Wilderness Trek (1988) Page 25

  Another little run of hoofs on soft ground!

  "I heahed a hoss wicker," whispered Red, intensely. Friday held up his hand. Events were about to break, and Sterl greeted the fact with a release of tension.

  Whang! On the still air sped a strange sound, familiar, though Sterl could not identify it. Instantly there followed the peculiar thud of missile entering flesh! It could not have been a bullet, for no report followed. Hard on that sound came the shrill, horrid unearthly scream of a horse in mortal agony. A pounding of hoofs--and a heavy body thudding the ground. The herd took fright, snorting and whistling.

  "You savvy wommera?" asked Friday, in a whisper.

  "I shore did. An' you bet I shivered in my boots," replied Red.

  Then the strange sound, almost a twang, became clear to Sterl's mind.

  "Black fella spearum hoss," added Friday.

  Red broke into curses. "They're cuttin' up one of our hosses... I can heah the rip of hide! Let's sneak over an' shoot the gizzards out of them!"

  Chapter 28

  Sterl gave grim acquiescence to Red's bold suggestion. But Friday whispered: "More better black fella go alonga bush corroboree."

  "Pard, he talks sense," said Red. "It's better we let the abo's gorge themselves on horse meat, than for us to run the littlest risk."

  "Righto, Red. But it galls me," rejoined Sterl, and lapsed into silence again. New, faint sounds reached their ears--what must have been a rending of bones. Splashing sounds succeeded; then the keenest listening was in vain. At daylight Red said he would ride out and see what signs the marauding abo's might have left. Sterl returned to camp.

  All the men were up and Slyter was helping his wife get breakfast. His eyes questioned Sterl in mute anxiety. But upon hearing Sterl's report he was far from mute. Dann, too, ground his teeth.

  "We could spare a bullock, but a good horse--"

  "Boss," said Red, as he rode into camp, "I found where them abo's had killed an' butchered yore boss. Narry hide nor hair nor hoof left! Must have been a hundred abo's in the outfit!"

  For ten nights that band of aboriginals, reinforced at every camp, hung on the tracks of the trekkers. Nothing was ever seen of them but their haunting smoke magic. The silence, the mystery, the inevitable attack on the horses in the gray dawn, wore increasingly upon the drovers. The savages never killed a beef. The horrible fear they impressed upon the pursued was that when they tired of horseflesh they would try to obtain human flesh. For Slyter averred that they were cannibals. Friday, when anyone mentioned this dire possibility, looked blank.

  Now the trekkers approached the end of the downs. The river had diminished to a creek. Day by day the patches and fringes of bush had encroached more upon the green, shining monotony. Vague blue tracery of higher ground hung over the horizon. The waterfowl, except for cranes and egrets, had given way to a variable and colorful parrot life.

  "Makes no difference if we do pass the happy huntin' ground of this breed of abo's," said Red, one night. "We'll only run into more. This heah bunch has got me buffaloed. You cain't see them. A coupla more hosses butchered will put me on the warpath, boss or no boss! I figger that killin' some of them would stop their doggin' us. Thet used to be the case with the plains redskins."

  As the bush encroached more upon the downs, corroborees were held nightly by the aborigines. The wild revels and the weird chantings murdered sleep for the trekkers. Always over them hovered the evil portent of what the cannibals had been known to do in the remote Australian wilderness.

  One gray morning dawned with bad news for the Slyters. Leslie's thoroughbred, a gray roan stallion of great promise, which the girl called Lord Chester, was missing from the band. Red ran across the spot where he had been killed and butchered. Upon their return to camp, Leslie was waiting in distress.

  "Les, we cain't find him," confessed Red. "An' I jest reckon he's gone the way of so many of Dann's hosses." She broke down and wept bitterly.

  "Say, cain't you take yore medicine?" queried Red, always prone to hide his softer side under a cloak of bitterness or scorn. "This heah trek ain't no circus parade. What's another boss, even if he is one of yore thoroughbreds?"

  "Red Krehl!" she cried in passionate amaze at his apparent callousness. "I've lost horses--But Chester!--It's too much--I loved him--almost as I do--Jane."

  "Shore you did. I felt thet way once over a hoss. It's tough. But don't be a baby."

  "Baby? I'm no baby, Red Krehl! It's Dann and Dad--and you--all of you who've lost your nerve! If you and Sterl--and Larry and Rol--if you had any man in you--you'd kill these abo's!"

  The girl's passion, her rich voice stinging with scorn, appeared to lash the cowboy.

  "By gosh, Leslie," he replied. "I shore deserved thet. No excuse for me, or any of us, onless we're jest plain worn to a frazzle."

  "Red Krehl, what do you mean by that speech?" demanded Beryl.

  "Never mind what I meant. Leslie hit me one below the belt."

  "That is no reason for you to concoct some blood reprisal of revenge. Leslie is a grand girl. She has proved that to me. But she's like you--a savage. She forgets."

  "Yeah? Forgets what?" drawled the cowboy.

  "That her loss was only a horse. If you and Sterl and Larry and Rollie should be killed or badly wounded--our trek is doomed."

  "Beryl," returned Red, "you're smarter than any of us. But Leslie's ravin' is more sense that yore intelligence. It's a hard nut to crack..."

  A hundred times that day Sterl saw Red turn in his saddle to look for the smoke signals of the aboriginals rising above the bush horizon to the north. Toward noon of that day they vanished. But that night in camp, when Larry, Rollie and Benson were about to go on guard, Friday held up his hand. "Corroboree!" They listened. From the darkness wailed a chant as of lost souls.

  "How far away, Friday?" asked Red, tersely.

  "Close up."

  "How many?"

  "Plenty black fella. No gin. No lubra."

  Red swept a blue-fire glance all around to see that he would not be overheard by the women. "Fellers, it's a hunch. Grab yore rifles an' extra cartridges. We'll give these abo's a mess of lead."

  Friday led the way beyond camp. As they neared the bush the chant swelled to a pitch indicating many voices. Soon, dark, dancing forms grotesquely crossed the firelight. Friday led a zigzag way through the bush and brush.

  They were halted by a stream or pond.

  "About as far as we can get," whispered Red. "Let's take a peep. Careful now!"

  Silently the five rose from behind the fringe of brush, to peer over the top. Sterl was surprised to see a wide stretch of water, mirroring three fires and fantastic figures of abo's dancing in strange gyrations. The distance was about a hundred yards.

  "Plenty black fella," whispered Friday, in tense excitement. "Big corroboree! Full debbil along hoss meat! Bimeby bad!"

  "I should snicker to snort," whispered Red. "Mebbe he means thet horseflesh has gone stale. They want long-pig! Let's frame it thet way."

  "It's a cinch they'll roast us next!" said Sterl.

  "All right," whispered Red, tensely. "Make shore of yore first shot. Then empty yore rifles pronto, reload, an' slope. Pard Sterl, forget yore Injun-lovin' weakness, an' shoot like you could if one of us was in there roastin' on the coals."

  They cocked and raised their rifles. Sterl drew down upon a dense group of dark figures, huddled together, swaying in unison.

  "One--two--three--shoot!" hissed Red.

  The rifles cracked. Pandemonium broke loose. The abo's knocked against each other in their mad rush. And a merciless fire poured into them. When Sterl paused to reload he peered through the smoke. Red was still shooting. From the circle of light, gliding black forms vanished. But around the fires lay prone abo's and many writhing, and shrieking.

  "Slope--fellers," ordered Red, huskily, and then turned away on the run. At length the cowboys halted from exhaustion.

  "Reckon we're out of--reach of--them spears," he g
asped. "I ain't used --to runnin'--Wal, did it work?"

  "Work? It was a--massacre," declared Benson, in hoarse, broken accents.

  "Let's rustle--for camp," added Red. "They'll all be--scared stiff."

  His premonition had ample vindication. When Red called out, they all appeared from under the wagon.

  "What the hell?" boomed Dann, as he stalked out, rifle in hand.

  "Were you attacked?" queried Slyter, sharply.

  Beryl ran straight into Red, to throw her arms around him, then sink limply upon his breast. She was beyond thinking of what her actions betrayed.

  "Boss," he said, "we went after them. It jest had to be done."

  "Well--what happened?" demanded the leader, his breath whistling.

  "We blasted hell out of them," declared Benson. "And it was a good thing."

  "Hazelton, are you dumb?" queried Slyter, testily.

  "Wholesale murder, boss," replied Sterl. "But justifiable. Friday intimated that we might be roasting next on their spits."

  "Oh, Red!" cried Beryl. "I thought you had--broken your promise--that you might be--"

  "Umpumm, Beryl," returned Red, visibly moved, as he released himself and steadied her on her feet. "We was shore crazy, but took no chances. Beryl, you an' Leslie can feel shore thet bunch of abo's won't hound us again."

  Red's 'prediction turned out to be true. There were no more raids on the horses--no more smoke signals on the horizon. But days had to pass before the drovers believed in their deliverance.

  They trekked off the down into mulga and spinifex country, covered with good grass, fairly well watered and dotted with dwarf gums and fig and pandanus trees. The ground was gradually rising. They came next into a region of anthills. Many a field of these queer earthen habitations had they passed through. But this one gave unparalleled and remarkable evidence of the fecundity and energy of the wood--and leaf-eating ants. Gray and yellow in the sunlight, they were of every size, up to the height of three tall men. At night they shone ghostly in the starlight. Sterl found that every dead log he cut into was only a shell--that the interior had been eaten away. And from every dead branch or tree poured forth an army of ants, furious at the invasion of their homes.

  At last Sterl understood the reason for Australia's magnificent eucalyptus trees. In the ages past, nature had developed the gum tree with its many variations, all secreting eucalyptus oil, as defensive a characteristic as the spines on a cactus.

  Then they camped on a range of low hills, with a water-course which gave them an easy grade. Followed to its source, that stream led to a divide. Water here ran toward the west. That was such a tremendous circumstance, so significant in its power to stir almost dead hopes, that Dann called a halt to rest, to recuperate, to make much needed repairs.

  "It is that unknown country beyond outback Australia!" exclaimed Slyter.

  Friday made a slow gesture which seemed symbolic of the infinite. Indeed this abyss resembled the void of the sky. The early morning was hot, clear, windless. Beneath and beyond him rolled what seemed a thousand leagues of green-patched, white-striped slope, leading down, down to a nothingness that seemed to flaunt a changeless inhospitality in the face of man. It was the other half of the world. It dreamed and brooded under the hot sun. On and on forever it spread and sloped and waved away into infinitude.

  "Never-never Land!" gasped Slyter. "White fella go alonga dere nebber come back!" said Friday.

  Turning away from that spectacle, the men returned down the hill. At camp Slyter reported simply and truthfully that the trek had passed on to the border of the Never-never Land. No need to repeat the aborigine's warning.

  "Good-o!" boomed Stanley Dann. "The Promised Land at last! Roll along, you trekkers!"

  Midsummer caught Dann's trek out in the arid interior. They knew it was midsummer by the heat and drought, but in no other ways for Dann and Sterl had long since tired of recording labor, misery, fight and death.

  They had followed a stream bed for weeks Here and there, miles apart, they found clear pools in rocky places. The bleached grass had grown scant, but it was nutritious. If the cattle could drink every day or two they would survive. But many of the weak dropped by the wayside. Cows with newly born calves had been driven from the waterholes; and when the calves failed the mothers refused to leave them. Some mornings the trek would be held up because of strayed horses. Some were lost. Dann would not spare the time to track them. The heat was growing intense.

  The trek had become almost chaotic when the drovers reached a zone where rock formations held a succession of pools of clear water including one that amounted to a pond.

  "Manna in the wilderness!" sang out Stanley Dann, joyfully. "We will camp here until the rains come again!"

  To the girls that meant survival. To the drovers it was exceedingly joyous news. The water was a saving factor, just in the nick of time. For everywhere were evidences of a long cessation of rain in these parts. In good seasons the stream must have been a fair little river, and during flood time it had spread all over the flat. Birds and animals had apparently deserted the locality. The grass was bleached white; plants had been burned sere by the sun; trees appeared to be withering.

  Dann said philosophically to Slyter: "We have water enough and meat and salt enough to exist here for five years." That showed his trend of thought. Sterl heard Slyter reply that the supply of water would not last half as long as that. "We'll have to build a strong brush roof over that pond, in case the dust storms begin," he added.

  The most welcome feature of this camp was the cessation of haste. For days and weeks and months the drovers had been working beyond their strength. Here they could make up for that. The horses and cattle, after a long dry trek, would not leave this sweet water. Very little guarding would they need.

  Sterl and Red, helped by Friday, leisurely set about selecting a site, pitching their tent; making things comfortable for a long stay. Working at these tasks took up the whole first day. Everyone else had been busy likewise. At supper Sterl gazed around to appreciate a homelike camp. But if, or when, it grew windy in this open desert, he imagined, they would have more to endure than even the scorching heat of the camp al the forks.

  Mrs. Slyter laid out the same old food and drink, but almost unrecognizable because of her skill in cooking and serving. As for Beryl and Leslie, Red summed it up: "Wal, doggone it, I reckon a cowboy could stand a grubline forever with two such pretty waitresses... Heah you air, girls, thin as bean poles an' burned brown as autumn leaves."

  "We're not as thin as bean poles!" asserted Leslie. This epithet of Red's was not wholly true--yet how slim and frail Beryl was, and how slender the once sturdy Leslie!

  The womenfolk, having served the supper, joined the drovers at the table. After Larry and Rollie cleared away and washed the dishes. The drovers sat and smoked awhile, conversing desultorily.

  "No flies or mosquitoes here," said Dann. "Flies will come bye and bye," replied Slyter.

  "There'll be a good few calves dropped here."

  "And colts foaled, too. But we have lost so many!"

  "Boss, where do you figger we air?" asked Red.

  "Somewhere out in the Never-never Land. Five hundred miles outback, more or less."

  "Dann, I'll catch up with my journal now," interposed Sterl. "I can recall main events, but not dates."

  "Small matter now. Keep on with your journal, if you choose. But I--I don't care to recall things. No one would ever believe we endured so much. And I would not want to discourage future drovers."

  Red puffed a cloud of smoke to hide his face, while he drawled: "Girls, you're gonna be old maids shore as shore can be, if we ever get out alive."

  "You bet we are, Red Krehl, if help for such calamity ever depended on Yankee blighters we know," cried Leslie, with spirit.

  Beryl's response was surprising and significant. "We are old maids now, Leslie dear," she murmured, dreamily. "I remember how I used to wonder about that. And to--to pine for a husband... But
it doesn't seem to matter now."

  "But it would be well if we could!"

  Stanley Dann said: "God gave us thoughts and vocal powers but we use them, often, uselessly and foolishly. You young people express too many silly ideas... You girls are not going to be old maids, nor are you cowboys ever going to be old bachelors. We are going through."

  "Shore we air, boss," flashed Red. "But if we all could forget--an' face this hell like you--an' also be silly an' funny once in awhile, we'd go through a damn sight better!"

  Dann slapped his knee with a great broad hand. "Righto! I deserve the rebuke--I am too obsessed--too self-centered. But I do appreciate what I owe you all. Relax, if you can. Forget! Play jokes. Have fun! Make love, God bless you!"

  As Dann stamped away, Sterl remarked that there was gray in the gold over his temples--that his frame was not so upright and magnificent as it had once been. And that saddened Sterl. How all the dead must haunt him!

  The abrupt change from excessive labor, from sleeplessness and fear to rest, ease, and a sense of safety, reacted on all the trekkers. They had one brief spell of exquisite tranquillity before the void shut down on them with its limitless horizon lines, its invisible confines, its heat by day, its appalling solitude by night, its sense that this raw nature had to be fought.

  Nothing happened, however, that for the time being justified such fortification of soul and body. If the sun grew imperceptibly hotter, that could be gauged only by the touch of bare flesh upon metal. The scarcity of living creatures of the wild grew to be an absolute barrenness, as far as the trekkers knew. A gum tree blossomed all scarlet one morning, and the girls announced that to be Christmas Day. Sterl and Red found the last of the gifts they had brought on the trek. At supper presentations followed. The result was not in Sterl's or Red's calculations. From vociferous delight Beryl fell to hysterical weeping, which even Red could not assuage. And Leslie ate so much of the stale candy that she grew ill.

  One day Friday sighted smoke signals on the horizon. "Black fella close up!" he said.

  At once the camp was plunged into despair. Dann ordered fortifications thrown up on two sides. Then Friday called the leader's attention to a strange procession filing in from the desert. Human beings that did not appear human! They came on, halted, edged closer and closer, halted again, paralyzed with fear yet driven by a stronger impulse. First came a score or less of males, excessively thin, gaunt, black as ebony and practically naked. They all carried spears, but appeared the opposite of formidable. The gins were monstrosities. There were only a few lubras, scarcely less hideous than the gins. A troop of naked children hung back behind them, wild as wild beasts, ragged of head, pot-bellied.