“Where were you that day, June Ninth?”
“Sixty-odd miles down the Fence, coming north.”
“One of your patrol men, Nugget Early, was vague about his position that day when questioned by the police,” Bony went on. “Seems he was camped at the centre mark of his section, south of some sandhills which lay between him and the place where Maidstone was shot. The section man north of Early was at what he calls the Ten Mile, and going north. Have you anything against that?”
“Can’t say I have,” replied Newton. “By the way, Early is the fellow I’m moving to let you in. What are you getting at?”
“Both men own Winchester rifles. Maidstone was shot with one. It is of no real importance, but I like to check witnesses’ statements where I can. Report has it that June Tenth and most of the succeeding day were almost windless, but so far there is no evidence whether Maidstone was killed during the day or the night. There was a late moon so it could have been done at night.”
“Why was he mooching around at night?”
“He was commissioned by a geographic magazine to take night pictures of animals drinking at watering places. There is a lot of interest in Central Australia at present. He could have been going to or returning from the bore stream at night for his purpose. What makes it hard is the absence of any possible motive for the killing. The investigating police didn’t find one solitary lead although they mooched around for a fortnight. However, someone must have pulled a trigger.”
“You’re sayin’ it. Well, we better draw them stores. I’ll introduce you. There’ll be ration bags in those saddle bags.”
With half a dozen stout calico bags, Bony drew flour, tea and sugar, as well as plug tobacco and matches. He bought a sheath knife and a box of fifty 44-calibre rifle cartridges, and all these items he took back and deposited in the saddle bags. Thereupon he and the overseer each took a sack to the station cook who gave them some forty pounds of fresh beef and a quantity of coarse salt. There was nothing further to do at Quinambie and they moved off to the base camp.
The way in which Bony helped to secure the loads and get the animals to their feet satisfied Newton that he wasn’t a newchum to this work. From the neck of the last camel a suspended bell clanked rhythmically, and thus it wasn’t necessary constantly to turn about to be sure the string remained unbroken. The two men walked together, the nose-line of the leading camel in the crook of Newton’s elbow.
Once out of the home paddock the ground feed was more prolific, and the sparse scrub gave place to more robust growths. The way continued along a camel pad winding about low sand-dunes until eventually they saw ahead a party of aborigines. The natives were standing around four kneeling camels. The land at that point formed a narrow flat at the base of rising ground, capped with mulga, and amid the mulga was an open-fronted shed walled and roofed with cane grass.
The women about the kneeling camels were unloading the riding and pack saddles, the children were capering about them, while a man nearby was sitting on a box smoking a pipe. There were four dogs, which came to greet the newcomers with much barking. The man then stood and yelled at the dogs, and the children took the camels off a little distance, hobbled them and removed the nose-lines.
Fred Newton turned up the slope to the cane-grass shed where the camels were “laid” down, and this is where the man came to them. He was cubical and short of leg. There was no obvious mixture of the white race in him. When he spoke there was no trace of an accent in the voice. He was wearing dungaree trousers, a tattered shirt and his feet were bare.
“Good-day, Boss.”
“ ’Day, Nugget. How’s things?” asked Newton. This time Nugget helped to remove the loads, whereas he had sat smoking and watching his women and children unloading his own.
“Good-oh, Boss.” He roared with laughter and then: “Mary got a couple of dogs coming down this time. Aims to buy new dresses and things for the kids.”
With the ruling prices of dog scalps at two pounds each, two would not buy many dresses and things for the kids, but as these people set traps on the run north quite often they would collect a scalp on the down run.
“Nugget, this is Ed Bonnay. Ed, meet Nugget.” Gravely they shook hands. “Nugget, I sacked that loafing bastard down south. I want you to take over his section and get it in order. Ed will be taking over your present section.”
“Good enough,” assented Nugget without complaint, and added as though to illumine his nonchalance: “Ed’ll know what he can do with it soon as he sees Siberia.”
Chapter Two
Siberia
It was explained to Bony that for every Sunday the men worked they could take a day off at a favourite camp, usually in the vicinity of a bore. Accordingly, Nugget and his family would spend two days here and he and the overseer would spend one sorting out the gear and effecting any necessary repairs.
Bony was not impressed by Nugget nor deceived by his apparent cheerfulness. There was not enough of the white race in him to produce staple honesty and too much of the black race to permit freedom from aboriginal superstitions. When it was dark he came to squat on his heels with Newton and Bony at their camp fire.
At the bottom of the slope the aborigines’ fire glowed redly. It cast shadows of moving men and children across the nearer buckbush of last year’s vintage, now dead and waiting only for a powerful wind to uproot it and chase it for miles. Beyond the buckbush, away deep in the dark of night, there drifted to them the musical tolling of the bells attached to feeding camels.
“Heard the Monster lately, Nugget?” asked Newton, carelessly.
“No, not for a couple of months, could be more.”
“Reckon there’s anything in the yarn that he stamped on the schoolteacher?”
“No,” replied Nugget, disgustedly. “The Monster ain’t no camel. He’s something no one’s ever seen before. He’s the result of a donkey mating with a wild cow, because he brays like a donkey, bellows like a cow, and covers the ground like a horse. Could have wings to him as no one’s ever got close enough to shoot him.”
“But if he flies how come he don’t get around this side of the Fence?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if some day he does,” Nugget predicted, gloomily. “That stampin’ on the bloke’s body after knocking him down or after he was shot was put up by young Frankie. You know what Post-hole Frankie is, Boss. Has visions and things. What happened was that a loose camel come on the body and pawed it, camels being curious.” To Bony he said: “Don’t you go camping on the far side, on the South Australian side, and if you go to Bore Ten for water keep your eyes skinned all the time you’re out on the plain country.”
“Isn’t that where Maidstone was killed, at Bore Ten?” Bony asked.
“That’s where he was killed, Ed. As I said, you don’t want to be caught on open country. You keep this side of the Fence unless you’re working on it.”
“I think it’s a camel and a wild feller,” Newton said. “Remember the time Billy the Larrikin and his camels were caught in the open by two wild camels that charged among his and created all hell before he shot one and creased the other so’s he cleared out?”
Bony reflected how times had changed in the Centre. When the Afghan camel drivers lost their work to the motor trucks, they had let their animals free to roam, intending to return for them if conditions changed. However, conditions did not change and they did not return. Their camels roamed over the vast Interior to breed and become a menace. Shooting parties were organized to deal with the problem, but there were still many left deep in the desert lands.
“What part do you come from, Ed?” came the inevitable question from Nugget. The cicatrices on his face denoted tribal relationship with the Orabunna Nation.
“Queensland