by Dave Freer
“They be on us soon, man. They must have stopped in the heat,” said Lampy.
“One scent dog and four chasers,” said Jack. “Well, we can’t outrun them, so we’ll have to deal with them. We need the trail good and clear and down into that channel. Let’s drag the meat. I want the scent dog chasing that.”
“And us, man.”
“And us, while it’s with us.”
They set off through the spinifex and down into the scrubby trees of the braided channel, along it, dodging between the deadwood, and to what Jack grunted was “ideal”—an in-cut sandy bank with a steep scramble up it to a fringe of malee.
“Go along the edge. As soon as you’re out of sight, hang the meat on a tree, out over the drop—my shirt on it. Jump down, cut back onto our trail, and come back here. We’ve got maybe five minutes.”
That Jack, Lampy thought, shaking his head, but doing it. The meat, with Jack’s shirt on it, he hung out on a branch over the edge of the sand wall so the dogs would have to jump to and tear at it, then fall down and scramble all the way back up again. Then he took a running jump and landed way out on the sand of the dry river bed and ran back.
Jack was busy with the rest of the tough cord he’d taken from the cabin of the locomotive. The sun was down, and the cool of dusk would bring relief soon…if they lived that long. Lampy could hear the dogs yammering. “I need your shirt, too,” said Jack, hastily. “Here, push it up on the bucket, and we need to get up that tree.”
It wasn’t much of a goolibah tree, but they scrambled up it as the dogs crossed the braided sand. The dogs hit the bank and scrabbled their way up it as the riders followed. Now there was no need for tracking, the blackfeller was with the horse string at the back and the two troopers rode as if this was some kind of happy fox hunt. They hunched low over their horses’ necks as they spurred their mounts at the bank.
And at the top they hit the tight-stretched cord, carefully spanned between two tall, solid old dead goolibah stumps. The cord hit the lead rider on his arms and across the neck, sending him catapulting back out of the saddle. The other, ducking just in time, caught the snapping rope across his face. The second rider almost managed to stay in the saddle, lost his stirrup, and tumbled down the bank. Their horses heaved up, their momentum unchecked, and kept going, riderless and panicked.
Lampy and Jack jumped down from their hideout as the tracker, riding the center horse in the mob of spare horses, tried to haul his steed to a halt. The remounts strung on halters on either side of his horse tried to turn away, but some left and some right, with plunging heads and threshing hooves. The tracker lost his seat but managed to roll backward out of the chaos. The man who’d been catapulted was less lucky. He was under the hooves, and Lampy saw his face sliced by one.
The other trooper, face cut to the bone and shocked, still managed to unlimber his rifle…and fire a shot into the shirt-wearing fire bucket swinging on a branch. He worked the bolt as Jack threw his egg. It hit the rifle as he fired, and the bullet creased across Lampy’s thigh as he threw his spear. Both of them screamed.
Jack had already jumped down and wrestled with the trooper, who had a spear in his side and only had one hand on his rifle. It was a short, nasty clinch, and the trooper fell.
There was no pain yet. Just shock. Lampy dived over the edge and scrambled to grab the rifle as the tracker came running up. “You stay still. I don’t want to kill you, but I will,” said Lampy through gritted teeth, pointing the rifle at the tracker. The pain was starting now. Like a wave of fire running up his leg.
Jack came running. “You all right?”
“Shot me,” grunted Lampy, sitting down. He held out the rifle he’d grabbed to Jack and held his leg.
Jack took the rifle and knelt down next to him. “You,” he said to the tracker. “Get those horses.” The beasts plunged about all over the place. “Try and run and I’ll shoot you.” He ripped aside Lampy’s bloody trouser leg and exposed the wound.
It was bleeding, a long gash about seven inches long ran diagonally across the front of his thigh.
Jack exhaled, plainly relieved. He squeezed Lampy’s shoulder. “You’ll live, son. Anything else hurt?”
“Uh. My ankle doesn’t feel too good,” he said, pointing at the opposite foot. “I landed kind of bad when I jumped down after he shot me. Ouch!” he yelled as Jack manipulated it.
“Hard to tell, as I don’t have the experience,” said Jack, “but it looks like you either sprained it or broke it. You got lucky with the bullet and unlucky with the fall.”
The tracker seized his chance, with Jack’s attention on Lampy. One of the horses had broken its halter, and he slipped himself up onto it and kicked it into a gallop.
Jack raised the rifle, fired, and then dropped it as he ran to grab the broken halter line before the other horses followed.
The man still fled, but he wasn’t on horseback anymore. The horse had been creased or wounded, or just frightened, but its rider had lost his seat.
Gritting his teeth, Lampy picked up the rifle. He’d never fired one before, but the troopers might not both be dead. He was sure the second one, the one that had shot him, moved.
Meanwhile, Jack had found a saddlebag with hobbles, tether ropes, and stakes…and a stock whip—and just in time, because the dogs came back.
The whip changed their minds very fast about what they wanted to do. Lampy would have shot them, but Jack and the whip were in the way. Jack could use that whip, as Lampy saw when the dazed, wounded trooper sat up. Jack tied him up like a turkey with a horse tether. It was getting dark by then, and Jack found a lamp and the trooper’s bag of supplies. That had some lint, Epsom salts, iodine, and some crepe bandage.
“Right. I’ll see to the soldier in a minute. I reckon that hole in your thigh is bled clean. Let’s bandage it up, and I’ll strap your ankle while I’m at it.” Lampy’s thigh had a furrow about a quarter inch deep through it. “Painful? A shock, but incredibly lucky, Lampy,” said Jack. “Like your ankle, it’ll heal. And like your ankle, the less it’s walked on, the better. Can you ride a horse?”
What other work was open for blackfellers, except being stockmen? He’d ridden nearly as much as he’d walked, since he was little. He managed a smile. “Can a ’roo jump?”
“Good lad. We’re better off now, even with you hurt. We’ve got four horses, some water bags, some food, two rifles, flysheet, three swags, a good amount of ammunition…”
“And two ruined shirts and a dented fire bucket.”
“Heh,” said Jack. “To be sure. But I’ll get the clothes off the trooper the horses trampled. They’ll be bloody, too, but a hat and a shirt are necessary out here, especially for me, with my fine pale skin and all.”
Jack then did his best for the surviving trooper. Lampy’s spear, with its bone point, had hit the man at an angle on the rib cage and spiked down into his abdomen. It was still lodged there.
“This is going to hurt,” said Jack. “I’ll do my best for you, but you’ll be coming with us. If I leave you here, you’ll die. And it’s likely we’ll need the horses and the water, and I’m in no hurry for you to tell your friends, so I’m not sending you back. By the time the dogs and tracker get back we should be a long way off. Behave yourself, and you’ll get to live. Don’t, and we’ll shoot you. You were going to let us be ripped apart by the dogs.”
“Orders to keep you alive,” said the man, sullenly, looking as if he might just pass out again. “Was after the dogs to stop ’em.”
“Change of orders, then?”
“Yes. Should have shot you all.”
“Hold that thought while I pull the spear out of you. Or would you rather I left it in?”
“Out…please.”
“Brace yourself.”
Lampy heard him scream, and Jack staggered back with the spear. He plugged the wound, bandaged it as best he could, tied the man’s hands, then took on the next unpleasant task.
“I’ll cave the bank in on you
r companion. It’s the best I can do, and it might keep him from the dingoes. I can’t take time to bury him properly. What was his name?”
The other soldier seemed surprised. “Corporal John Merrick. From Tyford,” said the wounded man, weakly.
Jack dragged Corporal Merrick to the edge of the bank and went up and kicked down a solid fall of earth. He tied a rough cross and planted it on the pile, took off his hat, and stood there in the lamplight.
“He’d have killed you, Jack, and they don’t bury us,” said Lampy, feeling puzzled by this.
“I know. But I live by my rules, not theirs. And a dead man is no danger to anyone. I wanted to know his name so his kin can know, one day at least, that he’s dead. The worst thing you can do to a family is to leave them wondering.”
Lampy found himself nodding in the darkness.
“Right. We’d better go.”
“You better know my name, too,” said the wounded man. “Private Dale McLoughlin. I’m from Portrush.”
“Well, McLoughlin,” said Jack, as he helped the man up. “You’ve a choice. You can sit on the horse, or I can tie you across it like a sack. I’m hoping you can stay on a horse. You try anything and I’ll have to shoot you, and your horse will have no water, even if you do get away.”
“I’ll sit. Look, I’ve orders to bring you in alive, or at least your body. I’ll take you in alive, my word on it. You can’t get away. It’s just desert out there. You’ll end up eating sand.”
“Well, on the bright side, there’s a lot of it,” said Jack, hefting McLoughlin up onto the horse. He then did the same for Lampy.
They rode on a little, when a whicker from the dark announced that the two other horses had found them.
Lampy was glad of a saddle to sit in. Losing blood had made him feel nauseous, and riding was no pleasure with the ache in his leg.
By the moans in the darkness, the soldier felt worse.
Tim was shaken awake. “You come. We got to go. Railway-men coming,” said the desert aboriginal.
Tim blinked and sat up. He was stiff from sleeping on the ground, but his mind was feeling sharper than it had for days. His first thought was relief. And his second was what if that Vister and his friends wanted to finish the job.
Plainly the aboriginals weren’t waiting around to find out. They were running off already. Tim looked. He could see the smoke and the dark shape of the steam mole—a good two miles off. Well, it might not actually come here. He’d chased it in vain last night. And they might want to kill him…He got up and trotted after the aboriginals. They hadn’t gone that far. About four hundred yards away was some rough country with a spur of rocks. The aboriginals hid there, watching.
“Whitefellers find our spring, we got trouble,” said his guide of last night. “They take all the water, then we got to go. Good country this.”
It obviously depended on your point of view, Tim thought. The scout mole puffed to a halt near the waterhole. The aboriginals muttered angrily…and the door clanged open and out came—
Clara!
Even at this distance Tim recognized her in her chip straw hat and blond braids. But he was too astounded to say anything. He just swallowed and rubbed his eyes, staring as hard as he could. It…had to be her. He knew her walk, the way she stood and looked at things with her head at an angle, even with a little parasol held against the sun. He opened his mouth to yell…and a hard hand clapped over it. Other hands grabbed him
“You be quiet. Railway-men trouble for blackfellers.”
“That’s not the railway-men. That’s Clara. She’s a girl. My girl. She’s come looking for me. She won’t hurt you. I promise,” said Tim with all the sincerity he could muster. “She’s the best girl in the entire world.”
Something about the way he said it must have got through, because the hands holding him eased their grip. “The other railway-man’s still inside,” said the older, gruff man who had stopped him yelling.
Clara walked to the side of the scout mole, took down a bucket, and walked to the water. And there she must have seen footprints because they saw her bend down and stare.
“Look,” said Tim. “She wouldn’t be carrying water if there was anyone else to do it. If I stay here…and if she does anything wrong, you can kill me, stick a spear in me, but someone just go and ask her if she’s looking for Tim Barnabas. Please. Please!”
There was a silence.
“Please!” He tried for terms he hoped they might understand. “She’ll take me back to my own land, to my own people. She’s not a railway-man. They don’t have any women here.”
“Try to take our women,” said the older man. But by the discussion among them in their own tongue, Tim was sure he’d gotten through to them. The older man pushed him forward. “You walk. Ten hands,” he held up five fingers, “steps. No more. Call. You run we spear you. Railway-man come we spear you.”
Tim stepped out of the shelter of the rocks and began walking. Counting steps. Taking as long a step as he dared. Wondering…weighing the risks in his mind. If someone else got out of the cab…if she got back in to go. He was going to chance that terrible feeling between his shoulder blades. But should he call to her? Would they use him to lure her out so they could kill or capture her?
He was spared the decision by her looking up, looking around…and seeing him. And dropping the bucket and running toward him yelling her lungs out: “Tim, Tim!” Her arms outstretched, reaching.
“Clara! Clara, stay there. There are men with spears behind me.”
“I don’t care! I found you, I found you! Oh, I’ve been so worried. Oh, Tim. Tim!” She was plainly not going to stop. So Tim turned to the watchers in the rocks. “Kill me first. Don’t kill her. Please. She’s not going to hurt anyone.”
Clara kept right on running, and Tim decided that meeting her was worth a spear in the back. So he stepped forward into her arms and held her, keeping his body as much of a shield as he could while being hugged, and between pants, kissed.
“I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been,” Clara gasped.
“We’re not out of trouble. They’re behind me in the rocks, Clara, with spears. And they hate the railway-men.”
“So do I!”
“Yeah. They tried to kill me.”
“I know, I got to Dajarra and you were missing.”
“Look…are there any other people in the mole?”
“Just me. I stole it to look for you.”
“You did what?”
“I stole it to look for you. The railway-men are probably ready to murder me too now.”
“Oh. Where’s your mother?”
Clara was silent. Then she said, in a very small voice. “Sick. In a coma. Maybe even dead. I came to you for help.”
Tim swallowed. “Fat lot of help I’ve been. Look…I think we better talk to the aboriginals. Face them. We can’t run and…and they were looking after me.”
“Then I’m grateful to them. It’s…I thought you might be dead, Tim. I was so scared.”
“It was pretty close,” he said, as they turned around and walked, still holding onto each other, back to the rocks. “Lots more luck than good judgment. I was a bit confused when I came out of the termite run. Reckon it must have been the lack of oxygen down there or something. My stupid fault.”
“You’re not stupid. They tried to kill you,” said Clara, angrily. “The station boss was pretty mad about it, but not enough to actually get anyone to look for you.”
“McGurk? You met McGurk? He’s a terror. Not like Vister or that foreman, but driving everyone to get the tunnel finished.”
Men were standing up among the rocks. Black, fierce-looking. Spears ready. Not smiling. Tim knew, by now, that these were people who smiled a lot. Tim raised his hand. “There is no one else in the steam mole, and she’s not from the railway. She was looking for me.”
“Leave tracks right to our water. The railway-men follow.”
“We’ll brush them out,” said Clara. “I do
n’t want them to find us either.”
“Brush them? We follow that easy,” said the older man who seemed to be the spokesman for the group. His tone was decidedly scornful.
“You do,” said Tim. “But I don’t think the railway-men could track a two-year-old child covered in mud crossing a clean floor.”
And that made several people laugh, and even cracked a slight smile from the older man. A few comments in their own language, a little more slightly derisive laughter. The spear points came down a little.
“Besides,” said Tim. “I think you need us to take the machine away. They can’t track, but they could see it. See it from a long way off, especially from up in the air.”
“I want to say thank you,” said Clara. “I owe you a debt for looking after—” she held onto his shoulder—“my Tim. You’re wonderful.”
The older man shook his head, but he was smiling a little. “She cause you trouble, this one,” he said to Tim.
Tim laughed a little with relief. “You have no idea how much, sir. But she’s there when you need her.”
“I’ve not caused you trouble, Tim Barnabas! Huh. It’s only search the whole desert for you that I’ve done,” said Clara, with a suitable show of being indignant.
“And found me, too. Still, you drove past me last night. I ran after you.”
“It’s faster you need to learn to run,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. She knew she was being silly, that they were still in danger, but shock, the fear she’d been coping with, and now the relief and happiness were making her want to giggle and be a little crazy.
Still, her behavior was also affecting the aboriginals. Most of them were grinning openly.
“You go race she,” said someone.
“Ha,” said Clara. “He can’t run.” She hitched up her skirts. “Race you, Tim Barnabas. Last one to the water is a rotten egg.”
“To that stump over there,” said Tim, pointing to a dead spike of wood about fifty yards off. “And I’ll give you a head start. Go.”
She didn’t. “I’d not be letting go of you. Last time I did that you got lost in the desert.”