Wilderness Trek (1988) (18 page)

Sterl and Red pitched their tent in a circle of pandanus trees whose tops commingled, forming a dense canopy. The great seeds, somewhat resembling small pineapples, clustered aloft amid the foliage. Leaves covered with a ground canvas, furnished a thick and soft carpet for the tent. Their nets promised protection from mosquitoes and flies. But nothing could save them from the heat. They worked naked to the waist. Friday built himself a bark shack back of the tent. Slyter's wagon, some fifty rods or more distant, was sheltered by the largest gum. Near at hand Bill established a comfortable cooking unit. The camps of the Danns were lower down, nearer the river-bank, and most picturesquely located among the gums.

Not until late in the afternoon did Sterl feel free to wash up and change his wet and dirty garments. Then he turned to the never failing black, who was always there when wanted. "Come, Friday. Let's go look-see."

They crossed the grassy flat back of camp, and climbed a low ridge. From this point Sterl expected to get in his mind's eye the lay of this upper Diamantina land. But the blazing sunset and the appalling grandeur of that country drove from his mind at first any thought of topography.

"Good camp place, Friday?" he asked. "Plenty wood, plenty water, plenty meat. All same bad," replied the black.

"Why all same bad?"

"Plenty black fella, plenty lubra, plenty fly. Eatum up alive. No rain long time. Big water bimeby."

"One thing at a time, Friday. Why plenty black fella bad?"

"Some black fella good. No good alonga here. Eat--steal. More come all time. Eat--steal. White fella like lubra. That bad."

"What black fella do about lubra?"

"Mebbe stickum white fella spear."

"Not so good. But I hope our friend Ormiston runs true to type, and gets speared," muttered Sterl, half to himself. "Friday spearum imm bimeby."

The black had said that once before, months back. Gazing up at him, Sterl thought his native ally was not one to forget.

"Friday, what you mean, no rain long time?"

"Black fella tell all about," replied Friday, making one of his eloquent gestures. It seemed to include the sun, the land, the growths, the living things within its compass. "Why bad when rain comes bimeby? Big water. All alonga. Cattle stuck."

Sterl shaded his eyes and feasted them. A sheen of gold illuminated the sky and enveloped the land. The three forks of the Diamantina, dry watercourses, white and glaring by day, now wound away like rivers of golden fire. That afterglow of sunset left the league-wide areas of green grass faintly suffused with its hue, but the river beds of rocks and sand took on a phenomenal and supernatural intensity of color. There was a deeper tinge of gold on the canvas wagon tops, the tents; and a flock of white cockatoos, covering the branches of a dead gum tree, appeared transformed birds of paradise. Below camp to the right, where the water of the river gleamed through the trees, there was a flickering, twinkling myriad of golden facets.

"Never-never Land!" said Friday.

Red sat with his back against a tree, his hands spread listlessly. The cowboy was too tired to care about anything.

"Pard, I seen you up there, like an Apache scout. Pretty nifty, huh?" he drawled, lazily. "Red, I've no regrets, any more."

"Wal! Not atall?"

"Not atall, old friend."

"Thet's dog-gone good! Neither have I, Sterl. Couldn't we jest be happy but for thet bastard?"

Leslie approached, for once not running nor even showing any of her usual energy. She had changed her rider's ragged garb for a light cotton dress. "Do you boys know what day tomorrow is?" she asked wistfully.

Sterl knew, but he remained thoughtfully silent.

"It's Christmas. I'm going over to see the Danns. Mum is there. Won't you come?"

"Les, I'm too dog-gone daid tired even to see Beryl, or to care whether it's Christmas or the Fourth, days thet used to be red letters in my life."

"Me, too, Leslie. You see, we've let down. I did have the strength to climb the hill back here. And that was all!"

When Leslie left, Sterl sat down heavily beside his comrade.

"Red, you remember that day in Brisbane when we spent so much money?"

"Hell, yes. But it seems years ago."

"Well, I flatter myself I'm a pretty wise hombre, if I do say it myself. I bought Christmas presents for you and myself. And as we heard there were to be ladies with us, I took a chance and bought some for them."

"Aw, pard!" wailed Red. "I never thought of thet. What a pore muddle-haided cowboy I am!"

"Umpumm, Red, you haven't missed it. I bought enough for you to give too."

"What kind of presents?" ejaculated Red, elated.

"Candy, for one thing."

"Naw, not candy! Why, pard, you're loco. Heah we been trekkin' a thousand miles under this hot sun! Candy would melt."

"No, it's hard candy packed in tin boxes. Then I bought some pretty handkerchiefs and sewing kits. Lastly, two leather cases full of toilet articles--you know the kind of things girls like. Imported from England, mind you! Tomorrow morning we'll unpack the stuff and plan our surprise."

Breakfast was called at sunrise. "Dann wants us all present after breakfast," announced Slyter. Sterl and Red went to their tent and reappeared, mysteriously, each carrying a canvas knapsack on his shoulder. They were the last to arrive at the Dann encampment. All of the trekking party were present except Ormiston's drovers and several of Dann's. Stanley Dann stood up, bareheaded, to read a passage from the Bible. After that he offered up a general prayer, commemorating the meaning of Christmas of peace on earth and good will to man, and ended with a specific thanksgiving to God for their good fortune.

Beryl, looking lovely in a blue gown that had evidently been donned for this occasion, was holding a little court all her own in the shade of a tree near her wagon.

"Tip off your mother an' dad to rustle over heah pronto," whispered Red to Leslie.

They approached Beryl. Cedric, Larry and the younger drovers were offering felicitations of the day. Ormiston, shaven and in clean garb, occupied what looked like a privileged place close to Beryl.

Suddenly Beryl espied Sterl and Red. Her eyes sparkled with delight and anticipation when the cowboys unlimbered their knapsacks, to set them down with a flourish.

"Folks, me an' Sterl heah air playin' Santa Claus," drawled Red, with the smile that made him boyishly good to look at. "But he is a modest gazabo, so I have to do the honors."

Beryl let out a shriek of delight. Leslie, blind to the issue until that moment, flushed with amaze and rapture. The Danns and their company looked on, smiling.

Then Red and Sterl reached into the knapsack with the air of magicians, to fish out a small box of cigars for Dann and his partner, some brightly wrapped gifts for Miss Dann and Mrs. Slyter.

"My word!" boomed Stanley Dann. "I haven't had a good smoke for months. Well, well, to think these Yankees could outdo English people in memory of Christmas!"

The donors gave Beryl and Leslie handy little sewing kits which were received with deep appreciation. Then came the two handsome leather cases which evoked cries of delight.

"Out here in the Never-never!" exclaimed Beryl, incredulously.

"Sterl Hazelton," cried Leslie, with glad eyes upon him, "when all my things are gone or worn out--Aladdin!"

"Girls, thet ain't nothin' atall," beamed Red. "Come on, pard, all together."

Then in slow deliberation, purposely tantalizing to the quivering girls, each cowboy produced two boxes, one of goodly size, the other small, both wrapped in shiny paper and tied with colored ribbons.

"What in the world?" cried Beryl, her eyes shining in purple eagerness.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" burst out Leslie, reaching brown hands for her boxes. "What? Oh, what?"

"Candy!" shouted Sterl, triumphantly. "Red Krehl! You mean sweets? Not ever!" whispered Beryl.

Evidently Leslie had been rendered mute, but she bestowed upon Sterl's cheek a kiss that left no doubt of her unspoken delight.

Beryl scrambled up, holding all her presents in her arms.

"Leslie, you shall not outdo me in thanks," she cried, with spirit. "Red Krehl, come here! I would knight you if I were a queen. I am glad somebody remembered me on Christmas Day!" And as the awkward cowboy, impelled beyond his will, stumbled to his knees before the girl, she lifted a lovely rosy face and kissed him.

Sterl, glancing at Ormiston, saw his face grow ashy and a glare of jealous hate light his prominent eves. Then Ormiston turned on his heel and strode away, an erect, violent, forbidding figure.

He did not return the next day or the next. Beryl palpably chafed and worried at this evidence of his resentment, but so far as Sterl could see, her pride upheld her. His conviction was now that Ormiston, having arrived at the scene of his intended split with Dann, had an arrow to his bow besides persuasion.

A different kind of fight had begun for Stanley Dann's trekkers; a fight not against distance and time, rough land, treacherous water, but against heat and flies and, what was worst of all, the peril of idleness, of waiting, and of their effect on the mind. Each day--between the blazing sun and the thirst of thousands of cattle--saw the water in the long waterhole recede inches down the sand and rock. One night from Ormiston's side of the river gunshots and shrill yells of aborigines startled the campers on Dann's side. There was no corroboree that night.

Next morning a drover reported to Dann that Ormiston's men had shot five blacks. No reason was given. Stanley Dann was overheard to express the opinion that his surly partner had sought to drive thieving natives away from camp. But Sterl, after talking with Friday, came to the conclusion that Ormiston wanted to drive the aborigines across the river. At any rate that was what had happened. The several hundred blacks had congregated in a grove at the lower end of the long waterhole.

By way of reparation and kindness Dann ordered crippled cattle shot and dragged down to the aborigine camp. Blacks, lubras, gins, pickaninnies deserted their camp while this restitution took place. But later, after Friday had visited them, they gradually approached nearer and nearer to Dann's camp. Dann argued for pursuing any course that would keep the blacks friendly and Slyter agreed with him. Friday, Sterl thought, might have influenced Dann toward this attitude, but their leader, in any case, could be generous and kind. When Sterl asked Friday what he had told Dann and Slyter the black replied:

"Plenty black fella good. Mebbe steal bimeby. No fightum."

"Wal, I'd rather stand for thet," asserted Red, "than rile them into slitherin' spears around."

Beryl weakened in the end, and sent a note by one of the drovers across the way to Ormiston, who came to see her that evening. Thereafter he appeared at Dann's camp every evening. Beryl Dann would need a terrible lesson before she began to react from her infatuation and then it might come too late.

The trekkers settled down to suffer and to wait. The second hour after sunset usually brought a night breeze that gave a little welcome respite from the torrid heat of the day, but the hours from daylight until an hour or more after breakfast were the most supportable. Sterl made use of this time, often with Leslie or Friday. The middle of the day was intolerable in the sun and just endurable in the shade. The cattle, needing no watch then, sought the shade of the trees where they lay down or stood resting. In these hours, the ever-increasing flies made existence well-nigh unbearable and all the trekkers kept under cover of tents and mosquito nets. The constant humming and buzzing outside, like that of a great hive of bees, made this protection so welcome that the stifling heat was endurable.

So the days wore on endlessly, each one hotter than the last. The small waterholes dried up and living creatures were dependent upon the lone one. No cloud appeared in the sky. At midday rocks were so hot that they blistered a naked hand, the cattle ceased to bawl, the birds to scream, the aborigines to move about. Sterl had always thriven on hot weather; likewise Red. They could sleep, but they would wake wringing wet and with sweat. However, when the mercury rose to a hundred and ten degrees, even the cowboys were hard put to endure it.

When Friday was asked if the rains were ever coming he could reply:

"Might be, bimeby!"

But the bearable hours always renewed interest in things of the moment and hope for the future.

Sterl never tired of the aborigines nor of his efforts to observe and understand them. These blacks seemed far below Friday in development. Friday could not name their tribe, but he understood their language well enough to interpret, and it was through him that the overtures of Stanley Dann and Sterl counteracted the fright and hostility for which Ormiston and his drovers were responsible.

Sterl learned that when a death occured in a camp of theirs, they moved away at once. They went stark naked except for a breechcloth of woven grass or hair. The men were tall, large heads covered by a mop of tangled black hair. The troops of pot-bellied youngsters, upon being approached, at first scattered like a flock of frightened quail. The mature women, or gins were such monstrosities that Sterl had to force himself to glance at them. For the most part the lubras were not good to look at. A few of them, however, were prepossessing and far from averse to making eyes at the younger drovers.