The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter by Adam Courtenay

Author:Adam Courtenay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC Books
Published: 2020-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

BUCKLEY HAD AGAIN retreated to a private enclave on the Karaaf, fearing that he would be besieged by people. Much to his surprise, his privacy was respected for several months. By the time the quiet was broken, he was relieved to see his friends again. Among them were the two remaining children of his slain sister and brother-in-law, a girl and boy aged around nine and ten; the boy had somehow been rendered blind.

Likely wanting Buckley to return from his isolation, the tribe pronounced him able to marry. He was being offered a woman of about twenty years of age who was already a widow, having lost her husband in a fight. She was, he remarked, ‘tolerably good-looking’ and ‘apparently very mild tempered’. He joked that ‘the marriage feast, the ring, the fees for the ceremony, the bride’s dress, my own, and all the rest of it did not cost much . . . I was not obliged to run in debt or fork out every shilling.’

Whatever relationship they had, it didn’t last long – neither party, it seems, was overly fond of the other. ‘My dearly beloved played me most abominably false, for at the end of the honeymoon, one evening when we were alone in our hut, enjoying our domestic felicity, several men came and took her away from me in force, she, however, going very willingly.’ He said that others cajoled him to take revenge on her and the man she had left him to live with, but Buckley, hardly heartbroken, tried his best to calm all parties down. It was to no avail, as she later cheated on her new partner. She was speared – and Buckley believed her to have been killed – for her sins. An imbroglio ensued, and some even threatened Buckley for no stated reason. Buckley, for the first time ever, told them in no uncertain terms that anyone trying to fight him would be met with a show of force; he believed he was just as capable with spear and boomerang as they were. The big man had never shown this kind of aggression before, and the threat of his wrath seemed to end the affair.

In the Buckley–Langhorne account, we get a slightly different version of events. In this, Buckley said he willingly gave up his wife to make sure that no jealousies would occur from other men. He had seen enough trouble over the possession of women and didn’t want to become embroiled. Whatever really took place, Buckley said from that moment ‘he was no longer apprehensive of danger from them’ – meaning, we would surmise, that he was no longer under threat from other jealous men.

After his failed marriage, the clan again tried their best to make him happy, this time by giving him guardianship of the children perceived to be his niece and nephew. He was effectively asked to become their surrogate father. This was an intelligent and far-sighted way to keep him attached to the tribe. It shows the depth of love between the clan and Buckley, and that they valued his presence.

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