Sinister Stones b-19

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Kimberley shook her head as though her hair was too tight against her temples. The light made it gleam like fine copper wire, and her eyes were apprehensive although her voice remained calm.

  “How far from here was that, Inspector?”

  “Two miles perhaps. O’Grady ran over a ridge to the north of me. The wild men were running across that ridge when last I saw them. They would either kill him running or catch him for questioning… first. The former, I think.”

  “Why question him?” asked Wallace, thickly.

  “On what he knew of the death of Jacky Musgrave. They found Jacky, you know.”

  “Where?”The dual question was like a bullet.

  “In the skeleton of a dead horse.”

  Wallace sat again.

  “You been busy, haven’t you?”

  Bony nodded, not looking up from rolling a cigarette. Kimberley repeated the question she had asked with Wallace.

  “Near Black Well, Miss Breen. Someone must have told the Musgrave blacks where to look, but whoever he was he didn’t know or didn’t tell who killed Jacky Musgrave. The wild men took the body up into the Range, put it on a high staging and watched the grease fall on the stones beneath. Each stone represented a man suspected of committing the murder, and the grease fell on two stones… telling that the men who murderedStenhouse also killed his tracker.”

  “Men!” echoed Wallace.“Two men!”

  “Two men, Mr Wallace. They have executed their justice on one of the two men… Patrick O’Grady. They will now be intent on the other.”

  “But, Inspector, we know these blacks and their ways, but we can’t agree that grease-drops on stones prove who did a murder,” objected Kimberley.

  “Officially, Miss Breen, I am bound to support your view of wild men’s justice. I merely outlined what has happened to Jacky Musgrave’s body and to your boss stockman. We must recognize that the wild men became convinced that O’Grady was one of two men involved in the murder of their fellow; that they didn’t kill his horse and kill him for the mere thrill of the chase. That O’Grady bolted indicates a guilty conscience, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it does. I’d better have all ourabos in here tonight.”

  “And I must be off,” Wallace added.

  “It will be dark in half an hour,” Bony pointed out. “How are you travelling?”

  “Utility. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Might be as well to stay till morning.”

  “Yes, you’d better stay, Jack,” added Kimberley.

  Wallace stood, his mouth taut, but indecision in his flat grey eyes.

  “I’d better get along home,” he persisted as though to convince himself. “The oldpeople’ll worry if I don’t. You’ll be all right with the Inspector, Kim.”

  He moved to the door, looked back, shrugged at what he saw in Kimberley’s eyes, and went out. They heard his engine roar to life, and they sat on and listened till the noise surrendered to the claws of approaching night.

  “Idiot,” Kimberley said. “He’s gone towards Nine Mile Yards, and the wild men are between here and the Nine Mile Yards, you said.”

  “Yes, in two parties,” Bony agreed. “Now let us look to ourselves. I suggest that the women and children be brought into the house, and that the men shut themselves into the kitchen. There are heavy shutters to all the windows… they could be closed?”

  “Yes, I think so. They haven’t been moved for years. They haven’t had to be… not in my lifetime.”

  At the house end of the covered way to the kitchen, Kimberley clapped her hands. Black humanity poured from the kitchen, flowed towards them, and Kimberley shouted in their own dialect. Immediately she was understood, women and men shouted at each other. The women came across: oldbeldames, stout lubras, and slim young girls; youths and children of all ages; and Kimberley shepherded them into her house, where but a selected few had ever before been permitted in domestic service.

  Bony crossed to the men gathered about the kitchen. There were now thirty-seven men and eight youths who had been initiated into manhood. He herded them into the kitchen and gave orders to close the heavy shutters to protect the two large windows.

  The younger men understood English, and Bony chose a man whose face bore thecicatrice of full initiation. He asked pleasantly:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Blinker.”

  “Then you come with me, Blinker, and loose all the dogs. You will be all right… with me.”

  Bony produced his pistol and Blinker was instantly assured. Together they walked into the gathering gloom, down to the creek, and loosed all the blacks’ mangy dogs, and, proceeding to the sheds, loosed from their kennels half a dozen Queensland heelers. Joying in their freedom, the dogs raced about the homestead, engaged in a general fight, and were left to give warning of marauders.

  That the wild men would actually attack the homestead was doubtful, for even those deep in the great southern desert have learned to respect the machinery of white man’s law.

  Entering the kitchen with Blinker, Bony paused to survey this gathering of aborigines whose lifelong association with white folk had tended to eliminate their bad qualities and improve their good ones. He smiled at them, frankly and laughingly, banishing the natural reserve of people unspoiled; for all these station aborigines are maintained by the homesteads in return for the labour given by the men, and thus have not been debased by money.

  “Why you feller binflighten, eh?” he asked them.“You no binkillum Jacky Musgrave, eh?”

  “No fear,” replied Blinker.

  “You bin know whokillum, eh?”

  Bony searched their faces and, beyond faces, their hearts. All returned his gaze, and there was no shuffling of feet, no soft laughter to hide embarrassment. An old man who looked to be a hundred and probably was little beyond sixty, had his tongue pierced, proving him to be a magic man. Again Bony smiled at them, and nudged Blinker to follow him outside, there inviting the stockman to sit with him and rest his back against the kitchen wall.

  “Why didn’t you go to Wyndham with the cattle, Blinker?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “Went as far as Camp Four with the cattle and then Jasper caught up with Stan and Frypan and oldStugger, an’ they took over from us.”

  “Oh!” Bony purposely remained silent for a full minute before putting his next question, again casting the baited line.

  “Didn’t the boss stockman go with you to Camp Four?”

  “No. He was out with Jasper when we left the Nine Mile Yards.”

  “And he wasn’t with Jasper and the others when they got to Camp Four?”

  “No. He had to stay home for a spell.”

  “H’m! Now he’s cleared right away, they tell me. Never said where he was heading. What time of day was it that Jasper and Frypan and Stan andStugger took over the cattle?”

  “ ’Boutseven. Cattle was off night camp, any’ow. I was riding on a wing.”

  “And who told you to come home? Jasper?”

  “No. Ezra did. Jasper took over the other wing.”

  Again Bony deliberately refrained from casting his line until a full minute had passed.

  “Anyway, Blinker, you’re better off home having a spell. Were you talking to Jasper or the others that morning they took over?”

  Blinker laughed, softly, easily.

  “No fear,” he replied. “Ezra saidgo home; we come home.”

  “No argument, eh?”Bony chuckled. “Sure it was Jasper and not Silas you saw that morning?”

  Blinker this time laughed heartily.

  “Too right,” he said. “Silas don’t have black whiskers like Jasper.”

  “Good for you, Blinker. You go inside and tell that magic man I want him.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The Machinery of Justice

  NOINTERIORLIGHTINGescaped from the house or the kitchen when Kimberley Breen emerged from the front entrance and accepted the chair Bony placed for her on the veranda. The dogs
were silent. At least two were close, for they could be heard scratching at their stick-fast fleas. At a distance a cow bellowed and from distance still greater came the answering bellow of a bull.

  “I’ve put the women and children in two rooms,” Kimberley said, and paused as though giving Bony the opportunity to comment. “And I’ve locked the store-room and the living-room.”

  “A wise precaution in view of the delicious cake you keep in that hat box under the sofa,” Bony said. “I doubt that many southern women could bake a cake like that you gave Constable Irwin and me the other day.”

  “It’s one of my mother’s recipes. I’ve had plenty of time to learn cooking, you know. Jasper’s better at it than I am. Several of the lubras are good cooks, too. I taught them. It wasn’t easy. Do you know who killed ConstableStenhouse and his tracker?”

  “Do you?”

  The counter was played softly, robbing it of intended significance, and Bony waited for the next move.

  “No, I don’t. Wish I did. You coming here with Constable Irwin, and now coming alone, makes me fear… for us. You see, usBreens have always been a happy family. We’ve mostly been content living here among these mountains where we were born, and with aborigines who belong to us as much as the cattle on our country. And now ConstableStenhouse is killed and you come, and the wild desert men are here, so it seems we’re threatened with something we don’t understand. Do you know why ConstableStenhouse was shot?”

  “No, could you tell me?”

  She did not speak again for a long time, and Bony made no effort to urge her. A meteor blazed like a white rocket and he saw her clearly. She was sitting stiffly upright, her hands resting on her knees, and was gazing directly to the front. When she did speak, her voice was low:

  “I think I could, but I’m not sure. Bad begets bad. You can see that in cattle sometimes. You can see it in goats, too. Jasper used to tell me that doing something bad never stopped at that. If you do a bad thing, other bad things will come from it.”

  “Jasper. Is he your favourite brother?”

  “They’re all my favourites. I never knew Father, and only just remember Mother. Silas was father to me. Very stern and just. Jasper was… I don’t know, but somehow Jasper seems to have been mother to me. I’ve always gone to Jasper to learn things. And Ezra… Ezra was always big brother to me. I used to fight him, and tease him, and be jealous of him, and he always tried to lord it over me, and make me do my lessons. I think they’re the best men on earth.”

  The slight emphasis on the personal pronoun gave the impression that Bony might not be in agreement, and not wanting to fall into argument so loved by the Irish, he skipped that and came again to her reply to his last question.

  “Why, d’you think, was ConstableStenhouse shot?”

  “Because he was a bad man, bad all through. I only met his wife twice. The first time was when we were both little girls. The second time was when she was married to him, in at Agar’s. ConstableStenhouse came here several times when on patrol. No one liked him. Jack Wallace

  … Jack loved his sister like my brothers love me.”

  “And is that why you think ConstableStenhouse was shot?”

  “Yes.”

  Bony noted his own reaction to the soft yet decisive affirmative. This woman seated beside him in the dark, male-apparelled and armed, with frightened aborigines huddled in the house behind her, was an exceedingly interesting product of this land of fantasia. Discipline learned from one brother; the facts of life from another brother; elementary education gained through a third brother; and only twice in her life meeting the daughter of their nearest neighbour. Her voice was truly feminine, her enunciation surprisingly good under circumstances and the influence of three bachelor brothers, two of whom he had seen and would not have classified as good companions for a growing girl child.

  “Why did Jack Wallace call on you this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Came to see Silas. I told him about ourabos and he said he’d stay till Silas came home.”

  “Why? Did he know that the desert blacks were here in the mountains?”

  “He said he knew from his ownabos there was trouble about.”

  “And he came over to be sure you were all right?”

  “No. He came to see Silas.”

  Her voice was brittle, and Bony was warned and delayed his probing. The dogs remained quiescent, and the darkness continued to be disturbed by the processional meteors. Presently, he said:

  “He did intend to stay, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. Said he ought to as the boys were away. I told him I could manage ourabos, and the wild blacks, too, come to that.” Kimberley laughed softly, and in its softness was iron.“Wants me to marry him. I’d sooner marry Bingil.”

  “The local magic man?”

  “Yes. I’ve told Jack he hasn’t a chance. I never told him why.”

  “He probably knows why, Miss Breen. Actually he was safer going home in his utility than standing by. The wild men are not after him.”

  “Howd’youknow?” she asked swiftly.

  “I have talked to Bingil, the magic man. Someone reported the murder of Jacky Musgrave to those western blacks who relayed the news south to the Musgrave blacks. Old Bingil got hold of the broad details somehow from one of the men concerned and he sentanuniniated boy to the western blacks to tell them to smoke-signal the news south as he himself couldn’t do it without discovery.”

  “I’ll fix that oldpoisoner,” Kimberley declared, adding, “in the morning.”

  “I’ve done it for you, Miss Breen. Leave well alone. Bingil acted in accordance with the alleged rights and privileges of the medicine-man. He knows who killed Jacky Musgrave, but neither you nor I or any living person would succeed in extracting the name from him. Remember, his loyalties reach far beyond his own tribal section. And so he reported the death of Jacky Musgrave and did not name the killer, as that would be the business of Jacky’s relations to find out.”

  “Which they’ve done with their stones under the rotting body?”

  “Yes… although you and I did agree that their methods are somewhat chancy. Had Jack Wallace’s name been on one of their stones, they would have gone over the Range to find him. They would have gone last night.”

  “Then their second victim must be on this side… like O’Grady?”

  “I believe so. And yet Jack Wallace could be concerned in some way. Over against the Range not far from Black Well there is a mine shaft. Wallace could have been connected with that shaft. What do you know about it?”

  “I know nothing,” she said, and his practised ear did not fail to note her alarm. “Prospectors are always sinking trial shafts. Gold mostly. They prospect the creeks, too, for tin and all sorts of things.”

  “Do they ever come here to buy rations?”

  “No. The storekeepers tucker them. We couldn’t. Enough bother getting our supplies over the Range as it is.”

  “You have never been there, never seen that shaft?”

  “No.”

  It was her first lie. He sensed thestrain, and her relief when he sheered off the shaft with his next query.

  “That day you and Ezra met Sam Laidlaw, what cattle camp did you reach in the evening?”

  “Camp Four. The next day Jasper came withStugger and Frypan and Stan, and told Ezra to send us home.”

  “And that was the fourth day after leaving the Nine Mile Yards?”

  “Yes. First night we camped atClaypan Creek. Next night at the Jump-up. And after that at Camp Four.”

  “I suppose you all worked on the big muster?”

  “Of course. All hands have to do that.”

  “Where were the fats cut out from the main herd you mustered?”

  “At the Nine Mile Yards. Not inside the yards, though. Out on the plain.”

  “Were all the hands at the cut-out, too?”

  “No.” Kimberley faltered. “No.”

  “Who wasn’t at the cut-out?”

  �
��Well, Jasper… Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “Jasper wasn’t at the cut-out, and he wasn’t with the cattle until he joined Ezra after you left Camp Four. The boss stockman wasn’t there, either… at the cut-out. Where were Jasper and the boss stockman when the fats were being cut out from the herd?”

  “Away mustering. We only wanted four hundred, and when we had them we started for Wyndham.”

  “You are quite sure it was Jasper who joined the cattle after Camp Four?”

  “Of course I’m sure. You must expect me to know my own brother.”

  “Yes, naturally, Miss Kimberley. You were speaking to him, I suppose?”

  “No. But I haven’t to speak to him in order to know him.”

  “Obviously. Stupid of me. By the position of the Southern Cross it must be well after nine o’clock. Irwin should be here by midnight.”

  Neither spoke again for the period during which Bony made and smoked a cigarette, and it was he who broke the silence.

  “You see, Miss Kimberley, ConstableStenhouse was found dead in his jeep on the far side of Black Range, and now we know that the body of his tracker was hidden beneath the carcass of a dead horse on this side of the Black Range. The wild men came north hunting for the men who killed Jacky Musgrave, and when they drew near this homestead the boss stockman rode away without any explanation. We wonder why, and we think he ran away because of a guilty conscience.”

  “If he killed Jacky Musgrave, who was with ConstableStenhouse, why ask me all these questions about Jasper and Ezra?”

  “Merely to find out just where your boss stockman was at the time bothStenhouse and his tracker were shot to death.”

  “Then I think you should wait to ask your questions from the boys when they get home. Silas would know about him… Pat O’Grady. So would Jasper.”

  Bony sighed as though trying to be patient. Actually, he was now keenly aware that he wasn’t dealing with an unsophisticated miss. Unknowledgeable in many things, this woman beside him could be an inarticulate iceberg or a flaring volcano, when threatened by anything affecting theBreens. That she knew nothing of the death of Jacky Musgrave, or of the death of ConstableStenhouse, he was morally certain, and almost certain that she believedStenhouse had been murdered by Jack Wallace.