by Bruce Pascoe
‘What are ya like at playing fetch, eh?’
Fog tipped his head to one side trying to figure out what Albert was talking about.
‘Get the hammer, Fog. Can ya, mate? Can ya get the hammer for me?’
The dox just stared in an anguish of incomprehension. He knew Albert was in trouble and needed him to do something, but what?
Albert tried to encourage Fog by throwing sticks but he just looked at the stick in disbelief. He was a dox, he didn’t chase sticks. What’s the point, he thought, I’ll get the stick and you’ll just throw it away again.
The pain was killing Albert and the day was getting hotter. He slumped forward onto the log to rest and think. Think. Think. What to do.
He drifted in and out of consciousness as the heat of the afternoon gave way to evening. Fog sat by him while he slept but when Albert woke and repeated his calls of ‘Get the hammer, Fog. Fetch the hammer, Fog’, it had frustrated the dox to such an extent that he retreated to the coat to think. When he thought he’d worked it out Fog dragged the lunch box over to Albert. And when that didn’t fix things, the coat. If he puts the coat on he’ll get his arm back!
‘Ah, yer a good dox, Fog, yer a very good dox, but ya not too good at English are ya?’ Albert rubbed the dox between his pointy red ears and Fog was greatly pleased, thinking he’d guessed what Albert needed him to do.
Albert ate a tiny square of boiled fruitcake and had a sip of milk from the small jar. He looked across to the campfire but knew the billy was empty because he’d had that second cup of tea. He’d have to be careful with the jar of milk, it was all he had.
He was in a jam. Literally. No-one would think to search for him. Brim would come looking for him eventually but her grasp of language was not much better than Fog’s. Oh, she could count a bit but that didn’t mean she’d understand about getting the hammer.
The thought that he might die beside the log loomed like a dark shroud. Bloomin’ log. Should have left it to season a bit, dry out before he split it up. Never mind, it’s done now, nothing for it but to try and think.
He didn’t like the way his whole arm had gone numb and it alarmed him that he kept blacking out. He was thirsty, that was the problem. He’d lain there in the sun all day with just a small jar of milk to drink … and it was all but curdled. He was in trouble.
Fog paced about him trying to work out why he didn’t get up and go home. It was tea time! You’re hungry, I’m hungry, let’s go and get some tea! The dox scratched at the ground beside Albert as darkness crept between the trees. Come on Albert, come on, let’s go home.
But now Albert spent more time unconscious than awake and Fog looked at him anxiously. Animals, particularly dogs, but also doxes, sense when another animal is failing. They actually hear the rhythm of the heart, smell the stress of the body struggling to keep itself alive. Fog knew Albert was in real trouble.
All at once the dox set its ears toward his owner in a moment of inspiration and startling clarity, spun on his little foxy paws and left the clearing in a mad leaping dash like a piece of ribbon dancing through the bush. They’re noiseless, foxes, they run with an undulating fluidity. Doxes are the same. Fog was gone in a flash of white tail tip, disappearing like the mist of his name.
Crazy Dave heard the scraping at the door and expected to see Dug, the wombat he’d reared as an orphan. Dug turned up occasionally wanting a scratch and a piece of apple, and Dave opened the door ready to berate him for ripping his door to bits. He recoiled in shock on seeing a fox looking up at him. Automatically he reached for the gun behind the door but then the light from the kerosene lamp shone richly on the garnet in the fox’s collar. It wasn’t a fox at all, it was a dox.
‘Fog ol’ fella, what’s up?’ Dave spoke kindly to the dox, being much better at conversation with animals than people. The young dox looked at him keenly then looked back towards the forest track.
‘Albert is it? Crook?’ Dave grabbed his coat and called Queenie to the door. Fog gave his step-sister a perfunctory greeting and stepped toward the track.
Illness or accident were the things all the old bushmen feared: any incapacitation, broken leg, or any sickness that prevented you from moving. You were vulnerable in the bush. Sometimes even your best mate, your dog, couldn’t help. But perhaps a dox might.
Dave brought his lamp and followed Fog and Queenie as they trotted ahead. It was pitch dark in the forest and Fog was setting such a brisk pace that Dave almost missed the turnoff. He’d been expecting to follow the track all the way to Albert’s hut but Fog turned off and waited until he was sure Dave was following.
In silence, but for the crunch of Dave’s boots on forest litter, they climbed the hillside and as Dave understood the direction they were taking he felt an awful dread. A forest accident was the worst of all bushmen’s fears. Falling trees caused horrible injuries and Dave wasn’t looking forward to finding his friend beneath one. Yes, he’d unconsciously used the word friend. Albert was his friend, in an exclusive club of one.
When they entered the clearing Dave looked about for the widow-maker, the maverick tree that had trapped or killed his mate and, at first, looked past the log in the centre of the clearing.
But Fog ran straight to it and began tugging at something and Dave saw the man slumped across the log. As he moved closer he saw how Albert’s arm was trapped.
‘Jesus,’ he breathed. He wasn’t a religious man, Dave, but the utterance of that name came naturally in the circumstances. He wasn’t the first man to look for divine help when facing a crisis beyond his own powers.
Albert was unconscious but not dead. Yet. Dave could see the merest movement of the shoulders as his old mate’s lungs pushed him ever so slightly away from the log. But the breaths were slow and shallow.
A nightjar called, its weird whooping chuckle rippling and looping through the starlit clearing. Enough to wake the … Dave felt Albert’s pulse and the old man murmured.
Peering about Dave was able to find the wedges and the hammer. He tapped in a wedge with cautious blows and Albert moaned and protested in delirium.
Dave went to the end of the log and tapped in two more wedges and gradually opened the split log. Another wedge on the opposite side, a tap or two of the wedge near Albert’s elbow, and finally the log was opened sufficiently for him to draw his friend’s arm from the maw of gaping wood.
Dave inspected Albert’s arm more closely. He could see the horrible swelling and bruising.
Suddenly Albert tugged his arm away.
‘Look out, look out,’ Albert cried so loudly that the nightjar was silenced as if a knife had cut his throat.
Albert’s eyes opened and he stared uncomprehendingly at Dave.
‘Get the hammer,’ he growled urgently but then relaxed as he focused on his arm. Free of the log. He collapsed back into unconsciousness.
Freed from its compression, Albert’s arm continued swelling alarmingly. Dave’s head flipped through the various elements of the predicament and, after examining all the problems and the few things he possessed to solve them, his mind cleared as crisp as moonlight.
They had no vehicle, no track on which one could travel anyway, no horse, no phone, and no hope of any help arriving. Albert was suffering from shock and exposure and probably fractures and bleeding within his arm, and may not survive until dawn.
They were miles from the only doctor and there was only one way Albert was going to get there: Dave was going to have to carry him.
He hauled his friend onto his back and set off on the track that would take them to the log crossing at the river. Fog and Queenie trotted along with Dave, one in front and one behind, as if they’d already worked out their positions.
Dave was strong but Albert was a big, heavy man and in his semi-consciousness was difficult to carry. He lolled like a dead sheep. Dave had to grab the shirt above Albert’s good shoulder with one hand and crook an arm below his mate’s right leg and they managed that way but it was a terribly unbalanc
ed load. Dave’s muscles burned with fire and Albert’s breath came in coarse, pained rasps.
Still, Dave plugged on. His arms screamed for relief but Dave refused their plea. He had only one human friend and that man was dying. Dave would never forgive himself if his mate died while he was resting in his arms. By the time he got to the river he was done in.
Tiger Carter had a house on the bank of the river. Maybe he would help. Albert was Tiger’s cousin but Tiger’s kids were some of the bunch that jeered at Dave.
He bent to lift Albert again but he could hardly budge the unconscious man, his arms had seized up with the effort. He’d have to go to Carter’s. They still had to get over the range and there was no way Dave could do it without help.
Carter had horses. Dave swallowed his shyness, lugged Albert onto his back again and started down the lane leading to Tiger Carter’s house.
Tiger was one of those blokes who could do anything. Like Dave, he’d hardly set foot inside a school but he managed to support his family with hard work and inventiveness. He fished the river for yabbies and perch, kept bees and tended a massive orchard and vegetable garden. Tiger cut his own hay for the horses and all the kids chipped in to help sell the produce. The family ate well but had to scratch together an income from what they could sell to the neighbouring farms. The kids were kind of wild and Dave was terrified of them, but hopefully they’d be asleep.
He knocked on the door and thirty dogs set up a hullabaloo like you’d hear in the halls of hell. Dave heard shouts and footsteps and then the door scraped open and Tiger’s shotgun levelled itself at Dave’s chest.
‘What’s all the racket out here?’ Tiger demanded, despite the fact that all the noise was inside the house.
‘That’s me cousin,’ he blurted as the hall light fell on Albert’s face slumped over Dave’s shoulder. ‘What’s up? What’s happened to him?’ Finally Tiger recognised Dave. ‘Oh, it’s you Cra– … Dave, didn’t recognise you in the dark, mate. Quick, come in. What’s up with Albert?’
‘He got his arm caught in a log. He’s gone an’ blacked out. I’ve gotta get him to the hospital.’
‘Hospital?’
‘He’s real crook. His pulse has got real faint, you’ll have to help me. We’ve gotta get over the range.’
Yes, Tiger thought, the only way to get to the bush nurse quickly was to go over the top of Blast Pass. They’d need the horses.
‘Hang on, Dave, I’ll get young Col to saddle up some horses. Here, put this coat on me cousin and meet me around at the stable.’ He turned inside, yelling out for Colin, which set the dogs off again. It was bedlam.
By the time Dave got to the stables Colin had one horse already saddled. The boy eyed Dave warily, embarrassed in front of the man he and his mates taunted every time they saw him. Colin handled the horse tack like he’d done it a thousand times. Soon all three horses were ready.
‘What happened to Uncle Albert?’ Colin asked at last, acting as if he hardly knew Dave.
‘Got his arm trapped.’
‘Up on his timber block?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you carried him all the way?’
‘Yes.’
Colin knew about hard work. He’d seen the enormous labours of his parents, he’d been hauling firewood and fishnets himself since he was six. He understood the superhuman effort of carrying a big man all that way through the bush.
‘I’m comin’ too,’ said Tiger dragging on a coat and handing a drizabone to Dave. ‘Better put this on, mate, it’s gunna be wet as hell goin’ over the ridge. Should try and get one on Albert too or he’ll freeze.’
Tiger had six horses but only three of them were up to making the top of the range so he had to ride his stallion, the failed racehorse Fair Go who he’d saved from the knackery. Fair Go was a terrifically willing horse but had never got over the idea that every time someone mounted him it was race time. Tiger had his hands full keeping him in check.
They’d tried to tie Albert onto Boots’s saddle but he kept slipping to one side. Dave had to bring the old mare Sparkle alongside so that he could clutch his mate’s coat and hold him in position. It’d be better if the stallion could draw alongside too but Tiger couldn’t trust Fair Go to tolerate being so close to Sparkle and Boots. The presence of two dogs, well, one dog and another thing Tiger could swear was a fox, was spooking Fair Go enough as it was.
‘We’re in for it, Dave. Have a look at the moon, she’s on her back and the wind is getting up. It’ll be hell up on the ridge.’
Even though it was almost summer the temperature had plummeted in front of a cold change and up on the ridge the wind would rip the temperature down another ten degrees. The sky had gone a weird bottle-green colour noticeable even by moonlight.
‘Gees, we’re gunna cop it all right. How’s Albert goin’? It’s gunna be rough on him later.’
Dave didn’t answer. It was all he could do to hold his mate in the saddle. His left arm was killing him.
Suddenly the wind changed its tone to a banshee wail that whined through the limbs of the mountain gums crouching on the pass. It whistled like a kadaitcha through the bridle rings, spooking the horses further on top of their misgivings at riding at night in such stormy weather.
As they neared the top of the mountain ridge the trees gave way to low blasted heath and the wind roared in their ears so that it was impossible to hear anything anyone said.
‘We’ll have to canter, we’ll be frozen in our blessed saddles otherwise. I’ll have to bring Fair Go up beside you. You’ll never hold onto Albert on your own.’
Dave heard none of this but he knew what they had to do. At the top of the ridge the wind shrieked at them, biting at their faces and hands, and dragging at the horses’ lips so they appeared to be grimacing in pain. The sudden cold was unbelievable. It felt like their flesh was lashed by ice. A sudden flurry of sleet pelted them with sharp and venomous needles. Fog and Queenie trotted as close to the heels of the horses as they dared, gaining a little protection in the lee of the horses’ bulk.
Then a strange thing happened. Despite the abysmal conditions, the close proximity of other horses, and a dog and fox on his heels, Fair Go ranged alongside Boots and fell into perfect stride with both Boots and Sparkle. He kept his flank pressed to Albert’s leg and never moved a centimetre closer or further away.
In perfect synchrony in that frightful cacophony of wind and sleet, the three horses crested the ridge stride for stride and plunged across it and down the other side, their very breaths hhrrumphing and crumping in rhythm.
‘By geez,’ Tiger remarked to himself, ‘this bloomin’ old racehorse knows what’s goin’ on. He thinks he’s an ambulance.’
The three horses descended the mountain path in tight formation, the dog and dox never veering in their path behind them. Even in the relative shelter of the blunt mountain gums, the tempest still wailed about them and speech was useless. Not that that ever stopped Tiger.
‘Gorn yer a good horse, Fair Go. Tell yer what, mate, I’m real impressed. Next time I go to give you a serve for yer excitable manners, just you remind me of this night. The night ya saved me cousin.’ Tiger glanced across at Albert’s ashen face half smothered in the collar of the weatherproof coat. ‘If he’s saved.’
At last the hooves clattered on the harder roads leading into the town. Some of the townspeople, woken by the moaning wind, heard the percussion of perfectly synchronised horses hoofs riding through the storm. Lydia Labertouche stared at her ceiling thinking, ‘the ghostly horsemen came riding, riding, through wind and storm came riding’, but even budding young poets can fall asleep in the middle of a poem – and she did.
The horses wheeled into the Bush Nursing Centre carpark and without a word two of the riders dismounted and hauled the third from his horse.
‘Dave, I’ll find a paddock for Sparkle and leave her there. Bring her back when you can. I’ve gotta get back to do the milking. Look after me cousin, won’t ya.’ Tiger lo
oked at Albert with concern but he knew he couldn’t stay and wait for the nurse. His cows would already be dawdling in to the dairy. He had to get back.
Dave just nodded and dragged Albert to the front door.
The Bush Nursing Centre was an old building no larger than a biggish house. It was four in the morning, a time when the only nurse on duty had her quiet time, her version of afternoon tea. She wasn’t happy to hear banging at the door.
Dave could hear her grumbling even above his own laboured breaths and Albert’s painful gasps.
‘I’m coming … Middle of the night … Who would be making so much … ? What is it?’ she demanded as she flung open the door.
Her eyes roamed over the scraggy old beast with an even scraggier old beast in his arms. Drunks, wouldn’t you know it. Of all the … She looked closer and realised that they were just ordinary old bushmen, but that knowledge didn’t do much to improve her humour. She’d been a bush nurse for twenty years and seen enough smelly old wrecks crawling out of the bush on their last legs.
‘Don’t bring your drunken mates in here and …’ she began, about to give them a dressing down in her best matronly voice, when her eyes fell on Fog.
BUSH NURSE
‘Ahhhhhhh!’ she screamed, ‘A wolf, a wolf, a … a … fox!’
Dave was beyond fright. He had to rest his arms.
‘Shush, don’t be stupid,’ he said steadily, ‘it’s a dox, as anyone can see. Look, out of the way, I’ve got a sick man here.’ Involuntarily Nurse Foran stepped aside, surprised at having been told to shush for the first time in her adult life. She quickly regained her poise and squared her shoulders ready to put this old weasel in his place, but he staggered past her and stumped along the corridor peering into the rooms to his left and right and, before she could stop him, he’d lowered Albert onto a freshly made bed.
‘You can’t …’ Nurse Foran began but the filthy bushman turned on her with mad glittering eyes.
‘Shush,’ he said, ‘this man is nearly dead.’ The nurse wasn’t going to put up with this insolence and was about to deliver Hygiene Lesson Two when she realised that not only did she have two derelict bushmen in her hospital but the fox was in there too, and preparing to bite the patient’s hand.