Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

have spoken. To none have I told this but he, too, questioned the magic of the medicine men.’

‘And you?’ Wendourie asked. ‘How much do you believe?’

‘Some things I believe,’ the older man said simply, ‘but often, like you, I am bewildered. If at times there is deception, it does not follow there is never truth.’ He hesitated briefly and went on softly, ‘If I had this leaf for my very own, I might accomplish much. Will you give it to me?’

‘Is it not in your hands? I cannot take it from you?’

‘Nevertheless, I ask for it.’

‘You have been kind. It is yours.’

Ooloo smiled. ‘With this magic I shall save your life.’

Abruptly he left.

***

In the morning, early, Urgali the medicine man was found dead of a blow and lying beneath the tallest gum. His tracks made it clear that he had been going toward the tree and had almost reached the trunk when he had been struck down by the nulla-nulla found lying beside his body. The headman had been barely awakened with the news than there came a wailing from the hut of the kinsman of Kuduna. The man’s wife told how, in the dread hour against which they had been warned, her husband had heard a strange voice softly calling his name. She had begged him to ignore it but, vastly curious, he had put his head outside. No more than his head, she was sure, but she saw his whole body shoot into the dark without and he had not returned. She had waited, trembling, till dawn and found him but a few yards from the hut, lying beneath a small tree, his head mangled. A bloodstained nulla- nulla lay beside him.

When the old men had been summoned, Unyama said, ‘Urgali is dead. The uncle of Kuduna is dead. It is for us to discover who has done this violence.’

‘Who but Wendourie?’ a greyhead asked and there was a chorus of approval. ‘Let him die at once.’

Unyama shook his head. ‘Are we of lesser wisdom that the Narranyeri? Shall we not ask ourselves what reason Wendourie had for killing these men?’

An old man rose and said mildly, ‘To me it is quite evident. Today Urgali was to have produced the young girl he coveted.’

Unyama frowned. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Let Wendourie be brought.’

Ooloo, standing beside him in the open space, suggested, ‘Let also the six young men who guarded him through the night be brought.’

The headman gave the order. ‘Let us be grateful for the wisdom of our welcome guest,’ he said to the greyheads. ‘Since he is a stranger and impartial, I propose to let him question Wendourie.’

The prisoner was brought, three guards on either side of him, and Ooloo asked, ‘How did you spend the night, young man?’

Wendourie looked surprised. ‘Why, how but in sleep?’

‘And where?’

‘Since I am a prisoner, all know that.’

Ooloo beckoned a young buck. ‘Does he speak true? Did he once leave the hut?’

The man explained how guard had been kept. Always while three slept, three stayed awake.

‘He is undisputed evidence, trebly confirmed,’ Ooloo said. ‘Wendourie never left the hut and thus could not have killed Urgali nor the kinsman of Kuduna.’

‘Who then is the slayer?’ Unyama asked.

Ooloo asked, ‘Who would be abroad in the hour before the dawn?’

‘No one,’ Unyama said promptly. ‘Were we not warned by Urgali of the dread hour?’

‘Then,’ Ooloo said, ‘since Wendourie slept and it is agreed that none other would venture out at the hour these men died, it is evident that the spirits are angry.’ Deferring to Unyama he asked that the nulla-nullas with which the two men were killed should be brought.

When the blood-stained weapons were set before him, he lifted one and held it by the ends, twirling it about, examining it closely while Unyama watched, fascinated. ‘It is as I thought,’ he said at last. ‘See, Unyama.’ He nodded his head and the headman saw. In the centre of a blood splotch, adhering to the nulla-nulla by a bit of gum, was a piece of the strange leaf found by Wendourie. Ooloo took up the other nulla-nulla and there, also, was a piece of the leaf in the very midst of the horrid stains.

But Unyama had seen something else. ‘These are my nulla-nullas,’ he gasped.

‘It is very simple,’ Ooloo said, confidently. ‘The ghosts did not wait for Urgali but in their anger came for him.’ He looked at Unyama. ‘Since they used your nulla-nullas, it is evident that they were in our hut, invisibly, as we slept. Indeed, this much I know, for with the first streak of dawn I wakened and took from my belt the magic thing Wendourie had found clinging to the bush, and, behold, it was smaller.’ He fumbled for a moment and produced the strange leaf, holding it out to Unyama who took it with some trepidation. ‘Observe,’ he said, ‘that the two scraps on the nulla-nullas might be fitted perfectly into the larger.’

Unyama said in awe, ‘What does it mean?’

‘It means,’ Ooloo told him, ‘so long as any of this magic leaf remains, death will visit the tribe.’ He frowned at the thing lying on Unyama’s reluctant palm and went on, judicially, ‘I estimate there is enough left to make fifty bloodied nulla-nullas.’

Unyama shuddered and hastily placed the thing he held on a tree stump. ‘Let no man touch it,’ he cried largely, ‘till this matter has been investigated.’

‘It has been investigated,’ Ooloo said coolly. ‘It is plain that the spirits are angry with those who demanded Wendourie’s death. First, it was Urgali and he is dead; then the kinsman of Kuduna and he also is dead. Who else cried for his death?’

‘Not I,’ Unyama said hastily. ‘I always felt the boy was innocent.’

One of the old men cried, ‘Look,’ and pointed. The ‘leaf had fallen from the tree stump and, fluttered by the breeze, was trailing along the ground. A tiny spiral of dust began to move toward it, growing in density, and presently it had become part of the incipient willy-willy. Caught by a current of air, it leaped up, dived, then rose abruptly and soared, straight and swift, over the gum-trees.

And at that moment one came running, eyes wide, breathless with his news. ‘Unyama! Beside the hut of Kuduna’s kinsman! The mark of the toeless man!’

Unyama’s mouth fell open. Ooloo broke the awed silence. ‘It is not surprising,’ he said. ‘Did I not say the spirits were with us last night? The Toeless Thing is a creature of the ghosts which killed Urgali. Is it not a fact that many saw the tracks of Urgali moving toward the spreading tree, but who among us saw tracks of the killer?’

The old men sought each other’s eyes, wonderingly. ‘There were no tracks,’ they said. ‘Only Urgali’s.’

When they had gone to investigate and Ooloo was alone with Wendourie, the Narranyeri man said, ‘The spirits have been kind to you.’

The young man said blandly, ‘And to you, clever one. May it ever be so.’ He looked about him, assuring himself none was within earshot. ‘It shall be a secret between us that you swung into the great gum from a branch on the west and climbing inward, waited till Urgali came from the east; then, leaning as he was about to reach up, struck. Afterwards you climbed to a far branch and leaped.’

‘You, too, are clever,’ Ooloo smiled. ‘But the tracks of the toeless one? Can this astonishing thing be explained?’

Wendourie showed all his teeth. ‘I have thought much since I first saw the toeless tracks,’ he said. ‘Those I saw cannot be explained but they may be imitated frighteningly by cutting bark in the shape of a man’s feet and binding it to his naked soles.’ He added in another tone, ‘I am sorry your magic leaf was blown away. Do you really believe the spirits took it?’

Ooloo shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. He glanced round cautiously, then, opening his belt, revealed to Wendourie the scrap of whiteness lying within. ‘I took the precaution of saving part of it,’ he said. ‘This, skillfully used, and with the aid of some strange dream I shall think up, will make me a powerful man among my own people.’

Wendourie asked with difference, ‘Would I be impertinent if I asked your permission to accompany you on part of your return journey? I feel there is much I could learn from you quickly which, without you, only the years could teach.’