Читать книгу The Bone is Pointed - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 11

Beside a Little Fire

It had not rained over Meena since that night of Mary Gordon’s suspense, and the pastoral prospects were very dark for vast areas of inland Australia. Hope, engendered by the April rain, slowly evaporated as the spring sunshine evaporated the moisture that had given a short impetus to plant life.

Riding northward in the late afternoon of the day that Napoleon Bonaparte arrived at Karwir, John Gordon was feeling depressed, a condition of mind caused not by the imminence of a worrying summer so much as by the seemingly inevitable see-saw of life. At the beginning of the winter Meena Station had stood financially upon a sound foundation, but now at the beginning of the summer the foundation would have to be strengthened by the materials of economy and greater care for the stock.

There was still an abundance of feed in the paddocks, but there was little prospect of this being replenished before the hot winds of summer wiped it off the face of the burning earth. Fortunately, thanks to the forethought of the second John Gordon who had put down many bores and wells, there was no water shortage on Meena even when the lake occasionally became dry.

John Gordon the Third had spent all day in the Meena South Paddock, riding over the plain-stubble of ripened tussock grass, through the mulga-belts, and across the wide, barren depressions named the Channels. Often he had ridden by small communities of rabbits, isolated and with no young ones to prove that this was a normal summer.

He approached Meena Lake from the south-west, his horse carrying him over a grassy plain and up an imperceptible gradient. The top of the gradient was reached without warning, and quite abruptly John Gordon came to look down and over the great bed of the lake. Save at three points, the lake was surrounded by sand-dunes backed by box-trees. One point was where the Meena Creek fed the lake with water from the distant hills to the north-west; another was the high plateau to the east whereon stood the red-roofed and white-walled buildings comprising the homestead; the third was the outlet creek which carried the overflow for two miles to spread it into the various channels.

Although the water was gone, the blue jewel itself, the brilliant setting still remained. Outward from the lake’s bed, roughly circular and some two miles across, lay a wide ribbon of pure white claypan, edged by the reddish sand-dunes that in turn were bordered by the green of the trees. Ah, what a place when the jewel itself was there!

And now when Gordon rode down the slope to the trees he came upon not isolated rabbit communities but the camp of a mighty host that entirely encircled the lake that was swiftly devastating the land that had given it birth.

Evening was come and life that drowsed all the warm day was bestirring itself to fill a gigantic stomach. Along the ground slope outside the tree-belt rabbits sat cleaning themselves like cats, or gambolled about like kittens, before the entrances to countless burrows. Within the tree-belt itself untold numbers were eating the windfalls of the day—the leaves—and were nibbling at the bark of the surface roots. Gordon saw several of them high in the trees beneath which he passed; they had climbed a sloping trunk to get at the tender bark of young branches.

Eagles, the great golden kings and the wedge-tails, planed low over the land or sailed with never a wing-flap high against the burnished sky. The crows were following the eagles, or cawing among the trees, or strutting over the earth like moving blots of ink. It was too early for the foxes, but they were there waiting to take their nightly toll of the rodents.

The horse, now eager to be home, carried Gordon through the tree-belt and across the sand-dunes that now were wearing a garment of fur. Then onward down to the claypan belt where the going was easy. Here the man pressed his right knee hard against the horse’s side and the intelligent beast turned sharply to follow the white ribbon that would take them round to the homestead.

Still a little of the herbal rubbish remained in the very centre of the lake, and the vanguard of the rabbit army was already on the move to feed upon it. Both before and behind John Gordon they were leaving the dunes to run across the bare grey rubble between claypan and herbage. Now and then an eagle would swoop, fly low above the ground, scatter rabbits right and left, and land at the instant its iron talons sank into the body of a screaming victim.

For three years now had the rodents taken command of Meena Lake, breeding steadily and without halt until late the preceding summer when the water had vanished and there had been no green feed left on the surrounding uplands. The April rain had given the host another lease of reproductive life, and throughout the gentle winter endless relays of young rabbits had appeared, to grow to maturity in nine weeks, when the does began to vie with their mothers. Then, in early September, an unknown intelligence, foreseeing the drought, commanded the breeding to cease that the host might be strong to wage the battle with advancing Death.

Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt—or indifference—and Gordon failed to appreciate the glowing colours of the red and white homestead buildings set upon a red base and backed by a blue-green canopy. The horse carried him upward among the dunes to reach the edge of the plateau and thus to pass the main building and halt outside the harness shed.

The man patted the animal before removing the bridle and allowing it to walk, shaking its hide, to drink at the trough. Two barking dogs claimed his attention. He freed them from their chains, and they raced madly about him as he walked across to the men’s quarters.

All this belonged to him, and the three hundred thousand acres of excellent country surrounding it. In comparison with Karwir, and other great stations, Meena was almost a selection, but it provided the Gordons with a living as the lake had provided the Kalchut tribe with sustenance for countless years. Upon his shoulders rested responsibility inherited from the first and the second Gordons; for, besides his mother, there were the blacks under Nero who looked upon him as someone infinitely more powerful than their own chief. He could hear the cries of their children from along the lake’s shore, and as he drew near the men’s quarters he heard, too, the strains of an accordion being played with no little skill. John Gordon, unlike Eric Lacy, was years older than his age.

Entering the men’s quarters he was met by a smiling Jimmy Partner who, softening his music, said:

“Hullo, Johnny Boss! You lookin’ for a wrestle?”

“Wrestle, my foot!” Gordon exclaimed somewhat impatiently. “Wrestling is all you think about. If I could only beat you now and then we’d hear less of it.” Then, as though to atone for the impatience, he laughed, saying: “Why, you big boob, if you couldn’t wrestle so well I could box you for the count any day.”

White teeth flashed.

“Too right you could, Johnny Boss. Good job I can wrestle, else you’d be walkin’ round with your head and your feet about a yard behind your tummy.”

Jimmy Partner laughed at his own witticism, a deep-throated, musical laugh, and now he set the accordion upon the heat-blistered mantelshelf and stood up to fall into the true wrestler’s pose. Home before his tribal brother, he had already washed all over and was now wearing clean moleskin trousers and a white tennis shirt. His hair was brushed and parted down the centre, and his dark-brown face was shining. Not excessively big but beautifully proportioned and in the prime of his life, he began to advance on John Gordon, moving on the balls of his feet and with his arms held out invitingly.

Gordon backed swiftly out of the doorway and seized the wash-basin on the case standing near the door. It was still nearly full with Jimmy Partner’s recent suds.

“Come on!” cried Gordon. “It’s here waiting for you, my Salvoldi.”

Jimmy Partner did not emerge. From within he laughed again and shouted:

“No, no, Johnny Boss! I’ve just put on a clean shirt. It’s the only clean one I’ve got, and the other’s drying.”

“Very well, then. No nonsense, or you’ll get it,” Gordon told him laughingly, and, carrying the basin, he entered to see Jimmy Partner again seated and fondling his instrument. Setting the basin down on the table within easy reach, he sat himself beside it. The lighter mood subsided, and he became serious.

“How were the traps?” he asked.

“I seen ’em all,” Jimmy answered. “Two were sprung. There was a dingo in that one we set over near Black Gate.”

“Good! Purebred?”

“Not quite. Things is getting dry, Johnny Boss.”

“Yes, they are, and it looks as though they’ll be pretty bad everywhere before the summer has gone. By that time you and the blacks will be richer than me.”

“No fear,” instantly argued Jimmy Partner. “You want cash, you take it outer my bank. You can take the tribe’s money, too, when you want it. What’s money, anyhow?”

“Ha-um! It won’t come to that, Jimmy. Do you know how much you’ve got in the bank?”

“’Bout a hundred.”

“A hundred and eighty-two pounds ten shillings.”

“You can have it, Johnny Boss. All I want is another shirt.”

“But mum got you shirts only last week. Where are they?”

“Nero wanted a couple.”

Gordon frowned, saying:

“You keep your own, Jimmy. The tribe’s account is more than enough to keep them all going. Why, when I bank the dog-scalp money there will be close on seven hundred pounds behind them. What with the rabbit skins and fox skins got last month, the Kalchut will weather any drought.”

“It weathered droughts before Grandfer Gordon came, and it didn’t have no money and no bank then.”

“Rot! Times are not what they were, Jimmy.”

For seven years, since he had reached his twentieth year, Jimmy Partner had drawn station hand’s wages from Meena. It had been no easy task to make him save a little of the money earned, but once the pounds and the shillings were in the bank there was no getting it out, since it was controlled jointly by Mrs Gordon and her son.

They controlled, too, an account for the Kalchut tribe, paying into it all money earned by the tribe by the sale of rabbit and fox skins, drawing from it money to buy the meagre clothes necessary for winter wear. The Kalchuts were no mendicants, and never had been, and during these last few years they had reaped a harvest of fur around Meena Lake. The supply to them of the white man’s rations had always been kept down to a minimum and the accounts accurately kept.

“Anyhow, you seen Nero?” inquired Jimmy Partner.

“No, why?”

“He come along half-hour ago to say that big feller blackfeller p’liceman come to Opal Town.”

Gordon’s easy attitude at once became stiff, and into the hazel eyes flashed unease.

“What for? Did Nero say?”

“No,” answered Jimmy Partner indifferently.

“What else did Nero say?”

“Nothin’. Only to tell you when you came home. Wandin sent him the mulga wire, I suppose.”

“Is that so? Well, I don’t quite understand it, and dinner must be ready. See you later.”

Gordon was walking towards the gate in the wicket fence surrounding the house when his mother beat a triangle with an iron bar, announcing that dinner was ready. Seeing her son coming, Mary stood at the edge of the veranda, her tall, spare figure encased in blue striped linen that had the effect of reducing her age and the number of lines about her smiling eyes.

“There’s a cheque come from the skin agents for seventy-two pounds odd for the rabbit skins the blacks consigned last month,” she said brightly.

“They may want it if this dry spell keeps up,” John said, smiling at her. “Anything else?”

“Only receipts and a letter from the windmill people. How did you find South Paddock?”

“Still in good nick, but the cattle are falling off a little.”

She turned away to the living-room-kitchen and he to the bathroom detached from the main building. Fifteen minutes later this household sat down to dinner as it had done for years: John occupying his father’s place at the head of the table, his mother at his right, Jimmy Partner at the other table end. They spoke of the skin cheque, the rabbits, the season and the stock, the cricket and the chaos of Europe and Asia.

The John and Mary Gordons are not rare in the inland, but the presence of an aboriginal at their table is so. Jimmy Partner was a splendid product of “beginning on them young.” He was a living example, showing to what degree of civilization an Australian aboriginal can reach if given the opportunity. He sat before this table upright and mentally alert. He ate with no less politeness than did the woman who had reared him that he might be a companion to her own child when it was evident he would have no brother. He spoke better than many a white hand, and his voice was entirely free of the harsh accent to be heard in the voices of many university professors, and other literate Australians. He could and did discuss well the topics found in the weekly journals that he read. His personal habits were above reproach. He was the crown of achievement set upon the heads of Mary Gordon and her dead husband.

At the close of the meal John Gordon reached for tobacco and papers and matches, but Jimmy Partner began his customary after-dinner service of washing the dishes whilst the “missus” attended to her bread batter. John crossed to the hen house to lock the fowls safely in from the foxes, and then in the dusk of advancing evening he passed through the gate in the wire fence and so trod the winding path taken by his mother that night of rain in April.

At the camp the tired children were playing as far distant from the communal fires as fear of the dreaded Mindye, that bush spirit ever on the watch to take blackfellows who wandered at night, would permit. The lubras were gossiping in a group near one of the bag and iron humpies and the men were talking gravely whilst crouched about another fire. All the children ran to “Johnny Boss” to escort him into the camp, a toddler clinging to each hand. The lubras ceased their chatter and, unabashed, smiled at him. The men saluted him with:

“Good night, Johnny Boss!”

Observing Nero squatted over a little fire a hundred odd yards distant from the camp, Gordon replied to their salutations, patted the toddlers on their black heads, and walked on to join the chief, his pace unhurried, his face lit by the lamp of prideful affection for all these sixty odd members of the Kalchut tribe.

Old Nero squatting on his naked heels before his little fire was not unlike an ant standing at bay before an enemy, when its body is upright and almost touching the ground. His little fire was being fed with four sticks that now and then were pushed farther into the glowing mound of red embers. John squatted likewise on his heels opposite the chief, so that the little fire was between them and the tiny flames made dark-blue the spiral of smoke rising like a fluted column between their heads.

“Good night, Johnny Boss,” Nero said softly, his black eyes regarding the white man casually but benignly.

When he spoke Gordon used a different language from that in which he conversed with his mother and Jimmy Partner. Nero, like others of the tribe, had been saved from becoming de-tribalized.

“Jimmy Partner he say you tellum big feller black p’liceman come to Opal Town,” he said, interrogatively.