In Bad Company and other stories

THE MAILMAN'S YARN

AN OWER TRUE TALE

'Rum things happen in the bush, you take my word for it,' suddenly broke out Dan M'Elroy as we were sitting smoking round a camp fire, far back in the 'Never Never' one night. The whole tract of country west of the Barcoo was under water that summer. We were all stuck hard and fast, about fifty miles from Sandringham, waiting for the creeks and cowalls to go down. They weren't small ones either – twenty feet deep in some places and half a mile wide. There were a dozen teamsters with wool-waggons, Jim and me and two black boys with four hundred head of fat cattle from Marndoo. A police trooper bringing down a horse-stealer for trial, committed by the Bench there, made up the party. The prisoner was made comfortable – only chained to a log for safety. Here we were, waiting, waiting, and had to make the best of it. We walked about in the daylight, and did a bit of shooting. We'd put up a bough yard for the cattle, more for the exercise than anything else; and to make the time pass we'd taken to telling yarns. Some of them were that curious I wish I hadn't forgotten 'em. But this one that Dan told that night I shall remember to my dying day. He was the mail contractor between St. George and Bolivar Run, a weather-beaten Bathurst native, as hard as iron-bark, who'd have contracted to run the mail from the Red Sea to Jordan in spite of all the Arabs if they'd made it worth his while. He was afraid of nothing and nobody. In his time he had been speared by blacks, shot at by bushrangers, fished for dead out of flooded creeks, besides being 'given up' in fever, ague, and sunstroke in exploring of mail routes through the 'Never Never' country. Hairbreadth escapes were daily bread to him. He seemed to thrive on 'em, but this one must have been out of the common way.

He looked round over the great plain, where we could see the glimmer of water on every side by the light of the low moon, just showing, red and goblin-like. A murmuring wind began to whisper and sob among the stunted myall, swaying the long streamers as if they were mourning for the dead. It felt colder, though we'd piled up the logs on the fire lately, when he filled his pipe and said: 'We'll turn in after this, but you may as well take it to sleep on. It was nigh twenty year ago it happened, yet it comes back to me now as fresh as I saw it that cursed night. You chaps remember,' he said, taking a good steady draw at his pipe, by way of starting it and the yarn at the same time, – 'you remember, as I told you, I was running a horse mail between Marlborough Point and Waranah, somewhere about '68. A different season from this, I tell you. No rain for about eighteen months, and when the autumn came in dry, with the nights long and cold, the sheep began to die faster than you could count 'em. I had a fairish contract, and though the mail was a heavy one, I was able to manage it by riding one horse and leading a packer. A terrible long day's ride it was – three times a week – eighty-five mile. Of course I had a change of horses, but I didn't get in till eleven or twelve at night to Waranah. The frosty nights had set in, and sometimes, between being half-frozen and dead-tired, I could hardly sit on my horse. It was getting on in June, and still no rain, only the frosts getting sharper and sharper, when I came along to a sandhill by the side of a billabong of the Murrumbidgee, about ten miles from Waranah. There was a big water-hole there; it was a favourite camping place between the township and Baranco station. I was later than usual, and it was about midnight when I got to this point. Through a weak horse as had knocked up I'd had to walk five miles. I was nigh perished with the cold; hungry too, for I'd had no time to stop and get a feed; and as I'd been in the saddle since long before daylight, you may guess I was pretty well tuckered out. A particular spot, too, when you come to think of it. The sand-ridge ran back from the water-hole a good way (there was a big kurrajong-tree beside it, I remember), and spread out near upon a mile till you got into a fair-sized plain. The ridge – that's the way of 'em in dry country – was covered as thick as they could stand with pine-scrub. An old cattle-track ran right through to the plain, where they used to come to water in the old days when Baranco was a cattle-run. I was dozing on my horse, dog-tired and stiff with the cold, when I came to the water-hole at the foot of this sandhill. I always used to pull up there and have a smoke; so I stopped and looked round about, in a half-sleepy, dazed kind of way. I felt for my box of matches, and I'm dashed if they weren't gone – shot out, I expect – for I'd been working my passage and been jumbled about more than enough. That put the cap on. I felt as if I'd drop off the horse there and then. I never was one for drinking, and I didn't carry a flask. How I'd get on the next couple of hours I couldn't think.

'All of a sudden a streak of light came through the darkness of the pine-scrub to the left of me. It got broader and broader. It wasn't the moon, I knew, for that wouldn't show till nigh-hand daylight. It must be a fire. Somebody camping, of course; but why they didn't stop by the water, the regular place, with good feed and open ground all round them, I couldn't make out. I was off like a shot, and hung up my horses to the kurrajong tree, which stood handy. It was too thick to ride through the pine saplings, and I thought the walk would freshen me up. I started off quite jolly with the notion of the grand warm I should have at the fire, and the pipeful of baccy I'd be able to borrow. It was a big fire I saw as I stumbled along, getting nearer and nearer the head of an old-man pine, the branches as dry as timber, and would burn like matchwood. I could see three men standing round it. As I got nearer I was just going to halloo out, partly for fun and partly for devilment, when the wind blew the flame round, and made one of the men, who was poking a pole into the fire, shift and turn his face towards me. Mind! I was in the dark shadow of the pines. The glare of the fire lit up his face and those of the two other men as clear as day.

'The man's face, as it turned towards where I was standing, had such a hellish expression, that I stopped dead and drew behind an overhanging "balah" that grew among the pines. He seemed to be listening. Another man with an axe in his hand said something to him, when he walked a few steps down the track towards me and stopped. My God, what a face it was! No devil out of hell could have looked more fiendish than he did. It was like no human face I'd ever seen. I began to think I was asleep, and dreaming of a story in a book.

'They were not more than twenty yards from where I stood. My heart beat that loud I was afraid they'd hear it. My hair stood on end, if any one's ever did, while as the tall, dark man began to poke the fire again, and pushed something further into it that was not a log of wood, I deuced near fainted, and beads of perspiration rolled down my forehead and face. What did I see that caused every drop of blood in my veins to turn to ice? What the strange man stirred in the fire, making the sparks to fly all round among the red glowing embers, was a corpse! There was no mistaking the dreadful shape. One arm stuck out. The legs were there, the skull blackened and featureless, and, Heavenly Father! beyond and in the middle of the heap of glowing embers lay another shape huddled together, and showing no angle of limb or bone. The other man, with a broom of boughs tied together, was busy sweeping in all the pieces of charcoal, so as to prevent the flame from spreading through the tall, dry grass. At a short distance I could make out a tilted cart, such as hawkers use in the bush. "By – !" said the man with the pole, "I'll swear I heard a stick crack. Any traveller as come to the water-hole and followed the track up, 'll have to be rubbed out, and no two ways about it. It will be our lives against his!"

'"Haven't we had blood enough for one day?" says the other man. "By George! when I think of these two poor chaps' faces, just afore you dropped 'em with the axe, I'd give all we've made ten times over to have 'em alive again."

'"You always was a snivelling beggar," says the tall man. "If you'd had your back scratched at Port Arthur half as often as me, you'd think no more of a man's life than a wild dog's. I believe it must 'a been one or a wallaby as made the stir."

'I've faced a trifle of danger, and seen some "close calls" in my time, but nothing came near that half-hour I spent there till I could make myself steady enough to stir. I couldn't sit; I was too done to stand; so there I had to crouch down and wait till I got the chance to go back on my tracks.

'All the time they kept pushing the bodies into the centre of the fire, without stopping, as they got smaller and smaller. Two of the men were at this dreadful work, while the third was sweeping round every edge of the fire. At last the two men I first saw, sat down on a log close handy and began to smoke. Now was my chance. I crawled from my tree and crept along the cattle-track till I come to where my horses were standing. I mounted one, somehow, and took the other's bridle. I rode steady enough for a while, and then, hustling the poor brutes into a hand-gallop, kept along the road to Waranah till I reached the gate at the boundary of the run. Even then I felt as if I was hardly safe. I looked round and could almost see witches and devils following me through the air, and waving ghosts' arms in every bough of the stunted trees through which the road wound.

'When I saw the lights of the little township, I was that glad that I shouted and sang all the way up to the hotel where the mail was delivered. I had a strange sort of feeling in my head as I rode up to the door. Then I reeled in my saddle; everything was dark. I remembered no more till at the end of a week I found myself in bed recovering from fever.

'I suppose I'd been sickening for it before. What with hot days, cold nights, and drinking water out of swamps and dry holes that were half mud and half – pah! something you don't like to think of – the wonder is we bushmen don't get it oftener. Anyhow I was down that time, and next morning it seems they had the doctor to me. He was a clever man and a gentleman, too, my word! He fetched me round after a month, but I was off my head the first week, and kept raving (so they told me afterwards) about men being knocked on the head and burned, hawkers' carts, and Derwenters, and the big water-hole by Budgell Creek.

'They thought it was all madness and nonsense at first, and took no notice, till one afternoon Mr. Belton, the overseer of Baranco, comes riding into town, all of a flurry, wanting to see the police and the magistrate, Mr. Waterton. This was what he had to say: —

'There had been some heavy lots of travelling sheep passing through the station, and he was keeping along with them for fear they might miss the road and not find it again till they'd ate off a mile or two of his best grass. All of a sudden a mob of the Baranco weaners ran across a plain and nearly boxed with 'em. Mr. Belton gallops for his life – I expect he swore a bit, too – and was just in time to head 'em off into the pine-scrub by the sandhill. They took the old cattle-track over towards the water-hole, he following them up, till all of a sudden he comes plump on a hawker's cart!

'This pulled him up short. He let the sheep run on to the frontage and got off his horse. He knew the Colemans' cart. They always stayed a night at Baranco. When they passed, a week since, they were to make Waranah that night. What the deuce were they doing here? Hang the fellows! were they spelling their horses? Feed was scarce. No! they were not the men to do that. Honest, straight-going chaps they'd always been.

'He walked over to the cart. Something wrong surely! The big slop-chest was open. The cash-box, with lock smashed, was empty. Boots, clothes, tobacco, which they always had of the best, lying scattered about. Where were the poor fellows themselves? If they had been robbed, why hadn't they gone to the police at Waranah and complained? Whoever had done this must have camped here in the middle of the scrub. Then there'd been a fire over by the big pine-stump – an "old man" fire too. Wonder they hadn't set a light to the dry grass? No rain for the half-year to speak of. No; they had been too jolly careful. Swept in the twigs and ashes all round. Curious fire for bushmen to make too – big enough to roast an ox. He stares at the ashes; then gropes among them with his hand. My God! What are these small pieces of bone? Why, the place is full of them. And this? and this? A metal button, a metal buckle – one, two, three – twelve in all.

'It comes back to him now that three travellers left the Baranco men's hut the same morning as the Colemans – one a tall, dark, grey-haired old hand, with a scar across his face. He gets his horse with a long sort of half-whistle and half-groan and rides slow, in a study like, toward the township. The next day the magistrate, Mr. Waterton (he's a squatter, but sits most times when the Police Magistrate isn't on hand), goes out with the Sergeant of Police and the best part of the townspeople of Waranah. He holds an Inquiry. The doctor attended and gave evidence that he had no doubt whatever that the bones formed part of human skeletons. The surface of the fire was raked over, and a lot of metal buttons and buckles – as many as would be used for two pairs of trousers – with other remains of clothing, were found. A verdict of "wilful murder against some person or persons unknown" was returned.

'On the second day after the murder three men crossed the Murray River pretty high up, near a public-house. Their ways were suspicious. One of them fired off a revolver. They had on new suits of clothes, new boots with elastic sides, and no end of tobacco of a queer brand – not known in those parts. Large swags too! The boss of the crowd was a tall, dark man, with a scar and grey hair. He was the man who fired the revolver and used wild language. The police from Crowlands picked up the trail so far. If they had followed hard on, like the Avenger of Blood (as the feller says in the play), they might have run down the murderin' dogs. But the publican had a bad memory. He couldn't remember seeing any out-of-the-way travellers cross the river that week. So the police turned back, and lost the scent for good and all.

'A queer enough thing about the matter was, that directly after the Inquiry was published, a telegram was sent from the poor fellows' friends to the sergeant at Waranah. He was to look under the lid of the big slop-chest and he'd find a false top that slid back – very neat made, so that people mostly wouldn't notice it. Behind this was a drawer, and in it notes and cheques. They never kept more than a fiver or so in the cash-box, and told the secret to their relatives before leaving town. Sure enough the sergeant finds the secret-drawer, and in it, after being in the open bush nearly a fortnight, £90 odd in notes and good cheques, which of course he sent to their friends. The villains only got £4 and a fit-out of clothes and tobacco. The police never could get wind of these wretches for years after. However, they dropped on the man with the scar, whose name was Campbell. He was sworn to as the man who left Baranco with the other two on the day of the murder, as the man as had new clothes and tobacco (such as nobody but the Colemans sold in the district) two days after. It was proved that they were all hard up and ragged when they left Baranco. The evidence was in dribs and drabs. But they pieced it together, bit by bit. It was good enough to hang him, and hang him they did. I swore to him as the man I saw at the fire that terrible night. And now, mates, I'll turn in. There's no fear of being burned to bits here, is there? Good-night all!'

DEAR DERMOT

Somehow the days of my youth seem to have been inextricably mixed up with horses. How I loved them, to be sure! – thought of them by day, dreamed of them by night. Books and girls might temporarily enter into competition as objects of engrossing interest; but the noble animal must have had possession of my thoughts for a large proportion of the waking hours.