Bushranger of the Skies

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “I don’t know, but I think many things. Perhaps The McPherson might tell you.”

  “The McPherson is a long way away,” Bony said grimly, looking upward from the task of re-strapping his swag after having placed inside it the recovered attaché case. “That being so, I will myself ask these Illprinka men what they are doing here on your land.”

  Burning Water stared into the abruptly cold blue eyes.

  “They are nine,” he pointed out. “They are enemies of the Wantella Nation. As you can see, they are well armed. You are a stranger to the Land of Burning Water. It would be wise for us to go, and to go fast.”

  To be discreet in the face of adverse odds is to be wise, not fearful. The present certainly was not opportune for questioning or probing into problems presented within the last hour, for a situation was developing demanding preparation to meet it.

  For the third time at this temporary camp, he unrolled his swag and this time took from it an automatic pistol and two boxes of cartridges containing twenty-five.

  “Where did you learn to speak English so well?” he asked whilst loading the pistol.

  “I am The McPherson’s tribal brother. He is my father and my son.”

  This physical impossibility was due to the intricate relationship accepted by any white man sealed into an aboriginal tribe. Bony offered no comment. In fact, he was feeling himself out of depth, as though he was in a strange country, when he was actually in his own. The prefix “the” before McPherson’s surname was, indeed, odd.

  “The McPherson taught me to speak his language properly, to add numbers, to read from books. The McPherson and I were young together. When Myerloo, the chief of the Wantella Nation, was killed, it was The McPherson who had me become chief in his stead. When that was done I discarded the white man’s clothes which I wore for many years.”

  “The McPherson must be a great man,” Bony said, pocketing the pistol and cartridges.

  “He is both great and just. He owns four thousand square miles of land, and something like seven thousand head of cattle.”

  “Oh! Well, the enemy, I see, have discovered my tracks beside the wrecked car.”

  The aborigines below in the gully were running about like hounds on the scent. One pointed up the hillside with his spear. They were not unlike dogs unleashed in a course as they ran up the slope, shouting each to the others, moving with fascinating relentlessness of purpose. Bony could see that they were not following the marks made by the rolling car but those made by his boots.

  Reaching the road, they ran straight to the place where he had discovered and retrieved the attaché case. Without doubt they saw the mark on the ground made by the case when it fell from the car.

  Bony squatted on his heels just outside the tree shadow. He motioned to Burning Water to draw farther into the shade, and it was noteworthy that Burning Water obeyed. Bony placed the automatic beside his right boot, and he picked up a twig and began idly to draw pictures on the sandy ground. Not for a moment did he cease to watch the party of aborigines advancing along the road.

  When distant a full hundred yards from Bony they saw him and abruptly stopped. Excitedly they pointed at him and talked, a plump fellow with extraordinarily skinny legs evidently being the leader.

  Native etiquette demanded that, on seeing a man in his camp, they must stick their spears into the ground as a sign of peace, and then squat beside their weapons until invited to enter the camp. These fellows ignored etiquette. They continued to advance, albeit at a walking pace.

  Bony took up the pistol, aimed with care and fired. The bullet raised a spurt of dust at the edge of the road to the left of the party. Another bullet raised a spurt of dust to the right. The men halted. Bony shouted, using the Worcair dialect:

  “What d’you want?”

  There followed a conference at which the leader advised one thing and the majority another, resulting in the leader winning his point. He now advanced, leaving the others to retreat a little way and sit down facing the camp. The leader came without his weapons. Bony pretended to be gravely interested in his drawing on the canvas of the ground, the pistol lying beside his right boot. The Illprinka man came to squat on his heels twenty feet from Bony, and Bony continued with his artistic efforts for a full three minutes. Then he asked, casually:

  “What do you in the Land of Burning Water, you men of the Illprinka?”

  “We were hunting kangaroos, and so keen was the chase that we forgot we had passed out of our own land.”

  From a similarity of several words with those of the Worcair dialect Bonaparte understood this statement. Without heat, he said:

  “One needs to be clever to tell lies with success.”

  The Illprinka man was ill-formed for an aborigine, but there was power in his wide brow, evil in his black eyes, deepset beneath the frontal bone.

  “We saw the white man’s horse-car burning in the gully and came to look-see,” he said, sullenly. “We saw the burned man inside. We saw your tracks down there. We saw where you picked up something fallen from the white man’s horse-car. You givit that thing, eh?”

  Slowly Bony shook his head.

  “You would be wise to depart to your own country, and go soon and fast,” he said. “What I find I keep. It isn’t yours. What I have seen I talk about. Who was the white feller in the great bird?”

  “I do not know. I saw no great bird.”

  “Liar! The white man in the great bird came from your country. He told you to watch for white man’s horse-car. He told you he would burn it. You all come look-see to pick anything you find, eh? The big bird can’t set down white man around here. You see, man of Illprinka, I know. Now go back to your own country.”

  “You shall come with us,” the fellow said

  “I should not be happy with you,” Bony told him calmly.

  “You will come with us, or you will be killed.”

  Bony laughed.

  “You talk like a lubra. I shall remember you.”

  The Illprinka man stood up, distorting his face to an even further degree of ugliness. He had walked to the camp in sprightly defiance. Now he went back to his companions running, yelling to them, and they brandished their weapons and came to meet him. Bony stood up.

  “Carry my swag, Burning Water,” he cried. “I wish to fire without hindrance, and we must be on our way to the McPherson Station. Walk behind me, and keep your eyes on these gentlemen.”

  Almost at casual pace Bony left the camp and took the road to the plain. The aborigines on seeing him advancing towards them irresolutely packed together, harangued by the leader. Bony fired, and the bullet kicked dust close to their feet. They retreated down the road. Bony, with Burning Water walking behind him, continued. The small crowd ahead appeared not to walk fast enough to please, and another bullet whined uncomfortably overhead and scattered them. With the enemy wide on both flanks, Bony advised the chief of the Wantella Nation who was not too proud to carry a swag. “It was the secret of my illustrious namesake’s great military success. Had we attempted to escape from those people they would have attacked.”

  Not a little to Bony’s surprise, Burning Water chuckled.

  “They will be able to choose their battleground before we reach the homestead of The McPherson,” he said. “Half way across the plain they will be favoured with plenty of cover. What will you do then?”

  “I will decide when we reach the cover you speak of. Meanwhile ... Ah, not quite so close.” In excellent imitation of a tram conductor, he added: “Hurry along, please!”

  Again he fired and the man who had edged close skipped out of range without loss of time.

  In this somewhat unorthodox manner the unusual pair of strangely met men moved out of the foothills and began crossing the plain. As they progressed so the vegetation covering the land changed. At first the road crossed exceptionally wide clay-pans which if joined together would have provided a super speed-track for racing cars. Once across the pans the road “flowed” over slight
undulation covered with annual saltbush. The mirage lay heavily, and presently the hills became vast mountains, with water stretching far back along their valleys.

  The Illprinka men appeared to be walking on stilts, and the occasional old-man saltbush, ten feet high, seemed to be fifty feet in height. Now and then the road passed close to one of these giant shrubs, forcing Bony and his companion on the march to make a detour of it.

  What further astonished Bonaparte this astonishing day was the persistency of the Illprinka men. Their purpose was apparently to obtain possession of the attaché case, and although only nine in number they showed no nervousness of being attacked by the people of the Wantella. Chief Burning Water walked beside him, carrying the swag as though it were a feather. His eyes were shining and his full lips were expanded in a broad smile. He knew at any given second the approximate position of every Illprinka man, and sometimes he advised that a bullet be “pumped” into this or that bush. “Are those trees ahead?” Bony asked.

  “Yes, oaks. But farther on is a belt of old-man saltbush we’ll have to pass through because there is no way round.”

  “Then let us reach and pass through the belt as soon as possible. Come on, the sun’s westering.”

  They presently entered small and separate belts of oak, and, leaving the road, were able to proceed by skirting these belts. Beyond them the road crossed a further vast area of annual salt-bush, and an hour later there grew above the mirage what looked like stately blood-woods a hundred feet high, but which were the old-man saltbush. Into this belt the forms of nine naked black men dissolved.

  “There we shall meet their spears,” predicted Burning Water. He was quite placid. He seemed to be waiting for Bony to reveal signs of nervousness, or even plain funk.

  “How far are we from the homestead?” inquired Bony.

  “Two miles.”

  “And how far through is this belt of old-man saltbush?”

  “About half a mile. We must pass through it.”

  “You appear to be amused at something,” Bony softly said, yet abruptly stiff.

  “I am waiting to see how wise was Chief Illawalli when he made you one of the great ones among us.”

  “You are in no position to doubt Illawalli’s wisdom,” Bony said, icily. “Remember, you advised retreat back in the cabbage-tree camp.”

  Burning Water became instantly contrite. Bonaparte’s blue eyes gleamed and his lips pressed into a thin straight line. Without speaking further, he walked on, Burning Water stalking at his rear a smile once again in his eyes.

  Five minutes later they entered the belt of giant shrubs, growing atop small mounds of red sand each had collected. They could provide shelter for an army, yet so spaced were they that a truck could be driven among them without touching a leaf.

  “Come on!” Bony cried.

  He broke into a steady trotting run, heading to the west for a quarter of a mile, then turning northward and zig-zagging. Following as though he were a trailer attached to a truck, Burning Water ran close and constantly looked back.

  Came the first spear. Burning Water shouted: “Look left!” Bony saw the sunlight reflected by the facets of quartz with which the spear was tipped. He saw the weapon turning on its long axis whilst in flight and speeding towards him to intercept him. He checked and the spear passed within a foot of his chest.

  He saw the second spear before Burning Water, and the man who launched it from his spear thrower. Bony fired as he ran, but missed: excessive practice is necessary to hit a target with a pistol whilst running. Continuing to zig-zag, sometimes running back over his, own tracks, at times making circles, he led Burning Water ever nearer McPherson’s Station homestead.

  “Down!” shouted Burning Water.

  Bony instantly fell forward on his hands, and a spear silently passed over his prostrate body. Up again, he turned and ran fast in the direction from which the weapon had been thrown. His nostrils were quivering. His blood glowed with exquisite fire, for circumstances had temporarily removed the chains of civilized restraint from a nature in which hereditary influences constantly stirred.

  He came upon the man who had thrown the last spear in the act of fitting the haft of another into the socket of his wooden thrower. He came upon him suddenly, and so uppermost in him now was his aborigine ancestry, that he forgot the correct use of his automatic pistol. With his left hand he grasped the man’s spear, and with the pistol in his right hand smashed the spearman into soggy unconsciousness.

  Now with the spear in his free hand, he ran on. It was, perhaps, as well that he did not observe the grin of approbation in the face of the regal man who followed him, like a father following a loved son on a first hunting trip.

  Twice Bony fired at vanishing forms. He reloaded the pistol even as he ran, the spear tucked under an arm-pit. His blood was tingling although his breathing rasped from the unaccustomed exertion. No longer was he the hunted; and not long after the first personal encounter he came face to face with the fat and skinny-legged leader.

  They almost collided. Bony yelled. The leader shouted. His spear was raised and hurled in action almost as quick as a lightning stroke. Bony thrust his spear as he leaped aside to avoid the other. He yelled again as Skinny-legs took the weapon in his chest.

  Suddenly there arose shouts and yells, and sounds of a general conflict all about them. Aborigines appeared on all sides. Nine! They appeared to number ninety, and Bony rushed at the nearest. Then a big hand reached across his right shoulder and bore down the pistol. Another hand reached round his waist and the arm to which it was attached became a gripping vice. There was laughter in the voice of Chief Burning Water when he shouted:

  “It is finished. These are my people. They were coming to see what had made the big smoke from the burning car. Oh, my brother, my son, and my father! You are now to me like The McPherson himself.”

  The rage went from Bonaparte like water leaking from a cracked glass.

  “Old Illawalli was wise, wasn’t he?” he asked.

  Chapter Three

  “The McPherson”

  THE homestead of McPherson’s Station was situated on a shoulder of the higher land bordering the northern edge of the plain on which Bonaparte and his aboriginal companion had met such serious obstruction. Between it and another shoulder westward of it flood-water from the high land had gouged a steep-sided gully, and this deep gully provided an excellent foundation for the massive concrete wall, damming back a practically inexhaustible supply of water.

  The homestead itself presented a picture of rugged solidity seldom found in the Interior. The house, surrounded by exceptionally wide verandas, was the centre of a veritable oasis of citrus-trees, grass lawns, rose beds, and a sub-tropical vegetable garden, proving the astounding fertility of the soil—given an abundance of water. The men’s quarters, the outhouses and the stockyards, in combination with the house, gave a clear impression of thoroughness in construction.

  Sitting at his table desk placed before the window of the station office, the man himself exuded solidity. Seated, he could be mistaken for a big man, for his head was big, his shoulders were thick, and his hands were short-fingered and powerful. Slightly more than fifty years old, his hair was grey as was his moustache. His eyes, made small by fierce sunlight, were grey, too, strength lurking in their depths. The heraldry of his caste lay exhibited on a plain-backed chair—a felt hat with a five-inch brim and a stock-whip having a silver-mounted handle.

  Engaged with writing letters, a distant murmur of voices distracted his attention, directed his gaze through the fly-netted window, across the garden of lawn and rose beds, past the old man who was attending to the sprinklers, beyond the fence and downward to the plain where the road disappeared among a growth of tobacco bush. With impatience he clicked his tongue, attempted to continue his writing, failed, and again gazed with greater interest at the large party of aborigines advancing up the road to the homestead.

  They were still half a mile away, and again clicking
his tongue McPherson used long-distance spectacles the better to understand the unusual excitement. Now he could distinguish individuals, could see walking in front of the crowd Chief Burning Water and beside him a smaller man who was wearing stockmen’s clothes.

  This man the squatter did not know. He observed that an aborigine following the stranger carried the stranger’s swag, and so unusual was a stranger on foot in this Land of Burning Water that he replaced the spectacles in the case and with a cutter proceeded to slice from a plug sufficient tobacco to fill a pipe.

  Thereafter he waited, obtaining satisfaction from the speculation the rare advent of a stranger provided. Now he could see the stranger’s features with the naked eye, and abruptly he frowned so that his face wore a scowl. Quite still in his chair, he watched the entire party skirt the garden fence and so pass beyond his radius of vision to the clear space eastward of the house.

  The scowl vanished when the stranger passed the window on the office veranda, from which he called in soft tones:

  “Is anyone there?”

  “Come in!” McPherson snapped.

  Bony entered the office, to stand just within the fly-netted door. McPherson swung his body in the swivel chair quarter-circle to stare at the stranger. His grey eyes never once blinked as they took in every detail of Bonaparte’s dress, every feature of his face.

  “Good day!” he said.

  “Good day! Mr McPherson?”

  “Yes.”

  The affirmation was more than acknowledgment. There was stiff inquiry in it, the uncompromising attitude of the powerful towards the unknown.

  “My name is Napoleon Bonaparte,” he explained. Deliberately he made the ensuing pause. Then, as though it were an afterthought barely worthy of mention, he added: “I am a Detective-Inspector of the Queensland Criminal Investigation Branch.”

  The statement was sufficiently startling to make the grey eyes blink. It did not, however, affect the voice.

  “Oh! You don’t look like a police inspector.”