The sun was low when the sheep reached the pond, swarming around it and drinking thirstily. The dogs joined them, and as David rode through the sheep and into the water to let his horses drink, he weighed the single remaining possibility of who the strangers could bebushrangers, intending to kill him and steal his sheep.
It was unlikely since his station was hundreds of miles from where bushrangers usually prowled, but he recalled an incident that Pat had told him about. Many years before, bushrangers had attacked Pat and Mayrah, intending to murder them and steal their sheep. Pat had been shot through the leg and Mayrah had been left with the deep scar across her forehead.
After the animals drank, David signaled the dogs.
Racing around the flock, the dogs moved the sheep away from the pond. David cracked his whip, riding around the flock, and the dogs took their positions on the flanks as the sheep moved up the hill to the fold. Following them, David continued musing about the strangers' identities.
In all probability, he reflected, the dogs had detected Aborigines, but a warning voice in the back of his mind kept him from dismissing the more ominous possibility.
Chapter Eleven
"What happened to all of it?" Hinton roared, slapping at Alexandra. "There was a whole cheese and a full cask of ship biscuit!"
Alexandra dodged the slap, moving back from him. "They were simply used up," she protested. "They could last only so long."
"No, you wasted them, that's what happened!" he bellowed. "You're a bloody useless slut! Bloody useless!"
"It's just as well that they're gone," Crowley grumbled, "because I'm sick of cheese and biscuit. Hinton, there's no reason why we can't have a fire and cooked rations. That stockman won't see the smoke."
Hinton hesitated, looking around at the edge of the trees beside the dry creek bed as dusk settled. Then he shrugged and nodded. "Go ahead, then," he growled. "I don't want a big fire, though. And keep the horses tethered instead of hobbling them. They want water, and they might wander over into that valley where that stockman will see them."
The men tethered the horses as Alexandra gathered firewood, then took out the water jug and bags of food. A few minutes later, with a fire blazing at the edge of the sandy creek bed, the men sat around it and talked as she prepared the meal. Very little of the salt pork remaining, she had only a few thin slices of it frying in a pan.
"She's been wasting the pork as well," Hinton growled, eyeing the pan. "But tomorrow we'll have all of the mutton we can eat."
Crowley commented in agreement, then suddenly reached out and pinched Alexandra's thigh with brutal force. "Mutton won't be the only thing that I'll have tomorrow," he added, grinning lewdly.
The bushrangers howled with laughter, and Alexandra bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain as she moved away from Crowley.
"Mutton won't be the only thing I'll have either," Snively remarked happily.
"You'll wait your bloody turn!" Crowley snarled. "You'll get what's left when I'm finished with her, and that won't be much."
"It'll be enough for me," Snively replied, leering at Alexandra. "As long as she's still alive and kicking, I'll be satisfied."
The men laughed raucously again, and Alexandra's thigh throbbed painfully and her stomach churned with fear and revulsion. As she finished cooking and served the food, the men spoke of their plan to kill the stockman and drive the sheep eastward. Alexandra stepped away from the fire with her plate, then put it down untouched, in too much of a turmoil to eat.
Listening to the bushrangers, she was acutely aware that she had no plan of her own. Once she aligned herself with the stockman against Hinton and the other men, she was certain she would be doomed unless the men were killed. But the stockman was only one man against three murderous criminals, and at an extreme disadvantage. She needed to help the man fight the bushrangers, but she knew of nothing that she could do.
It occurred to her that even if the bushrangers were killed, she could be exchanging three cruel tormentors for one who would be no better. From what she had heard, at least some stockmen were dissolute, shameless men. She thought about the man, wondering if she had really seen him before, or if he had only reminded her of someone whom she had met. Then she dismissed it, as the bushrangers were still very much the immediate problem.
When they finished eating, she went to get the dishes. As she stacked the plates and pannikins, Crowley reached to pinch her again, and she dodged away. The bushrangers howled with laughter. "Come tomorrow, you'll have to move faster than that to get away from me," he sneered, smiling grimly. Then he turned to Hinton. "She'll have to be left here while we're dealing with the stockman."
"Aye, that's right," Hinton agreed. "But to make sure that she can't cause us any trouble, I'll truss her up like the swine she is."
Alexandra moved away from the fire again. Using a sparing amount of water from the jug, she washed the dishes and listened to the conversation. Replying to a question from Snively, Hinton said that they would go to the stockman's hut on foot since the horses would make too much noise. Then he added that they would stay awake all night to avoid any chance of oversleeping, so that they would arrive at the hut just before dawn.
After washing the dishes, Alexandra covered herself with her blanket, then suddenly thought of the muskets and pistols among the things the bushrangers had stolen. After the men left, she reflected, she could free herself with the knife in her hem, take some of the weapons, and follow them. When they were near the hut, she could begin shooting, hopefully killing at least one of them while alerting the stockman with the gunfire.
Her hopes starting to soar, she firmly controlled her optimism, separating wishful thinking from what she realistically might be able to do. Then it seemed a possibility, but no more than that.
She had seen the weapons only once, when the bushrangers had sorted out their plunder at their hideout, and she was unable to recall if there had been gunpowder flasks and bullet pouches among the loot. Logically, the men had taken them as well, but if there were none in the baggage, the weapons would be useless. Or if there were, Hinton might remember the weapons and take them with him as an extra precaution.
Despite the uncertainties, she was still eagerly hopeful. At least there was the possibility that she might be effective, a promise that tomorrow would bring her freedom from the bushrangers instead of worse torture. She turned and looked at them, the scene like a somber, tortured Hogarthian spectacle.
The flames highlighted the planes of Crowley's scarred, bearded face and cast the hollows into shadows, making it look even crueler. Snively's eyes and teeth shone in a fixed, malevolent grin as he and the other two discussed their evil, murderous scheme. Hinton was fiendish, his birthmark looking like blood in the firelight. Spittle gleamed on his thick lips, his icy blue eyes were merciless and his ugly face was framed by his greasy, blond hair and beard. Filled with loathing for the three men, Alexandra turned away from them.
The conversation between the bushrangers gradually became fitful, then died away. One of them occasionally tossed wood on the fire, which flared for a few minutes and then burned down. Alexandra lay and looked up at the slow movement of the moon and stars as the hours passed, fervently hoping that her plan against the bushrangers would work.
Late in the night, Hinton suddenly snarled an oath and cuffed Snively roughly. "I said to stay awake!" he barked angrily. "If me and Crowley can stay awake, then you can too!"
Snively yelped in pain and surprise, falling over from his sitting position and sprawling, then he climbed to his feet. "I wasn't really asleep," he said defensively. "I just closed my eyes for a minute."
"You were asleep! Now stay awake!"
Snively sighed, tossing wood on the fire as he sat down again. The fire blazed once more as the men sat around it in silence, then it began to die. Alexandra was too tense to sleep, but she closed her eyes and tried to rest for what the next day would bring. She listened to the insects chirping, the mournful call of night b
irds, and the other chorus of sounds of the outback at night, waiting for time to pass.
At last, Hinton muttered to the others, throwing wood on the fire. The bushrangers stood up, stretching and yawning, and checked their weapons. Hinton picked up lengths of rope from the baggage and bent over Alexandra. He took her arm and jerked her over onto her stomach, then twisted both of her arms behind her back.
"You're not going to get loose from this," he growled, wrapping a rope tightly around her wrists and tying it. He kicked her feet together, then tied her ankles, pulling on the rope and making it bite into her as he knotted it. "There, that'll hold you until we get back."
"And I'll take it off when we get back," Crowley added, chuckling in anticipation as he stooped over Alexandra.
"Leave that until later," Hinton said irritably. "We've got more important things to do now. Get a light over here and make sure there's no sharp rocks or anything she can use to cut that rope."
Crowley went to the fire for a burning stick, then returned to Alexandra and searched the area around her. Satisfied, he returned to the fire and flung the stick onto it. She waited breathlessly to see if Hinton or the other men would think of the weapons in the baggage, then relaxed with a sigh of relief as they went into the trees and started up the hill.
After forcing herself to wait until she was certain they were gone, she gathered up the skirt of her dress with her fingers and slipped the knife out of the hem. Wedging the knife between her feet, she sawed at the rope binding her hands, and gasped in pain as the rope bit deeper into her wrists. The rope finally went slack, slipping off her wrists.
She cut the rope around her ankles and quickly went to the baggage. Finding the long, heavy pack containing the weapons, she dragged it to the fire and opened it. She pushed the muskets and pistols aside and smiled happily when she found a dozen shot pouches and powder flasks. Then her heart sank as she looked at the weapons more closely. The flints were gone from the hammers.
Without flints to ignite the gunpowder in the flash pans, the weapons were as useless as they would be without ammunition. Emptying the pack, Alexandra searched in vain for at least one flint, then sat back with a despondent sigh. It appeared that at some point, Hinton had thrown away the flints in the event she managed to get and load one of the firearms without being seen. With her only weapon now a small knife, her plan was impossible, and she thought again about what to do.
She looked at the baggage, then at the horses tethered nearby. For the first time since the bushrangers had captured her, she had ready access to ample supplies and the horses, a perfect chance to escape. Hours would pass before they returned, giving her time to leave, and she could strand them by taking all of the horses.
Nothing had ever been so tempting to her because she would be free of the men at last. But she would be entirely alone in a perilous, unfamiliar wilderness, and fleeing also smacked of cowardice to her. A man had been marked for death, and to flee and leave him to his fate without even trying to warn him was craven.
Of equal importance, a fiery yearning for revenge against the bushrangers seethed inside her. Stranding them in the wilderness was not enough. She detested them with a searing intensity more demanding than any emotion she had ever known, and she wanted them dead.
Pondering the situation again, she was unable to think of any way to balance the odds between the bushrangers and the stockman. But Hinton and the other two men thought she was securely tied, which gave her the advantage of surprise. Further, she knew that her only opportunity to help herself had arrived and time was running out. She had to do somethinganything.
Finally, she decided to follow the bushrangers and look for any circumstances she could exploit, and then to shout and alert the stockman if nothing better offered itself. While that seemed very little, at least it was something. She moved toward the trees.
When she reached the other side of the hill, the moon had set, but the sky was clear and the stars bright in the hour before dawn. As she went down into the valley, the trees thinned and she could see a few yards ahead. Then the forest fell behind her, and she walked rapidly through the tall grass, the clumps of brush thicker shadows in the dim light.
Straining her eyes, she could barely make out the hill where the fold and stockman's hut were located almost four hundred yards away. The bare swath below the fold where the sheep had trampled down the foliage was a light blur, flanked by tall brush and grass. Alexandra started across the valley, watching and listening for the bushrangers, but they were apparently well ahead of her. As she ran from one stand of brush to the next, the first light of dawn touched the horizon.
Alexandra ran the last hundred yards, angling toward the brush on the right side of the bare stretch below the fold. Reaching it, she peered up the slope and made out the forms of the bushrangers creeping toward the hut. She hesitated for a moment, then drew in a deep breath, cupped her hands around her mouth, and screamed at the top of her voice.
As her scream shattered the stillness, the dogs began snarling beside the fold at the top of the hill. Then pandemonium erupted in the fold, the sheep frightened by the dogs and surging about as they bleated. His voice ringing out over the bedlam, Hinton roared in fury, "I'll kill you for that, you conniving slut! Come on, men!"
The bushrangers raced on up the slope, and Alexandra watched the hut for movement. Seeing none, she gasped in dismay as the men ran inside it. The stockman had failed to react, and his dogs were unable to help him, because for some reason they were apparently tethered beside the fold. Alexandra waited for the shots that would end the man's life.
But there were no shots. A moment later, as dawn spreaded across the sky, the bushrangers came back outside. Baffled and enraged, they looked around in the thin light as the uproar at the fold continued. Hinton lifted his musket, venting his fury at Alexandra. "You sly bloody cow!" he roared. "I'll teach you to set yourself against me!"
As he shouldered the musket, Alexandra started to jump into the brush. Then, halfway up the slope in the foliage on the left of the bare ground, she saw a bright flame in the lingering light. The flare of gunpowder igniting in a flash pan was followed by a tongue of flame from a musket barrel as the sharp report rang out over the noise from the fold. Snively, who was standing completely in the open, staggered back and fell.
The other two men scrambled for cover, running into the dense growth down the slope from the hut.
Alexandra leaped into the brush beside her, realizing that the stockman had known all along that the bushrangers were near, and had been waiting for them. But the issue was far from settled. The stockman was one man against two wily, vicious criminals. She crept through the foliage up the hill to get Snively's weapons.
The men traded shots on the other side of the open swath as Alexandra worked her way up the hill. The stockman was well-armed, firing three times in quick succession as the bushrangers tried to rush him. Crowley bellowed an oath in pain, apparently grazed by a bullet, then he and Hinton became more cautious. The acrid haze of gunpowder smoke wafted across the bare ground to Alexandra as she passed the men.
The sun was rising as she stepped out of the brush near the top of the hill, and the sheep still bleated in a tumult that muffled the gunshots down the slope. Snively moved feebly, and Alexandra took her knife out of her coat pocket as she crossed the bare expanse below the fold to where he lay a few yards from the hut.
Then she saw that he was no longer a threat. Shot through the lungs, he was near death, his shirt soaked with blood and his face blanched. His eyes followed her as she picked up his musket, then he weakly lifted a hand and put it on the pistol in his belt as she started to take it. "Help me," he whispered. "Please help me."
"There's nothing I can do," she replied coldly, pushing his hand aside and taking the pistol. "And nothing I wish to do, because the world will be a better place without you." She took his shot pouch and gunpowder flask, putting them in her coat pocket as she stood up. "You chose the way you would die when
you chose the way you lived, Snively.''
Moving away from him, she listened to the shots and watched the gunpowder smoke rising from the foliage. One of the men was straight down the hill from her, while the other one was off to the right and farther down, trying to work his way around the stockman to catch the man in a crossfire. Carrying the long, cumbersome musket and the heavy pistol, Alexandra went down the slope toward the nearest bushranger.
Creeping quietly through the brush, Alexandra looked at the weapons and saw spots of rust on them. They had been neglected, and the touchholesthe openings through which fire traveled from the flash pan into the breeches to ignite the chargescould be plugged with gunpowder soot and rust which would make the weapons misfire. With no time to check them, she stopped long enough to pour extra measures of gunpowder into the flash pans in case the touchholes were partially clogged.
The dense growth was a mixture of bright light and thick shadows in the early sunlight, as Alexandra descended the hill. When a shot rang out some thirty feet away, she craned her neck to look ahead as she eased from one wiry bush to the next. Then she glimpsed the bushranger. It was Crowley, lying on his stomach behind a clump of matted growth and hastily reloading his musket as he peered down the slope.
The long, heavy musket was awkward for her to handle in the close confines of the foliage, and Alexandra put it down as she knelt behind a bush. She pulled the hammer back on the pistol and held it with both hands, resting the thick barrel on a limb in the bush. Peering down the barrel at Crowley's back, she drew in a deep breath and steeled herself against jerking when the hammer fell, then slowly squeezed the trigger.
The hammer slapped forward, the flint in its jaws knocking the flash pan lid open and spilling a shower of sparks onto the gunpowder. Hearing the loud, metallic snap of the lock, Crowley propped himself on one elbow and looked over his shoulder. His callous,
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