The Will of the Tribe. Arthur W. Upfield
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sat again and worked on another cigarette. He said, “Bring the history of this place up to date, continuing as from the discovery of the body down there. I’ve read the Case Summary but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“The body was seen by members of the Mineral Survey party on 27 April. Early this day the manager of Deep Creek and his stockmen left on a muster down south. At the homestead normal routine work went on: lubras doing the household wash, an Aborigine called Captain breaking in a horse, the manager’s wife doing her usual chores, and their two little girls being given their lessons by an educated Aboriginal lass called Tessa.
“The plane party dropped a note shortly after ten that morning. The note said, ‘Believe there is a man hurt or dead in the Crater. Think you should investigate.’ The homestead cook, a white man named Jim Scolloti, and the Abo called Captain came here in the cook’s old utility.” Howard pointed out the clearly defined track winding from the Crater towards the distant homestead. “That track was first made by the cook’s utility, and then used by the traffic during the subsequent investigation.
“Now, when the two of them got back to the homestead, Mrs Brentner, the manager’s wife, tried to work the transceiver. Neither she nor the cook knew much about it, and they couldn’t get it to work. So Scolloti drove the twenty-seven miles to Beaudesert, where they raised Base, and Base contacted me. I left at once, arriving at the homestead pretty late as the track . . . but you know the track we came over today.
“When I got to Beaudesert with my two trackers, Mrs Leroy said her husband had the Deep Creek transceiver working, and had told her that all the blacks had cleared out on walkabout after hearing about the body down there. Even the breaker, Captain, and the young lubra called Tessa, cleared out too. But they had come back when I got to Deep Creek.
“It was then close to dark, and I wasn’t going to muck up tracks about this place by wandering around in the night. Soon after break of day, with Leroy and the trackers, I came here and we all went down to the body. The tracks made by the cook and the Abo horse-breaker were clear enough, but even my trackers couldn’t locate the tracks of any other person, not even the tracks of the dead man. If the dead man walked to where his body was found he must have left his tracks. If he was carried there, the man or men who carried him must have left tracks. But, as I said, the only tracks down there were those made by the cook and the Abo. I had the trackers skirt the entire outside of the wall and they couldn’t pick up tracks. And both of them are good, too.”
Constable Howard interrupted his narrative to light a cigarette, and proceeded, “My junior got here with Dr Reedy in the afternoon. Doc Reedy examined the body. It was badly mauled by the birds, but he’s stuck to his opinion, made at the time, that the feller had been dead three days at shortest, and six at longest. Due to the complete absence of humidity, parts of the body not attacked by the birds told Doc the man had once had smallpox and, as one hand had been protected, we managed to obtain a clear set of prints. Also we took the set of dentures. Age of man about forty-five. Height five feet eleven. Boot size eight. Hat size seven and three-quarters. Weight about twelve stone. Clothes similar to those worn by the average bushman.
“The Inspector and the Derby doctor arrived the next day, and the two doctors agreed on Doc Reedy’s first opinion. There wasn’t anything more to do with the body save take it to Hall’s Creek and have it buried. The Coroner found that the man had been murdered by a blunt instrument, applied to the back of the skull with considerable force.”
“Let’s go down to the place marked X,” decided Bonaparte.
As they descended, as the wall of the rim heightened above them, the immensity of this crater became more and more impressive and, when they stood on the sandy loam of the floor, it was easy to visualize how the rising tiers of an arena must have appeared to the anguished eyes of the victims of the Roman Games. The sun gilded the vast rampart of rocks. The slight wind outside didn’t penetrate. The temperature was at least ten degrees higher than outside and, on a summer day, might well be fifty degrees hotter. Howard led the way to the spot still marked by four wood pegs.
“It was lying on its back,” he said, “one arm out from the shoulder, the other doubled under the buttocks. The legs were straight but raised slightly at the knees. The doctors thought it possible that rigor mortis had already set in when the body was dumped. They were positive it was dumped, in other words, carried here.”
“And no tracks, inside or outside the Crater, you said.”
“Not a skerrick of a track.”
“The Aborigines are past masters at erasing tracks and very good indeed at avoiding leaving tracks,” Bonaparte said unnecessarily, while standing at the edge of the soak-hole partially masked by several desert scrub trees. It was fifteen feet across, and about eight feet deep, and there were the bones of more than one kangaroo that had been bogged in the mud. Now it was hard.
“The body was first seen on 27 April,” Bony remarked. “It is now 7 August. That’s roughly fourteen weeks. The tracks down here are well preserved by the encircling wall. When was the search for evidence abandoned?”
“On the 18th of May,” replied Howard, “there was a sort of grand final. Brentner and his men returned with cattle on 12 May, and they joined with the trackers and Captain and the Deep Creek blacks who came from walkabout a couple of days before. We almost tore the ruddy wall down that day.”
They climbed the wall, often having to use their hands, so steep is it, and again relaxed on the summit.
“Did your trackers say what they thought of the affair?” asked Bonaparte.
“No. I got the idea that they were uneasy about it all. But then the blacks are always uneasy over anything they don’t understand.”
“What’s your opinion, a black or a white killing?”
“I couldn’t vote for one or the other. I’ll vote for the blacks being concerned somewhere along the line. There’s two sections of Aborigines. The wild blokes down south, and the semi-civilized fellers like these at Deep Creek and at Beaudesert. I’m not a Kimberleys man like the Sergeant at Wyndham. He reckons it was wild blacks who did the killing, and that the tame blacks would just go dumb about it.”
“And they can be dumb, too, Howard. We may leave it that way, and get along to Deep Creek. The Brentners are said to be sociable people. I may have to test it for a month or more. What’s Brentner’s history?”
“Came up the rough way. According to the Wyndham Sergeant, Brentner started as a stockman, then became a drover, and then owned his own drovers’ outfit. Had all the north of Australia to play around in. He never concerned us, and always seemed to co-operate. He was mixed up in a civil action now and then over cattle: his employers and other owners, that sort of thing. Then he got the job managing Deep Creek, and he went down to Perth and married a big business man’s secretary. They chortled when he brought her up here, but they don’t chortle now. Marriage fixed Kurt Brentner. It fixes most of us, I’d say.”
“It does have a calming influence,” Bonaparte said, laughing. “I believe I shall have a pleasant time here, almost a holiday. A little anthropological work to maintain interest in spare moments. In the report to your Inspector tell him that. Inspectors love to be told something or other. It calms them, don’t you think?”
“Take an axe to calm my Inspector.” Then Howard remembered and added, “Sorry, I forgot you’re a bit above a constable, sir.”
“Well, keep on forgetting it, and the sir. Any questions?”
“I’d like to ask one. I’ve had the feeling that the murder of this unknown man was a little outside the ordinary. Now, after all these weeks, you are assigned to it. Is he important?”
“To a few people he is most important. I stress the present tense. It’s why I’m here.”
Chapter Two
The Brentners
The homestead was built on a slight rise southward of Deep Creek by some five hundred