The Killer Koala (14 page)

I
hadn't the faintest idea.

'Well,
you come out here with a suitcase full of the stuff and you take a
mining lease, you see?'

'No,'
I said.

Jim
seemed to accept the fact that I was just dumb, and spelled it out
for me. 'Well, you go and sit in the pub and let it be known that you
want to buy gold, and you buy everything that's going at say, ten per
cent more than the market price. All cash. No receipts, no records.
Then you ship that gold off to the mint and say you found it on your
lease. You get a nice cheque and clean money that you don't pay tax
on.'

'It's
as simple as that?' I asked.

'As
simple as that,' said Jim.

'And
do you buy much gold from the Aborigines?'

'Sure.
It's the best supply
—
beats
looking for the stuff.'

'And
you buy it for ten per cent of its value and sell it for ten per cent
more than its value?'

'Yeah,'
Jim grinned gleefully. 'Neat, isn't it? A man makes a buck and no one
gets hurt.'

That
was when I began to suspect that gold prospecting was not a business
to be in if you had a suggestion of an honest bone in your body. But
I had a lot to learn.

I
had just arrived at Elanora out from Kalgoorlie on my first gold
prospecting adventure. I had set up camp half an hour's drive out of
town and started to search for gold. I searched hard for half an
hour, but didn't find any. I looked around at the flat brown red and
grey desert trapped under the blue bowl of the sky. It was vast. No
doubt there was a lot of gold out here, but there was a lot of desert
too. I decided that gold prospecting was not my line, so I drove into
town to a pub. That was where I met Jim.

He
wasn't very entertaining company and when I'd learned all I could
about the gold business, I headed back to my camp even more convinced
that I was not cut out to be a prospector.

However,
as I drove along the very faint track through the desert, I did
wonder just how I would react if an Aborigine offered to sell me a
lump of gold at a fraction of its value.

I
felt something of a guilty shock when I arrived back at my camp and
found an Aborigine offering to sell me a lump of gold at a fraction
of its value.

I
saw him standing near my tent when I was still five minutes away and
at first I thought he was a bull standing on its hind legs. As I came
closer the apparition resolved itself into a black man with the
shoulders and chest of a very large bull, a head the size of a very
large bull and an extraordinarily large hat with a high, deeply cleft
crown that had given the impression of horns at a distance. Apart
from the hat, he wore a pair of tattered trousers and nothing else.

His
massive chest and wide, flat-nosed face was grey with dust, but you
could tell his skin was very black indeed. I suppose he was about
forty, but a white stubble on his face made him look older.

He
walked towards the car as I stopped and I saw on the other side of my
tent two Aboriginal women in ragged dresses sitting on the ground
surrounded by dogs. One had a small, partly skinned kangaroo on her
lap and neither looked at me. All the dogs were scratching themselves
vigorously.

I
was a little nervous as the vast, half-naked, absurdly hatted man
approached. He looked as though he could flatten my car with one blow
of either huge fist. I remembered vague stories of wild Aborigines in
the desert.

But
he proved himself civilised by saying, as I got out of the car, 'G'd
day, mate. Name's Bulbul.'

He
had a strange thick accent and gave the impression that English was
not his first language.

I
told him my name and shook his hand and he got right down to
business. 'Just come in from bush,' he said. 'Maybe you like to buy
bit gold?'

I
experienced guilt and avarice at once, then pulled myself together.
'Well, I'd like to look at what you've got,' I said non-committally.
After all, there'd be nothing wrong with buying a souvenir nugget at
a fair price.

Bulbul
reached in his back pocket and came up with a huge gold nugget bigger
than my clenched fist.

He
held it out to me on the flat of his palm and wonderingly I reached
out and took it, nearly dropping it because of its extraordinary
weight. It was a very irregular knobby lump of gold that must have
weighed at least 800 grams. At the price of gold in those days it
would have been worth $30000, but because it was such a magnificent
nugget it would have been worth more than that as a specimen.

'You
like it?' asked Bulbul, staring directly into my eyes.

'Well,
yes,' I said. 'It's superb, but . . .'

'You
buy it?'

'I'm
sorry, I couldn't possibly afford . . .' I had $3000 with me.

'How
much you give me?' pressed Bulbul.

'Look,
I'm sorry, but I . . .'

'You
give me thousand dollars.'

For
a moment I hesitated.

'One
thousand dollars?' I said.

'That
right. You give me one thousand dollar.'

I
swallowed. I haven't got many honest bones in my body, and seldom get
the chance to pick up $30000 perfectly legally.

'Come
on,' said Bulbul, who seemed very anxious to get the deal done. 'You
want?'

Slightly
sadly I realised that robbing simple natives was just not possible.

'Bulbul,
old mate,' I said, 'that nugget is worth at least thirty thousand
dollars.'

Bulbul
looked at me as though he thought I was a lunatic.

'Eh?'
he said.

'That
nugget is worth thirty thousand dollars.'

Bulbul
looked blank and puzzled. 'I give you for one thousand dollar,' he
said at last.

'No,
Bulbul, you don't understand. It's worth thirty thousand dollars. I
couldn't possibly afford to buy it at its right price.'

It
occurred to me that, like many native people, Bulbul didn't really
understand figures.

'It's
worth much, much more than one thousand dollars,' I said. 'You lake
it into town
—
into the
pub, someone there'll give you thirty thousand dollars for it.'

Bulbul
was looking at me thoughtfully.

'Give
me a lift into town?' he asked suddenly.

I
sensed trouble. From what I knew of local customs, no one was likely
to give Bulbul $30000 unless he held out for it. I could see myself
being hauled into dispute between this enormous primitive and hordes
of rapacious miners. Still, it seemed churlish to refuse and anyway I
was interested to see what would happen.

'All
right,' I said. 'Hop in!' then hesitated and gestured towards the two
Aboriginal women, who were still not looking at me. 'What about the
ladies?'

'They
wait,' said Bulbul, and climbed into the ear.

There
wasn't much room for me with Bulbul in the front seal, but I managed
to squeeze in and drove back to Elanora.

Bulbul
didn't speak during the drive. He seemed preoccupied, presumably
wondering what he'd do with $30000.

The
pub was crowded, as the pubs always are out there. I saw Jim the
prospector still alone at the bar where I'd left him and thought I
might as well apply to him for local knowledge.

'G'day,
Jim,' I said, 'my mate here has got a nugget he wants to sell
—
who around here would be likely to buy
it?'

Jim
looked at me, then looked at Bulbul, then a slow grin broke over his
bandicoot features.

'You
told him what it's worth, have you?'

I
gave an apologetic grin. 'Well, yeah, I did tell him what it was
really worth
—
well, you
know how it is.'

'There's
one born every minute,' said Jim. 'Try that foreigner in the corner.'

The
'foreigner' was distinguished by the fact that he was very clean and
well-dressed. He was wearing a safari jacket and shorts with long
socks.

'No,
I do it,' said Bulbul, and went across to the foreign chap. I drifted
along with him and Jim drifted along with me.

'You
want to buy gold,' said Bulbul directly.

'That's
what I'm here for,' said the foreigner in what sounded to me to be a
German accent.

Bulbul
fished out the huge nugget.

'You
like?' said Bulbul.

The
foreigner took the nugget and examined it perfunctorily. 'How much?'
he said.

'One
thousand dollar,' said Bulbul.

'Hey
wait a minute!' I yelped
—
I
couldn't help it. The foreigner glared at me. I could feel Jim
plucking at my sleeve.

'I'll
buy it at a thousand dollars,' said the foreigner, reaching in to his
jacket pocket.

'Now
hold on,' I said, but I was in a dilemma. There was no reason on
God's earth why a man shouldn't sell his gold at any price he chose.
It was nothing to do with me, and I'd done my best for Bulbul.

I
was aware that there was a hush in the bar and a number of interested
eyes were watching. In that moment what seemed a splendid solution
occurred to me.

'Bulbul,
I'll buy the nugget. I'll give you three thousand dollars for it.'

Jim
was hauling on my arm now. 'Come out of it, you fool
—
you'll get yourself killed.'

But
I was adamant. If Bulbul insisted on selling his nugget dirt cheap,
he might as well sell it to me; at least he'd be getting a couple of
thousand dollars more. The foreigner looked as though he might at any
moment draw a long-bladed knife from his long socks and slit my
throat.

'I
have agreed to buy,' he said very coldly. 'One thousand dollars.'

I
pulled out my wallet. I knew it contained exactly $3000. 'Here you
are, Bulbul,' I said.

That
left me broke and I'd have to resell the nugget immediately. I'd make
an adjustment with Bulbul, but I'd leave myself a sizable commission
on the deal after all this trauma.

Bulbul
looked from me to the foreigner with a baffled expression. Slowly his
hand moved towards the wad of notes I was thrusting at him.

'I'll
pay you three thousand five hundred,' snapped the foreigner.

Bulbul's
hand moved away from my wad. 'All right,' he said.

Quickly
the foreigner pulled out his wallet and counted out $3500. I
literally beat the bar with my fists in exasperation. 'Bulbul, that
nugget's worth ten times that!'

Bulbul
looked at me blankly and counted his money.

The
foreigner packed the nugget into a bag he had at his feet, then
turned and left the bar.

'You
should mind you own bloody business!' he hissed at me as he went.

'You
surely should,' said Jim. 'Here, I'll buy you a drink.' He turned to
the barman. 'Two beers, Charlie.' Then to my considerable
astonishment he said to Bulbul, 'What are you having, Bulbul?'

To
my more considerable astonishment Bulbul said, 'Vodka and orange.'

'You'd
better down that quick and get out of here before that bloke comes
back. There's not much he can do, but he looked a bit dangerous to
me.'

'What
the hell's going on here?' I was almost squeaking in confusion.

'Bulbul
just sold that bloke a lump of iron coated with gold,' said Jim.

'What?'

'That's
his racket. He makes nuggets out of iron and dips 'em in gold. He
only gets away with it with strangers
—
we
all know him here.'

I
was very confused.

'But
how does he . . . I mean . . .' I was trying to say this was not my
vision of a simple native, but even as I formulated the words I knew
what a fatuous fool I was being.

'He
melts the gold down and dips the nuggets in it. It's easy. White men
can't get away with it, but no one suspects a blackfella of a trick
like that, particularly when he's selling so cheap.'

'But
. . . but that buyer . . .'

Jim
grinned. 'You pushed the price up to three and a half thousand for
Bulbul. Nice piece of work.'

'Yes,
thanks for that,' said Bulbul, whose accent had noticeably changed.
'I'd buy you a drink, but I think we ought to get going.'

On
the way back to my camp I said to Bulbul, 'Listen, as I'm leaving
this part of the world forever at dawn tomorrow, just tell me one
thing
—
where do you find
the gold you use to plate the iron?'

Bulbul
turned and looked at me. 'I buy it at the pub, of course.'

The Dog Who Loved Animals

I
have acquired several stray dogs in my life, but only one ever made a
deliberate attempt on my life. To be fair, it might not have been
deliberate; the dog could have been deranged. But that was little
comfort to me and the half a dozen other men whose lives he
threatened.