Wilderness Trek (1988) (10 page)

Sunset had come and passed when the main mob ceased to move, indicating that the drovers on the right had halted for camp. Slyter loped in behind his comrades. By the wagon Red sat his horse, waiting.

"Pard," he said, low-voiced, as Sterl halted close, "I'll eat with thet other outfit tonight. Meet you at the big campfire after supper. Spring the dodge then."

"Depends on how mean you get," replied Sterl, with a mirthless laugh. "Red, honest Injun, I don't like the dodge."

"Hell no! But, pard, it's for them, an' us too," returned Red, sharply. "It's our deal an' I've stacked the cairds. Play the game, you!" And Red rode away at a swinging canter. Darkness descended and the cook pounded a kettle to call all to supper.

Stanley Dann's community campfire blazed brightly in the center of a circle of bronzed faces. Dann had barbecued a beef. It hung revolving over a pit full of red-hot coals. Sterl appeared purposely late, his soft step inaudible as he came up behind Ormiston to hear him say, "But Leslie, my sweet girl, surely you cannot hold that against me?"

Sterl smothered an impulse to kick the man with all his might. Probably Red's arrival, more than his restraint, checked the precipitation of an issue that was bound to come. There were two drovers with Red, trying to hold him back, as he wrestled good-naturedly with them, and broke out in loud, lazy voice: "Dog-gone-it, fellers. Lemme be. Wasser masser with you? I'm a ladies' man--I am--an' I've been some punkins in my day."

His companions let him go, and kept back out of the circle of light. Sterl nerved himself for the prearranged split. Red shouldered Ormiston aside, to bend over Leslie.

"Les, I been huntin' you all over this heah dog-gone camp," said Red, with a gallant bow.

"I've been here, Red," replied Leslie, quickly, evidently glad to welcome him, drunk or sober. "Come, sit down."

"You shore air my sweet lir girl frien'," returned Red.

What his next move might have been did not transpire, for Ormiston confronted him belligerently. Sterl's alert eye had caught the drover scrutinizing Red, doubtless for the gun usually in plain sight. Tonight it was absent. Ormiston shoved Red violently. "You drunken Yankee pup! This is an Australian girl, not one of your trail drabs to mouth over!"

Sterl did not risk Red's reaction to that. He leaped between them, facing Ormiston. "Careful, you fool!" he called, piercingly. "Haven't you any sense? Krehl has killed men for less."

"He's drunk," rejoined the drover. "His familiarity with Leslie is insufferable."

"Yeah, it is, and I'll handle him," retorted Sterl.

"Here, men," boomed Dann, striding over. "Can't we have one little hour free from work and fighting?"

"Boss, there'll not be any fight," returned Sterl. "And Ormiston is not to blame this time, for more than one of his two-faced cracks--It's Red."

"Boss, I wasn't huntin' trouble," interposed Red, sulkily. "Shore I've had a couple drinks. But whassar masser with thet? I ain't drunk. I jest say a playful word to Leslie, an' I gets insulted by Ormiston heah, an' then my pard. Dog-gone, thet's too much."

"Red, I'm disgusted with you," declared Sterl, angrily. "This is the second time. I warned you."

"What'n'll do I care? You make me sick with yore preachin'. I ain't agonna stand it no more."

"Cowboy, you'd gone to hell long ago but for me."

"Shore. But I'm on my way again. We'll all be on our way, if we stick to the big boss's idee, an' trek off into thet Never-never."

Sterl simulated a man working himself into a rage. Laying a powerful left hand on Red's collar he jerked him so hard that the cowboy's head shot forward and back. "Why you double-crossing lowdown greaser!" raged Sterl. "You fail us for a few drinks!"

"Wal, it shore looks like I got the decidin' vote," rang out the cowboy, with convincing elation.

Sterl let out a fierce cry of wrath. And he knocked Red flat. Despite his promise not to hit too hard, he feared he had done so.

Beryl Dann leaped up to run and drop upon her knees beside Red. "Oh, he's terrible hurt!" She glanced up at Sterl, face and eyes flaming in the light. "You!--You are the discord--the villain on this trek!"

Sterl bowed scornfully and left the campfire for his own tent. Lighting a cigarette Sterl settled down to smoke and think and listen, when rapid footfalls told that someone was coming. He turned round to see Leslie running out of the darkness. At that moment she appeared most distractingly pretty and desirable.

"Can't you ever walk, like a lady should?" queried Sterl gruffly.

"I can--but not in--the dark--with Ormiston at large," she panted.

"After you again?"

"Yes, he is. Barefaced as--as anything."

"You have encouraged him."

"I--have not!"

"Leslie, I don't believe you," returned Sterl, quite brutally. Somehow that little incident beside Dann's campfire had roused unreasonable jealousy.

A dark wave of color changed the paleness of her face.

"Sterl, I lied to Mum--and Dad about Ormiston. I was scared. But I'd not lie to you."

"Very well then, I apologize!"

"Sterl, Red said something today...that I didn't know it and you didn't know it--but I--I was your girl."

"The rattlebrain! Leslie, don't let him bamboozle you."

"What's bamboozle?"

"Make a little fool of you."

"Oh! then it isn't--true?" she whispered, plaintively.

"Of course it's true, in a way, for this trek," he replied, trying to keep from putting his arm around her, rather than carefully choosing his words.

"Then I can be happy, in spite of your brutality to Red," she rejoined most earnestly, hanging to his arm and devouring his face with eyes of wonder and sorrow. "Why didn't you hit Ormiston instead of your friend?"

"I was angry, Leslie. What happened after I left?"

"Beryl has a tender heart for anyone hurt. And Red was hurt. She bent over him and almost cried. I bent over him, too, and I could see that Red was not only hurt but glorying in it. Then it happened. Ormiston dragged us away. He was perfectly white in the face. Why, the madman thinks he can have us both! Then poor dear Red sat up, his hand to his face, and said: 'Leslie, tell thet pard of mine thet I'll get even for the sock he gave me.' Others were coming, so I ran off."

"Leslie," flashed Sterl, "you're no kid any more, despite what Red says. You've got to be a woman--to use your wits to help us to be cunning. Listen, can I trust you?"

She looked up wonderingly. "Yes, Sterl."

"That fight with Red was all pretense. Red wasn't drunk. Our plan is for him to make it look like he's split with me--to hobnob with those drovers, and find out what the hombre has up his sleeve! I'm confiding in you because I won't have you believing me a brute."

"Who thought you a brute? Oh, so Red wasn't drunk? How glad I am! Will Beryl be in the secret?"

"No indeed! Only your Dad, Stanley Dann, and you."

"So that was it," mused the girl.

"That was what?"

"Beryl's sweetness toward Red. The cat! Ormiston has twisted her round his little finger, and now she thinks Red has gone over to Ormiston's side."

"Righto, Leslie. Now you hide those perfectly human feelings and practice deceit yourself. Be a ninny. Be the little softy who looks up to the proud Miss Dann. But be cunning, and find out through her all that is possible about Ormiston."

"So that's my part? Ohhh! But it's for Dad, for Mum, for Mr. Dann, for you. Yes, I can do it."

"Good-o! Run! Here comes Red. From the way he walks, I'd gamble he's mad!"

Red stalked into the firelight, his eyes like daggers, his hand to his mouth. He removed it to expose a swollen lip.

"Wal, you--liar!" he said. "You promised not to sock me hard, an' look what you did!"

"I'm sorry, pard," replied Sterl, stifling a laugh. "Honestly, I didn't mean to. When I swung, you dumbhead, you ducked into it."

"Pard, I heah somebody comin'. Let's go in our tent an' hit the hay. Then I'll talk."

Sterl had to strain his eyes to make out Friday's prone form under the low-drooping wattle branches. Somehow he had come to liken the black to a watchdog. He felt how infinitely keener the aborigine was than any white man, and most likely far keener than any Indian scout he had ever known.

Thirty-one days later--according to Leslie's journal on the twenty-ninth of June--after a prodigious trek through a jungle pass, Stanley Dann called a halt for a rest and repairs to equipment and drovers and mob.

Ormiston, with the two partners and drovers whom he dominated, broke out of the pass into the open, after a three-mile trek which took more than half a day. The Danns followed on his heels. Styler's cattle and riders found the grass and brush trampled, the tree ferns and sassafras knocked down, the creek banks cut into lanes, making it an easy trek except for the grades.

An hour's rest on the flat of his back, a bath, a shave, a change of clothes, restored Sterl to some semblance of his former self. He had a short talk with Styler, cheerful and energetic again. Mrs. Styler appeared none the worse for the long wagon rides and the many camps with their incessant tasks. But Leslie showed the wear of six weeks and more of hard riding.

"Howdy, ragamuffin," said Sterl, coming to her calls.

"I am, aren't I?" she replied, ruefully, surveying herself. "I've two other suits, but I'll mend these rags and make them go as far as possible. How spic and span you look! Very handsome, Sterl!"

"That goes for you, Les," he rejoined, heartily. "How prettily you tan!"

"Flatterer! I've had to ride myself nearly to death to extract that compliment from you. Oh, what a trek! Sterl, you must help me with my journal."

"Sure will. Let's see." It was then that Sterl discovered they had trekked thirty-one days through these mountain ranges for an aggregate of only one hundred and seventy-eight miles. "Not so good."

"My journal? You don't help me!"

"I was referring to our trek, not your journal. It's very neat. Only there's so little. I saw Beryl's journal the other night. It has yours skinned to a frazzle."

"Yeah? She writes in the wagon. And Red helps her at night. That was another thing which made Ormiston jealous."

"Well, add a long footnote here. I can remember the important things. Of course you would record your loss of Duchess."

"Oh, Sterl, that broke my heart."

"She'll trail us, if she wasn't crippled or stolen by blacks. Put this down. Slyter lost two horses, and some twenty-odd head of cattle. Bad crossing at the ford you called Wattle Rapids. Flooded a wagon there, but no damage. Visited by only few blacks. Growing unfriendly. Mosquitoes terrible at the Forks. Big tree ferns. Grand mountain-ash trees. Bad going last few days. Short treks. Wagons need repairs and grease. Leslie about stripped to rags and lost say five pounds."

"Umpumm, cowboy! I don't record that!"

Supper, as usual on short day treks, came early--this time, as had happened often, without Red in attendance. Members of Slyter's group were always too hungry to mind the sameness of fare. Beef, alternated with game, was the prime factor. Damper, tea, dried fruits and beans were the other essentials, and on occasion Bill, the cook, managed some surprising pastry. Cowboys, Sterl realized, drank too much coffee, sometimes ten cups a day. Sterl and Red had learned to like tea, but they confined drinking it to two meals a day.

"We haven't talked with Stanley for ten days," said Slyter after supper, "Come along with me, Hazelton."

The Dann camp was bustling. One wagon had been jacked up, while the hubs were being greased; hammers rapped vigorously on another, which had been partly unpacked; tents were in process of erection; a brawny drover was splitting firewood. Red sat on the ground beside a hammock, in which Beryl lay, writing in her journal.

Dann, the blond, golden-bearded giant, greeted Slyter and Sterl in booming welcome.

"Heard my order that we hold up here a week?" he queried.

"Yes. Heald brought it. I'm glad. A good few days will put us right again. Sterl agrees."

"Just had words with Ormiston. He disagrees. Says one day is rest enough. I told him he had my order. He replied that he'd go on with Woolcott and Hathaway. At that I put my foot down. He left in high dudgeon."

"Why does he try to block everything?" Sterl queried. "Why? Any fool would know the cattle need rest. Let's ask Red." Sterl called over the happily engaged cowboy, informed him of Ormiston's defection and asked if he could throw any light on it.

"Boss, I cain't give any reason for Ormiston's angle, except he's a mean cuss."

"Immaterial to me whether he does or not. He'd surely wait for us to catch up."

Dann and Slyter withdrew, leaving Red, accompanied by Sterl, to return to Beryl. She received Sterl with a rather distant hauteur. If anything, Beryl had gained on the trek, in a golden tan, in a little weight, and certainly in beauty. Sterl took advantage of the moment to tell her so. Her answering pleasure betrayed the vain jewel of her soul. Even if she hated a man she could not help responding to a tribute to her beauty.