Wilderness Trek (1988) Page 24

  Stanley Dann expelled a great breath and sat down on a pack as if his legs had been chopped from under him.

  "Lost! Yea, God has forsaken me," he whispered.

  Bligh was the first to move after a stricken silence. "Mr. Dann, you've got to hear that I didn't know all Eric confessed."

  "Bligh, that is easy to believe, thank heaven," said Stanley, presently, his voice gaining timbre. "We'll thresh it all out right now... Somebody light a fire to dispel this hateful gloom. Let me think a moment." And he paced somberly to and fro outside the shelter. Presently Stanley Dann faced them and the light; once more himself.

  "Listen, all of you," he began, and again his voice had that wonderful deep roll. "I cannot desert my brother. Whoever does stay here with me must carry on with the trek when we are able to continue. I have exacted too much of you all. I grieve that I have been wrong, self-centered, dominating. Beryl, my daughter, will you stay?"

  "Dad, I'll stay!" There was no hesitation in Beryl's reply, and to Sterl she seemed at last of her father's blood and spirit. "Don't despair, Dad. We shall not all betray you!"

  A beautiful light warmed his grave visage as he turned to Leslie. "Child, you have been forced into womanhood. I doubt if your parents should influence your decision here."

  "I would not go back to marry a royal duke!" replied Leslie.

  "Mrs. Slyter, your girl has indeed grown up on this trek," went on Dann. "But she will need a mother. Will you stay?"

  "Need you ask, Stanley? I don't believe whatever lies in store for us could be so bad as what we've live through," rejoined the woman, calmly.

  "Slyter?"

  "Stanley, I started the race and I'll make the good fight."

  "Hazelton!" demanded Dann, without a trace of doubt. His exclamation was not a query.

  "I am keen to go on," answered Sterl. "Krehl!"

  The cowboy was lighting a cigarette, a little clumsily, because Beryl was hanging onto his arm. He puffed a cloud of smoke which hid his face.

  "Wal, boss," he drawled, "it's shore a great privilege you've given me. Jest a chance to know an' fight for a man!"

  Larry, Rollie, and Benson, almost in unison, hastened to align themselves under Red's banner.

  Bill, the cook, stepped forward and unhesitatingly spoke: "Boss, I've had enough. I'm getting old. I'll go home with Bligh."

  "Bingham, put it up to our black man Friday," said Dann.

  Slyter spoke briefly in that jargon which the black understood.

  Friday leaned on his long spear and regarded the speakers with his huge, unfathomable eyes. Then he swerved them to Sterl and Red, to Beryl, to Leslie, and tapped his broad black breast with a slender black hand: "Imm no fadder, no mudder, no brudder, no gin, no lubra," he said, in slow, laborious dignity. "Tinkit go bush alonga white fella cowboy pards!"

  At another time Sterl would have shouted his gladness, but here he only hugged the black man. And Red clapped him on the back.

  Suddenly a heavy gunshot boomed hollowly under the shelter, paralysing speech and action. The odor of burnt powder permeated the air. There followed a queer, faint tapping sound--a shuddering quiver of hand or foot of a man in his death throes. Sterl had heard that too often to be deceived. Stanley Dann broke out of his rigidity to wave a shaking hand, "Go in--somebody--see!" he whispered.

  Benson and Bligh went slowly and hesitatingly under the shelter. Sterl saw them over Eric Dann on the stretcher. They straightened up. Bligh drew a blanket up over the man's face. That pale blot vanished under the dark covering. The drovers stalked out. Bligh accosted the leader in hushed voice: "Prepare for a shock, sir."

  Benson added gruffly: "He blew out his brains!"

  Red Krehl was the first to speak, as he drew Beryl away from that dark shelter. "Pard," he ejaculated, "he's paid! By Gawd, he's shot himself-- only good thing he's done on this trek! Squares him with me!"

  Chapter 27

  No man ever again looked upon the face of Eric Dann. The agony of his last moment after the confession of the deceit which plunged his brother and the drovers into tragic catastrophe was cloaked in the blanket thrown over him. An hour after the deed which was great in proportion to his weakness, he lay in his grave. Sterl helped dig it by the light of a torch which Friday held.

  They were called to a late supper. Bill, actuated by a strange sentiment at variance with his abandonment of the trek, excelled himself on this last meal. The leader did not attend it.

  No orders to guard the mob were issued that night. But Sterl heard Bligh tell his men they would share their last watch. The girls, wide-eyed and sleepless, haunted the bright fire. They did not want to be alone. Sterl and Red sought their own tent.

  "Hard lines, pard," said Red, with a sigh, as he lay down. "It's turrible to worry over the other people. But mebbe this steel trap on our gizzards will loosen now that Eric at last made a clean job of it. You never can tell about what a man will do... An' as for a woman--didn't yore heart jest flop over when Beryl answered for her dad?"

  "Red, it sure did!"

  "Bingham, we break camp at once," said Stanley Dann as he met Slyter at breakfast. "What do you say to trekking west along this river?"

  "I say good-o," replied the drover. "Why not divide the load on the second dray? There's room on the wagons. That dray is worn out. Leave it here."

  "I agree," returned the leader. Already the tremendous inventive of starting a new trek, in the right direction, had seized upon them all.

  "My wife can drive my wagon. So can Leslie, where it's not overrough. We'll be shy of drovers, Stanley."

  "Plenty bad black fella close up," Friday broke in.

  Rollie tramped up to report that the mob was still resting, but that the larger herd of horses had been scattered.

  "We found one horse speared and cut up. Abo work," added Rollie.

  "Could these savages prefer horseflesh to beef?" queried Dann, incredulous.

  "Some tribes do, I've been told. Bligh heard blacks early this morning," asserted Slyter. "We cannot get away any too soon now."

  Bligh and his three dissenters drove a string of horses across the river. Bill, the cook, had slipped down the bank, under cover of the brush, to straddle one of those horses. He did not say good-by nor look back but followed the drovers down the path, and into the river.

  "Queer deal that," spoke up the ever vigilant Red, who sat by the fire oiling his rifle. "Bligh was sweet on Beryl at first. You'd reckon he'd say good-by an' good luck to her, if not the old man."

  "Red, I'll bet you two-bits Bligh comes back."

  "Gosh, I hope he does. I jest feel sorry for him, as I shore do for the other geezers who got turribly stuck on Beryl Dann..."

  "Uh--oh!" warned Sterl, too late.

  Beryl had passed Red, to hear the last of his scornful remark to Sterl.

  "You're sorry for whom, Red Krehl?"

  "Beryl, I was sorry for Bligh," drawled Red, coolly. "Me an' Sterl air gamblin' on his sayin' good-by to you. I'm bettin' thet if he's smart he won't try. Sterl bets he will."

  "And if Bligh's smart why won't he try to say good-by to me?" retorted Beryl.

  "Wal, he'll get froze for his pains."

  "He will indeed--the coward! And now what about the other geezers who're stuck on Beryl Dann?"

  "Aw, just natoorally I feel sorry for them."

  "Why--Why! You-all-of-a-sudden noble person!" she flashed, furiously.

  "Wal, Miss Dann, it so happens thet I'm one of them unfortunate geezers who got turribly stuck on you," returned the cowboy.

  All in one moment, Beryl was transformed from a desperately hurt woman, passionately furious, to one amazed, bluntly told the truth that she had yearned for and ever doubted, robbed at once of all her blaze, to be left pale as pearl.

  "Mr. Krehl, it's a pity--you never told me," she cried. "Perhaps the geezer who's so terrible stuck on me might have found out he's not really so unfortunate, after all."

  "Come out of it, kids," whispered Sterl. "Here c
omes Bligh, and I win the bet."

  The young drover faced Sterl to remove his sombrero and bow. Water dripped off him from the waist down.

  "Beryl, I dislike to go--like this," he said huskily. "But when I came on this trek I had hopes--of--of--of--you know what. I pray your Dad gets safely through--and I wish you happiness. If it is as we--we all guess, then the best man has won!"

  "Oh, Bob, how sweet of you!" cried Beryl, radiantly, and all the pride and scorn of her were as if they had never been. "I'm sorry for all-- that you must go... Kiss me good-by!" And giving him her hands she leaned to him and lifted a scarlet face. Bligh kissed her heartily, but not on the lips. Then releasing her he turned to Sterl and Red.

  "Hazelton, Krehl, it's been dinkum to know you," he said, extending his hand. "Good-by and good luck." Then Bligh espied Dann coming from his wagon, and strode to intercept him. At that instant Red leaped like a panther. "Injuns!" he yelled. "Duck!"

  Sterl ducked, his swift gaze taking the direction of Red's leveling rifle. He was in time to see a naked savage on the ridge in the very action of throwing a spear. Then Red's rifle cracked. The abo fell back out of sight on the ridge.

  Sterl heard, too, almost simultaneously, the chucking thud of a spear entering flesh. Wheeling he saw the long shaft quivering in the middle of Bligh's broad back.

  "Get down behind something!" yelled Sterl, at the top of his lungs. And he ran for the rifle against a wagon wheel.

  "Plenty black fella--close up," panted Friday, and pointed to the low rise of brushy ground just back of camp.

  Red's rifle cracked again. There was a hideous screech of agony. Dann and Slyter had taken refuge behind Slyter's wagon. A drover was hurrying the women inside it. "Lie down!" Slyter commanded. "Stanley, here's one of my rifles... Watch sharp! Along that bit of bush!"

  Yells of alarm from the drovers across the river drew from Dann a booming order: "Stay over there! Ride! Abo attack!"

  Sterl swept his glance around in search of Red. It passed over Bligh, who was lying on his side, in a last convulsive writhing.

  "Pard," shouted Red, from behind the dray a dozen step away, "they sneaked on us from the left. They'll work back that way an' I seen Larry an' Ben riding' hell-bent for the river bank. We'll heah them open the ball pronto..."

  Red's rifle spoke ringingly. "Ha! These abo's ain't so careful as redskins."

  "Where's Rollie?"

  "To my right heah, back of the log. But he's only got his six-gun. Pard, put yore hat on somethin' an' stick it up, all same old times."

  The ruse drew whistling spears. One stuck the wagon seat; the other pierced Sterl's hat and jerked it away.

  Again Red shot. "I got that bird, pard. Seen him throw. Aw, no, these blacks cain't throw a spear atall!"

  Then the drovers across the river entered the engagement, and Larry and Benson began to shoot.

  "They must be slopin', pard, but I cain't see any," called Red.

  The firing ceased. One of the drovers across the river hailed Dann: "They broke and ran. A hundred or so."

  "Which way?"

  "Back over the downs."

  "You drovers get on!" yelled Dann. "Clear out! Bligh's done for!"

  Friday appeared, darting from tree to tree, and disappeared. Red came running to join Sterl. "All over most before it started," he said. "Did you bore one, pard?"

  "I'm afraid not. But I made one yell."

  "Wal, I made up for thet. They was great tall fellers, Sterl, an' not black atall. Kinda a cross between brown an' yaller."

  Presently Friday strode back into camp, his arms full of spears and wommeras. The cowboys met him, and Slyter and Dann followed in haste. Rollie was next to arrive.

  "Black fella run alonga dere," said Friday. "All afraid guns. Come back bimeby."

  Red gazed down at the dead drover. "My gawd, ain't thet tough? Jest a second quicker an' I'd saved him! I saw somethin' out the corner of my eye. Too late!"

  "Bligh stepped in front of me in time to save my life," rolled Dann, tragically. "That black was after me! Friday, will those abo's track us?" queried Dann.

  "Might be. Pretty cheeky."

  "Pack! Hazelton, you and Krehl go with Larry and Benson. Drove the mob up the river. We'll follow behind the horses. Slyter, you and Friday help me bury this poor fellow."

  Riding out with the drovers, the cowboys had a look at the dead aborigines. The savage who had murdered Bligh lay in the grass on the open ridge where Red had espied him. The abo did not resemble Friday in any particular. He was taller, more slender, more marvelously formed. The color appeared to be a cast between brown and red. His visage was brutish and wild, scarcely human. Red was wrathful over the fine horse the abo's had slaughtered and cut up. "Hossmeat eaters! When there was live beef an' daid beef for the takin'!"

  The mob had moved upriver of it's own volition. The drovers caught up in short order. The ground on this side of the river made better going than that on the other. The surface was hard and level, the grass luxuriant, and clumps of brushland widened away to the north. The sky was black with circling, dropping birds of prey. The large gum trees were white with birds. Ahead of the mob, kangaroos dotted the rippling downs.

  Friday, trotting along beside Sterl's horse, spears and wommera in hand, often gazed back over his shoulder. It was not possible to believe they had seen the last of this strange and warlike tribe of aborigines. According to Slyter, a daylight attack was extremely rare. The earliest dawn hour had always been the most favorable for the blacks to attack and perhaps the worst for the drovers, since tired guards are likely to fall asleep.

  Toward sundown Slyter left his wife to drive his wagon and mounting a horse rode ahead, obviously to pick a camp site. Besides grass, water and firewood, there was now imperative need of a camp which the aborigines could not approach under cover. Sunset had come when Slyter finally called a halt. Three gum trees marked the spot. Off toward the river a hundred rods grew a dense copse fringed by isolated bushes. The rest was level, grassy downs.

  "From now on everyone does two men's work," boomed Dann. "Mrs. Slyter and the girls take charge of rations and cooking. We men will supply firewood, and wash dishes."

  "It's important to sleep away from the fire and the wagons," asserted Slyter. "Keep a fire burning all night. Blacks often spear men while they are asleep."

  "Old stuff for me an' Sterl, boss," drawled Red. "We're used to sleepin' with one eye open. An' heah--why we can heah a grasshopper scratch his nose!"

  But none of the trekkers laughed any more, nor smiled.

  The cowboys helped Dann and Slyter carry ground cloths, blankets and nets over to the fringe of brush near the copse. That appeared to be an impenetrable thorny brake, a favorable place, thought Sterl. Beds were laid under the brush. The three women were to sleep between Dann and Slyter. The greedy mosquitoes had become a secondary trial.

  The men returned to the fire.

  "It will be bright moonlight presently," Dann said. "That's in our favor, Benson, take Larry and Roland on guard. I needn't tell you to be vigilant. Stay off your horses unless there's a rush, or something unusual. Come in after midnight to wake Hazelton and Krehl."

  "Hazelton, where will you sleep?" asked Benson.

  "What do you say, Red?" returned Sterl.

  "Somewhere pretty close to these trees, on the side away from the open. We'll heah you when you call."

  When a gentle hand fell on his shoulder and Friday's voice followed, Sterl felt that he had not had his eyes closed longer than a moment.

  "All well, Friday?" he asked.

  "Eberytink good. But bimeby bad," replied the black.

  Red had sat up putting on the coat he has used for a pillow. Everything was wet with dew. The moon had soared beyond the zenith and blazed down with supernatural whiteness. The downs resembled a snowy range. A ghastly stillness reigned over the wilderness. Even the mosquitoes had gone.

  At the campfire the three drovers whom they were to relieve sat drinking tea.
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  "How was tricks, Ben?" asked Red.

  "Mob bedded down. Horses quiet. Not a move. Not a sound."

  The mob was like a checkerboard on the silvery downs. They passed the two herds of horses, the larger of which, Dann's, were grouped between the cattle and the camp.

  Red chose a position near a single tree on that side from which they could see both the mob and the remuda. They remained on foot. Friday made off into the ghostly brightness, returned to squat under the tree. His silence seemed encouraging.

  "Let's take turns dozin'," suggested Red, and proceeded to put that idea into execution.

  Sterl marked a gradual slanting of the moon and a diminishing of the radiance. He fell into half slumber. When he awakened the moon was far down and weird. The hour before dawn was close at hand.

  "Pard, there's no change in the herd, but Dann's horses have worked off a bit, an' Slyter's air almost in camp," said Red.

  "Ssh!" hissed the black. If he had heard anything he did not indicate what or whence. Rifles in hands, the cowboys stood motionlessly in the shadows of the tree. Several times Friday laid his ear to the ground, an action remarkably similar to that of Indian scouts they had worked with. The gray gloom made the campfire fade into a ghostly flicker.

  "Smellum black fella!" whispered Friday suddenly. Like a hound, his keenest sense was in his nose. An aboriginal himself, he smelled the approach of his species on the downs.

  "What do?" whispered Sterl, hoarsely, leaning to Friday's ear.

  "Tinkit more better alonga here."

  "Pard, I cain't smell a damn thing," whispered Red.

  "I'm glad I cain't. If we could--these abo's would be close... Red, it's far worse to stand than a Comanche stalk."

  "Sssh!" The black added a hand to his caution. Again the cowboys became statues.

  "Obber dere," whispered Friday. And to Sterl's great relief he pointed away from camp. But though Sterl strained his ears to the extent of pain he could not hear a sound.

  Suddenly the speaking and sinister silence broke to a thud of hoofs. Sterl jerked up as if galvanized.

  "Skeered hoss. But not bad. Reckon he got a scent, like Friday," whispered Red.