Man of Two Tribes Read Online Free Page B

unusual,” commented Easter.
    â€œI know it. In spite of my parentage, I am unusual. Or is it because of my parentage?”
    They packed the tucker-box and moved on under the midday sun. Later in the afternoon the horizon to the northwest to which they were travelling gradually humped into several blue-black pebbles, slowly to become rocks, to rise still higher from the sea to form the headlands of a coast when the Nullarbor was the bed of the Southern Ocean.
    As the ship at sea, so did the jeep begin to skirt this coast, and soon they passed between two islands bearing trees, and a little later entered a wide inlet where the scrub on the high land either side came down to the beaches of narrow claypanbelts. Abruptly the jeep turned into a beach and ran up between the scrub tree to undulating country.
    â€œThere is something I want you to do on your return to Chifley,” Bony said. “Report the date you left me at Mount Singular. Add my last instruction to you, which is to make no attempt to contact me. Address the report to Box SS11, G.P.O., Adelaide. Clear?”
    â€œOkay,” Easter replied. “About a mile to go, that’s all.”
    The track was now winding over the slight undulations bearing tussock grass, bluebush, currant and tea tree, and above all, the spaced bull-oak and the lesser belar. Cattle country, good cattle country.
    Then the roof of a house appeared above the lower scrub, and eventually sheds and small dwellings.
    The homestead was orderly, conspicuously tidy. About the main house of one storey and wide verandas was a white-painted picket fence, and when the jeep stopped before the main gate they could see the flower beds beyond and blooming rose bushes and water sprinklers which kept the creation alive.
    In accordance with his role, Bony remained standing beside the jeep when Easter passed through the gateway to the front door. Before he could reach it, two women dressed in white appeared round the angle of the house to welcome him with obvious surprise and pleasure. What he said Bony could not overhear, but Easter also played the game right by not mentioning his passenger when invited to enter the house.
    It was now about three-thirty, and Bony smoked two cigarettes and nothing happened. With the nonchalance of the aborigine, he loafed about the jeep and surveyed the place from the main house to the distant stock and horse yards. He could see a lubra taking washing from a line, and several aboriginal children playing under a distant oak. A little brown dog came to make friends with him, and a flock of black cockatoos came and departed with harsh caws.
    Eventually, round the outside of the picket fence came an aborigine, walking with the effortless grace of the true wild man. Fully six feet in height, he was proof of good living. He wore an American-type wind-cheater, dungaree trousers tuckered into short leggings, and elastic-sided boots heavily spurred. A wide-brimmed felt hat completed the outfit.
    Although fifty, he was clean-shaven. On both cheeks were cicatrices denoting manhood, and the hole in the septum through which is drawn the wand of the medicine man when in action told his rank. Over the wide face spread a smile not registered by the large black eyes. White teeth flashed when he said:
    â€œMissus say for you come in for drink of tea.”
    â€œAll right,” Bony returned, looking shiftily at everything bar those black eyes. “A drink of tea would go good.”
    Set beside Easter, D. I. Bonaparte was never insignificant. Set beside this fat aborigine, William Black felt himself a midget.
    â€œYou Kalgoorlie feller, eh?” probed the guide as they followed the fence.
    â€œNo. Diamantina.” They were passing under a sugar gum, and Bony slipped off his shirt and undervest for the black eyes to feast on the cicatrices he bore on chest and back and upper arms.
    â€œMy father was brother to old Patsy Lonergan,” he explained. “Patsy