Brian nodded and assisted them to remove loads and saddles. When the horses were tethered to a rope, the young man spoke for the first time.
“Could have been worse. Would have been worse if it hadn’t been for Nat.”
“How so?” asked Jack, leaning against a rock and opening a flat tin of tobacco. “Me and Steve’s wetted to the skin ’cos we had to take to the stream. Me matches are soaked. Papers would have been, too, if they wasn’t in the tin.”
Brian handed him a box of matches. The dogs lay at his feet. The exhausted horses drooped; the sun was westering. Steve said:
“Nat musta been bushed trying to catch up. Or something.”
“Or something, I’d say,” Brian said, and laughed. “I saw you come out into Long Valley. I saw you reach the stream and begin to walk up it, and knew you’d take this track. I waited to see Nat. And d’you know where I did see him? He was climbing up the side of the gorge to that ledge. He was wearing something white over his face. When he got there he sort of saluted, and then began to roll rocks off the ledge. I could see the rocks going over.”
“Pounding those fellers with rocks, eh?” Jack laughed but there was no humour in his eyes. “Good for Nat. He’s shaping well.”
“Could you see what they looked like?” Jack asked and Brian shook his head. “Too far when I saw them coming over Flood’s Gap. Loaded up like bushwalkers.”
“How do you know they were followin’ us?” queried the lanky Steve.
“Couldn’t be sure, and couldn’t take a chance they were not.”
“No, that’s right,” Steve agreed. “Anyway, it’s a mess. If Nat has killed ’em there’s going to be trouble of some sort. Mike isn’t going to like it.”
“Well, it couldn’t be helped, could it?” flared Brian, and Steve exploded as quiet men sometimes do.
“’Course it could be helped. We had no business coming this way for a start. I said so, but you and Red wouldn’t listen. You know everything, or think you do, and you know nothing. Your old man made a mistake nine years back, and it stopped the trade for the rest of the season.”
“I know nothing about that,” Brian returned heatedly.
“That’ll be enough, you two. Brian, you go back down the track a bit and locate Nat. Me and Steve has to get ourselves dry.”
Brian Kelly stood, fire in his eyes and a scowl ageing him. He snapped the fingers of his right hand, and a hound trotted off that way. He snapped the fingers of the other hand and the other dog loped off to that side. A moment later he had vanished among the great rocks.
With a dog working wide on either flank, he walked swiftly down the hillside track, and the track kept always to the screen of scrub and avoided open places. And he hadn’t travelled far when halted by a voice behind him.
“Going back to Cork Valley, Brian?”
Spinning about, he saw Bony leaning against a track-side tree.
“Hell no! I didn’t see you.”
“You weren’t meant to. How far on are the others?”
“Less than half a mile.” Brian whistled softly. “Don’t get it. The dogs missed you, too.”
“They know my smell.”
The dogs appeared, wagged tails at Bony, then followed the two men walking in single file up the sloping track.
“Did you kill those fellows? I saw you heaving rocks down on them.”
“I fixed ’em,” boasted Bony. “Tell you about it when we catch up.”
The men had a blazing fire of well dried wood giving but little smoke. They were standing close and both were enveloped by steam for they had removed none of their clothes. Both were decidedly anxious to have Bony’s story.
“I think they were the two that Red stopped crossing the valley,” Bony began. “I’m not sure, though. Got up like bushwalkers, but tougher than I’d imagine ordinary city hikers. I had to stop them before they got into that valley when they would have seen you walking up stream.”
“I saw you heaving rocks down on them,” Brian claimed.
“I had to do something, as I said. I rolled a boulder down about a hundred yards in front of them. Then another, closer. And another and another still closer. They got the idea. They went off, fast, and I sneaked down off the ledge without them seeing me, and got into the valley and headed down stream. It took them the best part of half an hour to come out of that bottle-neck and then I let them catch a glimpse of me as though not intending to. They were given another idea. They thought we went down stream. I watched them walk to the stream, look at it, talk about it, and then they walked one on either side ... down stream.”
Steve was smiling. Jack was grinning happily. Brian was openly admiring.
“So you didn’t kill ’em. Good for you, Nat,” exclaimed the rotund smuggler.
Bony frowned, his blue eyes widened and stared at each in turn.
“Kill ’em!” he echoed. “Kill them! Think we want the police all over the country? Think we want ... What the hell d’you take me for? What is this? I don’t get it. I’m not having anything to do with murder. And you...” he pointed at the holster on Brian’s belt. “What have you got in that. A gun?”
“Well, it isn’t a plug of tobacco.”
The four men became immobile. Brian Kelly stood with feet apart and hands lightly pressed into his broad hips. Steve and Jack moved only their eyes, and those but fractionally. Bony looked upward from the pistol holster to the grey eyes flaring defiantly, clearly aware that he was to have that weapon firstly to cement his standing with the Conways, and secondly to banish the possibility of himself being associated with homicide—on the wrong side. His voice was low but heard.
“I was given a job by Mike Conway. I was told to deliver goods to a man named O’Grady, and to take other goods from O’Grady. I don’t know the nature of the goods, and I’m not asking. I do know we’re engaged in unlawful trade, and that doesn’t bother me. I am not having anything to do with a trade when concealable arms add another three years to a five-year sentence, and a life sentence if a killing is done. You hand me that pistol or I’ll cripple you.”
“Come and get it,” invited the son of Red Kelly.
Bony began the short walk, and Steve said:
“Wait on, Nat. Brian, what happened to Ted Kelso could happen to you. It’s one for all and all for one. You’ve been brought up on that. It was fed to you from your mother’s breast. The rule is no firearms on this job. Hand it over.”
Kelly looked from Steve to Bony, and from Bony to Jack. His eyes were minus that candidness which had appealed to Bony at their first meeting. Steve’s hazel eyes and Jack’s eyes, now hard as agates, he found less trying than the blue eyes which seemed to have the piercing property of a searchlight. Slowly Brian removed the belt, slipped the holster from it, dropped the holster to the ground and replaced the belt. The pistol in the holster Bony dropped into a deep crevice in the rock floor.
“Now we can breathe again,” he told them. “If we can’t do a spot of smuggling without guns, we’d better go home. You’ve been among these mountains all your lives. I’ve been in them only about ten minutes, and you’ve made mistake on mistake. In half an hour the fog will be back. You tell me what’s ahead because I’m running no risks of going to gaol.”
Chapter Fourteen
Fog Can Be a Friend
THE FOG rolled up the ravines and gullies, and it lapped distant ridges as great white waves breaking on a rock-girt coast.
The smugglers decided to push on and take advantage of the remaining daylight. Brian Kelly and his dogs disappeared when the packing was begun, and this time the chore was efficiently accomplished.
Bony was well pleased by the victory over Brian Kelly which, following the outwitting of the two bushwalking types, would surely gain for him one hundred per cent of confidence by the men of Cork Valley. Also he was feeling that this smuggling trip was to be the turning point which came sooner or later in those of his assignments he had to tackle in the guise of an itinerant character. In thi
s he excelled because he had the patience and the ability to ingratiate himself among those to be courted.
Usually crime investigation is conducted by an organisation against an individual but sometimes conditions call for action by an individual against an organisation. Such conditions were thought to exist in these southern mountains of New South Wales, and the lone investigator had first to be received by the members of the suspected organisation. This Bony had done, and now was proving to his own satisfaction that the suspected organisation was true in fact.
Inheriting the patience of the most patient race on earth, he was ever impatient with official interference, and often defiant of official recall. He had been careful to stress to Superintendent Casement that the assignment was to be uncluttered by any attempt to supervise him, any action which would create frustration and additional hazards. Casement had agreed to keep clear, and Bony thought it was unlikely that the superintendent of this vast land area would annul the arrangement.
He could not, however, be as sure of the sub-section of the Customs Department who would continue to take vital interest in the murder of Excise Officer Torby. Thus his victory over the two bushwalkers provided not a little joy, as well as pleasant prod to his vanity. And finally who the heck did the Customs Department think it was that it could poach on the preserves of the Police Department?
Pistols, however, could not be tolerated, and in this matter the Conways were one with him.
There was mention of a man named Kelso, and, not long before the name Kelso was spoken, there was mention of an affair of nine years ago. Quite by accident, Bony had arrived at the rock halt within minutes of the pack train, and he had overheard Steve’s frank criticism of the Kellys’ decision to send the train this way. Steve then had said: “Your old man made a mistake nine years back, and it stopped the trade for the rest of the season.” And then, during the incident of the pistol, Steve had said: “What happened to Ted Kelso could happen to you. It’s one for all and all for one.”
Some time in the night, they passed from the fog into blackness and Jack’s torch revealed the waiting Brian as well as the walls of a vast cave. Jack said they would be camping here for the remainder of the night and probably the following day, as a deal of scouting would have to be done before the final stage could be attempted.
After a meal of cold meat and hot tea, and a ‘snort’ of the Conways’ ‘white wine’. Bony was indeed happy to spread his blankets on the sandy floor of this huge cave, and sink into sleep, warmed by the large fire. He woke refreshed, the muscular ache in his legs gone. The fire was a mound of red coals, and the others still slept.
Brian Kelly was the next to stir. He found Bony squatting on his heels before the replenished fire, the light of which revealed only one sectional wall of the cave.
“How’s things?” he asked, helping himself to a mug of coffee. “Crikey, how I needed that sleep.”
“I, too,” admitted Bony. “No bad feelings this morning?”
“Don’t last long with me.” Brian sipped from the mug. “Of course, we could strip down and have a real go. If you feel like it.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Early, I’ll agree.” Brian emptied his mug and refilled it. He crammed tobacco into his pipe and applied a fiery stick to it. “How are you liking his kind of work?”
“Change from digging spuds.”
“Could be more dough in it, too. Anyway, you’ll have enough of it, although, mind you, getting away from the settlement has its points. I’ll be away from it in a few weeks for a long time. They tell you about it?”
“Mike did say something about you going off on a trip overseas,” Bony replied casually. “Been away before?”
“No, and I’m not keen to go now. You been outside the country?”
Bony shook his head negatively. He said: “I never had enough money.”
“No one ever has ... legally.” Brian stared moodily at the fire. “There’s a Kelly in a shipping office up in Sydney. Comes home sometimes. He says that only five per cent of first-class travellers going overseas pay their own fares. Says the other ninety-five per cent have their fares paid by the taxpayers. They’re just bots. Politicians and top civil servants and marketing-board people. You pay taxes?”
“Not more than I can help,” replied Bony.
“Same with me...” Brian grinned. “And I’m out to get back all I can get of what the bastards take from me.”
Bony chuckled saying: “Would you have to go your hardest to do that?”
“Well, a feller’s got to make a profit on the deal, hasn’t he?”
“Your passage booked yet?”
“Yes, I’m leaving on July 28. Going to London, and over to Dublin. Anyway, I’ll be here for the festival. That’ll stir your blood, Nat.”
“Cork Valley Festival?” pressed the interested Bony.
“Yes. Everyone has a festival these days. Jacaranda Festival up in Grafton. Festival of Flowers over in Bowral. Pea Festival at Markham. Cork Valley Festival. Ours is a bit private like. Only relations and close friends permitted.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“She warms up in the evening,” Brian smiled broadly, and glanced at his watch. “Hell, it’s ten to nine! I must get on to the job. Kick those sleeping loafers to life while I have a wash and get on with breakfast.”
He seemed to have no inhibitions. Stripping off by the fire, he crossed to the rock-guttered stream bisecting the floor of the cave and splashed its icy water over his powerful body. Jack fed the tethered horses, and Steve contented himself with washing his hands before placing a couple of dozen mutton chops to grill on a spread of wire netting. Bony couldn’t face an icy bath and washed only his face and hands, Jack did likewise. The freed dogs joined them to crunch the chop bones.
“What d’you reckon?” Jack asked Steve. “Think we oughta do the razorback?”
“Safest,” replied the lank man. “No more chances.”
“Best, I suppose, as we don’t know just where those flaming bushwalkers could be. Will you stay back, or is it me?”
“I’ll stay,” Steve decided.
“All right! You take the hounds, Brian. I’ll give you half an hour start, and you wait for me at O’Grady’s top gate. Before I forget, or you do, I’ll get those coloured rags for the dogs.” Jack brought the rags he had taken from the dogs’ collars the previous day, and Bony learned by watching both men preparing a lunch that they expected to be away most of the day. When Brian had left, the rotund Jack rejoined Steve and Bony at the fire.
“Think you could find your way back to Cork Valley?” he asked of Bony, and, faintly amused, Bony replied:
“Put a cat in a bag, take him a dozen miles away, and the cat will go home. The cat’s mind registered every twist and turn when in the bag. My mind did just that in the fog and the dark.”
Steve sighed, and Jack looked his admiration.
“I believe you could. All the way back to the Valley,” Jack said. “What say you back-track for about two miles. You’ll come to a razorback joining two mountains. Up to the left is a high tor. From there you could keep an eye on the razor-back, and see as far as that stream we ploughed through yesterday. Stay there till just before sundown. How’s that?”
“Clear enough,” agreed Bony. “And if I see those spies I come back here?”
“That’s the idea ... if you can’t trick ’em like you did before.” Jack laughed. “I’ll take two of the horses and make a false trail past this place. You take some grub, Nat.”
Jack fashioned a saddle with his blanket-roll, and rode off down a rock passage, leading the second horse with a bridle rope. Reminded of Don Quixote, Bony followed on foot, and they entered bright sunlight flooding a narrow gorge. Jack, perched on his horse, rode off a shelf of rock to normal ground where the pack train had left it for the rock shelf, and there proceeded on past the turn-off to give continuity to the horse tracks.
Bony followed back the tracks made the previ
ous night. They were so plain that no average bushman would be faulted, and much could have been done to wipe them out at places and cause confusion. He wondered if it was mere Irishry, the supreme confidence in a scout working ahead, and scorn of taking precautions against being trailed.
At one place he concealed himself behind a rock and smoked two cigarettes, making sure Steve was not following him as a check, and when reasonably sure that he wasn’t followed, he went on down the trail till he came to the tor, a little alp of rocks piled on top of one another, on the summit of a bald hill.
From the tor none could complain of the scenery in any direction. To the north was the razorback, a wall of some five hundred yards in length and joining the sheer slope of one mountain with that of another. The top of the wall was often reduced to about five feet in width, and was never less than three hundred feet from its base. Bony’s feet tingled at the memory of crossing it in the dark of night.
Now lounging among the rough boulders comprising the tor, Bony could gaze across ridge beyond ridge in all directions and down into valleys where water lay in silvered threads. The entire country comprised jump-ups, chasms, gorges and gullies, and he was further convinced that the two bushwalkers were equally as expert in this land as the men of Cork Valley.
They could not be normal city-loving people on a walking tour.
Trails of mist in the deeper levels were a reminder of last night’s fog and spoke of another which would come again soon after the sun set, and might rise much earlier. The morning passed without a sign of a human being. He watched the high-flying eagles, and doubtless they watched him. The crows were scarce, although one did investigate him before flying off. A cardinal-hatted Australian robin amused him, and once he glimpsed a stag deer on a crag.
He had brought water in a billy can for another purpose besides making tea for lunch, and having gathered dry sticks on the way, he lit a small fire and heated the water. When it was boiling, he held Rosalie Ryan’s letter to Eric Hillier in the steam. It was not difficult to raise the flap of the envelope with the blade of a knife. He read:
Bony and the Kelly Gang Page 10