by Zane Grey
“Slope along, Duke,” he drawled. “Pick out thet deep hole, fall in, an’ never come up!”
Red entered the river with Larry close on one side and Rollie on the other. Leslie waited for Sterl, who watched the trio for a moment before he started. Then he became aware of Leslie’s poignant joy at sight of Beryl in the cowboy’s arms. It amused him, yet somehow he liked Leslie the better.
“Oh, Sterl! Isn’t love wonderful!” she sighed dreamily.
“It must be. I can’t speak from personal experience, as evidently you can, but real love must be wonderful.”
“That’s true, you devil!” flashed Leslie, disrupted from her sweet trance, and she rode out ahead of him, splashing the water in great sheets.
Sterl idled along, reflecting sadly that this little byplay had been the first pleasantry, the first lessening of the raw tension, for many a week.
Dann’s caravan covered in five days some fifty miles of green downs, not one long or short stretch of it differing noticeably from any other. Its beauty palled; its sameness irritated the nerves; its monotony grew unbearable. Level as it was, its coarsening grass, its creeks and ruts, made hard going. A scarcity of bird and animal life gradually augmented an impression of barrenness.
But on that fifth day darker and apparently higher ground broke the level horizon. Sterl feared it was a mirage. Two more days’ travel proved this broken land consisted of low ridges and round areas covered with dense but scrubby timber. The hope of everyone was that this change in the monotony of the downs heralded higher and drier land beyond. No blue foothills, however, loomed above the wandering black line of scrub. And the day came when Sterl, gazing backward, could no longer see the shadowy purple ranges. They kept on the northwest, traveling by compass.
“Slyter,” said Sterl, at Blue Grass camp, “if we are trekking through this country to get to the headwaters of the Warburton…it’s all right. But if we are trekking deeper into these downs….”
“Good heavens, Sterl…that’s on my mind, too!” exclaimed the drover, when Sterl paused.
“Aren’t you afraid of it?”
“I am. And you?”
“It’s beginning to get me. Friday says…‘Tinkit allsame alonga bimeby water plenty.’”
“And there’s no smoke signals of the blacks.”
“Red says if we follow this four-flush Eric Dann much farther, we’ll be lost.”
“We’re the same as lost now, Sterl. But I won’t nag Stanley any more. He’s set. We’re going through, he swears. Says to remember the bad times before…how we always came out.”
“What season is it?”
“Autumn. Some time ago, when I asked Stanley, it was late in May. We’ve been gone long over a year.”
“Is that possible? But time means little to me any more.”
“But, Sterl, we must keep hopeful, for the sake of the women. They are standing this hellish trek better than we men.”
“They are! Only yesterday Red said to me…‘Pard, I gotta hand it to these females. Talk about them bein’ the weaker sex. Haw! Haw! They got us men skinned to a frazzle.’
“Slyter, human nature can stand only so much. Still we have no idea how much that is…. I’m tired. Something is happening to my mind. It’s sick, maybe. I find it hard to think. But, my friend, I can swear for Red and me…we haven’t begun to fight.”
“Bless you both, son. You’ve had a great training for such a trek as this. But I’m fighting. And so is Stanley.”
“A-huh. What is Eric doing?”
“Lord save us! I don’t know. But he thinks he’s guiding us right.”
Days and days and days! And dark, cool, dewy nights, when the stars blazed white, the bitterns boomed from the reed-bordered lakes and streams, and the owls hooted dismally to the pandamus scrub. The moon soared in the sky, blanching the endless downs. Solitude reigned. The loneliness was terrible. Sterl fought a feeling that they had reached the end of the world. Insupportably slowly the trek went on into this forbidding land of grass.
They came at length into a stranger, blacker, wilder country. The dense growth of bush denoted a river—a river somewhere beyond the dark fringe of giant ash trees and bloodwoods and enormous big trees with their multiple trunks, grotesque and gnarled.
Camp was pitched where the wagons halted at the edge of the forest, where a huge, wide-spreading banyan afforded thick, green canopy for the whole caravan. A boiling spring of sweet water ran away from the bank of bushland, forming a little stream that meandered away toward a pale lake, black and white with waterfowl. Birds of species known to Slyter and many he had never seen enlivened the scene, but did not dispel its sinister mood.
Stanley Dann christened this camp. He sat at the driver’s seat of his wagon and gazed at the gloomy, impenetrable bush.
“‘In the midway of this, our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,’” he quoted sonorously, then added: “Doré’s Bush.”
“Wal, who in the hell was this guy Doré?” drawled Red.
“Pard, according to his pictures, he’s been in hell all right, so as usual your guess is correct,” returned Sterl.
Friday completed the mystic picture as, with long spear forward, he stalked under the green canopy.
But for that dismal mood of bushland, its forbidding aspect, this camp would have been ideal. The grass was rich and abundant, and the mob bunched out in the open, contentedly grazing. Kookaburras flew under the trees, perched on branches to watch the intruders, but they were silent. That strange feature alone affected the morbid trekkers. The sun slanted in what appeared the wrong direction. Sterl was completely turned around. Red wearily said he did not give a damn, and that he wished what was going to happen would come pronto. The lean, bronzed drovers performed their tasks and stood around Bill’s campfire with hungry eyes. Some of them helped. Eric Dann sat apart, burdened by what ever he had on his mind. Stanley wrote in his journal. Slyter and Leslie mustered their horses on the green between the mob and the bush. Beryl leaned back in the seat of her wagon with the flap rolled up, and her big eyes, dark, brooding, fixed intently upon Red Krehl. Sterl cursed under his breath and yearned passionately for something to happen to break this spell which had fixed upon all with a deadening clamp.
Bill beat upon a tin pan to call them to supper. Parrots and cockatoos flocked squalling out of the trees. Friday appeared, glistening in the sinister rays of the sunset. Always impressive, there was that in his mien to induce awe. All the trekkers mutely interrogated him, then the leader boomed: “What ho, Friday?”
“Plenty bad black fella alonga dere. Big ribber. Plenty croc’. Plenty salt.”
They were crushed. Stanley Dann sat with his elbows on his knees, his broad hands over his golden beard. The corded veins stood out upon his bronzed brow. His huge frame writhed as if to release itself.
“Lost!” he ejaculated in a hollow voice. “Hundreds of miles out of our way.”
“Salt water!” burst out Slyter appalled.
“It must be the Flinders River,” croaked Eric Dann hopefully.
“Wha-at?” roared the giant. “According to you, we crossed the Flinders weeks back!”
“But, afterward, I remembered it was not. This is the Flinders. Near its source, hundreds of miles in winding course from the Gulf. We are right. Once across we will find higher ground.”
He seemed so fired with inspired certainty that his listeners, grasping at straws, sustained a renewal of hope. Even Sterl. But Red eyed the pallid and shaky-handed drover with a fixed glare of derision. Stanley Dann, quick always to rise above doubt, called them all to eat. He might as well have boomed out: “This Doré’s Bush is the end of another phase of the great trek…tomorrow will begin a new day, a new trek toward the promised land. Carry on!”
In the gray of the cool dewy dawn the guards rode in; the ring of axes awoke the bush echoes; the camp stirred to life. The sun rose bloody on the wrong side, and the lonely, melancholy day began.
“Spread
along the river to find a place to cross,” ordered Stanley Dann to his drovers.
Below camp some distance, Sterl and Red and Larry found an opening in the bush where the mob could be driven to the river, and where a road could be opened for the wagons.
“Look dere,” called Friday, who strode beside Sterl, and he pointed to smoke signals, rising beyond the break in the bush. “Imm black fella know.”
“Wal, they wanna steer clear of this outfit,” returned Red grimly. “Fellers, I cain’t figger it a-tall, but I got goose pimples.”
They rode through the opening, along with Friday in the lead, scaring the tiger snakes out of his path with his long spear, and presently emerged upon the low bank of a wide river. It differed greatly from streams the cowboys had ever seen. Slopes of yellow mud ran a hundred yards out to meet a turgid channel of muddy water about the same width, and from a far edge the opposite slope ran a farther distance up to the bush.
“Tide running out. Swift, too,” observed Larry.
“Gosh, you mean this heah is tidewater?” queried Red.
“It must be. Friday said it was salt water. If that mud is soft, we’re in for a cropper.”
“Friday, go alonga, see how deep mud,” said Sterl.
Ankle-deep the black waded some rods out, and then began to sink in deeper and deeper until he was over his knees. From his exertions wading back Sterl concluded that mud would be a sticky and dragging medium for cattle.
“Not so good,” averred Red.
“In fact, it is rotten,” added Sterl.
“Even with the tide in full, the mob would have to wade a bit, at least close to shore,” observed Larry seriously. “And the wagons. That will be a job to cross them here.”
“Right-o. But it can be done. We’d cut poles and brush to make a road. Thet channel buffaloes me, though. What say, Sterl?”
“Boys, without the menace of crocodiles, which Friday mentioned, we’d have a killing job here.”
“I don’t see any of them damn’ varmints. Do you?”
“Not looking for them.”
“But, pard, suppose this…mud hole is full of crocodiles?”
“Heavens, Red! Haven’t we enough to worry about? Say, Larry, how big do these Gulf crocodiles grow?”
“Up to twenty-five feet, I’ve heard. They can break a man’s leg with one whack of their tails.”
“Holy Mackeli!” ejaculated Red. “I oughta go back an’ bore Eric Dann before some big croc’ plays Jonah an’ the whale with me.”
“Fellows, I’ll bet you Dann cracks before we get across this river,” asserted Sterl.
“Wal, thet won’t do us any good now. But I hope he croaks.”
“Red, how will we get the girls across?”
“Aw, that’s a sticker. I was thinkin’ about it. If we only had a boat! Mebbe we could build a raft. In a pinch we might use the bed of our wagon…but I wonder…should we go across?”
“Red, we can’t help ourselves.”
“Shore we cain’t. But we can wonder. Somehow I’ve a hunch this river will bust us. Gets my nerve, somehow. I’d as lief face the Brazos in flood with a band of Comanches on the other side.”
“Yeah? Well, I’d a damn’ sight rather, too. This has got me stumped. Let’s ride back. Maybe somebody has found a better crossing.”
They rode to camp as had Slyter and Benson and the other drovers who had ranged still farther up the river. They reported no possible crossing. Stanley Dann, dark of visage, turned to Sterl and his comrades.
“Boss, there’s a ford below. But it looks awful tough.”
Red added: “It’ll be tougher than it looks.”
Larry corroborated these statements and enlarged upon them.
“Mister Dann, cain’t we get out of tacklin’ this heah river?” Red queried anxiously.
“Impossible! I’m surprised you ask, Krehl,” exploded the leader.
“But, sir, if you’ll excuse me, I cain’t see no reason for it, except to keep on this wild goose chase. It might be better to travel up this river two hundred miles to haid it rather than try to cross heah.”
“Krehl, this is the first instance you’ve shown hesitancy in the face of an obstacle,” declared Dann testily.
“Yes, sir, thet’s true,” returned Red, remarkably mild for him. “I’m shore hesitatin’. But the reason is, I’m not quite bug house, as this two-bit guide of yores is.”
“Bug house? Will you please be explicit. Speak English. If you know how.”
“Wal, boss, I don’t speak your language a-tall,” retorted Red, now cool and biting. “But all the same I feel beholden to you. Only this heah last job yore brother has hipped on is the wust.”
“Krehl, I’d go look the ford over, but what good would that do?” returned the chief patiently.
“Hell, no! We can go back a ways, an’ thet’d save an orful job, a lot of cattle, an’ somebody’s life shore as Gawd made little apples! You’re a great guy, Dann. Yore a cattleman as big as all this heah outdoors. You’ve been a great leader in every way but on these rivers. But a dry land drover. It’s the rivers thet have stuck you. An’ as you don’t savvy rivers, I was hopin’ I could turn you back from this one.”
Perhaps no man of the open could have heard unmoved this simple, forceful plea of the cowboy’s. Certainly Dann and Slyter, the drovers and Sterl himself did not. But Eric Dann’s abnormal and malignant obsession again protruded its hydra-head.
“Krehl is afraid,” he shouted hoarsely. “Once and for all, I demand to be heard! I will not stand any more opposition, especially from such a source. Who could have helped but make mistakes on this trek? Nevertheless, no foreigner is going to upset my plans to make me ridiculous.”
“Brother, there is more than your plans upset,” rejoined the leader darkly. “I ask you once more and for the last time…do you know what you’re doing to put us against this river?”
“Yes, I know. I know, too, that Krehl is afraid. Ask him yourself. I’ll ask him. See here, cowboy, are you man enough to confess the truth…that you are afraid? I see it in you.”
Red Krehl gave the drover a long, uncomprehending gaze. Dann was, indeed, a new one for the Texan. Then he spoke: “Hell, yes. I shore am afraid of this river, the croc’s, an’ the aborigines. But I reckon I oughta be more afraid of you, Mister Dann. Because you’re a queer mixture of fool, liar, an’ crook.”
Sterl felt hot under the collar through all this argument, but he restrained himself until it ended, then he addressed the leader. “Dann, I want you to know and to remember…that I strongly advise against the attempt to cross this river.”
Dann threw up his hands at this stern and inflexible speech. He was influenced, although not deeply enough. There was no telling what he thought, but his immutability was manifest. “Sorry, but we cross!”
But the river and the tide had something to say about that, and, when they were right, as nearly as the drovers thought they could be, then the cattle had the last word. This mob had been extraordinarily docile and easily managed as the cowboys knew cattle. Many of the bulls and cows that had distinguishing spots or horns or habits that brought them into daily notice had become veritable pets. Toward the end of that first day, however, they manifested evidences of the contrary dispositions which Australian cattle were noted for in the bush. About mid-afternoon, they stopped grazing and became uneasy. Friday was the first to report this. It corroborated the feeling of the drovers. Slyter went out to observe the herd for himself. Upon his return he announced: “For some reason or other they dislike this place.”
“Ha! Our feeling has been communicated to the mob. But the water is sweet, the grass rich. Surely they will settle down presently.”
“If they don’t, we are in for a night of it. I wouldn’t care to try to stop a rush in this bush at night.”
The cattle did not settle down. They bawled and stirred and pressed away from the river bush. They had to be held by the drovers.
“Might be smellum croc�
��s,” said Friday.
“Umpumm,” averred Red. “I can’t smell an alligator as far as a polecat. But there’s shore somethin’ round heah that smells queer.”
Flying foxes had appeared during the afternoon, great, wide-winged, grotesque bats, flapping out of the bush over the cattle, and their dark number increased toward sunset. It developed that this dark bush was the home of thousands of these strange flying mammals, and, as night approached, they increased in numbers. Out of the huge fig tree right over camp the uncanny, slinky, silky creatures emerged to flap swishingly away out over the herd. From all along the edge of the bush they streaked out.
“Shore, it’s them dinged bats thet have the herd buffaloed, an’ they’re gonna get us, too,” said Red. But Slyter and Dann did not agree with Red.
“You can never tell what will start a mob,” declared Dann. “Often the cause of rushes is never known. But there’s something here that worries them.”
“Wal, I should snicker to snort there is,” drawled Red pessimistically. “If it ain’t bats, it’s alligators, an’ if it ain’t them, it’s thet cussed river, an’ if it ain’t thet, it’s jest a feelin’ they’ve gone far enough.”
“Krehl, I agree with you,” returned Dann. “But as it is something we cannot help, we must meet it.”
Here was one camp where a fire did not flame brightly. The wood burned as if it was wet, and the smoke was acrid. The girls particularly exclaimed against it. They hated the big bats, too, and added materially to the evil impression of Doré’s Bush. Then night settled down black, with the stars obscured by the foliage on three sides. Sterl was not the last to wish they were out of there. Mosquitoes were not abundant, but they made up in ferocity for what they lacked in numbers.
Supper had been eaten and five drovers had ridden out on guard, when all left in camp were startled by a low, weird sound off in the bush, apparently across the river.
“Black fella corroboree. Imm no good,” said Friday, his long black arm aloft.
