Death of a Lake. Arthur W. Upfield
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the sea-gulls that came winging in to land with the hens who were waiting to be fed.
“Long way from the sea for the gulls,” Bony observed.
“Five hundred miles from the nearest salt water at Port Augusta. It could be they’ve never seen the sea.”
“Yes, that’s likely. Get the Swede to come in for cards. Safety in numbers, you know.”
Bony pondered about Witlow, and decided he would ask this stockman a few questions.
Chapter Six
Fish and Fowl
At the close of the first week Bony had his first horse far enough in training to he ridden outside the yard and sensible enough to be trusted to permit its rider to concentrate on matters having nothing to do with a sparkling young filly.
Thus he gained freedom to examine Lake Otway, allegedly the scene of the death of Raymond Gillen. One morning he rode round the Lake, saw where the flood water had flowed into it at the northern end and where it had spilled over a sandbar into a creek at the southern end. He noted with interest the large area opposite the out-station taken over by pelicans for their hatchery and nursery, and where the swans had selected sites for their nests. Rabbits were everywhere in plague proportions, for the surrounding dunes and the slopes of the uplands outside the dunes were honeycombed with burrows. Often a “swarm” of rabbits would dash ahead of him, and when he shouted they would burrow and he could see the sterns of animals at every hole, unable to get in for the crush. Everywhere, too, claiming every major shadow were kangaroos, and away up the slopes back of the dunes were black dots of countless emus.
A paradise for fur trappers. A mighty harvest ready for the reaping, and soon to be calcined by the sun.
Barby arrived one morning driving his utility loaded with camp gear and trapping equipment, his three dogs, two cats and the tame galah. The Boss had found another cook to relieve him, but had been unable to spare Red Draffin, and Barby had gone along the track to Johnson’s Well and farther round the Lake to begin operations.
The afternoon of that day found Bony interested in Ray Gillen’s motor-cycle. He had gone to the large machinery shed which housed the station trucks, machine parts and materials, in order to repair a girth buckle. The motor-cycle was completely covered by a tarpaulin, and the dust on the tarpaulin supported statements that the machine hadn’t been used or moved after Gillen vanished.
Bony lifted the hem of the covering. It was obviously a powerful machine, and had been maintained in good order. Bony felt the tyres, and they were firm. About the cap of the petrol tank was a wide ring of dust darker than the rest, and Bony smelled petrol. He removed the cap, and found the tank was full to capacity. The tank had been filled some time during the past two weeks, and Bony was confident it must have been done during the week before he arrived at Lake Otway.
He was sure that whoever had filled the tank and perhaps pumped air into the tyres had, like himself, not wholly removed the tarpaulin. When he dropped the hem of the covering, the dust remained heavy on the level surface. All evidence indicated that the machine had not been moved since its owner vanished fifteen months ago, and yet someone had prepared it for a journey.
Came the evening when he decided to take Witlow partially into his confidence, and it happened that the wiry little stockman himself provided the opportunity. Dinner was over and the Swede had started a game of banker in the sitting-room of the quarters, and Bony joined Witlow, who was darning a pair of socks on the veranda. Witlow lost interest in the socks and stood to wipe perspiration from his face.
“What about taking a swim in the Lake?”
“In two feet of water?” objected Bony.
“Two feet six inches,” corrected Witlow. “Do a bit of wading. Splash about a bit. Cooler, anyway. Rux up the birds, too. Something to do.”
“Yes, all right,” Bony assented. “As you say, it will be something to do.”
Witlow changed into a pair of shorts and Bony put on a pair of drill trousers needing to be washed, and in bare feet they descended the bluff steps to the “shore” of the Lake and stepped into the water.
It was distinctly warm, and the bottom was hard beneath an inch of sludge. They had to proceed fifty-odd yards before the water reached their knees, and another fifty yards before it rose to their hips. The water was loaded with algae, faintly green in colour, and it was impossible to see far below the surface.
Witlow gave his humorous chuckle and splashed Bony, and Detective-Inspector Bonaparte shed thirty years. Gasping, yelling like small boys, they showered each other, and the nearer birds indignantly skidded away.
They continued wading towards the centre of the Lake, the depth not increasing. Before them the water was almost constantly disturbed by fish, the surface being ribbed, being sliced by dorsal fins, often for a moment broken by the broad back of a large codfish.
Like flotsam pushed aside by the bow of a ship, the ducks and moorhens swam to either side of the two men, and closed in again behind them. The great fleets of pelicans appeared to be motionless and yet kept their distance, and so with the swans and the cormorants. Some fifty-odd gulls accompanied the men as though expecting to be fed with crusts.
The water came no higher, and its temperature remained cloyingly warm. The air above it was hot to the skin, and the westering sun was the blinding centre of a vast flame. When Bony looked back and estimated they had waded a mile from shore, the distant homestead was aureoled in conformity with the crimson face of the bluff.
“A fortnight of this weather will finish the Lake for another twenty years,” predicted Witlow, and knelt on the bottom so that his head looked like the head on Salome’s platter. “A hundred and four again today in the pepper-tree shade. It’ll go twenty degrees higher before this summer busts.”
Bony knelt and managed to sit back on his heels, when the water tickled his chin. He could not forbear smiling at Witlow, who said:
“We shoulda brought a couple of chairs out here. Funny, ain’t it, being so far from land. Crook if the tide came in quick like it does up Broome way. Hey, stop your tickling, Jock. Oh, you will, will you? All right, brother.”
He appeared to lunge forward, his face going under. He came up, crouching, and lifted from Lake Otway a codfish weighing in the vicinity of twelve pounds, the fingers of one hand up under the gills. Then he lowered the fish into the water, played with it for a moment, and let it go.
“D’you know what, Bony, that feller just came and leaned against me. I put me hand on him, and he still leaned. Just like a lovin’ cat.”
“There’s one leaning against me right now,” Bony said. “I’ll try to grab him.”
He failed, and then, being abruptly serious, he said:
“Don’t much like the idea of groping after fish. Might catch hold of Gillen’s skeleton.”
“Yair, could do,” Witlow agreed, also sobered by the thought. “He must be around somewhere, all the meat eaten off him by the yabbies.”
“Were you here when it happened?”
“No.”
“Good swimmer, too, wasn’t he?” Bony nonchalantly asked.
“So they say,” answered Witlow. “Still, fresh water ain’t like the sea, and although it was a clear night the wind had been blowing all day and the currents out here musta been still running. Some say that after a windy day the currents run round and round like a whirlpool, and having swum out about this far Gillen woulda been in the centre and couldn’ swim out again to the land. Anyway, he must be around somewhere. Crook if you or me happened to kick him up.”
Bony stood, feeling a chill down his back which had nothing to do with the prevailing temperature. He recalled a man much older than Witlow who had kicked up a corpse in a lake surrounding a place known as Venom House, and it was not an experience he wished to share. Witlow chuckled.