by Zane Grey
Red chose a position near a single tree on that side from which they could see both the mob and the herd. They remained on foot. Friday made off until he vanished in the ghostly brightness. Red and Sterl smoked, walked to and fro, talked but little, listened intensely. Nothing happened. Friday 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. But a good while elapsed before the silver turned to gray. Red fell over his knees to awaken, and then to insist that Sterl take a nap. Long habit made this easy, unless there was strong mental opposition. But Sterl fell into a half slumber. When he awakened, the moon was far down and weird. The deep boom of a bittern broke the dismal silence. The stars were wan. The hour before dawn was close at hand.
“Pard, there’s no change in the herd, but Dann’s hosses have worked off a bit, an’ Slyter’s air almost in camp. One of the boys just threw wood on the fire,” said Red.
Sterl got up to stretch his cramped legs. “Red, you said no change. Why this isn’t the same night at all.”
“It’s mawnin’, pard, an’, if all of us air gonna be murdered, it’s shore about time.”
“Shall we ride around a bit?”
“No good a-tall, an’ it might be bad. Let’s hang heah an’ listen. It’s a cinch we cain’t see much longer.”
“Shoosh!” hissed the black, and that from him froze the cowboys. If he had heard anything, he did not indicate what or from whence. Rifles in hands, the cowboys stood motionlessly in the shadows of the trees. The horses drooped their heads. But as the moments passed and nothing broke the unbearable stillness, and the gray shadowy mantle spread uncannily over the downs, Red and Sterl moved about a little. Several times Friday laid his ear to the ground, an action remarkably similar to that of Indian scouts the cowboys had worked with. It was so still that any slight sound would have carried far. The gray gloom encroached up the downs, hiding the mob, and then the horses, and at last made the campfire fade into a ghostly flicker.
The moment arrived when Sterl made sure that no sensorial perception of any kind had given rise to his feeling that they were not alone out here. Red’s posture added to the strength of his stimulus. The aboriginal’s positively confirmed it. Possibly the black man was responsible for this strange effect. It was impossible for Sterl to remain longer motionless and speechless. He stepped to Red’s side and whispered.
“I’m buffaloed, pard, an’ skeered clean out of my skin,” replied Red.
Sterl asked Friday the same question.
“Smellum black fella!”
So it was scent! Like a hound, his keenest sense was in his nose. Sterl might have been so affected, but he could not tell if that were true. They waited, Red and Sterl, strangely reverting to physical contact in their intense suspense. Their guide and comrade, an aboriginal himself, smelled the approach of his species on the down. They could not be seen or heard. A white man could not have scented them, to know it.
“What do?” whispered Sterl hoarsely, leaning to Friday’s ear.
“Tinkit more better alonga here.” Undoubtedly the black advised staying right where they were.
The ensuing minutes were fraught with almost insupportable strain. Sterl thanked heaven for this black man. Without him they would have been lost in that Outback wilderness, as so many Australian explorers and pioneers had been.
“Pard, I cain’t smell a damn’ thing,” whispered Red.
“I’m glad I can’t. If we could…these abo’s would be close. Red, it’s far worse to stand than a Comanche stalk.”
“Hell, yes! Oughtn’t be, but shore is. All the same, Sterl, they cain’t sneak right up on top of us. I’m scared they’ll stumble across the girls.”
“Stumble? Say, if Friday can scent them, you bet they can scent us.”
“Aw! I reckoned it was the stink of some of these aborigines.”
“Shooosh!” The black added a hand to his caution. Again the cowboys became statues. This kind of menace seemed peculiarly horrible. Sterl felt he could not long suppress a fierce yell of mingled rage and fear.
“Obber dere,” whispered Friday. And to Sterl’s great relief he pointed away from camp in a downriver direction. Dann’s herd of horses had vanished in that direction. Although Sterl strained his ears to the extent of pain, he could not hear a sound. The way Friday turned his ear, however, proved that he had heard something in that direction.
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.
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. But he found his mouth dry and swallowing difficult and breathing oppressive.
Whang! On the still air sped a strange sound, familiar, although Sterl could not place it. Instantly there followed the peculiar thud of bullet or missile entering flesh. It could not have been a bullet, for no report followed. Hard on that sound pealed out the shrill, horrid, unearthly scream of a horse in mortal agony. There came a pounding of hoofs, a trampling, and a heavy body, thudding the ground. The herd took flight, 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 butchering one of our hosses. I heah the rip of hide! Let’s sneak over an’ shoot the gizzards out of them!”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Sterl gave grim acquiescence to Red’s bold suggestion that they stalk the aborigines. But Friday whispered: “More better black fella go alonga bush corroboree.”
The cowboys weighed that advice. And as the entering wedge of caution penetrated their hot anger at the slaughtering of horses, they saw the wisdom of it.
“Pard, he talks sense. It’s more better we let the abo’s gorge themselves on horse meat, an’ dance an’ sing, than for us to run the littlest risk.”
“Right, 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. The aborigines were dismembering the horse they had speared. Splashing sounds succeeded these, and then the keenest listening was in vain.
Meanwhile, the gray lightened; the birds began to sing. At last day broke, an infinitely relieving event. The ring of an axe signified activity in camp.
Slyter’s horses grazed along the streams beyond camp; Dann’s horses had worked toward the river; the mob had begun to stir. All appeared well with the stock.
Daylight made a vast difference in the feelings of the cowboys. While Friday went on into camp, they took a short cut to change horses. King and Duke were saddled and led on in. King had a loose shoe that Sterl wanted to renail. Red said he would ride out and see what signs the marauding aborigines might have left. Then 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….”
Rollie had just come in with a team. Sterl helped him hitch them to the wagon. Larry and Benson led the other teams and saddle horses in. Last to arrive, as Mrs. Slyter called to breakfast, was Red.
“Boss, I reckon Sterl has told you what come off this mawnin’,” he said, looking down from his saddle. “I found where them abo’s had killed an’ butchered yore hoss. Nary hide nor hair nor hoof left! They packed all of
that hoss away. Grass all trampled an’ gory. Must have been a hundred abo’s in thet outfit!”
“They will dog our trek,” boomed the leader tragically.
“Rode across to the river,” added Red. “Could see the plains on the other side. No sign of cattle or drovers.”
“We will never see them again.”
Slyter added pessimistically: “No one will ever see them again.”
The girls appeared at breakfast, betraying the havoc of an uncomfortable and wakeful night. But their demeanor augured well. They all ate breakfast together, even Friday, sitting with them on the ground. Leslie had learned to imitate the cowboys who sat Indian fashion, their feet tucked under them. Beryl was valiant, but she had not managed it yet. While eating thus, one of the drovers let out what Sterl and Red had desired to keep from the girls—the butchering of the horse. Beryl contained her disgust and anger, but Leslie burst out with profane words she had learned from the cowboys. Mrs. Slyter did not reprove her.
By sunrise the trekkers were on their way, with the sun warm on their backs. The pace of the cattle was tediously slow, but that could not be helped. Mile after mile and league after league failed of that tranquil restoration to peace which had been the good fortune of the trekkers on the earlier stages. Behind them rose the yellow smoke signals, and far in advance floated the same strange menacing telegraphy of the aborigines.
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 chose to kill a beef. They were horse-meat eaters. The horrible fear they impressed upon the pursued was that, when they tired of horse flesh, they would try to obtain human flesh. For Slyter averred that they were cannibals. Friday, when asked about this dire possibility, looked blank and did not answer.
Stanley Dann bore the brunt of the loss in horses. Slyter’s blooded stock was herded into the best available spots, while Dann’s was left free to roam with the mob. His contention was that to make it difficult for the aborigines to butcher horses increased the peril of his drovers.
“Wal, mebbe, when they get done feastin’ on hossflesh, they’ll try beef,” drawled Red. “An’ as we’re drivin’ about twenty-five hundred haid, we got enough meat to feed them for eight more years.”
But no one laughed any more at Red’s caustic humor, or at anything else.
Twelve days’ trek from Doré’s Bush, which seemed ages and thousands of leagues back in the past. Now the trekkers approached the end of the downs. The river had diminished to a creek. Long had they passed by the zone of the tides. Day by day the patches and fringes of bush had encroached more upon the green, shining monotony of the downs. 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. And, once more, kangaroos became too numerous to count.
A western horizon, clear of smoke signals for several days, raised the hope that the haunts of this particular tribe of aborigines had almost reached a limit. But Slyter averred that the Australian blacks knew no limit to their wanderings. They ranged where food and water were to be found.
“Makes no difference, if we do pass the happy huntin’ ground of this breed of abo’s,” said Red. “We’ll only run into more. They’re as thick as kangaroos. 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.”
“Krehl, thet’s not like you,” reproved Dann. “Seldom do you forget our womenfolk.”
“Hell, boss! I ain’t forgettin’ them,” protested Red. “I figger these abo’s up heah air yeller clear to their gizzards. They shore ain’t like Friday. An’ I figger that killin’ some of them would stop their doggin’ us. Thet used to be the case with the plains red-skins.”
The leader shook his shaggy, golden head. The problem was growing beyond him. Slyter seemed inclined to side with the cowboy.
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 Australian remote wildernesses.
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 and Sterl made this discovery, but were loath to tell her. They scoured the downs and nearby bush in hope that he had strayed. Then 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.”
Slyter admitted that he had expected this very disaster and had been prepared for it. But that did not help Leslie. She broke down and wept bitterly.
“Leslie, we’re dog-gone sorry,” Sterl said. “It’s sure hard to bear. But you’ve been lucky.” That solicitude only added fuel to the fire of Leslie’s grief.
“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 hoss, even if he is one of yore Thoroughbreds?”
“Red Krehl!” she cried in passionate amaze at his apparent callousness. “I’ve lost horses…lost Duchess and never whimpered. But Chester…it’s too much. I loved him…almost as I do Lady Jane!”
“Shore you did. I felt thet way once over a hoss, though out heah it’s hard to remember. Chester is gone. 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…any one of you…had any courage, you’d kill these abo’s!”
The girl’s passion, her rich voice, stinging with scorn, appeared to lash the cowboy. No one could have doubted what she would have done had she been a man.
“By gosh, Leslie, you’re right,” he replied. “I shore deserved thet. No excuse for me, or any of us, onless we’re jest plain worn to a frazzle.”
Beryl, listening intently, her dark eyes on Red, evidently interpreted him in like manner with Sterl.
“Red Krehl, what do you mean by that speech?” she demanded.
“Never mind what I mean. Leslie hit me one below the belt.”
“That is no reason for you to concoct some blood reprisal of revenge.”
“Dog-gone it, Beryl, if you cain’t talk English I savvy, try abo’ lingo, will you?” Red complained evasively.
“Red, loss of that lovely gray horse has hurt Leslie unbearably,” went on Beryl eloquently. “It has made her a selfish hurt child again. 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, fascinated by the beauty and appeal of this young woman.
“That her loss was only a horse. That her grief and scorn might influence you to revenge upon these aborigines. If you and Sterl and Larry and Rollie should be killed or badly wounded, our trek is doomed.”
“Beryl, I shore like you a heap more for your talk,” returned Red, evidently profoundly stirred. “You’re smarter than any of us, an’ you’ve gone less savage. But heah we air. Mebbe Leslie’s ravin’ is more sense than yore intelligence. It’s a hard nut to crack….”
“Girls, you are both right,” Sterl replied earnestly. “We can gain much from what you said. The thing to do is to act upon Leslie’s rage with all the caution that your reason suggests.”
“Right, pard,” said Red gratefully. “Beryl, we’ll pay these abo’s in some bloody coin without undue risk to ourselves. Will thet rest yore mind?”
“Yes, thank you, Red. I have faith
in your promises,” Beryl returned gravely.
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 noonday, they dispursed and vanished. No more were any seen to the west.
But that night in camp, when Larry, Rollie, and Benson were about to go out on guard, Friday held up his hand: “Corroboree!” They listened. From the darkness wailed a chant, as of the savages. The festivity might have been a reveling in fresh meat, but the sound seemed one of lost souls, bewailing their fate. It rose on the night wind.
“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. Out in the open the sounds of the corroboree became more pronounced. A slight breeze wafted the mournful chant distinctly to their ears. With all its pathos and strange mystic rhythms, it had an unparalleled savagery. It curdled the blood. These aborigines had chanted that way over a feast of human flesh. It was that conviction that served to inflame the stalkers.
As they neared the bush, the chant swelled to a pitch indicating many voices. Lights of fires glimmered through the trees. Soon dark, dancing forms grotesquely crossed the lights. Friday led a zigzag way through the bush and brush, and at last he crawled. Every little while Sterl put out a hand to detain him. The black seemed keen to visit disaster upon this tribe of his people.
They were halted by a stream or pond.
“About as far as we can get,” whispered Red. “Let’s take a peep. When I get the lay of the deal, I’ll talk turkey. Careful now!”