The Great Trek

by Zane Grey

  It was Beryl’s prerogative then to fall into Red’s arms, but she did not take advantage of the moment. Red helped her off, and steadied her a moment to see if she could stand.

  “Girl, I never gave you credit,” flashed Red. “Set down, an’ if you faint now, you’ll spoil it all.”

  Leslie, who had dismounted, came to Beryl. They clung together, a gesture more eloquent than any words.

  When they rode out on the mud flat again, Sterl was amazed to see Friday dragging what evidently was the monster crocodile into the shallow water. A long spear sticking in the reptile spoke for itself. A yelling, splashing mêlée distracted Sterl. The two teams were straining on the ropes, plowing through the mud. Between them and the wagon, the drovers were yelling and hauling. Sterl observed that this wagon, the one in which he had caulked the seams, floated almost flat. Mrs. Slyter stood behind her husband, hanging onto the seat, while he made ready for the waiting teams. Once the wagon was in shallow water, they unfastened the ropes and tackles, hitched the two teams, and gave Slyter the word to drive out.

  Sterl and Red followed the muddy procession up the bank. The unhitching and clamor of the drovers were halted by Stanley Dann’s booming voice from the opposite bank: “Good work! Rollie, Larry, Friday, stay there to guard camp. Rest of you hurry back to drove the mob.”

  Friday said to Sterl and Slyter: “Tinkit more better boss wait along sun. Croc’s bad.”

  “We can’t stop Dann now,” Slyter said grimly. “Come all who’re going back.”

  “Wal, if you ask me, we oughta load our guns,” drawled Red.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The tide had turned to ebb, and the strip of muddy riverbed had widened. On the flat lay the enormous crocodile that Red had shot and Friday had speared. It was over twenty feet long, a yard wide, and would have weighed a hundred stone and more. It lay on its back, exposing the gory hole where Red’s bullets had torn through, and the broken shaft of Friday’s spear.

  Five drovers crossed the river with Sterl and Red. Dann met them like a general, greeting a victorious army.

  “We’ve time to drove Slyter’s horses across, and pack these loose things,” he said. “Ormiston’s wagon can be left till last.”

  The cowboys unsaddled King and Duke, changing to two of Slyter’s draft horses, and it was a pleasure to see how Leslie’s great favorites raced across the river, leading the other horses. Without riders and saddles to weigh them down, these iron-shod horses would have given a crocodile a hard fight, even in the water.

  Slyter and Stanley Dann helped pack the loose supplies across. Bill Simpson, the cook, went with the first trip. But Eric Dann stayed on the seat of Ormiston’s wagon, gloomy, dead to the excitement of the great ford. His saddled horse remained tethered to the wagon. Nine men on fresh horses, all spurred by the never-failing danger of that crossing, transported bags, supplies, tents, beds, utensils, saddles in a dozen trips, averaging ten minutes to the trip, without an attack from the river saurians. But as the tide ebbed, they sighted more reptiles than upon any other occasion.

  Stanley Dann roused his brooding brother with a curt command. His patience and kindness might not have been exhausted, but this was a stern hour.

  “Men, this is the great job,” he boomed. “If it is successful, tomorrow we will muster the cattle that rushed, and drove the mob.”

  Sterl estimated that there was three thousand head, more or less in the mob, and they were tractable. Slyter had charge of the drive. His idea proved to be a gradual moving of the cattle down the river in the open, leaving an unguarded end of the mob at the lower side, through which they could string out. It worked. Red spoke well of the plan, and also of the very slow driving. But he had his doubts about that river.

  “OK, if a big bunch of leaders gets started,” he ejaculated. “But if they buck at sight or smell of them ugly, stinkin’ varmints…whoopee!”

  Sterl felt the reverse of optimistic. But even in his doubts he had to think of Stanley Dann’s magnificent and immutable spirit. He would drove that mob across, despite almost insurmountable obstacles. He would end this trek successfully or die trying.

  When the drovers had the big herd lengthened out to perhaps half a mile, the front end and the hundred or more extra horses were driven in from behind. At a signal from Dann the widely separated drovers opened fire with their guns and charged. The fifty-yard-wide belt of cattle headed for the river and piled over the low bank. Across the river crocodiles basked in the sun. The odor of the reptiles was thick on the air. The first line had slid off the bank into the mud before they took fright and balked. Then it was too late. The pushing, bawling lines behind forced them on. Some of them were bogged, to be trampled under. But almost miraculously the whole mob was driven into the mud before they could attempt a rush back.

  The point of least resistance lay to the fore. The leaders had to gravitate that way. From the opposite bank crocodiles slid down and shot across the mud into the shallow water. Sterl had no time to count, but he saw many. Red saw, too, for he shouted to Sterl: “Mebbe the herd will trample the gizzards out of them.”

  A plunging line leaped headlong into the channel. Released from a wall in front, the mass behind piled frantically into the river. As if by a miracle, then, hundreds and thousands of horned heads breasted the channel. In several spots swirling, churning battles ensued, almost at once to be overridden by swimming cattle. Sterl, from his position behind the center of the advance, could not see what was going on at each end of the mob. But it appeared a marvelous, progressive movement, losing its raggedness as more and more cattle reached deep water. Then they were all in, except the dozens of mired and trampled ones that had fallen before the onslaught. Swimming cattle in large numbers always fascinated Sterl. He sat his horse on the bank, thrilled to the core of his being, and tried ineffectually to take in the whole spectacle. The wide channel was full of bobbing, horned heads. As the front line struck bottom, the stench of the crocodiles and their furious, charging attack, precipitated a rush that was obscured in flying spray.

  “Come on, pard!” yelled Red from below. “We wanna be close behind that stampede or the croc’s will get us!”

  All the drovers were in the mud, some at the heels of the mob, others shooting crippled and smashed cattle. The big herd, in the wake of the mob, excited by the roar, had made frantic efforts to get ahead. Soon they lunged into deep water. Sterl spurred the big draft horse under him. Compared to King, it appeared to stand still, yet Sterl was glad he was not astride the black. His gun held ready, Sterl peered into the murky, swirling water. Red did likewise on one side of him, and Benson on the other. That was a heart-racking, stomach-collapsing ordeal which seemed not to have an end. Nevertheless, it eased its sickening clutch on into shallow water. Then Sterl looked up.

  A sea of glistening, bobbing backs sloped up to a fringe of bobbing horns which fell out of sight all along the line. In each direction the long belt of cattle was moving with amazing speed. A thousand crocodiles could not have halted that stampede. Sterl gazed back and up and down the mud bank. Everywhere, mired cattle dotted the river. Squirming crocodiles attested to the trampling they had received. Only one horse was down, and it appeared to be struggling to rise.

  “Laig broke!” yelled Red, close to Sterl’s ear. “Saddled, too! By Gawd, pard, thet’s Eric Dann’s hoss! An’ if he ain’t lyin’ there on the mud, my eyes air pore!”

  The long mob poured up the bank and over it, out of sight. The roar ceased markedly. Drovers all along mounted the incline. Stanley Dann and two others appeared, galloping. The leader was pointing to the fallen horse and rider. Sterl and Red had already headed in his direction.

  “So help me!” panted Red. “Pard, I wouldn’t give a goose pimple for thet man lyin’ there. You’ve seen ’em, Sterl, flat as empty sacks!”

  “But Red, whoever that is, was behind the herd,” protested Sterl. “He couldn’t have been run over.”

  “Thet’s Eric Dann’s hoss, I t
ell you,” flashed Red. “He’s bogged down or his laig’s broke.”

  “Look! A croc’ slipping off into deep water,” shouted Sterl.

  Stanley Dann reached the prostrate man and horse ahead of Bligh and Hod. Sterl and Red got there as the drovers were dismounting, to sink ankle-deep in the mud.

  “It’s Eric!” boomed the leader, as he leaned over. “Dead…or…or…no! He’s still alive!”

  “Horse’s front leg’s broken,” reported Bligh tensely.

  “Shoot it! And help me, the two of you.”

  They lifted him across Bligh’s saddle. How limp he hung! What a slimy, broken wreck of a man.

  “Hazelton, you and Krehl and Hod follow the mob,” ordered the leader harshly. “That rush will end soon.”

  From the height of the bank Sterl looked over bushland and green downs which led to higher and denser bush. Smoke signals rose in straight columns and separate puffs. In the foreground, the mob of cattle had halted.

  “All the stampede is out of them,” said Red.

  “Crocodile stampede. New one on us, Red,” rejoined Sterl.

  “Cost Dann and Slyter plenty. Hundreds of cattle down, daid an’ dyin’. What a mess there’ll be, when the hot sun has a chance at them.”

  “Aborigines, croc’s, dingoes, and buzzards! In two days this camp won’t be livable.”

  “A-huh. You’re thinkin’, too. If Eric Dann is bad hurt, we cain’t leave.”

  “He was bad hurt, somewhere.”

  “Laigs looked busted to me. You saved his life once, an’ then all same me…to no good. We might have saved ourselves the risk. I hope he croaks!”

  “Red, your bark is always worse than your bite.”

  “Yeah? I shore am the champeen sucker. But you’re kinda easy yourself. Sterl, about Dann’s drovers, after this last shuffle, what’s the deal gonna be?”

  “You mean if Eric Dann holds up the trek?”

  “I shore mean thet little thing.”

  “Damn’ serious, pard.”

  “Serious? Well, old man, what’s it been all along? It’ll be orful. If Bligh an’ Heald an’ the others stick it out, I’d say it’ll be a damn’ sight more than any Americans would do. ’Cept a couple of dumb-haid, lovesick suckers like us. But they’re as game an outfit as we ever seen.”

  The drovers had turned the long right wing of the mob back upon itself. When the cowboys arrived, the cattle had begun to lie down, too exhausted even to bawl. They would not need any guarding that night. There was a creek meandering through the downs toward the river, but obviously it had no outlet except during high water. The reed border along the river, where the crocodiles lay in wait, did not extend far back. Sterl found the sun hot, the flies bothersome, the scene unwholesome despite the flocks of colored parrots and ducks, the cranes, and the myriad kangaroos.

  The horses had scattered off to the left toward camp. Sterl and Red helped muster them and drove them within sight of the wagons.

  “What held up the boss?” inquired Bligh, as the drovers collected again, their tasks ended for the present. Bligh was a young man, under thirty, gray-eyed and still-faced, a man on whom the other drovers leaned.

  “Eric’s injured. Legs broken, I think,” replied Sterl. “They had to shoot his horse.”

  “We got off lucky at that. How bad was he hurt?”

  “Other than his legs, I don’t know, Bligh. Looked bad. Red thinks it was bad.”

  Bligh exchanged apprehensive glances with his intimates. It was natural that they should take this news amiss, as, indeed, the cowboys had done. Finally Bligh turned back to Sterl: “If the boss’s brother is unable to travel, it’ll precipitate a most serious situation.”

  “We appreciate that. Let’s hope it’s not so bad he cannot be moved in a wagon.”

  “Yes. You hope so, but you don’t believe it,” said Bligh brusquely.

  “Right!”

  “Hazelton, we all think you and Krehl are wonderful drovers, and, what is more, right good cowboys,” said Bligh.

  “Thanks, Bligh,” returned Sterl heartily. “Red and I sure return the compliment.”

  “For us this trek seems to have run into a forlorn cause. It is keeping us awake at night.”

  “Well, Bligh, I’m bound to agree with you. But it’s not a lost cause yet.”

  The drover shook his shaggy head and ran skinned, dirty fingers through his scant beard. “Friend, it’s different with you cowboys, on account of the girls, if you’ll excuse my saying so.”

  “Different? Maybe you pay us too high a compliment.”

  Here Red interposed. “Bligh, you all savvied my case, an’ thet’s OK with me. But don’t think I’ve got any high-falutin’ ideas.”

  “You boys are both too modest,” returned Bligh with a smile. Sterl felt the warmer for that little exchange of words. They rode into camp. Rollie and his mates had put up the cook’s shelter and table, and the tents. They had split a pile of red hardwood and collected a lot of the kind of bark that burned well. Friday had evidently come back to camp with Dann. Sterl felt reluctant to ask about the injured man. Weary as he was, Sterl followed Red’s example of discarding wet, slimy clothes, washing and shaving with hot water, and getting into dry things. That made a considerable difference in mood, for the time being.

  Neither Beryl nor Leslie put in an appearance. Dann seemed for once a forbidding and unapproachable figure. Slyter conversed in low tones with his wife, and once Sterl saw him throw up his hands in a singular gesture for him. Red stayed in the tent. Friday kept gazing fixedly at the smoke signals, as if reading their strange omens. The seven young drovers remained in a group at the other side of the camp, where Bligh appeared to be haranguing them. Sterl had seen numberless conferences of both honest and evil men out in the open, faced by momentous issues, and in this instance he drew a dismaying conclusion.

  Sterl felt a helpless, sinking sensation. He could not control his own thoughts or emotions, much less events. All leading up to the event of Doré’s Bush, all the events that had happened there down to this hour, presaged a tragic climax, the uncertainty of which added to the resistless portent. All the eyes Sterl had caught a glimpse into, except Red Krehl’s, had a furtive, hunted look. Then, the instant the sun set, all that had been bright and gold underwent a change. Sterl imagined that it emanated from his mood, but he could not hold that thought. The dark, still bush, secretive, pregnant; the fading drifting smoke signals, proof of the mysterious aboriginal menace; the gliding river, between its yellow mud borders; the wide-winged buzzards sailing around and around, dropping down to the gnarled branches of a dead gum tree—all these were physical facts that pressed to be felt. They strengthened the dread oppression that seemed to lend weight to the very atmosphere.

  Sterl turned away from his prolonged scrutiny of the river, the bush, the downs, all that constituted this place. And he sustained a galvanizing shock that this was the moment. Suddenly, Bligh, leading Derrick, Hod and Heald, rose and started toward Stanley Dann’s shelter. Pale despite their tan, resolute despite their fear! It did not seem a coincidence that Beryl and Leslie appeared from nowhere; that Slyter came out, his hair ruffled, his gaze fixed; that Red emerged from his tent, his lean hawk-like head poised; that Friday hove into sight, lending the stark reality of the aborigine to the scene.

  Under Dann’s shelter it was still light. Mrs. Slyter stood beside the stretcher where Eric Dann lay, his head and shoulders propped up on pillows, fully conscious and ghastly pale. His lower extremities were covered with a blanket. The drovers halted just outside the shelter. Bligh took a further step.

  “Mister Dann, is it true that Eric is badly injured?” burst out Bligh, as if forced.

  Dann gave a violent start, and rose to his full height to stare at his visitors and from them to the cowboys, the girls, and Slyter. He stalked out then, like a man who faced death.

  “Bligh, I grieve to inform you that Eric is badly hurt,” he boomed.

  “Just how badly, sir?”r />
  “The bones of his legs broken as if they had been clay pipestems.”

  “We are terribly sorry for him and for you,” rejoined Bligh huskily.

  “I’m sure of that, Bligh.”

  “Will it be possible to move him? In a wagon, you know, to carry on our trek?”

  “No! Eric cannot be moved. He has sustained terrible compound fractures of both legs. Even with proper setting of the bones, he may be a cripple for life. To move him now, over rough ground, would be inhuman. He would suffer excruciating agony. The broken bones would not knit.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Stay here until he is mended enough to travel.”

  “That would take weeks, sir. Perhaps more.”

  “Yes, weeks. There is no alternative. On the moment I am confronted with a situation as grave as that. Eric would not let me reset his broken bones. When I moved his legs, he suffered torture. We have no chloroform. He must be bound and held while I work on him.”

  Bligh made a gesture of inexpressible regret. He choked. He cleared his throat. “Mister Dann, we feared this very thing. We talked it over, hoping against hope. But we can’t…we won’t…stay here…and go on with this wild goose trek. You started all right. Then Ormiston and your brother put us in all wrong. No sense in crying over spilled milk. We’ve stuck to the breaking point. And that’s right here. We four have decided to trek back home.”

  “Bligh! You, too?” boomed the leader. Sterl saw him change as if he had shriveled up inside. His eyes were great, pale furnaces. He was taking the brunt of another almost mortal blow.

  “Yes, me!” rang out Bligh. “You ask too much of young men. We built our hopes on your promises. One of us planned to have his girl come by ship to Darwin. To marry her there! Hod has a wife and child. Derrick is sick of this. We are going home.”

  The leader thrust aside his selfish feelings and saw the stand of these young drovers as if he were one of them. “Bligh, I have exacted too much of you all,” he returned with a sonorous tone in his voice. “I’m sorry. It cannot be undone. If I had it to do over again…you are welcome to go, and God speed you. Take two teams for Ormiston’s wagon. It is half full of food supplies. Bill will give you a box of tea. And, if you can muster the cattle that rushed up the river, you are welcome to them.”