Читать книгу Man of Two Tribes - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 9

Millie and Curley

Early the next morning the horse tailer brought in Lonergan’s camels. Actually they were the descendants of the originally imported dromedaries of one hump, but like most words requiring slight effort to pronounce, the shorter and inaccurate designation was ever employed in Australia.

Millie and Curley were in fine condition, and Bony found them in a high-railed yard, placidly chewing cud, and in their eyes the expression of resignation to more ruddy work. Millie was lighter in colour than her boy friend, and both appeared docile. Millie had her nose-plug in position, but Curley wore a strong leather halter, the ragged hole in his nose telling a story.

“Had experience with camels, I suppose,” remarked Weatherby, who had approached with his brother to join Bony at the rails. The younger man was slighter than the other, even darker of hair and eyes, and he lacked the outward placidity of his brother.

“Yes,” admitted Bony, and returned his gaze to the camels. “They’re quiet enough, but a little tricky. Made the inventory of your uncle’s gear?”

“Most of it, I reckon. There’s still the traps. The old feller didn’t bring them in.”

This was met with a silence attributable perhaps to the interest the others had in the camels. Ultimately the younger Weatherby said:

“As no one knows where old Patsy set his traps, you’ll have to pass them up.”

“Looks like it,” agreed the older man. “I doubt that the abos even know which way the old boy put down his last trap line. Be out west because that’s where the dogs are this year. Hey! Ringer! Come here.”

The head stockman, who was leading a saddled mare from a yard, led her to his employer. He was looking hard and efficient this morning.

“Any idea where old Patsy worked his last trap line?” Weatherby asked, and Ringer smiled and kicked dust.

“Dunno,” he replied. “Ole Patsy cunnin’ feller all right. Tommy seen camel tracks other side of the Splinter . . . jus’ before the rain. Could be, old Patsy worked them saltpans out there.”

“All right, Ringer. You get going, and don’t forget to look-see at Mason’s Hole.”

“Those traps hardly worth going after, even if you knew where to look,” remarked the younger Weatherby while rolling a cigarette. Casually Bony turned to him, his face empty of expression as they expected. This younger Weatherby seemed to be stronger in character than the other, and about him was an aura hinting at a far different background. Although dressed for riding and with that horsey appearance common to all cattlemen, he lacked the ease of movement.

“Better find ’em all the same,” persisted William Black. “The lawyer said I had to bring in everything belonging to my uncle.”

“Not worth the trouble and time,” stressed the younger man. “Still, if you want it that way . . .” Sliding off the rails, he walked away to the house, his body upright, his legs straight. The elder Weatherby said:

“Old Patsy pottered about this country for years. Where he set his traps no one bothered to ask. If you must go looking for traps, Black, just to satisfy a lawyer, then you’d better make for the Splinter and pick up the camel tracks from there—if you can, because it rained seventy points since Tommy was out there.”

“Where’s this Splinter, Mr. Weatherby?”

“You take the Rawlinna track out by the blacks’ camp for about three miles. At the three-mile there’s a branch track out to a bore, six miles on. There’s no track beyond the bore, but keep on for another twelve miles when you’ll come to an upthrust of rock we call the Splinter. No water except in shallow rock-holes. You’ll have to take what you can and go easy on what you take. Claypan water is too salt for men, but the camels can exist on it.” Weatherby slid to the ground. “Anyway, complete that inventory and we’ll fix it before you leave. You take my tip and forget the traps.”

Bony remained on the rails like a man confronted by a problem. Lucy came and slipped under the bottom rail and pranced daintily about the camels in the yard, passing between their large flat pads with the familiarity of established comradeship.

The request for the inventory of Lonergan’s property was reasonable. There wasn’t much to it, and it was not intended to include the contents of a small and battered suitcase found under the bunk.

The willingness to have the camels yarded was also reasonable, as was the recitation of the difficulties surrounding the location of the dead man’s traps. The attitude to him, William Black, of the Weatherbys was normal. The entire atmosphere of this homestead was normal, too.

There was, however, one oddity. The previous day the head stockman said that the wild dogs were working north of the homestead. This morning the head stockman had supported Weatherby’s contention that the dogs were working over the salt-pan country to the west.

Returning to the old trapper’s hut, Bony completed the inventory and checked the tinned foodstuffs and other items Lonergan had left within the saddle-bags and the tucker-box. Then, taking the stout calico ration bags, he crossed to the rear of the house to purchase what he needed.

An aborigine maid told him to go to the store where Mrs. Weatherby would serve him, and he had waited minutes when the younger woman appeared and led him inside. The questing eyes gazed upon him without interest, and her expression gave him the feeling that she never really smiled.

“Now what is it you want?” she asked sharply, and so began the business of buying flour, sugar, tea, tinned meats and jam, salt and sauces, tobacco in plugs and cigarette papers and matches.

“P’raps Mr. Weatherby would set the bill against what’s owed to my uncle,” suggested William Black, and the woman nodded agreement and pushed forward the docket for him to sign. “I’ve fixed up the list, too.”

“Then I’ll make it out in duplicate. Wait.”

She typed with professional speed whilst Bony leaned against a stack of cases and wondered if he had actually seen her before coming to Mount Singular. Her husband, the younger Weatherby, intruded into his mind and rang a tiny bell which produced no answer to its demand. The machine spilled the papers and the carbon, and Mrs. Weatherby dipped a pen into ink and proffered it, saying:

“You write very well, Black.”

That was a slip, a small slip, in the building of the character of an itinerant half-caste, a faint flaw in otherwise perfect work, and he experienced annoyance added to that occasioned by the failure of the bell.

“Liked writing at school,” he said. “Not much good at anything else.” He signed both typed sheets, and regained his hand-written list. “Mr. Weatherby’ll sign, too,” he said. “The lawyer . . .”

“Don’t bother with them, Black.” Her large eyes were mere pools of brown and expressed nothing, and Bony wondered at the utter lack of entity. “I’ll have Mr. Weatherby sign right now, and you can take a copy before you leave. All lawyers are fussy persons, and you needn’t take much notice of what they say.”

He managed a shame-faced smile at his own stubbornness, thanked her in a casual manner and carried the rations back to the hut, where he proceeded to set out the gear ready for packing on the camels. Lucy ran to meet him on his arrival at the yards.

The noseline, a light line to which a loop of twine was attached, was expertly tossed over Millie’s head which was drawn down to slip the twine loop about her nose-plug. She wanted then to chew Bony’s right ear, but there was no viciousness. The free end of the noseline was dropped to the ground while Curley was being attended to, and, to Bony’s amusement, the dog daintily took hold of the line and led Millie to the yard gate.

Curley had to be dealt with differently. He held his great head high, and his eyes flashed with sudden rebellion as Bony approached him. As a youngster he had been cruelly treated, when the plug through the nostril had been torn out in his effort to avoid blows to his head. Like the cat, the camel can never be wholly conquered, and like the elephant, its memory is everlasting.

Bony managed to grip the end of the short rope dangling from the halter, and he pulled on this to bring the beast’s head low enough to couple the halter line. The dog, leaving Millie at the gate, came and barked at Bony, and he dropped the line, which Lucy gripped by her teeth and, docilely, Curley followed her to join Millie.

She couldn’t lead both camels at the same time, and so Bony took them to the hut where he ‘hooshed’ Millie to her knees beside the riding saddle she was to carry. She didn’t go down with any sign of happiness. In fact, she was playing a game and any intelligent student of camel psychology could follow it.

Now and then she pretended to make the attempt to rise. The saddle was lifted over her hump, and she pretended that it hurt. She moaned protests as the saddle was being strapped under her chest and down under her snakelike neck. One would think she was being subjected to gross indignity, and the act was put on solely for Curley’s benefit. Curley was the bad boy who had to be roused so that when his turn came he would be in a tantrum and perform to anger this biped who was putting her to work. Horses cannot think like that. Beside the camel, the horse is brainless.

As planned, Curley was ready for the fray when his turn came. He pranced and bellowed when the halter line was hauled down and he was ordered to ‘hoosh’. He fell on one knee, and up again, to kneel on the other. He roared and danced; and Millie looked on, and her eyes plainly said to Bony: ‘How are you liking that?’

Bony unhurriedly took up a loading rope and tossed one end behind Curley’s legs, and Curley knew that to rebel any longer would mean being tied down. So, without being ordered, he fell to his knees, grunted, and settled himself beside his pack-saddle. The game was over, and Millie sneered her contempt. A lion! Baa! Just another lamb.

The pack load must be accurately balanced. To each side of the straw-stuffed pack were hooked the saddle-bags and water-drums. On top were piled the spare rations, the swag, and the tent, the load then being roped. Through the rope was thrust the axe, and, to counter-balance the weight, the dozen iron tent pegs and telescopic pole. The riding saddle of iron was furnished with a bag cushion to sit behind the hump, and in the fore-part was strapped the tucker-box carrying food and eating utensils in current use. Another bag containing a fry-pan and billy-cans was fastened to this saddle and balanced by the rifle slung from the opposite side.

All this took a little time. The gear was in fairly good condition, but the rifle was a jewel, and had been the pride of old Lonergan’s heart. A Savage, point 25, a high-powered weapon, it was kept and carried in a soft leather case.

“Seems that you know how to work these brutes,” remarked the elder Weatherby, who had approached from Bony’s rear. “Here’s your signed copy of the inventory. Still determined to look for the old feller’s traps?”

Nodding, Bony gazed at his feet, then glanced up and past the big man’s eyes.

“Have to give it a burl, Mr. Weatherby. Make a try just to say I did. I take the track out past the blacks’ camp for three miles, then leave the track and follow one going on due west to hit the bore. That right?”

“That’s right. And twelve miles on from the bore to hit the Splinter. There’s no permanent water beyond the bore.”

“I’ll give it a burl, anyhow.”

“If you must.”

Careful to the last, Bony kicked at the dust, gazed about the homestead as though sad at leaving it, essayed a shy smile, and said:

“Reckon I’ll give a day out from the bore lookin’ for them traps, and then I’ll make south down to Rawlinna.”

“Good idea. Waste of time looking for them, Black.”

Bony urged the camels to their feet. He tied the end of Curley’s halter line to the riding-saddle, took up Millie’s noseline and proceeded to lead the string of two away from the homestead, out by the motor shed, past the men’s quarters, which appeared wholly unoccupied, and then skirted the aborigines’ camp, comprising bag humpies, lean-tos and smoking camp-fires about which squatted men, women and children, silent, watchful and interested in the departing strange man from the Diamantina.

Ten minutes later Bony was still walking, the noseline hung from the crook of an arm. Millie was resignedly chewing cud. Curley continued to moan. Lucy ran on ahead, constantly looking back.

And so began the search for Lonergan’s last trap-line, that camp he named Big Claypan, from which he had seen the unknown helicopter, the search for a dust mote in a vacuum.