe Joyce.”

  “This Charlie the Nut,” Bony veered, “what kind of a character is he?”

  “Run of the mill. Works for Quinambie when they’re busy with the cattle. Loafs otherwise.”

  “Keeps his fellow abos in order, I suppose.”

  “Does that, Ed. The mob around here ain’t advanced much. Pretty isolated. They has their ceremonies out at Bore Six, has a fight now and then, but no one troubles about them. There were a couple of killings ten or twelve years ago, and the police had to smooth ’em out, but didn’t get far with ’em.”

  “None arrested for the killings?”

  “One arrested for one of them. A buck got three years. They been good ever since.”

  “The Medicine Man—young or old?”

  “I’d say would be about fifty. Chief Moses would be a hundred and fifty and never a wash in his life. Keep to windward of him if ever you meet him. Before the Monster turned up they’d joined with Lake Frome abos and went walkabout out there. It seems that when the Fence was built it sort of divided the tribe, and them in South Australia elected their own chief. You know much about the abos?”

  “Very little,” lied Bony. “Haven’t had much time to study them. I was brought up in a mission and went to University later on in Brisbane.”

  The conversation drifted into generalities, and the next day Newton pulled away from the north and Bony returned to his work. In mid-afternoon he had a visitor; in fact, two.

  They came along the Fence from the north and he did not see them for the wall of buckbush ahead until a horse appeared with a small ancient astride it, and a young buck on foot.

  “Good day-ee!” greeted Bony, who now dropped the fork and began the manufacture of an alleged cigarette. The horseman reined the animal to confront Bony through the wire. The pedestrian followed. He was rather a good-look­ing aborigine.

  “Gibbit tobacco,” ordered the ancient, and Bony thought­fully passed a pinch through the netting.

  “Old Moses can’t talk English,” volunteered the young man. “Can you spare me a cigarette?”

  Bony passed the second pinch of tobacco and a paper. They had matches, and the young man said:

  “Lookin’ for a horse. You seen any tracks down south?”

  “No. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Posthole Frankie. Takin’ a spell from Quinambie. Heard about you. You’re Ed Bonnay.”

  Moses muttered something and Posthole Frankie grinned and translated.

  “Moses wants to know if you heard the Monster lately?”

  “No I haven’t heard him at all.”

  “Seen his tracks about?” Frankie asked.

  Bony shook his head. “Wouldn’t recognize them if I did. What is he like?”

  “Wouldn’t know.”

  The youth spoke to Chief Moses and the ancient muttered, chewed the tobacco for a space, muttered again and pointed at Bony.

  “The old bloke wants to know where you come from,” said Frankie irreverently.

  Bony gravely removed his shirt and then the undervest, turned about to permit Moses to see the initiation cuts on his back. Putting on his vest and shirt he asked Posthole Frankie if Chief Moses was any the wiser.

  The inquiry being translated, the Chief vigorously shook his hoary head and asked for more tobacco. Bony said he was short, Moses then produced a fine tobacco plug, gave it to his escort to slice a chew as he had no t
eeth.

  “Cunning feller,” observed Bony. “Tell him I come from North Queensland, not that he’ll know where it is.”

  Without warning, the Chief reined off the Fence and he and Posthole Frankie departed in a north-easterly direction. A pleasant interlude, thought Bony, maybe not without significance, and fell to working.

  At sundown he went for his camels and found they had roamed a mile away. He brought them back to camp and gave Old George his washing water to tide him till the next morning, as George was heading for a bore when caught up with. It was two days later on that he took them to Bore Nine, this bore being the closest to his work.

  The bore lake was not as large as that at Bore Ten. He tied the camels down by passing a line about their angled forelegs and then circled the lake. There were no cattle tracks and not a single horse track. Now, Chief Moses had come from this direction and had left roughly in the direc­tion for Bore Nine, yet neither he nor Posthole Frankie had circled the lake to find if the missing horse had called here for a drink. Doubt was thus cast on the missing horse story, and that meant Chief Moses had a different objective. Bony wondered if the true reason for the trip was to scrutinize him.

  The recent windstorm had wiped clean this page of the Book of the Bush, and Bony found nothing significant of Maidstone’s halt. Tenaciously, he made a second encircle­ment, this time along the fringe of the encircling shrub, a journey of about two miles at the edge of the open space created by the cattle.

  The road taken by Maidstone touched this fringe oppo­site the bore head, and here he did find an empty matchbox partly buried by the sand and lying at the foot of a tree. It could have been discarded by Maidstone when he stopped here to photograph the bore, or it could have been thrown away by the overseer or one of his two offsiders. There was no trace of a fire to boil water. Had Maidstone stayed for a while for a meal, the sand would now cover the embers.

  Governed by habit, Bony pocketed the matchbox. The brand was not the same as that he had purchased at the Quinambie store, and doubtless had been discarded by Maidstone.

  The overseer had told the police that Maidstone had lit a fire to make noonday tea. He had seen the ashes of that fire. Now the wind had buried the ashes with sand Bony felt he should check. Accordingly, he brought the rake and began to rake the ground all about, giving special attention to the small sand hummocks. He unearthed tree debris and eventually brought to light the residue of Maidstone’s fire. There were the streaks of burned sand, the ash having been carried away. There were the ends of sticks and the unburned ends of thick boughs. It had been quite a large fire, much too large merely to boil water in a billy-can.

  Here was a discovery that posed many questions. The embers proved the size and the time of the burning, and this in turn strongly indicated that the fire had burned all night.

  It had been thought all along that Maidstone had stopped at this bore to photograph it the day he had left Quinambie, had boiled water for lunch and then gone on to Bore Ten. If he had camped here the day he had left Quinambie then he would not reach Bore Ten until the Ninth of the month, not the Eighth.

  Bony thought back to the information given by Needle Kent concerning the travelling stock. Needle had said that he was camped at the two-mile north of the gate and heard the passing cattle about two o’clock on the morning of the Tenth. This would have put the rustlers and the cattle at Bore Ten early in the day on which Maidstone arrived there—not, as it appeared from the police reports, in com­bination with Kent’s evidence, twenty-four hours after Maidstone’s death!

  In this case, it was possible that the rustlers could have had something to do with the shooting of Maidstone, but the absence of motive made it highly improbable. It still seemed likely that the rustlers had left Bore Ten before Maidstone arrived, although the margin of time had be­come much less.

  The size of the fire embers could well have deceived the overseer but would not have deceived the two aborigines with him. The question that concerned Bony was why they had not pointed out to their boss that Maidstone had almost certainly camped here on the night of June Eighth? Per­haps, it had been due to laziness. Perhaps, they had not been consulted by the overseer, who had taken it for granted that Maidstone would have made more mileage than this camp fire showed and had actually been at Bore Ten on the Eighth.

  Bony raked the sand over the embers and then removed the marks of the rake everywhere with a leafy branch, as well as his own tracks about the fire site. When on his way back to the Fence, he became convinced that the aborigines had “gone dumb”. They knew something vital about the murder and had been instructed not to co-operate with either the overseer or the police.

  Chapter Eight

  Broadcasting Sly Hints

  IF THE aborigines were his opponents in this Maidstone investigation, then Bony knew he was up against a wily and cunning foe. It would not be the first occasion when he had found himself opposed to a black rather than a white enemy of the law. If the theory was—for as yet it was only a theory—that the station aborigines knew who had killed Maidstone, then the lack of success of the police could be explained.

  The subject occupied Bony’s mind as he continued to labour to clean his section of the Fence. The weather had returned to clear calm days and cold nights when a camp fire was a comfort and lifted the roof of stars to an unimag­inable height. Sometimes he wondered how men could stand this kind of work and the harsh conditions governing it. True, the pay was good, there was no clock or time check, and freedom of movement was absolute. The type of man who chose to work on this and other Government Fences would not be tortured by a factory siren, while the office worker condemned to labour on a Fence would become mentally unbalanced much more quickly than Needle Kent.

  Eight days after talking with King Moses and his off­sider, Bony saw Newton and his camels coming down a long slope. During the interval he hadn’t seen as much as a dingo, and he was very glad to see the forthright overseer.

  “How’s things?” was Newton’s greeting.

  “The Fence isn’t as good as when Nugget’s crew left it.”

  “Many hands make light work of it, Ed. You haven’t done so bad. Mount Everest didn’t get a beating this last time. How are you on rations?”

  “I’m out of potatoes and I haven’t had fresh meat for a fortnight. I was going into Quinambie when I get down to the turn off to your shed.”

  “We can go in together. The Fence will hold up for a day or two. Anything happened? You find out anything?”

  “Had a visit from old Moses and Posthole Frankie,” replied Bony, and gave the details.

  “Looking for a horse? That old scoundrel wouldn’t go looking for a horse. He’d send his bucks. Wanted to look you over, that’s what. Where were you when he sort of called to pass the time of day?”

  Bony told him as nearly as he could, and they went on southward, Bony’s camels nose-lined to Newton’s rear beast. Bony walked on the far side of the Fence with the pitchfork to toss over isolated buckbush. The two men camped at sundown at the turn off to the grass shed.

  On settling down for the evening smoke beside the bright camp fire, Bony decided to take Newton further into his confidence. He told him what he had discovered at Bore Nine and his deductions from it.

  “Putting yourself in the overseer’s place, wouldn’t you have expected those blacks to report their ideas about that fire?” asked Bony.

  “Yes, I certainly would. They would know that the over­seer evidently didn’t draw the picture right. It’s funny, Ed, Posthole Frankie ain’t slow in coming forward. Neither of ’em could have said anything to the police because the sergeant and his offsider never went there to work it out. They took it for granted that Maidstone continued straight for Bore Ten, and took the overseer’s word for it that Maidstone merely boiled water for tea at Bore Nine and took a picture or two.”

  “Do King Moses or his Medicine Man get about much? Does the tribe walkabout much or little on this Fence?”

 
; “Not as much as they did before the Monster frightened ’em off. They get about a good deal, though, at certain times.” Newton used a fire-stick a yard long to light his pipe. “The last time I seen them out this way would be about three months back.”

  “Have many of them possessed rifles?” pressed Bony.

  “Hard to tell. Several I know. When they was out this way last time one fired at an eagle, missed and nearly hit Nugget on a sandhill. Nugget went crook about it to me, and I complained to Moses when next I saw him. Fact is that the young bucks work a bit for the station and spend their money on a rifle traded by the Syrian hawker. Should be stopped. You can buy a rifle as easily as a tin of milk, even if you’ve never fired one in your life.”

  “Nugget must have been fairly close to that bullet for him to report it to you,” Bony said. “He could have been mur­dered. Maidstone could equally well have been killed by accident, by an abo firing indiscriminately. Were that so, then their dumbness is easily explained. They don’t act without good reason. There is always a good reason for placing the ban of silence on a lubra. They are ever logical, we must concede.”

  “Yes, it could have been an accident. I can’t see ’em shooting Maidstone just for the sport of it.”

  This was a new angle which fitted nicely into the prob­lem of non-co-operation by the aborigines, and it was worth considering and investigating. Absence of motive was cer­tainly puzzling.

  “When an abo is ordered to be dumb he can be a fair bastard,” continued Newton. “Them abos was ordered to be dumb. Not only the two with Joyce, but them over at Lake Frome. Now who was it put the ban of silence on the flaming lot? Charlie the Nut, of course! He was with Joyce when they found the body.”

  “The Medicine Man would then have only to wink an eyelid and all the Lake Frome abos would be incapable of speech,” Bony supplemented. “He wouldn’t do that to protect a white man, which strengthens the supposition that an aborigine shot Maidstone, in which case it is hard to imagine that it was anything other than an accident, for robbery was certainly not the motive. Nothing of value was taken from Maidstone’s possession.”