Wilderness Trek (1988) Read online

  While they waited at their tent, Sterl had had some words with his friend.

  "Pard, you will be decent to Beryl? You have not spoken to her since--since that mess!"

  "Umpumm," drawled Red.

  "Say, do you see that?" rang out Sterl, extending a big fist.

  "Shore, I ain' blind."

  "You know where it used to hurt you to be hit?"

  "Ahuh. My belly. An' I ain't recovered yet, either."

  "That's dinkum. If you don't swear to be nice to Beryl, I'll lam into you right now. And I'm not fooling."

  "Yeah? War, I choose the wusser of two evils. I'll speak to Beryl an' be as--as nice as I can. It's gotta be done sometime, jest for appearances. An' after all what the hell do I care?"

  Then Leslie arrived; once again, after so long an interval, clad in feminine apparel, a flowered gown in which she looked I, extremely pretty.

  "Red, you'll--L come?" she asked falteringly.

  "No, Les," he said, contriving to wink at Sterl. "Umpumm, nix come the weasel!"

  That he could jest at such a moment, certainly poignant and important to Leslie, called to all that was spirited in her.

  "You ornery, bullheaded, low-down..." she burst out, choking over the last two words, which, like those preceding, were from Red's vocabulary. Then as quickly as the flare-up of her temper, she broke into sobs.

  "Aw now, Leslie, don't bawl, please," begged the cowboy, who could not bear to see a girl cry. "Don't you see I'm all spruced up? I'll go with you an' do the elegant."

  "Hon-nest, Red? You're such a--a brute. You might be--teasing."

  "No, I mean it. Thet is I'll go if you stop cryin'. Why, the idee! Spoilin' thet happy face!"

  Beryl rose from her father's knees to greet her visitors. Her blue gown hung loosely upon her slender form, yet not at the expense of grace. Every vestige of the golden tan had vanished from her face, the whiteness of which accentuated the loveliness of her violet eyes and fair hair. Her beauty struck Sterl with great force, and suddenly he understood both Ormiston and Krehl. Leslie ran to Beryl. "Oh, it's dinkum to see you out again!"

  Beryl returned her kiss and greeting, then offered her two hands to Sterl. "Now, Mr. Cowboy, what do you think of me, up and well--and rarin' to go?"

  "Great!" responded Sterl, heartily, as he took her hands. "Beryl, you just look beautiful!"

  But she did not even hear that last. Red had stepped out from behind Sterl, and Sterl saw with a pang what a terrible moment this was for both of them.

  "Beryl--I--I'm shore dog-gone glad to see you out again," said Red, huskily, and he was both gallant and self-possessed. One of his long strides bridged the distance between them. Her eyes dilated and turned black.

  "Red--Red!" she whispered, as she put out quivering hands. They groped, missed his, to clutch his blouse. She fell against him with a grasp, and fainted in his arms.

  "She is not so strong as she thought," said Dann. He took her from Krehl and sat her gently down in the one chair. "Mrs. Slyter--Leslie!" he called.

  Sterl could not withdraw his gaze from Beryl's face. Her eyes were closed, long fair lashes on her white cheeks. He turned to Red, and forgot his concern for Beryl in the dumb misery of his friend. Dann's hearty voice attested to the fact that Beryl had regained consciousness.

  "I fainted," she said, weakly. "How stupid! I'm all right now. Why, Leslie, you are as white as a sheet."

  "No wonder! Beryl, I thought you'd gone to join the angels."

  "No such luck for me! Boys, come back. I promise you I won't be such a weakling again."

  Sterl, with his arm through Red's, dragged the hesitant cowboy to the small circle, of which Beryl was the center. She had color in her cheeks. The cowboys found seats. Mrs. Slyter insisted that Beryl sip a cup of tea. Leslie hovered over her.

  "Red, perhaps I fainted because sight of you brought you back--as you looked when I last saw you--how long ago?... Ages ago?"

  "I forget. It shore was an orful long time," drawled Red. "An' about thet faintin'--I knowed a girl once who could faint--or let on--whenever she wanted to knock the daylights out of a feller. So you see, Beryl, I been educated."

  "Did that girl faint in your arms?" asked Beryl, her speaking eyes on him.

  "Wal, thet was one way she had of gettin' into' em. An' once she got there, she'd come to orful quick."

  Presently Beryl's nurses, despite her protests, led her away to her wagon and bed. The look she gave Red as she bade him good night was not lost upon Sterl.

  At this juncture Eric Dann entered the shelter, greeted the cowboys and drank with Stanley. He had a livid scar on his forehead, a mark that he would carry to his grave.

  Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to question him: "Dann, if I remember correctly we lost the Gulf road halfway or more down the Diamantina from the forks?"

  "Somewhere back there. It didn't concern me then because I expected to come across it any day," returned Eric.

  "We haven't crossed it. I've kept a sharp lookout for wheel tracks. On level ground half a dozen wagons would leave a rut that would last for years."

  "Surely. We have just missed them, unless, of course, they have washed out."

  "Did you take this route on your back track?" went on Sterl.

  "Part way. I don't recall just where we made short cuts."

  "Some of these landmarks along here, if you ever saw them, you couldn't forget."

  "Landmarks meant very little to me."

  "Hmm, it's unfortunate you did not have an instinct for such things," said Stanley. "You said you knew the way, Eric."

  "I've told you a hundred times that I thought I did," replied Eric, impatiently.

  Sterl made note of the shifty eyes and of the beads of sweat coming out on Eric's brow, under the livid scar, and his dubious conjectures became definite doubts. Sterl could never swallow his relation to Ormiston.

  Red fixed his piercing eyes upon Eric. "Dann, if you don't know this country atall you oughta tell us damn pronto."

  "But I do know it, in general. I've recognized a good many places we passed at a distance from this trek. I'd like it understood that I'll not be put on the witness stand by you Americans," declared Dann, with signs of nervousness and heat.

  "Wal, we Americans ain't puttin' you on nothin', except yore word," rejoined Red, coolly. Then he asked bluntly. "Have you ever been through this Diamantina country?"

  Dann made what appeared to be a powerful effort to control unstable nerves. Nevertheless he did not reply to Red's query.

  "Wal, heah's one you can answer, Mr. Dann, onless..." Red did not complete his dubious inference. "This heah range we've come to an' have seen for so many days--there's a pass in it thet nobody could miss seein'. If yore trek or any other trek traveled north from Cooper Creek up the Diamantina, you or they'd have to go through this pass. Ain't thet figgerin' reasonable?"

  "Yes, it is, Krehl. They'd have to," replied Dann, readily.

  "All right. Then what kind of country will we find on the other side of this range?"

  "It will be practically the same as this."

  "Thanks, Dann. We'll remember thet," returned Red, caustically. Then he addressed Sterl: "Pard, do you reckon I oughta shet up now or relieve my mind to the boss?"

  "By all means, Krehl," boomed Stanley.

  "Wal, I wouldn't presume to advise you heah. I'm no Australian. But I've known open wilderness country since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This heah country has been changin'. It's altogether different from the forks. Grass shorter an' not so rich, trees fewer an' smaller. An' when you cross that range, you'll find plenty trouble. Thet's my hunch, boss. Take it or leave it."

  Turning on a jangling heel Red stalked away from the Danns with a mien that left little to the imagination. Dann, so seldom perturbed, was bewildered by what was evidently a new aspect to him.

  "Incredible!" he ejaculated. "We should be still hundreds of miles from the watershed that ends its streams into the Gulf. Eric, you substantiate
this, do you not?"

  "Absolutely," answered Eric Dann. "Northeast of this range, when we pass it, we will reach the headwaters of the Warburton River. That runs westward. Beyond that we will come to the headwaters of rivers emptying into the Gulf."

  "That agrees with our map. I am sure Krehl has miscalculated. What do you think, Hazelton?"

  "All I say is, I'm sorry we are not trekking west."

  "If we should make a blunder now--and go the wrong way..." Sterl heard the leader's voice ring and break but he made it his business to be watching Eric Dann. Either he was prejudiced against this man's vacillation and incompetence, or he saw through him with Red Krehl's lynx eyes!

  Chapter 23

  Another conference of Stanley Dann's. A few days out of Wellspring camp, they had approached a break in the foothills, apparently leading to the pass through the range. Eric Dann asserted that he was sure he had been through that notch, going or coming, and so the mob was driven into its narrow defiles. Larry had reported dubious ground ahead; Red Krehl had climbed to a hilltop to reconnoiter. Upon his return he said to Dann in no uncertain terms, "Cain't see far. But no country to drive cattle, let alone wagons!"

  "No hurry, friends," Stanley told his associates. "We'll climb to look the ground over. Krehl should know where and where not to drove a mob."

  But Eric Dann leaped from his wagon-seat to confront his brother in a terrific fury.

  "First it was Hazelton! Now it's Krehl--Krehl--KREHL! I'm tired of having my judgment overruled!"

  "Eric, you've lost your temper," replied Stanley, severely. "Calm yourself. These cowboys have been a help to me, not a detriment. As others--and you--have been!"

  Eric Dann's visage grew purple.

  "By God, I'll turn back!" he shouted.

  "But that wagon and team are mine," rejoined Stanley Dann, controlling evident heat.

  "I don't care. I'll take them. I've earned them on this infernal trek!"

  Red Krehl slid off his horse.

  "Bah! It's a bluff, boss. He hasn't got the nerve."

  "Wait, Krehl," ordered Stanley Dann. "Eric, what is it you want?"

  "You brought me on this trek as partner and guide," hoarsely shouted Eric.

  "Yes, I did."

  "Then hold to that contract or I'll leave you!"

  "Eric, I was not aware that I had broken it. Very well, I will hold to it--come what may," returned the leader.

  "It's understood that I am the guide?"

  "Yes. But you must guide us. Once more, for the last time, do you know this country?"

  "Yes, I do," rasped Eric, passionately, yet he gulped as if something had stuck in his throat. "In a general way, I mean. This is an enormously vast country..."

  "Yeah, an' you know it?" interrupted Red, with stinging scorn.

  "Yes, I know it, you--you--" burst out the goaded drover, foaming at the mouth.

  "Dann, you're a ---- liar! Go for yore gun--if you got the guts!"

  "KREHL!" thundered the leader.

  "Too late, boss. Stay where you air. Come on, Mr. Eric Dann, throw yore gun!"

  Pale-faced instead of red now, gasping and speechless, Eric Dann turned to spread wide his hands, appealing to the leader.

  "Let this end here!" commanded Dann.

  "All right, boss, it's ended," replied Red, curtly. "But I'll bet you live to see the day you wish it'd ended my way!"

  And they trekked into the hills. Days without end before what seemed to be the pass; Sterl lost track of days. By now, Slyter, beating down the opposition of Eric Dann, had insisted that the wagons go ahead; for in places they had actually to improvise roads. Sometimes three miles a day were good going. The cattle found little grass and took to browsing. Many of them strayed. The drovers rode herd at night in five-hour shifts. Slyter's second wagon, with Roland driving, went over a steep bank. He escaped, but the horses had to be shot.. Often at night Sterl and Red could find no level place to pitch their tent. They would drop on the ground, cover their heads against mosquitoes and sleep like logs nevertheless. More and more, Sterl inclined to the truth of Red's caustic forecast.

  The nightmare days up a V-shaped valley which led to the deceiving pass. And then the trek seemed halted for good. Eric and Larry and Slyter returned in defeat from their scouting. But Friday, last to get back, galvanized their low spirits and energies.

  "Go alonga me," he said, and the black had never failed them yet.

  They hitched six horses to a wagon, and with a drover on each side, pulling with a lasso, and whipping the teams, hauled over the "saddle" which had blocked them. It took all the rest of that day to get the other wagons over. The mob had to be left behind in the valley until the morrow.

  Riding across that saddle, Sterl groaned his disappointment at the apparently impenetrable labyrinth of jungle and rock-ribbed confines ahead. Ten miles or more of incredibly rough going stretched ahead--a distance that might as well have been ten times that--and then a gap and a blue void. And then--another conference.

  "We will go on," declared Stanley Dann. "We can't get through," averred Slyter. "I've missed the--the way," added Eric Dann, falteringly.

  No one paid any attention to him.

  "Larry, Bligh, what do you say?" queried the leader.

  They replied practically in unison that it looked very bad, well-nigh impassable. "Hazelton?" he boomed.

  "Boss, we can't go back," said Sterl. "Krehl, what do you think?"

  "Me? Wal, I ain't thinkin' atall," drawled the cowboy.

  "Don't bandy ridicule with me!" roared Stanley Dann.

  "All right, boss. Excoose me. I ain't no mule-haid. I think we must find a way out thet we cain't see from heah."

  "Right! Men, look for a place where we can camp."

  They camped on the right side of the saddle at the base of a rugged slope. Firewood and water had to be carried up, a job Red and Sterl took upon themselves. There were no idle hands any more. Even Beryl helped Mrs. Slyter and Bill.

  "You've only begun to pick up," said Sterl to her that evening. "Please rest."

  "Sterl, I'll do my bit," replied Beryl, smiling up at him. She might not have realized that she was telling him she had begun to learn a great lesson of life. How frail she looked, yet her sad face seemed lovelier than ever! She had courage--that thing Sterl respected more than all else in man or woman. If she lived she would come through this fire pure gold.

  He went out along the saddle to look for Leslie. He met her climbing the slope on foot, in the track of the wagons, lithe and supple, clear-eyed as a falcon, her drover's garb ragged and soiled.

  "Howdy, Sterl. Been worrying about me?" she panted.

  "No, Les. Only King and the remuda."

  "King, Jester, Duke, Lady Jane, all tiptop. Sorrel is lame. Count is fagged out. Sterl, will we ever, ever get through this pass?"

  "I don't know--and don't care much."

  "Sterl!--that's not like you. Oh, dear boy, you're worn out!"

  "Les, you and Beryl make me feel a little ashamed," replied Sterl.

  "Sterl, you and Red all through this terrible year have filled my heart, and Beryl's, and Mum's with courage to carry on. Small wonder that you lag a little now! But don't fail me, Sterl. And don't let Red fail Beryl. It is he who has saved her--who is changing her very soul... Sterl, would you mind--holding me a bit--as you used to?"

  But Sterl evaded that, despite the warmth she stirred in his heart, and made excuses, and talking kindly to her he led her to camp. Darkness fell upon silent trekkers, some going to their beds and others about their jobs, and all with spirits bowed but not broken.

  It took all the next morning to drove the mob over the "saddle." Friday had returned from a scout. To Stanley Dann he spread his wonderful, sinewy black hands, fingers wide. "Boss, might be cattle go alonga dere," he said, and manifestly he meant they should separate and streak through various channels to whatever lay at the end of that green maze. So like a great waterfall the mob poured off the "saddle," to roll and clatter d
own, to disappear almost at will in the jungle.

  Then began the feverish and ceaseless labor of fourteen men to chop and build a road for six wagons through ten miles of wilderness jungle.

  It dwarfed all their former labors. After five days of digging, chopping, carrying rocks, packing supplies, wading in mud and water and grass, all the toilers except Stanley Dann and Slyter forgot about the cattle and horses. Every day Friday, whose duty it was to report on the mob would say: "Cattle along dere farder," and that day when he said: "Cattle gone!" not one of the trekkers betrayed anxiety. It was now a battle for their lives.

  In daylight, the flies were almost as fierce as at the forks, and at night the mosquitoes were so thick and bloodthirsty that they would have killed an unprotected man. The second cook practically died on his feet, sticking it out with fever and dysentery, and then collapsing. Monkton was bitten by a death adder and for days his life was despaired of.

  In the middle of that jungle Eric Dann made a startling proposal.

  "We should abandon the wagons and pack out!"

  Stanley Dann, soiled and sweaty and bedraggled, gazed at this blood kin of his with great, amber eyes that had not lost their magnificent light.

  "What about the women?" he asked.

  "They can ride horseback. I asked Beryl. She said she could," returned Eric, eagerly.

  "We are two thousand miles from anywhere. Beryl would die."

  "If she gave out--we could carry her!" exclaimed this extraordinary man..

  The giant shook his shaggy golden head, wearily, as if it was useless to listen to his brother.

  "We can't get through," bawled Eric Dann, his voice rising. "I climbed up to see. We're not halfway! Man, would you sacrifice us all for your worthless daughter?"

  Red Krehl leaped upon Dann and felled him. He would have kicked the man, too, but for a sharp cry. Beryl and Leslie had heard and seen. But it could not silence him.

  "Dann, I'm gonna kill this brother of yores yet," bitterly predicted the cowboy.

  "Red, don't kill Uncle Eric. Not for me!" cried Beryl, passionately. "I'm not worth it. I was a fool. I was vain, brazen, mad! But Uncle Eric only knows the half. I planned with Ash Ormiston--that he should seem to steal me from my bed. He meant to kill anyone who opposed him--especially to kill Uncle Eric, with whom he had plotted. I agreed to go with him, to save Uncle Eric's life, to save Dad from ruin, if not worse. But Ormiston betrayed me. He stole Dad's cattle. He would have murdered Uncle Eric but for me. He--He..."