Wilderness Trek (1988) (27 page)

"Wal, I would at thet if there was any about."

Leslie plumped down beside Sterl and pretended to peep at the journal, which he believed was only a ruse to get near to him.

"I'm busy, Leslie. Way behind. Will you slope off to bed, or somewhere?"

"No, I won't slope off to bed--or to hell, as you hint so courteously," she retorted petulantly, but she left them.

"Pard, what'd she mean by that crack about abo's?" asked Red.

"I think it was a dirty crack. But don't ever overlook this, old pard. Every dirty crack a woman makes, every terrible blunder, like Beryl's for instance, can be blamed on some man."

"Aw hell! You've said thet before. It ain't so. What did you ever say or do to make Nan Halbert double-cross you, an' send us off to this turrible Australia?"

That blunt query pierced like a blade in Sterl's heart. The sudden opening of a healed wound flayed him. Still it drove him to be honest.

"Red, I flirted with Nan's best friend--that damned little black-eyed hussy who wouldn't let any man alone."

"Hell you say! You mean Flo, of course. Wal, so did I! Thet ain't nothin' atall."

"Well, it was enough to make Nan furious. Then to hurt me she went hotfoot after Ross Haight. And there she made her terrible blunder. It was my fault."

"But, you locoed two-faced Romeo, you never told me thet. You swore Nan liked Ross best."

"I lied, Red," returned Sterl, somberly, closing the journal.

"Wal, I'm a son of a sea cook!... If you'd told me thet back home, Ross Haight could have gone to jail for his little gunplay. An' we wouldn't be heah!"

"For me, Red, it is better so. Only I grieve for what I led you into."

"Funny how things came about. But you needn't grieve too hard. I'm not sorry."

"Honest Red?" appealed Sterl, earnestly.

"Honest to Gawd. This trek is right down my grub-line trail. 'Course I've had an orful blow in the gizzard. But if I get over it, an' we get through..."

"Red, Leslie's hurt that you wouldn't go with her to see Beryl. You used to be kind to anyone sick, even a horse."

"Mebbe I was. Mebbe I've changed a lot," rejoined Red, bitterly. "I wouldn't want to see Beryl if she was like she used to be before thet hot spell, but let alone now, after..."

"Red! You're hard," exclaimed Sterl, sharply.

"Shore. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell. But if you cain't see thet I've had aplenty to make me hard, wal, you're as blind as a bat!"

"Red Krehl," flashed Sterl, "are you keeping something secret from me?"

"Hellsfire, man, you can think, cain't you?" cut out Red, with that icy edge in his voice. "An let's change the subject."

The trek fell back into its old, leisurely, time effacing stride. One day was like another, though every league of that lonely land had infinite variety as well as endless monotony Sterl had his surfeit of loveliness. It had passed into his being. At last seas of green and golden grass, islands of flowers, kangaroo-dotted plains, flamboyant bush-land, myriads of birds, flocks of emus, mile-wide ponds where the mob splashed across, scattering the flocks of water fowl, winding tiny brooks and still reed-bordered streams, and always, every hour of the long day, that illusive beckoning haunting purple mountain range--at last Sterl Hazelton's soul was everlastingly filled to the brim with these physical things which he divined were rewards in themselves.

Seventeen days, to where the headwaters of the middle fork sprang from the tropic verdure of the foothills. "Camp here two days," boomed Stanley Dann. "We will rest the stock, make repairs, and scout for this Gulf road. Eric has not found it yet." Leslie named the place Well-spring. It was felicitous, because the splendid volume of water sprang as from a well, deep under the shadow of a bold, dark green foothill. Bill, with Scotty, the other cook, prepared the best meal they could devise, in honor of Beryl Dann's first attendance at supper for many weeks.

While they waited at their tent, Sterl had had some words with his friend.

"Pard, you will be decent to Beryl? You have not spoken to her since--since that mess!"

"Umpumm," drawled Red.

"Say, do you see that?" rang out Sterl, extending a big fist.

"Shore, I ain' blind."

"You know where it used to hurt you to be hit?"

"Ahuh. My belly. An' I ain't recovered yet, either."

"That's dinkum. If you don't swear to be nice to Beryl, I'll lam into you right now. And I'm not fooling."

"Yeah? War, I choose the wusser of two evils. I'll speak to Beryl an' be as--as nice as I can. It's gotta be done sometime, jest for appearances. An' after all what the hell do I care?"

Then Leslie arrived; once again, after so long an interval, clad in feminine apparel, a flowered gown in which she looked I, extremely pretty.

"Red, you'll--L come?" she asked falteringly.

"No, Les," he said, contriving to wink at Sterl. "Umpumm, nix come the weasel!"

That he could jest at such a moment, certainly poignant and important to Leslie, called to all that was spirited in her.

"You ornery, bullheaded, low-down..." she burst out, choking over the last two words, which, like those preceding, were from Red's vocabulary. Then as quickly as the flare-up of her temper, she broke into sobs.

"Aw now, Leslie, don't bawl, please," begged the cowboy, who could not bear to see a girl cry. "Don't you see I'm all spruced up? I'll go with you an' do the elegant."

"Hon-nest, Red? You're such a--a brute. You might be--teasing."

"No, I mean it. Thet is I'll go if you stop cryin'. Why, the idee! Spoilin' thet happy face!"

Beryl rose from her father's knees to greet her visitors. Her blue gown hung loosely upon her slender form, yet not at the expense of grace. Every vestige of the golden tan had vanished from her face, the whiteness of which accentuated the loveliness of her violet eyes and fair hair. Her beauty struck Sterl with great force, and suddenly he understood both Ormiston and Krehl. Leslie ran to Beryl. "Oh, it's dinkum to see you out again!"

Beryl returned her kiss and greeting, then offered her two hands to Sterl. "Now, Mr. Cowboy, what do you think of me, up and well--and rarin' to go?"

"Great!" responded Sterl, heartily, as he took her hands. "Beryl, you just look beautiful!"

But she did not even hear that last. Red had stepped out from behind Sterl, and Sterl saw with a pang what a terrible moment this was for both of them.

"Beryl--I--I'm shore dog-gone glad to see you out again," said Red, huskily, and he was both gallant and self-possessed. One of his long strides bridged the distance between them. Her eyes dilated and turned black.

"Red--Red!" she whispered, as she put out quivering hands. They groped, missed his, to clutch his blouse. She fell against him with a grasp, and fainted in his arms.

"She is not so strong as she thought," said Dann. He took her from Krehl and sat her gently down in the one chair. "Mrs. Slyter--Leslie!" he called.

Sterl could not withdraw his gaze from Beryl's face. Her eyes were closed, long fair lashes on her white cheeks. He turned to Red, and forgot his concern for Beryl in the dumb misery of his friend. Dann's hearty voice attested to the fact that Beryl had regained consciousness.

"I fainted," she said, weakly. "How stupid! I'm all right now. Why, Leslie, you are as white as a sheet."

"No wonder! Beryl, I thought you'd gone to join the angels."

"No such luck for me! Boys, come back. I promise you I won't be such a weakling again."

Sterl, with his arm through Red's, dragged the hesitant cowboy to the small circle, of which Beryl was the center. She had color in her cheeks. The cowboys found seats. Mrs. Slyter insisted that Beryl sip a cup of tea. Leslie hovered over her.

"Red, perhaps I fainted because sight of you brought you back--as you looked when I last saw you--how long ago?... Ages ago?"

"I forget. It shore was an orful long time," drawled Red. "An' about thet faintin'--I knowed a girl once who could faint--or let on--whenever she wanted to knock the daylights out of a feller. So you see, Beryl, I been educated."

"Did that girl faint in your arms?" asked Beryl, her speaking eyes on him.

"Wal, thet was one way she had of gettin' into' em. An' once she got there, she'd come to orful quick."

Presently Beryl's nurses, despite her protests, led her away to her wagon and bed. The look she gave Red as she bade him good night was not lost upon Sterl.

At this juncture Eric Dann entered the shelter, greeted the cowboys and drank with Stanley. He had a livid scar on his forehead, a mark that he would carry to his grave.

Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to question him: "Dann, if I remember correctly we lost the Gulf road halfway or more down the Diamantina from the forks?"

"Somewhere back there. It didn't concern me then because I expected to come across it any day," returned Eric.

"We haven't crossed it. I've kept a sharp lookout for wheel tracks. On level ground half a dozen wagons would leave a rut that would last for years."

"Surely. We have just missed them, unless, of course, they have washed out."

"Did you take this route on your back track?" went on Sterl.

"Part way. I don't recall just where we made short cuts."

"Some of these landmarks along here, if you ever saw them, you couldn't forget."

"Landmarks meant very little to me."

"Hmm, it's unfortunate you did not have an instinct for such things," said Stanley. "You said you knew the way, Eric."

"I've told you a hundred times that I thought I did," replied Eric, impatiently.

Sterl made note of the shifty eyes and of the beads of sweat coming out on Eric's brow, under the livid scar, and his dubious conjectures became definite doubts. Sterl could never swallow his relation to Ormiston.

Red fixed his piercing eyes upon Eric. "Dann, if you don't know this country atall you oughta tell us damn pronto."

"But I do know it, in general. I've recognized a good many places we passed at a distance from this trek. I'd like it understood that I'll not be put on the witness stand by you Americans," declared Dann, with signs of nervousness and heat.

"Wal, we Americans ain't puttin' you on nothin', except yore word," rejoined Red, coolly. Then he asked bluntly. "Have you ever been through this Diamantina country?"

Dann made what appeared to be a powerful effort to control unstable nerves. Nevertheless he did not reply to Red's query.

"Wal, heah's one you can answer, Mr. Dann, onless..." Red did not complete his dubious inference. "This heah range we've come to an' have seen for so many days--there's a pass in it thet nobody could miss seein'. If yore trek or any other trek traveled north from Cooper Creek up the Diamantina, you or they'd have to go through this pass. Ain't thet figgerin' reasonable?"

"Yes, it is, Krehl. They'd have to," replied Dann, readily.

"All right. Then what kind of country will we find on the other side of this range?"

"It will be practically the same as this."

"Thanks, Dann. We'll remember thet," returned Red, caustically. Then he addressed Sterl: "Pard, do you reckon I oughta shet up now or relieve my mind to the boss?"

"By all means, Krehl," boomed Stanley.

"Wal, I wouldn't presume to advise you heah. I'm no Australian. But I've known open wilderness country since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This heah country has been changin'. It's altogether different from the forks. Grass shorter an' not so rich, trees fewer an' smaller. An' when you cross that range, you'll find plenty trouble. Thet's my hunch, boss. Take it or leave it."

Turning on a jangling heel Red stalked away from the Danns with a mien that left little to the imagination. Dann, so seldom perturbed, was bewildered by what was evidently a new aspect to him.

"Incredible!" he ejaculated. "We should be still hundreds of miles from the watershed that ends its streams into the Gulf. Eric, you substantiate this, do you not?"

"Absolutely," answered Eric Dann. "Northeast of this range, when we pass it, we will reach the headwaters of the Warburton River. That runs westward. Beyond that we will come to the headwaters of rivers emptying into the Gulf."

"That agrees with our map. I am sure Krehl has miscalculated. What do you think, Hazelton?"

"All I say is, I'm sorry we are not trekking west."

"If we should make a blunder now--and go the wrong way..." Sterl heard the leader's voice ring and break but he made it his business to be watching Eric Dann. Either he was prejudiced against this man's vacillation and incompetence, or he saw through him with Red Krehl's lynx eyes!

Chapter
23

Another conference of Stanley Dann's. A few days out of Wellspring camp, they had approached a break in the foothills, apparently leading to the pass through the range. Eric Dann asserted that he was sure he had been through that notch, going or coming, and so the mob was driven into its narrow defiles. Larry had reported dubious ground ahead; Red Krehl had climbed to a hilltop to reconnoiter. Upon his return he said to Dann in no uncertain terms, "Cain't see far. But no country to drive cattle, let alone wagons!"