Silence followed this proposition until Murtee said:
“Meena Orrabunna lubra. You are Worcair man. No can do.”
“I am whitefeller policeman,” countered Bony. “I say for you to go to jail, you go to jail in Loaders Springs quick and good. I see you Murtee; I can see you. You tell Canute smoke for wildfeller to come play hell on Mount Eden. You break whitefeller law. I big whitefeller policeman. You, Canute feller, forty plugs of tobacco for your Meena, eh?”
The tendons along the skeleton arm of the aborigine, acting as Canute’s eyes, tightened when urging acceptance without argument, and Canute said:
“You sit on tobacco?”
“I sit on forty tobacco plugs.”
“I trade okee, all right.”
With his stick, Bony now erased the two circles. Then he drew two very large circles slightly overlapping. He called Meena, and the girl emerged from the car parked just off the track and came to him through the gathered aborigines. She was wearing white shorts, and nothing else save the pad of linen on her head.
She stood inside one of the circles, and into the other circle Bony emptied the plugs of tobacco. The old man urged Canute to rise, and brought him forward to stand chest to chest with Bony where the circles overlapped. Behind Bony was the tobacco; behind Canute stood Meena, Canute’s left wrist still grasped by the Counsellor.
Murtee now came forward and gave to Canute a flint, and the King explored Bony’s chest with his free hand and nicked the flesh. He passed the flint to Bony, and Bony nicked his chest. Each wetted a fingertip with the other’s blood and pressed the finger to the blood on his own chest.
The deal was accomplished. Canute fell on his knees and pawed the tobacco like a miser counting his gold, and Bony caught Meena by a forearm and marched her over to the car, pushed her in, closed the door and returned to the communal fire.
The tobacco had vanished. Everyone, men and women and the older children, were chewing tobacco. Canute was back on his throne. It was some time before King, Grand Vizier and Counsellors regained their pre-business gravity.
“There is another trade,” Bony told them, “Blackfeller law for whitefeller law. What for you all go crook when I send up smoke telling Worcair feller I am okee, all right? What for you catch Sarah and Meena? What for you all fight in camp? You tell me, eh?”
Faces like gargoyles. Eyes blank like shuttered shop windows in a riot. Bony slowly rolled a cigarette, actually making what looked like a cigarette.
“I tell you, eh? You tell Charlie track along big-feller policeman. I catch-um Charlie. Then I catch-um Meena. They don’t tell me but I know why you tell Charlie to track me, see what I do. You tell Charlie to do all that because you scared I find Yorky and Linda. All right! Whitefeller law say you all go to jail. You track white policeman. You try to lame Meena and bash up Charlie. Then you smoke for wildfeller-blackfeller come along to catch up Charlie, kill Charlie, hide his body in sand dune, no whitefeller policeman then know where Charlie is. You say Charlie gone long way away. No good to whitefeller policeman. You all go jail okee, all right.”
The sun was westering and bars of light gold lay athwart the scene and illumined the faces of Canute and his Counsellors. All were distinctly uneasy, obviously recalling the tales of jail existence told them by Pierce in previous conferences.
“Blackfeller live blackfeller law,” observed Murtee, spitting tobacco juice towards Bony.
“You live blackfeller law, eh?” Bony said. “I trade. You all live whitefeller jail pretty quick. You tell me where Yorky is, and you no live whitefeller jail. You all trade, eh?”
Eyes lifted from the ground. Men looked at men, and the lubras frowned, scowled, muttered. Finally all eyes were directed to the blind Chief. Even Murtee waited on his decision. The minutes passed, and tension increased so that when Canute stood and the greatcoat, unbuttoned, opened to reveal his enormous paunch and spindle-stick legs, still there was proof that the aura of authority can crown an aborigine.
“Yorky is a whitefeller-blackfeller. Blackfeller not trade.”
He sat down on his stump, and instantly Bony said:
“Bimeby blackfeller trade. Bimeby blackfeller trade in whitefeller jail. You forget about Sarah, about that fight. Anything you do to Sarah, you all look out. Anything you do to Charlie, you all look out. You tell wild-blackfeller go back to camp, clear off your country, stay off your country, pretty quick. Palaver finish. Trade finish. Meena my woman. Tobacco your chew. Okee, all right!”
“Okee all right! Meena your woman,” agreed Canute cheerfully, obviously happy that the conference was ended.
Bony stepped forward to prove the proven. He stood before the King of the Orrabunna Nation and held out his hand. The blind man detached his hand from that of the Counsellor and reached forward. They shook hands.
Gravely Bony walked back to the car. Without speaking, he went backward into the seat behind the wheel and drove on towards Loaders Springs. Meena was puzzled, waiting for him to speak. For fifteen minutes Bony drove and then stopped.
He made two cigarettes, one of which he gave to the girl and then he said:
“You belong to me. I bought you with five pounds of tobacco. What Marie, my wife, is going to say doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“Don’t tell her.”
“You don’t know why I bought you, do you?”
“Of course I do. You bought me because you desire me.”
“Don’t be silly,” Bony said, severely.
“Silly! What’s silly about it? A man doesn’t buy a lubra unless he wants her.”
“Or something else from her, Meena. You are my woman, remember. So you will tell me what I want to know. The other night I asked you a question. I asked you if you knew where Yorky is holing up, and you said you didn’t know. Do you know?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Meena angrily.
“I asked also if Canute knew where Yorky is, and you would not say. I ask you now if Canute knows. Tell me.”
Meena tossed the cigarette end beyond the open window, tossed her hair without regard to the pad, and sulked. Bony partially turned and slowly rubbed the palms of his hands together.
“These can hurt more than a waddy,” he said. “You are my woman, as I have told you more than once. What you tell me is no longer any business of Canute, so leave your side of the gulf and meet me.”
“Gulf! What d’you mean, gulf?”
“Never mind. Answer my questions. First, does Canute know where Yorky is?”
“Yes, he does. So does Murtee.”
“Does Charlie know?”
Quickly the girl shook her head.
“But Charlie knows that Canute knows?”
The head nodded.
“What else does Canute know?”
Reluctantly the girl turned to meet his eyes, tears in her own.
“We been trying to find out, Sarah and me. Ole Fren Yorky was always kind to Sarah and me. What for he went and killed Mrs Bell we can’t find out. Sarah and me are glad he wasn’t caught by Mr Pierce, and if we knew where he was we wouldn’t tell you.”
“I’d make you tell me,” snapped Bony.
“No, you wouldn’t. Nor make me blackfeller way, either.”
“But what of little Linda Bell? A white child, frightened, perhaps hungry, living like a dingo with Yorky.”
“She’ll be all right with Yorky. I know. Yorky is my father. There’s no white man good like Yorky.”
Bony sighed.
“There are times when I am a very poor policeman, Meena. I should take you from this car and beat you, and no one could interfere because you are my woman. It is said that your father, for a reason we don’t yet know, murdered an inoffensive woman and abducted her small child, and you are in sympathy with him. You don’t believe, do you, that Yorky didn’t shoot Mrs Bell?”
“I don’t know, Inspector, I don’t know,” she wailed. “He must have been mad or something. And now you make me want to help you catch him, and have h
im sent away and killed. Go on, beat me. I want you to beat me. I’m your woman. You bought me.”
She twisted farther round to bury her face in her arms, and gently Bony twisted his fingers in her short black hair.
The hell fired by the meeting of two races and ever open to receive him, he knew was open to take her, too.
“Would you like me to tell you why I bought you, Meena?”
Abruptly her face lifted, and she was looking at him with tear-washed and grey-flecked eyes.
“I bought you from Canute for Charlie.”
Chapter Seventeen
Bony Trades His Woman
BONY STOOD before the open french window of his bedroom and regarded the rising slope topped by the pine trees, and the slope was the rock he had not yet cracked although he had chipped it; the inscrutable surface of this land he was unable to delve into, although having scratched it.
Were it not for the possibility that the abducted child was alive, he would have enjoyed to the full the tussle with the aboriginal element behind his investigation into the murder of Mrs Bell, would have accepted the hardness of the rock, the imperviousness of the surface, as a test for his patience. What had appeared a long period of effort was actually less than two weeks, during which he had achieved more than Pierce and his half-hundred men had done in a month.
Now he would hammer and delve in other places.
Donning a gown and slippers, he opened the door and listened for sounds of domestic activity. As anticipated, it was too early for the staff to be at work, and silently he passed along the short passage to the living-room, and crossed to the kitchen.
He was smiling as he primed a kerosene stove with methylated spirits, recalling that he owned a lubra who ought to have been up long since to minister to his thirst, and that, when all was said and established, the Canutes and the Murtees got along very nicely, thank you. The sun about to rise, and the wife still abed! Enough to challenge any aborigine.
He was seated at the kitchen table drinking his third cup of tea and smoking his fifth cigarette, when sounds introduced the cook to her kitchen. Wearing a man’s gown she paused a moment to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and then banged the clock on the dresser and ruffled her hair back from her forehead. Still ignoring Bony, she left the kitchen, came back with kindling wood, lit the stove and departed for the outside wash-house.
She reappeared at the same inner door, and this time dressed for the day’s toil in a yellow dress, protected by a faded blue apron.
“You are up late,” Bony said.
“Sunday morning,” Sarah countered.
“There’s tea in the pot,” he coaxed. “I’ll make you a cigarette.”
She poured tea, brought it to the table and drew up a chair. He could not but note that her forearms were the size of his legs, and regretted he had not witnessed her performance with the tree. He estimated her weight at fifteen stone, and her age still under fifty. On her face were the cicatrices of her totem, and behind her dark eyes the shutters were already lowered to repel his attacks. She accepted the cigarette and evinced surprise when he proffered a light.
Bony sat at ease and regarded her. She came to the point of looking directly at him, and, expecting him to speak, became anxious when he did not. Dark eyes clashed with blue eyes and the table was a gulf between them. A glimmering of the truth met the mind of the primitive woman. This man was not one of her own kind, but, being a woman, her heart was bound to triumph.
“What for you trade Canute for my Meena?” she asked.
“Didn’t she tell you?”
Sarah shook her greying head. She had forgotten the tea. The cigarette burned unnoticed between her stumpy fingers. He could see the beginning of anguish creep into her eyes, but he withheld speech, and presently she said :
“What for? You are man from whitefeller country. What for you trade for my Meena? Meena’s my Meena. Ole Fren Yorky lie with me. Ole Fren Yorky my man. Ole Fren Yorky marry me blackfeller way. To hell with Mission feller.”
“Better for Meena to be my woman than belong to old Canute,” Bony said. “What for you promise little Meena baby to him?”
“Long time ago Canute say he tell policeman about Yorky and me, I not promise him baby. I promise him baby then he still say tell policeman. Yorky little feller. He fight Canute. Canute no more tell policeman.”
“But he stuck to the promised baby?”
“Yair. She grow up and he try for her. We beat him, we always beat him. We try beat you, too.”
“You may, but not Meena,” he said, smiling to rouse her. “Meena, she marry me, big-feller policeman. She go away with big-feller policeman. You no see Meena no more.”
The large black eyes blazed, and the fire was extinguished by the blue ice of his own. She began to emit long-drawn sobs, and down her large face tears fell, reminding him of her daughter. Her voice now wailed:
“What for Ole Fren Yorky shoot Mrs Bell and run away with Linda? What for he do that? What for you come and take my Meena away? What for ... what for ... what for...”
“How do you know Ole Fren Yorky killed Mrs Bell?” he demanded. “You say Ole Fren Yorky run away and Yorky surely killed Mrs Bell. Other feller p’raps kill Mrs Bell, and kill Linda and Yorky, too.”
Hope was born like a star and extinguished like a slush lamp. Sarah’s fear and despondency swept back over her.
“They found Yorky’s tracks,” she fought back.
“Did you see those tracks?”
“No. Bill Harte did, and Arnold, and Constable Pierce.”
“They ought to know.”
“Yair. Meena and me was put to cooking and housework. The men went tracking Ole Fren Yorky. They find where Ole Fren Yorky went to, and wouldn’t say anything. Me and Meena tried to find out.”
“Does Charlie know?”
“Don’t think.”
“Did Charlie see Yorky’s tracks behind the meat-house?”
“What for he see them? He was put tracking. They all was that day, soon’s the men had their breakfast.”
“Now you listen, Sarah,” he said slowly. “I tell you something, you promise to keep it secret?”
Slight hesitation, and then surrender. He said:
“Yorky was here last night.”
The statement rocked her before freezing her to immobility.
“You come with me,” he commanded. “I show you.”
She ambled after him through the back door, along the rear of the house, round to the side veranda on to which his bedroom opened. Opposite his room, steps broke the long veranda railing, and at the bottom of the steps were the imprints of a man who walked on the soles of his feet. The woman halted as though meeting a wall in the dark. She bent low, moved to one side and then the other of the three distinct imprints.
On straightening up, her eyes expressed bafflement, and her voice conviction.
“Them’s not Yorky’s tracks,” she said.
“Look again.”
She obeyed, shaking her head as again she squinted at the prints from several angles.
“Go fetch Meena. Tell her I want to see her here. Don’t tell her about the tracks.”
Meena came in shorts and bath towel. As with her mother, Bony hadn’t to indicate the tracks. Like her mother, she stooped and squinted at the prints from different angles. And, like her mother, at first she thought they were Yorky’s tracks, and finally decided they were not.
“Yorky here last night?” suggested Bony, and she denied it resolutely. “All right. Fetch Charlie. Bring him but don’t tell him why. You understand?”
“Yes. Someone make believe they are Yorky’s tracks?”
“Let us hear what Charlie says.”
Meena dropped the towel and ran like a moorhen to the quarters.
“What for, Mr Bonaparte, what for someone do this?” demanded Sarah, glints in her eyes. “What for someone make like Yorky came last night?”
“Wait till Charlie’s seen them. Even then I mightn’t be able to
tell you.”
They could see Meena dragging the sleepy Charlie by the hand. She acted fairly when she pushed him forward on reaching the veranda, and Charlie continued under the impetus until he saw the tracks. It was comical how those tracks dashed sleep from his eyes.
“Feller like Yorky,” he said, summing up. “Walk like Yorky. Don’t know that feller.”
They waited upon Bony, and Bony was smiling triumphantly.
“We won’t say anything about these tracks being crook ones, eh?”
“If you say so,” agreed Meena. “But why, who made them?”
“I did. Charlie, could you make them?”
“I’ll try.”
“Not now. Back to the kitchen, Sarah, and you, Meena. You’re both under the ban of silence. I’ll explain to Charlie what I think, and he can tell you. Come on, Charlie.”
They went up the slope, the aborigine in shorts, Bony in flapping dressing-gown. Bony lit a small fire, as blackfellers for centuries have arranged the kindling wood, and motioned Charlie to squat over it with him. With the supreme patience of his race, the aborigine waited while Bony made two cigarettes, and then it wasn’t of strange tracks that Bony spoke.
“Meena tell you I traded Canute for her?”
“Yair. Why the hell you do that? You said you’d work on Canute for me.”
“So I did, Charlie. I bought Meena from him. And some time or other I am going to sell her to you.”
For the second time this morning hope was born like a star, but this time it wasn’t extinguished.
“I paid forty plugs of tobacco for Meena,” Bony said.
“I pay you more. I got money on the station books.”
“I think Meena is worth five hundred plugs, even a thousand.”
“Tough guy, eh?” charged Charlie, heavily frowning.
“Well, suppose I give you Meena, what would you give me?”
Bony Buys a Woman Page 12