The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  Having relieved the itch, the dog turned and surveyed the old man with a calm, contemplative look as if pondering on the reasons for the enmity of this gentle, white-haired old pipe-sucker.

  The dog had been a stray dog. This was a handicap. For stray dogs are looked on with suspicion by those with whom they would be friendly. A fortnight ago it had followed a swagman for many miles, occasionally wagging its tail as a sign of its desire to be companionable. But the tramp disliked dogs, and at their first stopping place had kicked the animal. This discourtesy offended the dog and it had left him.

  It followed a side track and came upon a young man walking behind a heifer that constantly sought to break back and return to the paddock from whence it was being taken.

  The dog’s great-grandfather had lived with a drover. The dog barked furiously and dashed at that homesick cow with an obvious determination. The heifer, after a wild dash through brushing gum-suckers, decided to go quietly. It knew a good dog when it felt one.

  The dog approached the young man, wagging its tail and panting in a friendly fashion. It felt confident that it had done well.

  The young man took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it. He surveyed the dog with an amused, tolerant smile upon his brown face, as if he were thinking, ‘You old character.’

  The dog interpreted this as being favourable to the possibility of an immediate adoption. It commenced showing off by dashing round in small circles, its tail held hard down. It barked and whisked around while the young man watched it in his amused and interested way.

  He struck a match to light his pipe and, while sucking the flame into the dark, seasoned bowl, kept his eyes turned on the dog. His pipe alight, he flicked the burnt match-end to the road and blew a mushroom of smoke into the air.

  ‘Good boy,’ he said, and commenced to walk after the cow.

  The dog followed him.

  That had been a fortnight ago.

  The dog had made a mistake and scratched itself when being introduced to the old man. But it had never regarded scratching as being objectionable. All the dogs it knew scratched themselves. Fleas were part of dogs like the old man’s pipe was of him. So the dog continued scratching itself, being loath to forgo the pleasure merely to please so narrow-minded a person.

  The dog looked very thoughtful as it lay and watched the old man.

  ‘Get out,’ said the old man.

  The dog ignored this. It thumped the floor with its tail and tried to convey by the expression in its soft brown eyes its desire to be friendly.

  The nephew sat up. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned.

  ‘Growling at the dog, Unc?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘He’s all right, aren’t you, Spot?’

  The dog approached the nephew. Its hindquarters wobbled from side to side with the energy it put into the wagging of its tail. It wore a humble and devoted look.

  ‘That there dog is good for nothin’,’ said the old man.

  He had a quiet, gentle voice. One instantly knew him to be a good man. Upon his feet he wore those soft, black leather boots known as ‘Romeos’. They were fastened with a buckle catch.

  ‘I like dogs, but not lousy dogs.’

  ‘I don’t like anything that’s lousy,’ said the nephew. ‘Give me a look at you, Spot.’

  He parted the hair on the dog’s back, looking for fleas.

  ‘Not a sign of one, Unc. All dogs scratch themselves.’

  ‘I got fleas offen him,’ persisted the old man. ‘I never felt no fleas until he come.’

  ‘Hm!’ said the nephew.

  The old man’s dislike became a serious problem to the dog. I imagine that it at last determined to rid itself of the fleas it nourished.

  In a small clearing to the left of the house, a cow had died. White ribs like rafters showed through breaks in the dry skin. The interior was hollow. The thin tail of a goanna could often be seen protruding through a hole in the carcass while its owner picked at the dried shreds of flesh that still adhered to the bones.

  Around the carcass, the grass had withered and died, making a discoloured border where decaying flesh had returned to the soil.

  One sunny morning the dog visited this spot. It was full of business. Over and over in that foul border it rolled. It rubbed its head, its neck, its body among the dead, corrupt grass. It shook itself and rolled again.

  At last, confident in the success of its scheme, it returned joyfully to the house where the old man and his nephew were eating their breakfast.

  Its entrance made the old man stay proceedings on his fried chop.

  ‘That there dog stinks,’ he said with prompt conviction.

  The nephew laid down his knife and sniffed the air.

  ‘I can’t smell anything, Unc.’

  ‘Cripes!’ exclaimed the old man, his face twisted in distaste.

  A breeze floating through the doorway passed over the dog on its way to stir the curly, tousled hair on the nephew’s head.

  He jumped violently up from his chair.

  ‘Phew!’

  The dog retired hurriedly through the open door. It had offended the nephew. Terrible.

  It made for the dam where it squatted in the yellow water, lapping at it with its pink tongue. Later it dried itself in the sun on the clay bank.

  Shadows of swallows moved across and around it and out over the water. It wondered whether the smell had gone. It rose and visited the old man.

  He eyed it suspiciously, but though he sniffed with evident anticipation he found nothing to take exception to. It was an anxious moment for the dog.

  In the far corner of the house paddock near the bank of a dried watercourse was an old mining shaft. Gold had been found there. The windlass that had once creaked to the slow winding of bowyanged miners now slept in the quiet sunshine. Kookaburras flew to it from the grass. They scraped their bills against its bleached wood and sat there, heads on one side, watching the ground for movements of live things.

  On the brink of the shaft, between it and one of the fences, a twisted yellow-box tree had grown. One limb hung over the gaping mouth. The roots found nourishment in the round mound of clay and stone that had been raised from below.

  In the small triangle of space made by the shaft and the meeting fences the nephew had planted a willow cutting. In such a spot it was safe from cattle and horses. Occasionally he visited it and the old windlass would creak once more to a laden bucket as he raised water to refresh its drooping leaves.

  To reach the cutting, the nephew would grasp the limb of the yellow box and lean out over the shaft as he stepped round the tree and on to the plot that harboured the little willow.

  Sometimes, with his hand tightly grasping the limb, he would look down and there, away below him, he could see the cold gleam of dark water.

  The dog usually accompanied him. It watched the raising of the bucket with interest. The nephew would sometimes let him drink from it.

  On one of these visits a rabbit occupied the attention of the dog for a few minutes. When it returned the nephew had disappeared. A broken branch of the yellow-box tree lay across the shaft’s mouth.

  The dog was interested. It ran forward and looked down the shaft with its ears pricked, its tail wagging. The sound of splashing came from below. It could see the nephew’s white, round face moving in the darkness.

  The dog became very excited. It padded with its feet on the brink, barking and enjoying itself.

  From the water whose black surface wavered with reflected gleams, the nephew spoke to the dog.

  ‘Go home, boy. Good boy. G’way back.’

  But the dog did not understand.

  It barked and ran to and fro on the edge of the shaft. The nephew urged it, implored it. Suddenly the dog became afraid. It whined and peered into the darkness. It was very still down there. It heard the nephew’s voice, speaking as if to himself:

  ‘Damn the dog.’

  He spoke with feeling. The tone was derogatory and hopeless.

>   The dog ran a little way from the shaft, then stopped and looked back. It whined to itself and fidgeted on its feet. It took a few steps towards the shaft, but suddenly, as if realising the desperate plight of its friend, it turned and raced towards the house.

  How beautifully it ran. Its long hair floated along with it. Its tongue swung from the side of its mouth.

  It bounded into the kitchen where the old man was peering into a saucepan on the stove and poking gently at the contents with a fork.

  The old man got quite a fright. An involuntary, ‘That there dog,’ came from his lips.

  The dog made a stand in front of him, barking loudly. This behaviour astounded the old man. With the fork poised in the air he regarded the dog as if it were a strange dog, a formidable dog.

  The dog suddenly rushed forward and seized the old man’s trousers. It pulled back violently. The old man almost lost his balance. He flung out his arms and staggered. He put a table between him and the dog.

  The dog’s bark took on a whining note. It ran to the door and stopped, looking back at the old man.

  The old man’s expression suddenly changed. His face became white. He hurried from behind the table. The dog bounded ahead. The old man followed. The wind stirred the white, silken hair on his head. Then he realised where the dog was leading him and he commenced running. What was almost a moan came from his lips and he ran as he had never run before.

  His face, usually so placid, was strained; his eyes were wide and fixed. But he was old and his joints were stiff. His fastest speed was slow to the dog.

  It reached the shaft ahead of him and stood on the brink barking, looking first into the darkness and then towards the old man as if it wished to convey to the nephew the assurance that help was coming.

  The old man kept running. Not far now, but his poor legs had weakened and his heart beat painfully. He stumbled on the loose stones that lay along the track. He was breathless when he reached the foot of the yellow-box tree.

  He dreaded a silence from the cold, horrible well, but his nephew’s voice came to him, weak, a little muffled.

  ‘Hurry, Unc.’

  He hurried, almost hindering himself with his fumbling hands. The bucket rattled down the gaping hole until a splash and a slackened rope showed that it had reached the water.

  ‘Wind slowly, Unc. The rope is rotten.’

  He commenced to wind. Very slowly. His eyes were closed, his lips parted a little. His throat was twitching. How old he was. Ah! age was cruel. Once his knees almost gave and the winding stopped, but he instantly recovered and went on again.

  At last the nephew’s dripping head appeared. He grasped the windlass and with an effort hoisted himself on to solid ground. He lay there a moment exhausted.

  His task done, the old man became strangely weak. He leant on the windlass handle feeling ill. The nephew staggered to his feet and went to him. He lifted him and laid him on the ground.

  ‘Are you all right, Unc?’ he asked anxiously.

  He squeezed water from his coat on to the face of the old man. The old man shook his head and sat up. He felt for his pipe and, finding it, discovered that his shaking hands could not light it. His nephew took the matches and, striking one, held the cupped flame to the bowl. He smiled into the face of the old man and said:

  ‘Good for you, Unc.’

  The dog thought the time opportune to express relief at the nephew’s escape. It wished to lick his hand. It advanced in a conciliatory way with an eye on the old man whose wrath it regarded as certain since it had bitten his leg. Its eyes almost pleaded with him.

  The old man took his pipe from his mouth and looked long and earnestly at the dog.

  ‘That there dog’s a good dog,’ he said.

  The Gentleman

  ‘You haven’t a hope of heading him,’ he yelled at me, but I had given my mount its head and was flat out along a sheep pad between the blue-bush.

  Jack and I had been out mustering and were scouting through a clump of belah-trees when we sighted the mob of brumbies feeding on a ridge which rose from a dried watercourse beneath us.

  The Gentleman was feeding a little apart from the mob. He was a piebald stallion. The black on him extended from his wither and covered half of one side in an irregular design. His massive hindquarters were white and, flowing behind him, was a tail as black as night.

  There wasn’t a man in the outback who wouldn’t have thrown his job or given his dog for that horse. I had heard of him on Til Til, Mulurula, Pan Ban, Turlee, for this was years ago when horses carried men across the saltbush plains and cars were unknown.

  When The Gentleman heard the pounding hooves of my mount he leapt into a position that carved him from his surroundings like the Great King’s horse at Persepolis. He held this stand for two deep, investigating breaths then tossed his head and trotted a few defiant steps towards me. He moved with an exaggerated lift and fling of his forelegs and snorted challengingly through his red-lined nostrils. His crest was curved like an arch. He suddenly turned and plunged back to the mares, whinnying and keeping his lifted head turned at an angle so that he could look back at me.

  My mount was fast. The Gentleman became alarmed. He urged the mob to a gallop. They flung sticks and earth behind them as they tore at the earth with their hardened hooves. The stallion moved effortlessly to the front and led them up the ridge. The manes of the brumbies whipped the air above them in a flame-like fluttering.

  I raced up to them with a yell and was on to the mares before they gained their top. The piebald stallion neighed wildly. He slowed up and harried the leading mares to greater speed.

  I weigh eleven stone. A mounted horse, be he ever so good, has no chance against fast horses running free. I found myself galloping in the cloud of dust at their rear. I reined in my horse and watched them leave me. For two miles over the plain the stallion led them in a tireless gallop until the mulga scrub swallowed them and the only sign of their flight was a drifting cloud of dust rising farther and farther away above the trees.

  When I got back to Jack he said: ‘What did I tell you? You only blow your horse out for nothing. There’s not a horse in the outback could head that fellow. We’ve all had a go at him.’

  ‘I’ll get him some day or bust,’ I said.

  I talked it over with Jack some months later.

  ‘I’ve yet to see the horse that can draw up to him,’ I argued. ‘Look at that grey of mine. I’d take anybody on with that nag, but The Gentleman left us standing when I got between him and the mob last week.’

  ‘The only way to get him is to run him down in relays,’ said Jack.

  ‘How many riders would you need?’

  ‘Four could do it.’

  ‘They would each want a change.’

  ‘Let’s work it out,’ said Jack.

  We decided to get the help of two boundary riders from Kilfera and try our luck the following Saturday. We drew a rough map of the country and planned our drive on paper.

  There were good stockyards on the far corner of our run. They had two mile-long wings radiating from the gate in a V shape to a mouth half a mile wide. We reckoned we could yard the mob there.

  Brumbies never run far in a straight line. They will always circle back to the area in which they were bred. The Gentleman’s mob generally roamed the country round One-tree tank which included the stockyards we had in mind.

  Jack arranged for Steve Barton and Jim Carson to come over on the Friday and that morning we both set off to locate the mob and work them down towards the five-mile gate where the boys were to meet me at dawn on the Saturday. We led a couple of fresh mounts which were to be tethered at points where a changeover could be made without letting up on the brumbies.

  We found the mob near One-tree tank. We were upwind and they were off almost as soon as we sighted them. They ran west which was what we wanted. We then parted. Jack left to place the fresh horses and camp at the spot where his run would commence next day and I followed the mob from
a distance waiting to see where they would settle down to feed.

  I camped at the gate that night. Before daylight next morning I heard the jingle of bits and creak of saddle leather as the boys arrived from the homestead. They were leading their spare horses, so after explaining to them the route they were to take to their stations and where to leave their reserve mounts, I saddled up and made for the saltbush flat on which I guessed the mob would be feeding.

  I was to take the first run, a stretch of about five miles. I had to keep the mob bearing to the north and hand them over to Jack at Pine-tree ridge.

  The brumbies weren’t on the flat but I tracked them to the left and in about a mile came on them grazing near some boree-trees. I rode wide and got behind them. The Gentleman had seen me. He snorted and commenced to gather in the mares. They were scattered and seemed loath to accept his premonition of danger.

  There were about fifteen mares, a few yearlings and a dozen or so others of varying ages.

  I bore down on them at a gallop, stockwhip cracking. At the first report of the whip they plunged into a run, snorting, their heads lifted in a frightened watching.

  The Gentleman could have left the mob with ease and my mount was fast enough to overtake any of the mares in a sprint, but I was content to trail them till they had spent their first surge of energy.

  In about a couple of miles they settled down. I made a furious dash which carried me on to the heels of the lagging mares. The mob wheeled as I pressed them from the flank, my stockwhip circling above my head before bursting into reports inches from their hides.

  The older mares were tiring when I sighted the pine ridge where Jack was to take over. I urged my blowing horse to a final spurt. We thundered up the rise like a charge of cavalry. There was a yell and Jack tore into sight from behind a clump of pine-trees. I reined my mount and watched him turn the mob and follow at a gallop, almost concealed by the dust from the pounding hooves.

  I turned and rode slowly towards the point where, a couple of hours later, on a fresh horse, I would again take up the running. By this time the brumbies would have covered about sixteen miles in a large circle and would be close to the spot they had left that morning.