The Will of the Tribe

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “There you are,” remarked Old Ted to everyone. “Case terminated. The horse isn’t outside the paddock, so he must still be inside. Quate simple, Watson. Quate. Next case, please.”

  “You aren’t an old enough Pommy yet to ape ’em,” chided Young Col. “Of course, Ted isn’t a real Pommy. He was only born in England, but he likes us to think he was left on the steps of Buckingham Palace and was reared by royalty. Puts on the dog now and then.”

  Brentner smiled sourly, and said to Bony, “I’ve got that information you wanted. If you care to come to the office we could take our coffee there.”

  “Ha! I’ve been hoping that would come through,” Bony said casually, and followed the cattleman from the room. In the office, Brentner invited him to occupy an easy chair, and himself crossed to the window which he closed.

  Neither man seemed anxious to begin, Bony engaging his fingers with his eternal cigarettes, and the big man standing at his desk and slicing shavings from his tobacco plug with a guillotine. It was Brentner who opened, after lighting his pipe and taking the opposite chair. He spoke roughly, as though addressing a stockman.

  “Well, what d’you know about that horse?”

  “A little, and much. We are surrounded by a conspiracy of silence concerning the horse as well as concerning the murder of the man in the Crater. You won’t like it, but I decided it would be sound strategy for you and your men to spend an entire day looking for the horse.”

  Brentner’s brows rose and then sank to create a savage scowl.

  “I’d like to hear more,” he said.

  “First let me recall a conversation we had the other evening. I expressed the opinion that your Aborigines probably know who killed the man and who put his body in the Crater but were not necessarily directly involved. I am still hoping that that opinion will be supported by the facts which ultimately will be disclosed concerning this murder. If that should be the outcome of my investigations I shall do all I can to sidestep pinning on them the charge of being accessories after the fact. You already have my reasons for that and would doubtless be in full agreement. Now, can you assure me of continued co-operation?”

  “Damn it, I don’t know if I’m coming or going! If you want me to acknowledge you as the boss in the affair, all right.”

  “I am, indeed, the boss in this affair,” Bony went on. “I needn’t repeat a single circumstance relative to the body and the place where it was found. A man was murdered with a blunt instrument, as the police doctors name the application to the head of a heavy object. Certainly a job for the police anywhere in the world. It is the motive, not the deed itself, which is of paramount interest to my superiors, and the motive, I am convinced, is concealed in the minds of your Aborigines, or the minds of a neighbouring tribe. And there is no need to stress to you the difficulties hedging Aboriginal psychology. I will therefore.... I hear...”

  The door was opened a moment later and Rose Brentner brought in the coffee tray.

  “I wanted to be in this exchange of confidences,” she told them, and Bony took the tray from her and placed it on a side table.

  “I’ve been anticipating that you would,” he told her, smilingly. Crossing to the door, he turned to add, “We’ve been talking about politics and the visit of the Minister to these parts.” Closing the door, he stood with the handle remaining in his hand, they looking at him in amazement. Continuing in raised voice, he said, “You should have an enjoyable experience at the conference tomorrow, hearing all the vague but glowing promises of the future of this great North of Australia.”

  Abruptly opening the door he stepped out into the passage, glanced both ways, re-entered and said calmly, “I’ve been telling your husband I had to let him and his men look all day for a horse which isn’t, as a counter move against those opposed to my investigation.”

  Neither commented, the man still dour and the woman still astonished. Without intention of being provocative, Bony resumed his chair and rested his chin on his tented hands, regarding them almost absently before saying, “The Aborigine discovered by Young Col and I at Eddy’s Well was one called Mitti, the husband of Wandin. You couldn’t find the horse, Mr Brentner, because the horse is dead.”

  The blood reddened Brentner’s face, but his voice was controlled.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Mitti rode the horse hard to arrive at the well before we did. It collapsed under him. Wait a moment. The Aborigines are not to know what we know because it will be through their actions that we shall learn the motive for the Crater crime, as well as the man, or men, who committed it. Can you continue to assure me you will both co-operate?”

  “Certainly,” instantly replied Rose Brentner. She regarded her husband with impatience at his hesitancy before nodding. “What’s on your mind, Kurt? Of course, we must co-operate with Inspector Bonaparte. Don’t you realize that if Mitti and Gup-Gup and Poppa and the others are implicated it could mean drawing Tessa and Captain into the affair?”

  “Probably no ‘if’ about it, Rose. I wasn’t thinking of Tessa, but of Captain. He was rebellious today, and I don’t forget it was Captain who managed that runaway lovers’ act the other evening. What I’ve thought and often said is that an Abo, and a white man, too, for that matter, can get above himself with a bit of learning. We’ll co-operate, Bony.”

  “I didn’t doubt you would,” said the pleased Bony. “Now do so this way for a beginning. Undertake the trip to Hall’s Creek as you planned. You will be taking the children with you, I think it was understood. And take Old Ted, too. You might leave Young Col, for he told me he can operate the transceiver. Agreed?”

  “Yes. But Old Ted didn’t say he wanted to go.”

  “I want him to go. You invent the reason why he should. If he stays there could be trouble again between him and Captain.”

  “So you heard about that? I suspected it but didn’t know for sure.”

  “What trouble?” asked Rose.

  “Woman trouble,” her husband said. “Ted put up the tale some time back that his horse threw him and he was dragged by the stirrup and got his face damaged. I didn’t believe it, but I didn’t want to make a fuss if one of the Abos had fought him over advances to a lubra. I’ve found it best to let the Abos look after their own, which they can do all right.”

  “Then you had better get rid of him. We don’t want that sort of thing going on.”

  “We had an agreement, Rose,” Brentner reminded his wife, his eyes hard. “You run the homestead: I run the men and the cattle. We can leave approaches to the lubras by any white man to Captain. Captain can fight like a threshing machine. I’m not sacking Ted Arlie. He’s a good cattleman, and will become even better. Besides white men are hard to get up here, that is the kind of men we want to live with.”

  “Very well.” Rose turned to apologize to Bony for the disagreement. “We’ll find reasons for taking Ted with us. There’ll be room enough. You will be staying?”

  “Yes. I shall have Young Col to man-handle the radio if necessary. I could manage, but might not be here. I shall be hoping that, with the Top Brass at Hall’s Creek, Gup-Gup and Company will make a wrong move or two. You might, Mr Brentner, instruct Captain to have a horse available should I need it, and you could leave orders with Col which would keep him handy to the homestead. Agreed?”

  “Can do,” assented Brentner. “Tell us where you found the horse. Tell us a bit more of what’s been happening. We went out as far as Eddy’s Well. Mustered through the grass, too. You say the horse foundered, but we didn’t see the crows at work on the carcase.”

  “I’ll tell you this much, because I do want you to be clear in your mind that your Aborigines are mixed up in this murder in some way. I believe they are so acting under duress, fear of some thing or persons stronger than themselves; or under a sense of loyalty to some person or persons who was actually responsible for the murder. I can think of no probable motive for them to be concerned in killing that white man. Twice Gup-Gup admitted
to me that the consequences of such a crime would be disastrous for his people, and therefore it is extremely unlikely that he or his Medicine Man engineered it. You know how close knit these particular people are and the unlikelihood of any one of them acting independently.

  “I believe they are under duress, or activated by loyalty, because, from the moment I arrived, I have been expertly tailed and no hostile act has been done to me. Mitti rode the horse to observe what I did at or near Eddy’s Well. How he sneaked the horse away is no matter. He had to ride hard to get there first. The horse dropped dead in the grass when a mile from the well, throwing Mitti forward to gash his forehead against a root. Subsequently, I watched the horse being cut up and the portions carried away. The cattle in the vicinity were driven on to the pad where the dead horse had been in order to obliterate its tracks, and I’ve no doubt that its tracks nearer home were also erased.”

  “Who cut it up? My blacks?” Brentner demanded to know.

  “Not now! No more, please. I have confided in you, which is rare for me. You may trust me to keep the well-being of your Aborigines always in mind. For them, all over Australia, I have deep sympathy and, provided they are not directly implicated in this murder, their tribal homogeneity shall be guarded by me. Leave for the conference tomorrow in the knowledge that all will continue here normally.”

  Brentner stood to say, “All right, Bony. As you say. You’re a strange man, and I’ve never met your like. Damn it, I need a drink!”

  He unlocked a cupboard and produced a bottle of whisky, and his wife went out for glasses. Bony chuckled, and said, “I’d like your permission to use this office while you’re away. I shall not mind if you take the cupboard key with you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Anxious Lover

  BONY LEFT the Brentners, collected writing materials and withdrew to the day-house. There he smoked and pondered on what he would write to Mrs Leroy’s sister to obtain through her certain information by radio to be understood by no one else. Here it was cool and quiet save for distant music coming from a radio in the men’s quarters.

  The letter written and sealed, his mind returned to the Brentners and the recent conversation with them. There continued a small niggling doubt of the man but none of the woman. She was the stronger character, her husband occasionally explosively dominant but always surrendering. He would understand the Aborigines far more deeply than would his wife, and there could be a far closer alliance between him and Captain than appeared. Having been all his life in this quarter of Australia he would be able to think as the Aborigine, when, for his wife, they would still be remote. Bony could not side-step the possibility that Brentner knew something of the unknown white man found on Lucifer’s Couch.

  His task of uncovering the killer was made more difficult by lack of certain knowledge when he was assigned to the job. The superior person who asked if he could grasp this limited assignment did not inform him who the man was or tell him of his previous activities. He had wanted only to know how the man came into this district without being reported, and what he had been doing. On being pressed the man had replied that it was the work of the police to nail the killer, for in this his department wasn’t interested.

  Opposed to Bony was a wall, a wall of shuttered minds, a wall built to bar back the truth. This wall enclosed the Deep Creek homestead and Aboriginal camp. The wall could, however, enclose Beaudesert homestead and camp, even other homesteads and camps farther distant. Brentner had agreed to co-operate with his efforts to topple the wall, but had contributed nothing of significance to its toppling. Bony felt that the cattleman knew of the wall and wished it maintained: possibly as many people, having witnessed a crime, hurry away to avoid being concerned with it.

  Recent events had produced reluctance in Brentner to attend the conference at Hall’s Creek with the touring Minister, but his wife had supported Bony as agreed, and, should Brentner’s reluctance to leave the homestead spring from other than the loss of the horse and the circumstances around it, then he must be confident that Bony would not topple the wall.

  Now, when sitting at the table in the day-house, Bony was feeling satisfaction that the Brentners and one of their white stockmen, Old Ted, would be off the scene for a day or two, during which time he could continue to prod Gup-Gup and Captain, dig a little into Tessa, and converse at length with Jim Scolloti. With the Brentners absent, the wall might be less strongly based. In other words: divide and conquer.

  It was then that Old Ted joined him, saying, “Could see you sitting here dreaming O My Love Of Thee. I’d like a word with you. Okee?”

  “Yes, why not?”

  The red-bearded man was troubled. He was at the table beside Bony and rolled a cigarette. He looked at the superscription on the envelope of Bony’s letter, almost without intent and, having lit the cigarette, he said, “The Boss just told me I’m to go with them to Hall’s in the morning. I told him I wasn’t keen and that Col wanted to go. He said he had work for Col and that I go for experience and what not. You are not going?”

  “I’m a police officer, not a cattleman.”

  “That’s so.” Old Ted sighed when emitting smoke. “Better talk softly. Someone could be outside with an ear against the grass. I could see you through it. What’s in my mind is this. You’ve certainly stirred these people here into running around. D’you know you are being tracked?”

  “Explain.”

  “The other morning you came from a walk up along the Creek. I saw Captain speak to one of the lubras and she went up the Creek back-tracking you. Then that yarn about Lawrence and Wandin going bush out at Eddy’s Well was all eyewash, too. I saw Lawrence that same afternoon. I was up on the tank stand testing the water gauge, and I could see him in the camp.”

  “You did! Why then didn’t you say so when Captain brought him and the lubra in here?”

  “Because I’m giving Captain enough rope to hang himself.”

  Bony made no comment and Old Ted delayed speaking again for a full minute.

  “You knew that the story was false the next morning, when you looked at the tracks left in the compound, comparing Lawrence’s tracks with those made by the chap at Eddy’s Well. I might be able to give you a lead. I don’t know, but I might be in the position to, because I’ve been tracked quite a lot. They don’t track me without a reason and they don’t track you without one. And Captain’s behind all the tracking.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “No, I certainly don’t,” Old Ted admitted without hesitation. “The Boss thinks the sun shines on him. In fact, if he thought Col and I would take it, he’d make Captain a sub-manager over us. I don’t like him for many things.”

  Ted fell into moody silence until Bony prompted, “You are not alone in that. Young Col dislikes Captain too.”

  “Now look! I’m in a jam, having to go to Hall’s with the Boss. I’ll have to tell you something not to my credit. Captain and I got into holts a few weeks back, and he licked me. I’m pretty good, but he floored me and I didn’t like that: bad enough to be licked by a white man. That fight was the climax of a lot of bad blood, and I’m telling you it’s over Tessa. I’ve been sunk on Tessa for several years, and I’d marry her tomorrow or any time. She’s a fine lass, you must know.”

  After another moody silence, Bony offered encouragement.

  “Tell me more; from when it began.”

  “Oh, it began before the murder. It came to a kind of head when we got home from the muster in April, and I heard about the tribe going bush and Captain and Tessa with ’em, and then Tessa coming back with Captain and half her clothes torn off. I made her tell me what happened.”

  “What did happen?”

  “Tessa told me that after running off with the mob she remembered what she owed the Brentners. She left the mob and was on her way home when Captain waylaid her and tried to take her. She had to fight him off. I nearly got stuck into Captain that time. A couple of days after that, we all went to the Crater to
give the place a final look-see for tracks which didn’t add up. It was then I became conscious of being trailed. Told Young Col and he checked and found we were both being trailed. Why? I could understand being trailed here at the homestead on Tessa’s account, but not Young Col. Seemed to be only one reason, which was to check on what we might discover about the crime.”

  “Can you remember where you were when becoming conscious of being trailed?” Bony asked, and Old Ted regarded him doubtfully. “Was it when you were inside the Crater and under the dip in the wall?”

  “Yes, it was. How the hell did you know that? I remember Col and I standing there, and I was telling Col that would be the easiest place to lug a dead man over, when there was Captain standing just behind us. Is that place important?”

  “Hardly. What happened then? What did Captain say to it; I mean your theory?”

  “Nothing. He saw we cottoned to him and went on tracking ahead, and soon afterwards another buck seemed to hang behind us. We didn’t discuss the place, or theory as you express it, and forgot about it.”

  “Could not Captain have been behind you at that moment by chance?”

  “I’ll tell you why not. When Col and I agreed that another buck had taken Captain’s place, I noticed that the Boss had a tail, and so did Mr Leroy. Howard had one of his own trackers with him all the time.”

  “Why a tail to each white man?” pressed Bony. “It was days after Howard and his trackers were first on the job.”

  “But Captain was with them every day,” Ted countered. “No, I don’t know why, but it does prove something. That something is Captain’s over-plus interest in what might be learned about the crime.”

  “It could be. What else?”

  “Only that every morning since that day I am tracked about the homestead. To find out if I visited Tessa, perhaps, during the night. I don’t rightly know. I do know I am tracked every morning. More than once I’ve left my quarters after midnight and taken a stroll right round the outside of the compound fence, turned from the fence for a little distance and returned to it at a place I’d remember. Next morning I’ve watched one of the lubras following exactly my trail. I know the reason for that, but I’m damned if I know the reason for tracking us white men in the Crater.”