Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44

Well, nothing would knock it out of these chaps' heads but that we were
safe to be grabbed in the long run trying to make into the old home.
This was what made them gammon to be surveyors when they first came,
as we heard about, and go measuring and tape-lining about,
when there wasn't a child over eight years old on the whole creek
that couldn't have told with half an eye they wasn't nothing of the sort.

Well, as bad luck would have it, just as father was getting
down towards the place he meets Moran and Daly, who were making over
to the Fish River on a cattle-duffing lay of their own.
They were pretty hard up; and Moran after his rough and tumble with Jim,
in which he had come off second best, was ready for anything --
anything that was bad, that is.

After he'd a long yarn with them about cattle and horses and what not,
he offered them a ten-pound note each if they'd do what he told them.
Dad always carried money about with him; he said it came in handy.
If the police didn't take him, they wouldn't get it; and if they did take him,
why, nothing would matter much and it might go with the rest.
It came in handy enough this time, anyhow, though it helped
what had been far better left undone.

I remember what a blinded rage father got into when he first had
Aileen's letter, and heard that these men were camped close to the old house,
poking about there all day long, and worrying and frightening
poor Aileen and mother.

Well, it seems on this particular day they'd been into the little township,
and I suppose got an extra glass of grog. Anyhow, when they came back
they began to be more venturesome than they generally were.
One chap came into the house and began talking to Aileen, and after a bit
mother goes into her bedroom, and Aileen comes out into the verandah
and begins to wash some clothes in a tub, splashing the water
pretty well about and making it a bit uncomfortable for any one
to come near her.

What must this fool do but begin to talk about what white arms she'd got --
not that they were like that much, she'd done too much hard work lately
to have her arms, or hands either, look very grand; and at last he began
to be saucy, telling her as no Marston girl ought to think so much of herself,
considerin' who and what she was. Well, the end of it was
father heard a scream, and he looked out from where he was hidden
and saw Aileen running down the garden and the fellow after her.
He jumps out, and fires his revolver slapbang at the chap; it didn't hit him,
but it went that close that he stopped dead and turned round
to see who it was.

`Ben Marston, by all that's lucky, boys!' says he, as two of the other chaps
came running down at the shot. `We've got the ould sarpint out of his hole
at last.' With that they all fires at father as quick as they could draw;
and Aileen gives one scream and starts running along the track up the hill
that leads to George Storefield's place.

Father drops; one of the bullets had hit him, but not so bad
as he couldn't run, so he ups again and starts running along the gully,
with the whole four of them shouting and swearin' after him,
making sure they got him to rights this time.

`Two hundred a man, boys,' the big fellow in the lead says;
`and maybe we'll take tay with the rest of 'em now.'

They didn't know the man they were after, or they'd have just as soon
have gone to `take tea', as they called it, with a tiger.

Father put on one of his old poacher dodges that he had borrowed
from the lapwing in his own country, that he used to tell us about
when we were boys (our wild duck 'll do just the same),
and made himself out a deal worse than he was. Father could run a bit, too;
he'd been fast for a mile when he was young, and though he was old now
he never carried no flesh to signify, and was as hard as nails.
So what with knowing the ground, and they being flat-country men,
he kept just out of pistol-shot, and yet showed enough to keep 'em filled up
with the notion that they'd run him down after a bit.

They fired a shot every now and then, thinking a chance one might wing him,
but this only let Moran and Daly see that some one was after dad,
and that the hunt was coming their way.

They held steady where they had been told to stop, and looked out
for the men they'd been warned of by father. As he got near this place
he kept lettin' 'em git a bit nearer and nearer to him,
so as they'd follow him up just where he wanted. It gave them
more chance of hitting him, but he didn't care about that,
now his blood was up -- not he. All he wanted was to get them.
Dad was the coolest old cove, when shooting was going on, ever I see.
You'd think he minded bullets no more than bottle-corks.

Well, he goes stumbling and dragging himself like up the gully, and they,
cocksure of getting him, closing up and shooting quicker and quicker,
when just as he jumps down the Black Gully steps a bullet did hit him
in the shoulder under the right arm, and staggers him in good earnest.
He'd just time to cut down the bank and turn to the left
along the creek channel, throwing himself down on his face among the bushes,
when the whole four of 'em jumps down the bank after him.

`Stand!' says Moran, and they looked up and saw him and Daly covering them
with their revolvers. Before they'd time to draw, two of 'em rolls over
as dead as door-nails.

The other two were dumbfoundered and knocked all of a heap
by suddenly finding themselves face to face with the very men
they'd been hunting after for weeks and weeks. They held up their pistols,
but they didn't seem to have much notion of using them --
particularly when they found father had rounded on 'em too,
and was standing a bit away on the side looking very ugly
and with his revolver held straight at 'em.

`Give in! Put down your irons,' says Moran, `or by ----,
we'll drop ye where ye stand.'

`Come on,' says one, and I think he intended to make a fight for it.

He'd 'a been better off if he had. It couldn't have been worse for him;
but the other one didn't see a chance, and so he says --

`Give in, what's the good? There's three to two.'

`All right,' says the other chap, the big one; and they put down
their pistols.

It was curious now as these two were both men that father and Moran
had a down on. They'd better have fought it out as long as they
could stand up. There's no good got by givin' in that I ever seen.
Men as does so always drop in for it worse in the end.

First thing, then, they tied 'em with their hands behind 'em,
and let 'em stand up near their mates that were down -- dead enough,
both of them, one shot through the heart and one through the head.

Then Moran sits down and has a smoke, and looks over at 'em.

`You don't remember me, Mr. Hagan?' says he, in his drawling way.

`No,' says the poor chap, `I don't think I do.'

`But I remember you devilish well,' says Moran; `and so you'll find
afore we leave this.' Then he took another smoke. `Weren't you warder
in Berrima Gaol,' says he, `about seven year ago? Ah! now we're coming to it.
You don't remember getting Daniel Moran -- a prisoner serving
a long sentence there -- seven days' solitary on bread and water
for what you called disobedience of orders and insolence?'

`Yes, I do remember now. I'd forgotten your face. I was only doing my duty,
and I hope you won't bear any malice.'

`It was a little thing to you, maybe,' says Moran; `but if you'd had to do
seven long days and long cold nights in that devil's den, you'd 'a thought
more about it. But you will now. My turn's come.'

`I didn't do it to you more than to the rest. I had to keep order
in the gaol, and devilish hard work it was.'

`You're a liar,' says Moran, striking him across the face
with his clenched hand. `You had a down on me because I wouldn't
knuckle down to you like some of them, and so you dropped it on to me
every turn you could get. I was a youngster then, and might have grown
into a man if I'd been let. But fellows like you are enough to turn any man
into a devil if they've got him in their power.'

`Well, I'm in your power now,' says he. `Let's see how you'll shape.'

`I don't like ye any the worse for being cheeky,' says Moran,
`and standing up to me, but it's too late. The last punishment I got,
when I was kept in irons night and day for a month because I'd tried
to get out, I swore I'd have your life if ever I came across ye.'

`You'll never shoot me in cold blood,' says the poor devil,
beginning to look blue about the lips.

`I don't know what old Ben's going to do with the man he found chevying
his daughter,' says Moran, looking at him with his deadly black-snake eyes,
`but I'm a-goin' to shoot you as soon as I've smoked out this pipe,
so don't you make any mistake.'

`I don't mind a shot or two,' says Daly, `but I'm dashed if I can stand by
and see men killed in cold blood. You coves have your own reasons, I suppose,
but I shall hook it over to the Fish River. You know where to find me.'
And he walked away to where the horses were and rode off.

. . . . .

We got fresh horses and rode over quick to Rocky Flat.
We took Warrigal with us, and followed our old track across Nulla Mountain
till we got within a couple of miles of the place. Warrigal picked up
the old mare's tracks, so we knew father had made over that way,
and there was no call for us to lose time running his trail any longer.
Better go straight on to the house and find out what had happened there.
We sent Warrigal on ahead, and waited with our horses in our hands
till he come back to us.

In about an hour he comes tearing back, with his eyes staring out of his head.

`I bin see old missis,' he says. `She yabber that one make-believe constable
bin there. Gammon-like it surveyor, and bimeby old man Ben gon' alonga hut,
and that one pleeceman fire at him and all about, and him break back
alonga gully.'

`Any of 'em come back?' says Jim.

`Bale! me see um tent-dog tied up. Cake alonga fireplace, all burn to pieces.
No come home last night. I b'lieve shot 'em old man longa gully.'

`Come along, boys,' says Starlight, jumping into his saddle.
`The old man might have been hit. We must run the tracks and see
what's come of the governor. Four to one's big odds.'

We skirted the hut and kept out wide till Warrigal cut the tracks,
which he did easy enough. We couldn't see a blessed thing.
Warrigal rode along with his head down, reading every tuft of grass,
every little stone turned up, every foot of sand, like a book.

`Your old fader run likit Black Gully. Two fellow track here --
bullet longa this one tree.' Here he pointed to a scratch
on the side of a box tree, in which the rough bark had been shivered.
`Bimeby two fellow more come; 'nother one bullet; 'nother one here, too.
This one blood drop longa white leaf.'

Here he picked up a dried gum leaf, which had on the upper side
a dark red spot, slightly irregular.

We had it all now. We came to a place where two horses had been tied
to a tree. They had been stamping and pawing, as if they had been there
a goodish while and had time to get pretty sick of it.

`That near side one Moran's horse, pigeon-toes; me know 'em,' says Warrigal.
`Off side one Daly's roan horse, new shoes on. You see 'um hair,
rub himself longa tree.'

`What the blazes were they doing hereabouts?' says Starlight.
`This begins to look complicated. Whatever the row was,
Daly and he were in it. There's no one rich enough to rob hereabouts,
is there? I don't like the look of it. Ride on, boys.'

We said nothing to each other, but rode along as fast as Warrigal
could follow the line. The sky, which was bright enough when we started,
clouded over, and in less than ten minutes the wind rose and rain began
to pour down in buckets, with no end of thunder and lightning.
Then it got that cold we could hardly sit on our horses for trembling.
The sky grew blacker and blacker. The wind began to whistle and cry
till I could almost swear I heard some one singing out for help.
Nulla Mountain was as black as your hat, and a kind of curious feeling
crept over me, I hardly knew why, as if something was going to happen,
I didn't know what.

I fully expected to find father dead; and, though he wasn't altogether
a good father to us, we both felt bad at the notion of his lyin' there
cold and stiff. I began to think of him as he used to be when we were boys,
and when he wasn't so out and out hard -- and had a kind word for poor mother
and a kiss for little Aileen.

But if he were shot or taken, why hadn't these other men come back?
We had just ridden by their tents, and they looked as if
they'd just been left for a bit by men who were coming back at night.
The dog was howling and looked hungry. Their blankets were all thrown about.
Anyhow, there was a kettle on the fire, which was gone out;
and more than that, there was the damper that Warrigal had seen
lying in the ashes all burnt to a cinder.

Everything looked as if they'd gone off in a hurry, and never come back
at night or since. One of their horses was tied with a tether rope close to
the tent poles, and he'd been walking round and trampling down the grass,
as if he'd been there all night. We couldn't make it out.

We rode on, hardly looking at one another, but following Warrigal,
who rattled on now, hardly looking at the ground at all, like a dog
with a burning scent. All of a sudden he pulls up, and points to a dip
into a cross gully, like an old river, which we all knew.

`You see um crow? I b'leeve longa Black Gully.'

Sure enough, just above the drop down, where we used to
gallop our ponies in old times and laugh to see 'em throw up their tails,
there were half-a-dozen crows and a couple of eagle-hawks high up in the sky,
wheeling and circling over the same place.

`By George! they've got the old man,' says Jim. `Come on, Dick.
I never thought poor old dad would be run down like this.'

`Or he's got them!' says Starlight, curling his lip in a way he had.
`I don't believe your old governor's dead till I see him. The devil himself
couldn't grab him on his own ground.'

Chapter 38

We all pulled up at the side of the gully or dry creek, whatever it was,
and jumped off our horses, leaving Warrigal to look after them,
and ran down the rocky sides of it.

`Great God!' Starlight cries out, `what's that?' and he pointed to
a small sloping bit of grass just underneath the bank. `Who are they?
Can they be asleep?'

They were asleep, never to wake. As we stood side by side by the dead men,
for there were four of them, we shook so, Jim and I, that we leaned against
one another for support. We had never seen a sight before that like it.
I never want to do so again.

There they lay, four dead men. We didn't know them ourselves,
but guessed they were Hagan and his lot. How else did they come there?
and how could dad have shot them all by himself, and laid them out there?
Were Daly and Moran with him? This looked like Moran's damnable work.

We looked and looked. I rubbed my eyes. Could it be real?
The sky was dark, and the daylight going fast. The mountain hung over us
black and dreadful-looking. The wind whimpered up and down the hillside
with a sort of cry in it. Everything was dark and dismal
and almost unnatural-looking.

All four men were lying on their backs side by side, with their eyes
staring up to the sky -- staring -- staring! When we got close beside them
we could see they had all been shot -- one man through the head,
the rest through the body. The two nearest to me had had their hands tied;
the bit of rope was lying by one and his wrist was chafed.

One had been so close to the man that shot him that the powder
had burnt his shirt. It wasn't for anything they had either,
for every man's notes (and one had four fives and some ones)
were pinned to them outside of their pockets, as if to show every one
that those who killed them wanted their blood and not their money.

`This is a terrible affair, boys,' said Starlight; and his voice sounded
strange and hoarse. `I never thought we should be mixed up with
a deed like this. I see how it was done. They have been led into a trap.
Your father has made 'em think they could catch him; and had Daly and Moran
waiting for them -- one on each side of this hole here.
Warrigal' -- for he had tied up his horse and crept up -- `how many bin here?'

Warrigal held up three fingers.

`That one ran down here -- one after one. I see 'em boot. Moran stand here.
Patsey Daly lie down behind that ole log. All about boot-nail mark.
Old man Ben he stand here. Dog bite'm this one.'

Here he stooped and touched a dead man's ankle. Sure enough
there was the mark of Crib's teeth, with the front one missing,
that had been kicked down his throat by a wild mare.

`Two fellow tumble down fust-like; then two fellow bimeby.
One -- two -- three fellow track go along a flat that way.
Then that one get two horses and ridem likit Fish River.
Penty blood tumble down here.'

This was the ciphering up of the whole thing. It was clear enough now.
Moran and Daly had waited for them here, and had shot down the two first men.
Of the others, it was hard to say whether they died in fair fight
or had been taken prisoners and shot afterwards. Either way
it was bad enough. What a noise it would make! The idea of four men,
well known to the Government, and engaged in hunting down outlaws
on whose head a price was set, to be deliberately shot --
murdered in cold blood, as there was some ground for thinking to be the case.
What would be the end of it all?

We had done things that were bad enough, but a deliberate, cold-blooded,
shameful piece of bloodshed like this had never been heard of
in New South Wales before.

There was nothing more to be done. We couldn't stay any longer looking at
the dead men; it was no use burying them, even if we'd had the time.
We hadn't done it, though we should be sure to be mixed up with it somehow.

`We must be moving, lads,' said Starlight. `As soon as this gets wind
there'll be another rush out this way, and every policeman
and newspaper reporter in the country will be up at Black Gully.
When they're found everybody will see that they've been killed for vengeance
and not for plunder. But the sooner they're found the better.'

`Best send word to Billy the Boy,' I said; `he'll manage to lay them on
without hurting himself.'

`All right. Warrigal knows a way of communicating with him;
I'll send him off at once. And now the sooner we're at the Hollow
the better for everybody.'

We rode all night. Anything was better than stopping still
with such thoughts as we were likely to have for companions.
About daylight we got to the Hollow. Not far from the cave
we found father's old mare with the saddle on and the reins trailing
on the ground. There was a lot of blood on the saddle too,
and the reins were smeared all about with it; red they were to the buckles,
so was her mane.

We knew then something was wrong, and that the old man was hard hit,
or he'd never have let her go loose like that. When we got to the cave
the dog came out to meet us, and then walked back whining in a queer way
towards the log at the mouth, where we used to sit in the evenings.

There was father, sure enough, lying on his face in a pool of blood,
and to all appearances as dead as the men we'd just left.

We lifted him up, and Starlight looked close and careful at him
by the light of the dawn, that was just showing up over the tree tops
to the east.

`He's not dead; I can feel his heart beat,' he said. `Carry him in, boys,
and we'll soon see what's the matter with him.'

We took his waistcoat and shirt off -- a coat he never wore unless
it was raining. Hard work we had to do it, they was so stuck to his skin
when the blood had dried.

`By gum! he's been hit bad enough,' says Jim. `Look here, and here,
poor old dad!'

`There's not much "poor" about it, Jim,' says Starlight.
`Men that play at bowls must expect to get rubbers. They've come off
second best in this row, and I wish it had been different,
for several reasons.'

Dad was hit right through the top of the left shoulder.
The ball had gone through the muscle and lodged somewhere.
We couldn't see anything of it. Another bullet had gone right through him,
as far as we could make out, under the breast on the right-hand side.

`That looks like a good-bye shot,' says Starlight; `see how the blood
comes welling out still; but it hasn't touched the lungs.
There's no blood on his lips, and his breathing is all right.
What's this? Only through the muscle of the right arm. That's nothing;
and this graze on the ribs, a mere scratch. Dash more water in his face, Jim.
He's coming to.'

After a few minutes he did come to, sure enough, and looked round
when he found himself in bed.

`Where am I?' says he.

`You're at home,' I said, `in the Hollow.'

`Dashed if I ever thought I'd get here,' he says. `I was that bad
I nearly tumbled off the old mare miles away. She must have carried me in
while I was unsensible. I don't remember nothing after we began
to get down the track into the Hollow. Where is she?'

`Oh! we found her near the cave, with the saddle and bridle on.'

`That's all right. Bring me a taste of grog, will ye;
I'm a'most dead with thirst. Where did I come from last, I wonder?
Oh, I seem to know now. Settling accounts with that ---- dog
that insulted my gal. Moran got square with t'other. That'll learn 'em
to leave old Ben Marston alone when he's not meddling with them.'

`Never mind talking about that now,' I said. `You had a near shave of it,
and it will take you all your time to pull through now.'

`I wasn't hit bad till just as I was going to drop down into Black Gully,'
he said. `I stood one minute, and that cursed wretch Hagan
had a steady shot at me. I had one at him afterwards, though,
with his hands tied, too.'

`God forgive you!' says Jim, `for shooting men in cold blood.
I couldn't do it for all the gold in Turon, nor for no other reason.
It'll bring us bad luck, too; see if it don't.'

`You're too soft, Jim,' says the old man. `You ain't a bad chap;
but any young fellow of ten years old can buy and sell you.
Where's that brandy and water?'

`Here it is,' says Jim; `and then you lie down and take a sleep.
You'll have to be quiet and obey orders now -- that is
if a few more years' life's any good to you.'

The brandy and water fetched him to pretty well, but after that he began
to talk, and we couldn't stop him. Towards night he got worse and worse
and his head got hotter, and he kept on with all kinds of nonsense,
screeching out that he was going to be hung and they were waiting
to take him away, but if he could get the old mare he'd be all right;
besides a lot of mixed-up things about cattle and horses
that we didn't know the right of.

Starlight said he was delirious, and that if he hadn't some one to nurse him
he'd die as sure as fate. We couldn't be always staying with him,
and didn't understand what was to be done much. We didn't like
to let him lie there and die, so at long last we made up our minds
to see if we could get Aileen over to nurse him for a few weeks.

Well, we scribbled a bit of a letter and sent Warrigal off with it.
Wasn't it dangerous for him? Not a bit of it. He could go anywhere
all over the whole country, and no trooper of them all could manage
to put the bracelets on him. The way he'd work it would be
to leave his horse a good way the other side of George Storefield's,
and to make up as a regular blackfellow. He could do that first-rate,
and talk their lingo, too, just like one of themselves.
Gin or blackfellow, it was all the same to Warrigal.
He could make himself as black as soot, and go barefooted
with a blanket or a 'possum rug round him and beg for siccapence,
and nobody'd ever bowl him out. He took us in once at the diggings;
Jim chucked him a shilling, and told him to go away and not come bothering
near us.

So away Warrigal went, and we knew he'd get through somehow.
He was one of those chaps that always does what they're told,
and never comes back and says they can't do it, or they've lost their horse,
or can't find the way, or they'd changed their mind, or something.

No; once he'd started there was no fear of him not scoring somehow or other.
Whatever Starlight told him to do, day or night, foul weather or fair,
afoot or on horseback, that thing was done if Warrigal was alive to do it.

What we'd written to Aileen was telling her that father was that bad
we hardly thought he'd pull through, and that if she wanted to save his life
she must come to the Hollow and nurse him.

How to get her over was not the easiest thing in the world,
but she could ride away on her old pony without anybody thinking
but she was going to fetch up the cows, and then cut straight up the gully
to the old yard in the scrub on Nulla Mountain. One of us
would meet her there with a fresh horse and bring her safe into the Hollow.
If all went well she would be there in the afternoon on a certain day;
anyhow we'd be there to meet her, come or no come.