by Zane Grey
“Hear? When?”
“Jest about a minnit ago…mebbe longer. I don’t know. I’m dotty. Did I have any drinks up to town?”
“You sure didn’t.”
“Gosh, I’m shore I’ve got the willies. Sterl, I was in the tent heah, sewin’ to beat hell, when somebody busted out in a laugh…the…snortinest laugh you ever heahed. Right heah outside the tent. ‘Who’n’hell’s laughin’ at me?’ I said, an’ I was mad. But I kept mum. Pretty soon again…an’ this time right on this spot…wusser, louder, somebody made orful fun of me. This time I spoke up an’ said it wasn’t jest safe for any hombre to give me a hoss laugh like thet. I was burnin’ under my collar, an’ figger’n who it might be. Wal, nobody answered me, till presently it busted out again. Pard, you never in yore life heahed such a loud brayin’ ass laugh. When the smart-alec got through, I come out to bust him. Seen nobody. I looked down by the cabin, an’ behind the tent. Not a soul in sight! An’ I swore I had ’em bad. Then I seen a brown an’ white bird, like one of our kingfishers, only a lot bigger, sittin’ right ther on thet branch. I’d thought nothin’ of it, if the damn bird hadn’t looked at me so queer. Stuck his haid on one side an’ looked out of devilish black eyes at me, as if to say…‘Heah’s one of them Yankee blighters.’ Then he flew away. An’ heah’s what’s been drivin’ me dotty. If thet bird didn’t give me that hoss laugh, then yore pard has gone plumb stark ravin’ crazy.”
“Whew! Red, you look sort of bug-house at that,” returned Sterl with concern. “Let’s go up and ask Leslie.”
On the way up the path under the wattles they met Leslie. Before she had time for more than her flashing smile, Red burst into the narrative of his perplexing experience. Sterl watched the girl’s face. It still possessed its natural bloom. Red did not slight his tale or his exasperation and mystification, still he did not take too long. Before he had quite ended, however, Leslie’s face began to transform and ripple and glow, until she burst into uncontrollable mirth.
“Aw, Leslie! I cain’t see anythin’ so funny about thet,” the cowboy protested.
“Oh…oh! It was…Jack,” she choked out.
“Jack who?”
“My pet kookaburra. Oh, Red! Such fun. I couldn’t have…hoped for more. It was my laughing jackass that gave you the horse laugh.”
“Wal, I figgered he was a laughin’ hyena, all right. But thet pet kooka somethin’…thet has me beat.”
“Jack is a bird…a laughing jackass, Australia’s most famous bird. He is a giant kingfisher.”
“Aw! So it was thet bird? Thank Gawd! I reckoned my mind was gone. You see, Leslie, trailin’ about for years an’ years with this heah Sterl Hazelton is enough to drive any man dotty. An’ I feared I was, shore.”
“Leslie, I must make Jack’s acquaintance,” spoke up Sterl eagerly. “Surely you’ll take him on the trek?”
“Right-o. Also Cocky and Gal, but I can’t take my little bears. It breaks my heart. Come in to tea first.” At the door Leslie whispered to Sterl. “I didn’t tell Mum what happened up town.”
Slyter had not returned, nor did his wife expect him. “I’m too terribly busy to chat,” she said, after serving them and drinking a cup of tea. “Les, I wanted Friday to carry things down to the wagon. Have you seen him?”
“I’ll find him, Mum.”
“We’ll help, Missus Slyter,” interposed Sterl. “And I’d like a look at your wagon while it’s empty. We must make a boat out of it, so it can be floated across the rivers.”
“How thoughtful of you! That had not occurred to Bingham. By all means stop the leaks, and do anything more for us.”
“We’ll fix up a little room in the front of your wagon, behind the seat,” went on Sterl. “I’ve done that before. A wagon can be made really comfortable, considering. All your baggage can be safely stowed to make space, and still be handy. On top of heavier stuff, of course, because the wagon will be loaded. Your cots can be placed on each side of the wagon with space between.”
“Cots?” asked Leslie, puzzled.
“Yes, your beds.”
“But you mean stretchers.”
Red groaned. “Aw, Lord, it gets wuss an’ wuss. Leslie, a stretcher is what they carried me in at Dodge, when I got shot up bad.”
They all laughed, and Mrs. Slyter murmured: “Les, what was it your Dad said about these boys being sent?”
“Mum, it was God-sent! And I know it’s true,” Leslie returned warmly. But her eyes scarcely included Red in her encomium.
Suddenly they were interrupted by a piercing sound from outside.
“Thet son-of-a-gun again!” yelled Red wildly.
It was a discordant, concatenated, rollicking laugh that certainly would have fooled Sterl. Then from somewhere in the distance reverberated an answer, as wild and comical as that near at hand.
“Jack sassing other kookaburras,” Leslie declared. “Come and see him.”
They went outdoors. The black man, Friday, stood under one of the gum trees, looking up into the branches and holding out a queer stick with a white, oval end. In his other hand he held out a long spear.
“Friday has his wommera,” said Leslie gravely. “That doesn’t look so good for Ormiston.”
Just then a large brown and white bird fluttered down from the tree to alight on the black’s spear. “There’s Jack,” Leslie cried gladly, and she ran out. The cowboys followed. Sterl certainly looked the kookaburra over. He appeared to be a rather short bird, built heavy forward, with a big head and strong bill. He turned that head from side to side, peering out of black, merry eyes in a mischievous manner. Sterl thought that his queer laugh certainly fitted his looks. Red drawled: “Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” On Leslie’s call, Jack hopped to her extended hand.
Sterl’s attention shifted to the black man. Upon close view Friday appeared to be a magnificent specimen of aborigine. He stood well over six feet, slender, muscular, perfectly proportioned, black as ebony. He wore a crude garment around his middle. His dark visage held for Sterl an inscrutable dignity and mysticism in which qualities it resembled somewhat the American Indian.
Sterl went up to Friday and tapped him on his deep breast and asked: “Friday no hurt bad?” The native understood for he grinned and shook his head.
“Leslie, you ask him, or tell me how to ask him to go with me on the trek.”
“Friday, white man wantum you go with him, far, far that way,” said Leslie, making a slow gesture which indicated immeasurable distance toward the Outback. Friday fastened great black, unfathomable eyes upon Sterl. They seemed to project Sterl’s instincts into the unknown future, giving the moment a singular significance. And he felt impelled to answer for them.
“White man come from far country, away ’cross big water,” said Sterl, pointing toward the east and speaking as if to an Indian. “He need Friday…track horse…kill meat…fight…tell where pads go.”
Sterl felt that never before had he been put to such a searching and incomprehensible test. Perhaps that was his imagination, always prone to exaggerate under stress. But he seemed to feel the elemental intelligence of this aborigine.
“Black fella go alonga you,” replied Friday.
Leslie clapped her hands so enthusiastically that the kookaburra deserted her and flew up into the tree. “Good-o! I was sure he’d go, if you asked him,” she cried. “Never fear, Sterl, you have made a native your friend. Dad will be happy. His only fear is for his beloved horses. Not for Mum or me!”
Red slouched over to Friday and handed him a cigar.
“Big smoke, Friday. White chief to black chief. Me same blood to boss, heah. Paleface heap much friend black man. Give tobac…plenty tobac.”
Red’s elocution was as funny as it was earnest. Sterl watched for the aborigine’s reception of the cowboy’s overture. He knew what to do with the cigar, for he bit off the end, which, however, he did not spit out.
“You close up boss?” he asked.
“Shore, Friday,” replied Red eagerly.
“You um fadder?”
“Fadder? Hell, no! Gosh, do I look thet old? Him my brudder, Friday.”
“Black fella im brudder your brudder,” declared Friday loftily, and stalked away.
Sterl felt something poignant and far-reaching. They watched the black lean his wommera and spear against the porch and glide on out of sight. Red came out of his fascinated gaze.
“Pard, I’m tellin’ you what you can’t explain. Bet you a million pesos some power beyond our ken put you in the way of thet black man today.”
“Right-o! And that’s not all,” Leslie pealed out enigmatically.
Chapter Five
It turned out that Leslie’s freeing of her native bear pets was merely a spiritual act—a matter of saying good bye to them, for they were not confined. They lived in the trees of a small eucalyptus grove in back of the house. Sterl enjoyed the sensation of holding some of them, of feeling their sharp, strong, abnormally large claws cling to his coat. Nature had developed those claws to hold tightly and securely to the branches. The one that pleased Sterl most, and put the simple Red into ecstasy, was a mother bear that carried her baby in a pouch. The little one had his head stuck out, and his bright, black eyes said that he wanted to see all there was to see. Sterl had some vague idea of the natural history of these animals, but Red was the first to display his ignorance.
“Red, you know, of course, about marsupials?” said Leslie.
“Yeah? Wal, if you do, I shore don’t know it. What’s the idee?” he returned, scratching his red head in perplexity.
“It’s only when I’ve read about animals in other countries that I realize how strange and different our Australian fauna are,” said Leslie glibly, as if she knew her subject. “But I’ve been brought up with our marsupials…kangaroos, wallabies, opossums, wombats, and these darling little bears. I’ve made pets of all of them. Really, it’s the easiest thing. The young of marsupials are born like those of cattle or horses, only very tiny, indeed. Baby native bears are scarcely an inch long when they’re born. Then they are put in the mother’s pouch and nourished there. It takes six months or more before the little beggar can come out and hang onto his mother’s back. Now look here.”
Gently but firmly Leslie drew the little bear from its mother’s pouch and placed it on her back, where it stuck like a burr and appeared perfectly comfortable. Sterl never saw a prettier animal sight than that and said so emphatically.
“Marsupials!” Leslie said. “All sorts of them Down Under, from kangaroos to a little blind mole no longer than my finger.”
“Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” exclaimed Red. “What’s a marsupial?”
This started Leslie on a lecture concerning Australian mammals and birds. When she finished with marsupials, which carry their babies in a pouch, and came to the unbelievable duck-billed platypus which wears fur, suckles its young, lays eggs, and has a bill like a duck and web feet fastened on backward, she stretched Red’s credulity to the breaking point.
“How can you stand there, a sweet pictoor of honest girlhood, and be such a orful liar?”
“Talk for yourself, cowboy,” Sterl said with his blazing smile. “Leslie, how about that lyre bird Jones said you could show us? The most wonderful bird in Australia?”
“Right-o! Boys, if you’ll get up early, so we can go into the bush at daylight, I’ll promise you shall hear a lyre bird, and maybe see one. But they are very hard to see.”
“It’s a date, Leslie, tomorrow mawnin’. Right heah. Hey, pard?”
“You bet. And now let’s get to work. I see Friday, packing bundles down the hill. We’ll help Leslie, and then I want to fix up your wagon so that it’ll be a boat, a boudoir, a sleeping room, and everything else.”
“Good-o, magician! Come!”
The porch on the living-room side of the house was littered with boxes and bundles, bales and packs, half a dozen grips and two trunks. Sterl and Red laid hold lustily. They caught up with Friday, laboring and staggering under another trunk, smaller and flatter than those the boys packed down. Even Leslie, with a pretty heavy load for a girl, beat the black down to the wagon. Sterl was curious and reminded Red how they had seen a Navajo Indian carry a whole tree into camp. Just to satisfy himself, Sterl lifted the trunk Friday had fetched down. It was no load for anyone used to packing weights on his shoulder. The native was not accustomed to that kind of work. His wonderful physique denoted a number of powers, but Sterl imagined he would not be able to budge a two-hundred pound sack of grain.
Presently Sterl left the others, carrying down the lighter stuff while he examined the wagon, which Slyter intended for his womenfolk and all their personal effects, and what ever other stuff for which there was room. It was a sturdy, big wagon with wide-tired wheels and high sides and a roomy canvas top stretched over hoops.
“How about water an’ sand?” queried Red dubiously.
“Well, when they are too deep, the load will have to be lightened. For deep water she’ll float. Red, dig up a couple of chisels and hammers while I get rags or old sacks, anything to caulk these seams.”
They set to work with a will, and in short order had the wagon bed so that it would not leak. Then, while Red began the same job on another wagon, Sterl devoted himself to fixing up some approach to a prairie-schooner, tent-like dwelling for Leslie and her mother. The girl was not only a capable worker, but her enthusiasm was infectious. Sterl had her designate the bags and trunks, the contents of which would be needed en route, and these he put aside until he had packed the forward half of the wagon bed fully two feet deep.
“Now for the cots, Leslie,” he said.
“Stretchers,” she corrected smilingly.
“Not much. That makes me think of cripples and sick people.”
When Sterl got these placed to the best advantage, he was elated. Then Leslie deftly made the beds. The rear half of the wagon was effectively transformed into a bedroom.
Slyter arrived with the drays and climbed off the driver’s seat to begin unhitching. His face was dark, his brow lined and pondering. Sterl wondered what more might have been amiss. Later, when the immediate tasks on their wagon were completed, Sterl followed Jones to the barn, while Red returned to his canvas stitching.
“Roland, pack all the flour on top of this load and tie on a cover,” said Slyter. “Hazelton, how’s the work progressing?”
“We’re about through. There’s room in the back of your wagon for more stuff. Hope nothing more came off uptown?”
“Testy day. Just my personal business. I’m leaving Downsville poor as Job’s turkey. You’ll be interested in this. Ormiston sobered up and tried to square himself. Stanley accepted his good graces.”
“Then Ormiston will go on the trek?”
“Yes. He said to tell you he had been half drunk and would speak to you when opportunity afforded. He asked me what guarantee I had that you cowboys were not tramps and adventurers from America…if you had any references.”
“That was to be expected, Slyter,” Sterl rejoined. “I was surprised that you did not ask for any.”
“I didn’t need any. Nor did Stanley Dann. If we Australians take to a man, that’s enough. Ormiston was trying to sow seeds of discord.”
“Thank you, Slyter. I’m sure you’ll never regret your kindness to me and Red.”
“Hathaway and Woolcott left about midday,” went on Slyter. “Some of their drovers were drunk. One had to be thrown into a wagon. The Danns are all ready to leave at dawn. We’ll start tomorrow sometime.”
“How about water holes?”
“No fear. We’ve had a good few rains lately. There’ll be plenty of water…maybe too much…and grass all the way out of Queensland. Rough going, thick bush, and blacks…that’ll be all to hold us back. If we could travel straight, we’d make twice the distance every day’s trek. But we must keep to level open country, where it’s possible. Stanley Dann and his brother Eric had another hot argument. Eric was one of the drovers who made that Gulf trek
. He wants to stick to that route. But Stanley argues we should leave it beyond the Diamantina River and head northwest more directly across the Never Never. I agree with Stanley. But there’s no hurry. We’ve months to trek before we reach the Diamantina.”
“Boss,” called Red, coming over. “I see some good boards heah. Heavier’n hell, but they’ll come in orful handy. Can we pack them somewhere’s?”
“Wherever you like,” he answered. “Let’s finish up here, so we can get a good night’s sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
Sterl had faded into deep slumber, from which he was awakened by a slap on the tent. A faint ray penetrated the canvas. “Hello,” he called.
“Boss go alonga missy?” It was Friday’s deep voice, heralding the day of their departure on the great trek.
“Be right alonga you, Friday,” Sterl sang out, and threw back his blankets.
“ ’Mawnin’, pard,” drawled Red, who was sitting on his bed, pulling on his boots. “Sterl, old socks, I’m doubtin’ thet you got the fire you used to have. This is the day. I been awake long. Soon we’ll be forkin’ hosses to ride all the live-long day…all the live-long day!”
“Yes, Red, but not the lone prairie. No more the lone prairie. Still this bushland, this Never Never land….” Sterl did not follow out his dreamy and prophetic thought.
It was dim, gray morning when they mounted the shadowy aisle leading up to the house. Cattle were bawling, horses were whistling, dingoes were barking off by the paddocks. Sterl was thinking that soon the birds would awaken, when right over his head, startling and pure and beautiful, rang out: cur-ra-wong, cur-ra-wong!
They found Leslie waiting with Friday. “Aren’t you ashamed, you sleepy heads? You’re late. Come. Don’t talk. Don’t make the slightest sound.”
They followed Friday, a silent, moving shadow in the gray gloom. They walked through heavy grass. The east was brightening. Down in the valley, crows and magpies had melodiously begun the day. Fainter and fainter grew the bawling of cattle. Presently, Friday glided into the bush. He made no more sound than if he were the shadow he resembled. The way appeared to be a zigzag course to avoid brush and trees that loomed like giant, gray specters. Friday halted to listen. Leslie pointed to Sterl’s boots, intimating he was too noisy. Red snickered. “Say, I been walkin’ on aiggs,” he whispered. Leslie put her finger to her lips with a “Shussh.” They went on more slowly, halting here and there. Gradually the bush grew lighter. The day was breaking. Soft mist hung low under the pale-trunked trees. They came to a glade that led down into a ravine where water tinkled. The black man’s movements and Leslie’s intensity provided mystery and portent to the little adventure. Sterl felt them. The ravine opened out wide upon a scene of veiled enchantment. Small trees, pyramid-shaped, pointed up to the brightening sky, and they shone as white as if covered by frost. Great fern trees spread long, lacy, exquisite leaves from a symmetrical head almost to the ground. Huge eucalyptus sent marble-like pillars aloft. The fragrance attacked Sterl’s nostrils with an acute, strangling sensation. Sterl heard a thrush breaking into song, and a distant cur-ra-wong. A bell-like note struck, lingering upon his ear. Friday halted, and Leslie caught Sterl’s hand.
