Sinister Stones b-19

by Arthur W. Upfield

  There was no necessity for Bony to urge Larry to still greater caution when they proceeded.

  They crossed the bare back of the Range between two mighty red-gold crowns of pillared rock, and, with many halts for Larry to probe ahead, they began the westward descent.

  Having crept about the base of a shoulder pimpled by Devil’s Marbles, poised to tempt any boy to push them to flight like falling meteors, they came to a cut through the back of a great hump. The cut was level, a hundred yards long, ten feet in width all the way from the floor to the top at seven to eight hundred feet. The light was green, the translucent green of the jungle floor.

  The floor was sandy. It was trampled by men’s boots, and when Larry saw the imprints of naked feet, he stopped, pointing and saying nothing. Bony smiled, nodded forward, and Larry went on. And at the far end of the gigantic sword-cut, he halted.

  “They got-um Jacky Musgrave,” he whispered. “They find-um who kill Jacky Musgrave.”

  Bony edged round the left-hand corner of the cut. A shallow depression of several acres in extent was walled on three sides by iron slopes and on the fourth by space in which lay theBreens ’ valley. In the centre of the shallow bowl was a platform on poles twelve feet high. Something was lying on the platform, and now and then the wind fluttered the torn cloth of a military greatcoat similar to that worn by Larry.

  Chapter Twenty

  Different Methods, Same Results

  ACROWWASPERCHED at one corner of the ramshackle platform, only its head moving. Several others were strutting on the ground, not yet daring to intrude beneath the platform. High in the sky sailed the eagles, watchful, cautious, all -seeing. The crows indicated that no human being was near; the eagles were still suspicious.

  With a motion of his hand, Bony ordered Larry to follow, and together they approached the platform, keeping to windward. All about it were the imprints of nakedfeet, and beneath it a disturbed pavement of flat stones.

  Down through the ages man has murdered man, and human society from cave dwellers to city inhabitants has banded together in execration of the crime. Modern society fights a killer with scientific aids in the hands of experts, and primitive men still depend on natural phenomena and methods of detection which appear ridiculously chancy. Primitive men must often err, resulting in the innocent being executed; but, strangely enough, the complex machinery of civilized justice, assisted by science, has also been known to execute a man for a crime he did not commit.

  When the Musgrave aborigines heard about Jacky Musgrave being murdered and his body pushed into the carcass of a horse, they proceeded to prove who killed him in accordance with rules and rites which, to them, had been proved efficacious for thousands of years.

  Having located the dead horse, they had brought the body to this place where they built the rickety platform. They stripped the body of clothes and, placing it on the platform, employed the clothes instead of brushwood to keep the birds from it. Decomposition being advanced, they had not long to wait to learn who was the killer. Under the platform they built a pavement of flat stones, and on each stone was marked the name of a man who could have killed Jacky Musgrave.

  Until the murderer was executed the spirit of the dead man would know no rest within the peace of a boulder, a tree, or a hill built by termites, and it would hover about the body it had inhabited, and blow the drops of grease falling from it to the stone marked with the name of the murderer. Fantastic-or was it?

  The south wind had ‘pushed’ the grease-drops to fall on two stones, and, these having been removed from thepavement, the magic man had crouched over them and proclaimed the names they bore.

  Looking upon those two stones, Bony was both pensive and apprehensive. He could not read the marks placed on them by the magic man of the Musgrave tribe, and therefore was unable to take any measures to warn the two objects of their justice. He was at one with the Privy Council and the Supreme Court in that this method of proving who committed a murder is apt to bring about a miscarriage of justice, but he was one up on all learned judges in knowledge of the inevitability of the violent death of the two men whose names were on those stones.

  “Whichfeller these stones say kill Jacky Musgrave?” he asked, and Larry looked everywhere but at the stones and shook his head, evincing dislike of the entire set-up. Superficially, it was a foolish question, for Larry wouldn’t know, and it was asked to put the tracker at ease. Bony removed his attention from the stones to the rock cliffs and steep slopes and could see no signs of human watchers. Now that the spirit of Jacky Musgrave had dropped his grease on the stones of his killers, Bony inclined to the belief that the Musgrave men would no longer have any interest in his body.

  “You pick-up tracks white feller and goat,” he requested Larry, and, with undisguised relief, the aborigine trotted away to encircle the platform and then wave Bony forward to the rim of the hollow.

  Naked feet had left a trail winding downward and Larry pointed out the goat’s tracks where that animal had rebelliously pulled to one side. From this point could be seen the Nine Mile Yards down on the comparative plain, and the windmill above Black Well immediately beneath them.

  The trail, clear enough for a semi-blind man to follow, skirted the shoulder and twisted across steep watercourses.

  To the north was Black Well and beyond it the gutter where lay the dead horse. The blacks had come from that point carrying the body of Jacky Musgrave to the natural bowl high in the Range where they thought they would be undisturbed. On descending again to the plain, they had gone southward keeping in extended order ofmarch.

  To the south was situated the homestead owned by theBreens, in direct line distant some ten miles. The Musgrave men might have gone southward intending to visit that homestead and extract from it one or both killers of Jacky in accordance with the names on those two significant stones. That would mean trouble to be met only by Kimberley Breen with the problematical assistance of her stockmen under Patrick O’Grady.

  There was still the scene of the murder of ConstableStenhouse and Jacky Musgrave to be located, and only the successful back-tracking of that white man and the four booted aborigines would lead to it.

  It was now after three o’clock, and Bony asked Larry to make a smokeless fire and boil water for a brew of tea while he scouted. He found the tracks of the white man and theblacks carrying what he was convinced was the dead policeman.

  Refreshed by the hastily eaten meal, Bony and Larrybacktracked the five men, walking with extreme circumspection. They had proceeded barely a mile when the trail turned in to the Range where huge slabs of red rock had crashed to the plain, and on coming to these little mountains they ‘edged’ their way round, making sure of unobserved movement before leaving the shelter they provided. Thus, eventually, they came to an open space wherewas a grass-roofed shed similar to that beside Black Well.

  A shaft was sunk near by, but not for water. There was a windlass over it, and the bucket attached to the wire rope had been used to bring mullock to the surface, whitish in colour and flaky with gypsum. A heap of mullock containing many square yards proved that the shaft was very deep or drives from it were long. And about the shaft were the imprints of naked feet and the circular holes made by the butt-ends of spears.

  They lowered the bucket and Bony estimated the depth to be about forty feet. He examined the mullock, taking up handfuls for close inspection, and could see no trace of gold, which, however, did not prove there was none.

  “Stay here, Larry,” he said, and proceeded to circle the shaft. On rejoining Larry, he sat on the mullock heap rolling a cigarette, now confident that the body ofStenhouse had been carried away from this place.

  He re-examined the site of the fire used for cooking, and turned over the little pile of empty food tins, deciding that the last had been tossed there less than a month before.

  Although this mine shaft was onBreens ’ country it did not follow that theBreens had sunk it, for any man having paid for a Miner’s Right may sink a
shaft where he will. Its nearness to the homestead almost certainly proved that theBreens knew of the mining being conducted there. To theBreens, therefore, must he apply for furtherinformation.

  “Musgrave fellers they clear away toBreens ’ homestead,” he told Larry, who nodded instant agreement. “You go back over Range find-um Constable Irwin and Charlie camped near where we find-um ConstableStenhouse?”

  With a short laugh Larry assented, and an expression of relief shone for an instant in his eyes. Bony tore a page from a notebook and wrote Irwin that he was going toBreens ’ homestead and to come there as quickly as possible. He watched Larry stow the note in the pocket of his greatcoat, and would have suggested that, minus the coat and the boots, travelling would be much easier, had he not been aware of Larry’s enormous pride in that uniform.

  Larry glanced at the sun, laughed, said he would make it all right, and walked northward, leaving Bony seated on the mullock heap and rolling another cigarette. It was now four o’clock, and it would occupy three hours walking across country to the homestead, which he hoped to reach before dark. Abandoning his equipment, he began the journey.

  Half an hour later, he was certain that the wild men had headed for the homestead, intent on ferreting out the men whose marks were on those stones, and equally certain that, as his own mark could not be on either stone, he would be ignored by them unless he interfered.

  He came to the road from the cattle yards to the homestead, when the sun was westering and when the birds were flying to and from hidden waters, and he followed the track over the interminable ‘bumps’ and down and across the endless gullies separating them. Unaccustomed to such exertion, made soft by car and aircraft, he was exceedingly tired, and on arriving at every ridge looked expectantly to see the homestead.

  From the summit of one such ridge he saw between it and the next a wide flat covered with ripe sugar grass and pocked with red termite hills. It was a full mile to the next ridge, and he was giving himself a spell when he saw a horseman top it and come galloping down to the flat.

  Bony hastened along thetrack on which were still the imprints of Irwin’s truck tyres. The horseman was riding hard. He was crouched low to the animal’s withers, and presently it could be seen that he was an aborigine. Distance dwindled, dwindled, till Bony ultimately could see the whites of his eyes and white teeth bared in a fixed grin.

  The sunlight gilded the spear as it gilds the thread of a spider’s web. The horse faltered. The rider shouted, lifted it on. Behind him appeared a black figure, which froze to immobility for a split second, and then appeared to bow as the spear was launched from the throwing-stick.

  Bony stepped into the concealment of the tall grass. He saw the horse again, much nearer. It was foundering, and its rider was shouting frenziedly and frantically trying to lift it up and on. The sunlight made of the spear protruding from its ribs a shimmering bar of gold.

  Neighing shrilly, despairingly, it halted, sank to its knees and fell forward. The rider sprang from the saddle and came on running… and behind him some twenty naked wild men appeared from the grass and gave chase.

  Bony sank into cover, instinctively, overawed by this exhibition of primitive justice, which nothing could divert from its unerring course. The horseman raced past him even as he was about to lead up and confront the pursuers with his automatic pistol, and was gone even as he realized the deadly peril with which he would be confronted had he done so. The fleeing man was theBreens ’ boss stockman, absurdly named Patrick O’Grady, and the men who appeared to Bony beyond the screen of tall grass were short and lithe, their hair plaited with human grease and skewered with human bones. Their beards were stiff and their teeth were bared, and the muscles of their naked thighs rippled. They passed like wraiths of black smoke, without apparent effort, without apparent limit of endurance.

  Patrick O’Grady was handicapped with boots and trousers, a heavy shirt, and soft living. He was just a fat old rabbit being hunted by lean and starving dingoes.

  The hunters passed, leaving with Bony the impression of confidence incarnate. He stepped on to the track, and looked back. He saw Patrick O’Grady labouring up the rise to the ridge, watched him disappear beyond it, watched the dark forms ‘flow’ after him, the sunlight gleaming upon their bodies and their spears as they, too, topped the ridge.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Frightened People

  BELIEVINGTHATALLthe Musgrave aborigines who had left their territory to investigate the death of Jacky were in that party which had ambushed the boss stockman, Bony doubted the soundness of his reasoning when, on walking another mile, he saw the imprints of naked feet.

  He recalled that on first sighting Patrick O’Grady, the boss stockman was beyond the wild men hidden in the tall grass. O’Grady did not then know they were there, and yet was riding hard as though himself ridden by fear. Now it was plain that O’Grady had passed through one ambush only to fall victim to the second, and that between Bony and the homestead was the first ambush.

  He plodded along the twisting track, head up, although his shoulders ached and his thigh muscles were hot wires. He was still confident of being of no concern to the wild men, whose single-track minds were now directed to those they thought had killed their relative. That the boss stockman was one of two men accused by the fall of human grease, and that by now he was dead, Bony was certain. The other had yet to meet his fate, and everything pointed to the belief of the wild men that this other man was at theBreens ’ homestead.

  The sun was atop of Black Range. Two turkeys sailed gracefully to land beyond a patch of grass, and, abruptly changing their intention, they flap-flapped upward and away. Four kangaroos loped across the track much too hurriedly for normal progress to and from water. And in addition to these signs the hair at the back of Bony’s head seemed to prickle his scalp, and there was a cold itch between his shoulders as though his very flesh shrieked warning of silent spears in flight.

  The track led to the edge of a breakaway to give view of the homestead, winding downward to skirt the low cliff and crossing over level ground to pass round the detached kitchen.

  Bony thought the wild men had taken full possession, then quickly realized that the small crowd of aborigines about the kitchen were the station blacks. As he passed by, others appeared from inside the building, and yet more were sitting under the veranda roof of the main house. The camp beside the creek was deserted.

  Kimberley Breen appeared at the front door. She was wearing stockman’s clothes and a heavy revolver was strapped close to her hip. The evening colours played about her glorious hair as they play at sundown on the feathers of the parakeets, and Bony squared his shoulders and straightened his back.

  “I’m bothering you again, Miss Breen!”

  “Inspector Bonaparte!”Her voice was low, cool. There was no hint of panic when she added, “I’m glad you’ve come. We’re expecting trouble. Your truck broken down?”

  “No. I’m on foot… you mentioned trouble!”

  Her steady grey eyes examined him, his unshaven face, his dusty clothes, the significant sag of the right-hand pocket.

  “Come on in and eat.”

  He followed her into the house. She shouted to her lubras and they scurried away. She showed him where to wash, and when he entered the living-room, she was pouring tea into one of her valuable cups set beside the meal waiting for him. Opposite him sat Jack Wallace.

  Bony calmly met the slate-grey eyes and nodded nonchalantly. He said nothing, waited for Wallace to open up if he cared to. Kimberley said:

  “Ourabos are terrified, Mr Bonaparte. They say the desert blacks have come for the killer of Jacky Musgrave. I don’t understand it, for I’m sure none of our people killed Jacky Musgrave.”

  “They are quite unpredictable, the wild blacks,” Bony sidestepped, and attacked cold beef the like of which is never purchased at a butcher’s shop. “I saw their tracks the other day.”

  “Where?” asked Wallace, softly and with markedre
straint.

  “On the Range.”To Kimberley, Bony said, “All your brothers still away?”

  “Yes. Jasper and Ezra won’t be back for several days. Silas will be home any time. I wish Silas would come. You see, our boss stockman has cleared out, and all the others are jittery.”

  “D’youknowwhy your boss stockman cleared out?”

  “No idea. He came home about two o’clock. Put his horse in the yards and shifted his gear to another horse. The others rushed over here saying Pluto’s Mob were coming, and now they won’t camp in their humpies and want to stay in the kitchen, even in the house. They’re all scared stiff.”

  “H’m! How long have you been here, Mr Wallace?”

  “Some time,” replied Wallace.

  “How long?”

  “Early this afternoon, if you must know.”

  Kimberley frowned. The delightfully soft lines of her mouth and chin vanished and the ruggedness of the mountains took over. A lubra entered carrying a tray on which was an apple pie and a jug of custard. Kimberley rose and switched on the lamp. The lubra removed Bony’s plate and set the sweet before him. He waited until she had gone. When he spoke, the voice was cold:

  “Cooperation at this time, Mr Wallace, would be diplomatic.”

  “Course it would,” flashed Kimberley. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothin’ wrong with me, Kim,” replied Wallace, standing. “I’ll be starting for home.”

  “But you said you’d be staying the night because of the blacks being jittery,” Kimberley expostulated.

  “Better,” Bony added. “An hour ago I saw Patrick O’Grady riding hard for the Nine Mile Yards. Then he was off his horse and running… with about twenty wild men after him. They had speared the horse. I saw it done. I didn’t see Patrick speared, but I’ve no doubt he was.”