“Ah!” he whispered. “That must be it. It must be. It accounts for all things. I must find that doctor.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The Coming of the Flood
THE MORNING after the day on which the great sweepstake prize came to Barrakee it was seen that the chain of pools along the river bed had been joined by the first freshet presaging what eventually became the greatest flood recorded during the white man’s occupation of the country.
Countless millions of tons of water spread over millions of acres of country in the south-west of Queensland and north-west of New South Wales were rolling slowly but irresistibly southward down the Darling and the Paroo, as well as the dozens of creeks forming the network of tributaries of those rivers. From the vast watersheds the waters converged upon the Darling at Wilcannia.
There is nothing spectacular in these floods. There is no sudden rush of water sweeping everything before it; rather does the water creep, filling first the deep channels, then rising slowly to push its way out into the shallower channels, in a further and final rise sweeping over the flats and low-lying country, submerging ground thought to be above the reach of floods.
One week after the first water appeared at Barrakee it ran fourteen feet deep along those stretches that had been dry. It was the first stirring of a sleeping giant, whose awakening brought disaster, sorrow, and retribution to the people of Barrakee. For, to carry the simile further, when the giant yawned and stretched his sinuous self he took as his own young Ralph Thornton.
Not a soul saw him depart, but in the morning Bony read the story on the ground. Picking up the young man’s tracks at the garden gate opposite the billabong, the half-caste traced him for nearly two miles down the river, past the shearing-shed, past the old hotel site, to a point in a river bend where a boat had been drawn into the bank.
As plainly as though Ralph had told him, Bony knew then whither he was bound and the object of his voyage. The young man had heard a pretty lubra’s voice calling, calling, for ever calling him from down at Three Corner Station, between Wilcannia and Menindee. Throughout long nights and longer days Ralph had heard the call; his heart was being strangled by those influences which no longer puzzled and frightened him, because they had become so felt that it was useless to resist them.
The river had taken him, had claimed him. The bush with its indescribable lure, a lure a million times stronger than that of the sea, had drawn him. Nothing—devoted love of the Little Lady, generous love and pride in him of the squatter, the promise of the prettiest girl in Australia, careful rearing, wide education—not all these together had availed to balance that insistent, insidious, luring call.
His head bowed in thought, Bony walked back to the homestead. He knew the way the lad had taken, he knew why he had taken it, and he knew the victorious force compelling the lad to go without a word to his foster-parents, not even leaving a note in part explanation. Nellie Wanting was the immediate influence, but behind her was a much greater one.
At the shearing-shed he was met by Mr Thornton, whose face was a picture of anxiety.
“Have you tracked him, Bony?” he demanded when yet several yards separated them.
The detective nodded.
“Great God man! If you have found his body, it will send his mother to her grave,” Thornton burst out.
“Let us go yonder to that heap of building material and talk about it,” suggested Bony, in his wonderful kindly way.
“But have you found him? Is he dead?”
Bony seated himself and gently urged his companion to sit next him.
“It would be better if he were dead,” he said softly. “Much better.”
Thornton stared at him uncomprehendingly:
“Then let me have it, Bony. Don’t keep me waiting.” His face was very white, his eyes very brilliant, his lips were trembling. Bony decided that he could not give the full terrible truth of what he knew and what he suspected with such reason. He softened the blow by giving only what he knew, and that, in all conscience, was hard enough. He said:
“Your son walked past here very early this morning, carrying a heavy load. I suspect the load was a swag and a supply of rations. Going on past the old hotel site, he turned into the bend and there he boarded a boat he had hidden in a patch of fallen tangled gum-suckers.”
“But why? Why? Why?” demanded Thornton.
“It is evident that he has gone down-river,” Bony went on. “Curb your impatience, Mr Thornton, and try to keep calm, I beseech you. Young Ralph had—I should say has—a sweetheart—a secret sweetheart who is not Miss Flinders. He used to meet her every evening at a place between your house and the blacks’ camp.”
Thornton sighed; it sounded like relief. It was a bitter disappointment; it would give deep pain to his wife and his niece; but—it was better, far better than death. Yet Bony . . .
“But you said that the lad would be better dead. Why?” he asked. Bony looked him straight in the face.
“Because the sweetheart is Nellie Wanting,” he said.
For several seconds Thornton and the half-caste continued to stare at each other. Then suddenly the squatter threw back his head and laughed. The idea of Ralph sweet-hearting with a gin! It was ludicrous. Such a fine lad, well reared, well educated, a fine intelligent youth, engaged to be married to a lovely, a pure, a wonderful white girl. And while he laughed, with a hint of hysterical relief in the timbre of it, Bony slowly averted his face and stared unseeingly at a meat-ant being slowly eaten by a dozen smaller sugar-ants.
“What a joke!” the squatter gasped.
“I never joke,” Bony said quietly. “Life is too full of tragedy for me to joke. I wish it were a joke for your sake, and more so, much more so, for the Little Lady’s sake.”
And then it was that Thornton realized that he had been told the simple truth. The laughter died away and his face became grey and drawn.
“But why—for God’s sake, Bony—why Nellie Wanting?” he managed at last to whisper.
Bony was tempted to tell him of his suspicions, but somehow they and the stunned man at his side did not seem to fit.
“Because, I suppose, he loves her. Listen!” And he related his witnessing the meetings, told in full his interview with the black girl, of the message he had concocted with her consent which was left in the cleft stick, of Nellie Wanting’s departure for Three Corner Station.
“Even now I can’t believe it, Bony. Indeed, I can’t. It seems so utterly at variance with logical human behaviour,” groaned Thornton. “The lad must know the consequence of this. It will break the heart of his mother, who adores every hair on his head; it will make him an outcast; it will bring me to the dust. Dear God! What have my wife and I done to deserve this? Is this to be our reward for lives of endeavour, for our strict obedience to His law: ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you’? My wife—God help her! God help her!”
Bony was moved as rarely his career allowed him to be. To his critical gaze this generous man’s soul was laid bare. Plainly was it to be seen, guiltless of wrongdoing, guiltless even of wrong thinking. Big in all things as in stature, Thornton’s grief and abasement were terrible to behold. Bony held out a straw:
“There may yet be time to stop him,” he pointed out.
“Ah!” Thornton grasped the straw. “I’ll send riders down the river to watch at the points of the big bends. I’ll drive myself down to the Three Mile bend above Wilcannia. Surely he will not have got that far?”
“No, he will not have got that far,” Bony agreed; but added a suggestion:
“Don’t send the riders. The fewer people who know of this the better. Ring up Sergeant Knowles and get him to arrest Nellie Wanting. He’ll do it on any old charge; and, once we have the girl safe out of the way, then we can await your son at Three Corner Station. But first let us phone Mr Hemming to make sure the gin is still in service there.”
“By gad, Bony! We may be able to avert this disaster after all,” Thornton
exclaimed, hope revived, despair banished. “If only we can prevent their meeting, I’ll see that the boy doesn’t make a fool of himself, and us, even if I have to chain him to a post at night.”
Bony’s sigh was inaudible. Into his mind flashed the picture of a wise king seated amidst his courtiers at the edge of the ocean. Yet, if King Canute could not stay the tide, they at least might stay, but not avert for ever, the destiny of Ralph Thornton and Nellie Wanting.
When they arrived at the office the bush detective was out of breath. The impatience of Thornton waiting for the connexion with Three Corner Station was nerve-racking. Then:
“That you, Hemming? Yes. Thornton speaking. We got your letter all right. Yes. Is Nellie Wanting still with you? What! Disappeared three days ago! Do I know where she is? I wish to God I did!” And the receiver crashed on the desk.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Passing of Clair
FRANK DUGDALE removed the bridle from his horse with deft fingers, patted its sleek neck and allowed it to walk away to a sandy place for a roll before drinking. Midway between the little harness-horse and his hut he scanned the sky with hopeful expectancy. From north to south, across the meridian of the sky lay a knife-like edge of dark clouds moving slowly eastward. They massed from the meridian to the western horizon and promised rain.
It was about four o’clock when the new owner of Daly’s Yard paddock, now called Eucla Station, entered his house. It was a spacious single-roomed hut with logged sides and iron roof. The inside was spotlessly clean. A camp stretcher-bed was placed in one corner. A table with a sheet-iron top stood in the centre. At one side was a stack of rations set upon petrol cases.
A bushman’s home indeed, yet possessing much more comfort than the average. Over the table lay spread a blue cover. On the centre of this stood a brass oil-lamp. A single curtain cut in two guarded the window by day, whilst a roller blind excluded the night. Above the bed Dugdale had made several shelves, which carried many books, not all of which were novels, whilst on the floor lay an exquisite dark-green carpet.
In the wide, cavernous fireplace the occupier made a fire and set thereon the tea-billy. The several minutes whilst it came to the boil were spent in bringing in the evening’s supply of wood, and that job completed and the tea made Dugdale lit his pipe and lounged in his home-made easy-chair for a quiet half-hour’s thinking, whilst the fire burned down sufficiently to produce cooking coals.
At last Dugdale found himself a settled pastoralist. He owned the leasehold of twenty-five thousand acres of first-class country, each two hundred and fifty acres equal to one English acre. He owned two thousand splendid breeding ewes and two fine presentation hacks. He had plenty of money in the bank, plenty of feed and water, and unlimited scope to exercise his organizing abilities. Of the solitude he took no account. He was the odd man in a thousand who could live in solitude contentedly; nevertheless Dugdale was sad at heart.
Of what benefit to him was luck, the luck of drawing the land, the luck of winning the sweep, the luck of being befriended by a man of Thornton’s stamp? What was the use to him of a good living here alone, when his heart ached for the unattainable?
His pipe went out, and moodily he stared into the subsiding embers. The ambition of his life had been attained, and after all it was but ashes. For ahead lay all the years, empty years, when work would be mechanical, without object.
He was aroused suddenly by the first few drops of rain pinging on the corrugated-iron roof, and, since it was coming dusk, he arose and lit the lamp. While he prepared the oven and mixed the dough for a baking-powder loaf, the raindrops increased slowly, until when he sat down to dinner of grilled mutton chops and potatoes a steady downpour had begun.
The meal eaten, he washed the utensils, looked in the camp-oven, shovelled a few additional live coals on the lid. It was now quite dark. The rain had become a continuous roar on the roof; he could hear the water running down the rain-gutter outside.
He lowered the blind, and, donning a gum-coat went out and chained up his two sheep-dogs. And when he returned he found that his cat had come back from hunting and was drying herself before the fire. The cat had to have her saucer of condensed milk, the loaf had to be taken out of the tin and stood on one side to allow the steam to escape, and fresh water put in the billy to boil for eight o’clock coffee.
Such was Dugdale’s home life, similar in every detail to the home life of hundreds of bushmen.
For an hour he read a novel. For another hour he played musical selections on his portable gramophone and drank his coffee and smoked. And then he went to bed.
Still the rain fell. Lying in the firelit darkness he estimated the fall to have totalled already fifty points. He was on the point of falling asleep when there came a squelchy footstep from outside. The uneasy dogs barked. The door was flung inward, and into the hut lurched a tall, gaunt man.
Dugdale was out of bed in a flash. From his side of the table he stared into the deathly white face of William Clair, the wanted man, the hunted man. Clair rocked to and fro on his feet. The firelight revealed his blue eyes burning with strange brilliance. He was hatless. He carried no swag. His coat was open. The dirty-white shirt was smeared with blood.
For several seconds the two men remained thus, and, when Clair coughed significantly, Dugdale remembered the lamp and lit it.
“Good evening!” was what Clair first said, a smile, a pitiful smile, breaking over his bloodless features.
“You are hurt, Bill,” Dugdale said in reply. “Sit down in that chair. I’ll get you a drink of coffee.”
The home-made chair threatened to collapse when the gaunt man fell into it. With shaking hands he greedily snatched the proffered cup of coffee, still steaming hot. The giver crossed to the door and closed it. Then he placed a bucket of water over the fire and added fresh logs.
“How did you get hurt, Clair?” he asked kindly.
The gaunt man, looking up, smiled wanly, the smile that of a philosopher who scorns pessimism:
“I met Sergeant Knowles,” he said, with difficulty. “We had a word or two. The gentle sergeant shot me because I could not agree to accompany him to the hangman.” Suddenly his bantering tone changed to one of entreaty. “He plugged me through the left lung, just above my heart, I think. I woodened him with a waddy but he’ll come-to presently and is bound to make for this hut. And before he gets here I must write a letter for you to take to Mrs Thornton.”
“Very well, Clair. But first we must have that shirt off and the wound at least washed.”
“That can wait. We have no time now,” Clair insisted. “Get me paper and things quickly; I must write while I am able.”
Lurching to his feet, he stumbled to a cane-bottomed chair and dragged it and himself to the table. Dugdale hesitated for a moment, then got a writing-block, pen and ink, and envelopes. Clair began instantly to write, careless of the drops of rain falling from his hair to the paper. The younger man stirred the embers, and, going to a chest, brought out a pair of blankets which he laid out near the blaze.
The suddenness and the circumstances of Clair’s appearance had partially stunned him. His first thoughts were of Clair’s wound, his second of Sergeant Knowles lying somewhere out in the rain, knocked senseless. And, whilst his first duty to Clair was clear, he was undecided what his duty was to himself and to the State. For even Dugdale, orthodox and precise, regarded the killing of a black fellow as of little account.
The scratching of the pen continued rapidly for five minutes, then stopped. Dugdale heard the sheets being ripped from the pad, and again the scratching of the pen, addressing an envelope.
“Dugdale!”
“Well, Clair?”
Dugdale went to the table beside the gaunt man. Clair, who was supporting himself with one hand and one wrist from falling forward, stared into the younger man’s face with bloodshot eyes. Nodding to the letter, he said with difficult slowness:
“You would render a service to the Little Lady, wo
uldn’t you?”
“Certainly I would,” Dugdale agreed.
“She has been very kind to you, as she has been very kind to dozens of men and one or two women,” Clair went on. “She was very, very kind to my poor sister, and, because of her kindness, I am going to pay the price. You pay your debt, too, Dugdale, by taking that letter to her directly it is daylight. The flood is coming down, but let neither water nor policeman stop you getting that letter into her hands as quickly as possible. You understand?”
“I understand about the urgency of the delivery, but don’t understand what is behind it, Clair. Anyway, that is none of my business. If it is necessary for the Little Lady to have your letter, as you say, she shall have it.”
Clair pushed himself upright and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was blood on his hand when again it was used to support him. Dugdale took the letter and placed it under his pillow. Clair began again to write, but this time what he wrote was short and needed no envelope.
“Read that, and give it to Knowles when he comes,” urged Clair, and began to cough alarmingly. Dugdale gave him a towel before bending over the writing-pad, on which was written, in a shaking, spidery hand:
August 12th, 19—.
I killed an aboriginal named King Henry at Barrakee on the night of Saturday, March 5th, with a boomerang. I threw the boomerang and missed the throw in the dark. The boomerang returned to my feet. Him and me both dived for it. I got it, and while he was stooping hit him once on the head.
William Sinclair
“Sinclair?” Dugdale echoed.
“Yes. My name is Sinclair, not Clair. Get me a drink of coffee, please. Let—me—lie—down. I’m—crook—”
“Just a second, Bill,” the younger man entreated. “You are soaking wet. Let us get your clothes off first. Come now, old man. Hold on.”
Bony - 01 - The Barrakee Mystery Page 19