The Tracks We Tread/Chapter 14
Chapter XIV
“Wake, you lumber’ead! wake! Jump inter your clothes an’ come down. There’s a suicide. Somebody’s took pizen in Phelan’s. They says as he’s prayin’ an’ repentin’ on every doormat in the ’ouse, an’ requestin’ a doctor. Will you wake up?”
This was the first watch of the night, and Randal growled in his bed as Conroy shook sleep from him with frantic hands.
“Sling it up. Who’s the johnny? Oh—I don’t care, anyway, Conroy. Let me sleep.”
Conroy struck a match to the candle, and, his shock head and strained eyes sprang out of the dark. He ran the whole coach service of the district, and at this present he ran Randal as well. Incidentally, Randal was the neatest driver he had known these six years.
“Didn’t ’ear ’is name. Murray’s bringin’ him round here. I’ve ordered a team inter the old coach, an’ you’ll take the chap down to Three Corners, eyes out. We ain’t wantin’ no inques’ held in Argyle.”
Randal sat up and blinked where reflection from a lantern below travelled round the bare wall and was gone. Beyond the window the still night was crazy with clatter of boots on the flags, and grating of wheels and the ring of iron on stone as startled horses plunged out of the boxes. And the pelted talk of the stableman was virile and very real. He rolled out on the floor.
“It’ll take the all of two hours. Will we catch the train? Is he bad yet?”
“There was too many tellin’ fur me to know anythin’. You got to be back in time to take the reg’lar coach down. That’s all I care. An’ as I had to guv yer a scratch team, you’ve got the old coach, Randal. It don’t matter if you smash that up.”
“D———,” said Randal, and clawed round the bedfoot for his clothes.
He took the steep back-stairs three at a time, and raced round to the mews. The stir of haste and disgust leavened all things. The men showed half -clothed in the lantern flashes, and from the moving rush of strenuous faces and hairy glossed quarters a voice cursed, copious and profound. Randal was utterly weary, for he had been on the box all day. Besides, he was robbed of the sleep which only gave him forgetfulness. He dived in where the jangle of steel sounded round the coach bulk, and grabbed a stableman under the fore carriage.
“What are you giving me? The Thunderer mare! Good Jupiter! What else?”
A couple of men step-danced with the mare to her place on the off lead; from a wheeler came the steady sound of practised kicking, and three voices gave information as one.
“Boss said not crawlers nor reg’lars, so———” “Ah, but it’s all one to you, Randal. You’ll manage anythin’ with hide on———”
“So we guv yer goers, an’ if yer larrup the mare circumstantial at the offset———” “Arrah, phwhat matther annyways? Yoimg Art’s neck is not wuth breakin’ at all, an’ Randal cares just that much for himsilf, ivery inch.”
“Art!” said Randal, and dropped the girth he was handling, “Art Scannell?”
“That’s him every time,” said Lossin from somewhere. “They’re bringin’ him now. Crickey! He ain’t dead yet.”
Randal caught at a flange of the great wedge of men that surged past.
“Derrett! Is he suffering?”
“Not pertic’lar. They’ve loaded him up wi’ whiskey what’d scupper any or’nary man, an’ he aint curlin’ an’ he ain’t drunk. Jest pious! An’ that’s a new line for Art. He’s bin playin’ wi’ the Salvation Army o’ late.”
Murray’s quick, alert tones cut the raffle of sound, and Randal saw the flash of his strong face above some dark struggling thing.
“Make way there! Make way! Where’s the door? Now———.”
Quick hands punted the struggling thing into the coach bottom, and Murray leapt after. Randal heard the door slam as Lossin yelled cheerfully:
“Git the old hearse agoin’, Randal. Make her chirrup!”
Randal was overlooking traces and headstalls rapidly and with care; for instinct asserts itself above the senses. He took up a hole in the mare’s throat lash, and she reached with the speed of a striking snake, so that the front of his shirt and some flesh below came away in her strong buck-teeth.
Randal buttoned his coat and climbed to the box. The floodtide of fury will sweep out all other sensations, and just now he wanted only to be where he could kill the mare scientifically.
“Stand clear down below! Let ’em rip!”
Gentling hands dropped from four wild-eyed heads, and the team canted all ways. For they were unwarmed as yet, and in temper pure devils. Murray jammed Art Scannell in the coach corner with a stout leg, and clung on by such power as he had. And a quiver of excitement throbbed in the sluggish blood that weeks of dread was beginning to chill. From a loose box door Lossin was earnestly averring that he did not envy any of those three who were assuredly going to perdition inside of two minutes. Murray laughed to hear; and to hear the steady talk of the long whip, and the pulsing fire of hoofs as the four mad beasts in the chains bucked and ran back on each other and fought the weight of the bit.
On the box-seat Randal was unerringly gaining command. The team dropped back on its haunches, took breath, and sprang with a crash that made the old coach leap like a landed fish. Randal swung then hard for the alleyway, and Art Scannell thrust his head through the window before Murray could block him.
“I’m going to glory!” he cried. “I like it! Fellow-sinners, take what’s-his-name, and come along to glor———” Then the flash of lamps, and the darting tongue of the long lash and the blown foam from wide-set nostrils, passed on to the unbroken thunder of hoofs that roared into the night up the road.
Randal eased the pull, and settled his feet in the irons.
“Go it, you serene cripples,” he said. “But if you’re not blown in four miles, we’ll be all to glory with Art.”
Then realisation struck down on him, making him giddy for one moment of horror. Effie! What would Effie say to him if he lost Art for her? By her love for her twin Randal had first caught her. By it he held her, fearing ever lest the chord should break. And every breath told him that it must break, soon or late.
The team was half raw and purely mad. It charged the heavy tree shadows blocked out on the road as if they were fences, and took them flying. The coach rocked and bucketted; the lamp-light shook in speckles from the wild upflung head of the mare to the long straight wither and neck behind her. Something ribbed like a whaleboat was mate to the mare. It bored with a steady sidelong persistence that meant trouble. Straight ahead the road ran into the stars, and the wind blown from their far cold glow whistled up under Randal’s coat to numb the trickle of blood down his ribs. He was twisted sideways that the strain of his arm across his left side might deaden the pain, when Murray’s head came through the front window. There was a ring in his voice that had not been there these two months.
“By Jove, Randal, it’s good! Oh, it’s good, man! They are cutting it out. It takes a man away from———”
“How’s Art?” said Randal, unmoving.
“Seems pretty right. He’s praying down there.” Murray laughed easily. “By George, Randal! I’m glad Saurian was away up the Pass. I wouldn’t have missed this—what are they going to do now?”
“Going to Hell, I think. Get back, and don’t let Art out of the door. I’ve got to navigate the cutting in two acts.”
Murray disappeared. Randal wrapped the reins twice round his wrists, and took hold with fingers taut as Harveyised steel. With his nerve in his hands and eyes he wrenched the team sharp to the left, and braced himself between upright and foot guard as the coach took the curve on one wheel. Great cliffs shot up overhead. Beneath the mare’s feet spumed shingle rattled down to far hurry of water. The clay bottom was greasy with recent rains, and the boat-ribbed demon lost footing, floundering ten yards with his weight on the man on the box. He recovered at a vein of scoria, with his nose in the manuka edging the cutting, and Randal felt his sinews crack as he bore with both arms to the leftward still.
Curve and curve and curve; with ever a nine-foot track, and the grade of one in five; and ever the unchecked gallop, and the sway of the clumsy coach. The wash of the water talked louder, swept up, and ran low through the wheels. Across the half-dried river bed, foul with broken trees and sand spits and sharp rocks that struck back fire to fire, Randal followed the ford as he might. Each day he took it at a paced trot. He had not passed it before on a hurricane. The cutting beyond was rotten and the underway patched. Randal knew each of the white sign posts of warning that reeled away like drunken men. He held the path grimly; his eyes fastened on the writhe of the grade under the quivering lamp-light, and every sense answering in trained skill to the need.
The team breasted the top; unbeaten, undistressed and game. The macadam rolled through a green tableland where waked sheep and cattle fed in the long vernal scented grass. And here Randal dropped his hands and crouched. For the strain had been very cruel, and the blood-letting had weakened his grip.
Murray’s voice came through the window.
“Are you in charge yet, Randal?”
“Yes—think I’ve got them under. How’s Art?”
“Blest if I can make him out. I believe the young beggar is kidding us. He’s absolutely happy down there, singing Army hymns———”
“What! Do you think he’s all right, Murray? Do you think he’s all right?”
The ring in the voice called many things to Murray’s memory.
“I’d lay good long odds on it,” he said.
“Then I wish to goodness you could get him through there, and hang on to the strings while I come in and wallop him, Murray.”
Murray grinned.
“Pity to disturb him—listen———”
Above the uneven nervous gait whereby Randal held the four together with delicate touch. Art Scannell was talking in a virile Saxon speech that brought laughter to both who heard.
“Randal, he’s standing up—going to deliver his testimony. Go steady—pity to lose this.”
The two giggled with an hysterical clutch at their throats. For pity and disgust marched with laughter at the delirious ribaldry of the boy’s talk. The off-wheel lifted on a tussock, and the babble broke with a snap.
“Short-circuited him that time,” said Murray at the window. “He’s under the seat———”
The clap of the door came on the words, and Murray’s shout:
“Randal! He’s out! Randal! Stop, for the Lord’s sake!”
Randal’s start scared the team. It plunged, reached on the reins, and in that instant something swarmed up the wheel as a gorilla might have done, and fastened on Randal’s shoulders, jerking him back to meet hot breath on his cheek.
“I’ve come up to drive,” said Art Scannell, with quick lissom fingers sliding to the reins. “Give ’em to me, Randal. Curse you! Give ’em up———”
By the cut of the wind past his ear, and the spring that assuredly loosened his wrists in their sockets, Randal guessed at the payment that should be required for Murray’s carelessness.
He jammed down the brake; gripped up the reins in one hand, and fought for his own life and the boy’s as best he might.
And something in the back of his head was saying:
“D——— Murray! I wish he was in behind there to take it with us.”
The team ripped over the saddle with the coach rocking, and Randal guarding the reins, half choked, and very nearly mad with pain at the opening wound on his chest. Art Scannell was kneeling on the box with his dark boy face level with Randal’s. The thick-lashed eyes and straight features were cruelly like Effie’s, and the words on his mouth were such as sickened Randal. The boy’s hands shut over Randal’s, and the whole weight of his body lay across the taut arms. Randal felt the team check, swing to the strain, and heard the sob of soft grass cut under the hoofs. His hands slid, snatched, held again; and he came to the box bottom with Art. Here they fought, with Randal doubled sideways, and the handling of the reins his yet, though control had gone this long time past. Art Scannell’s arms were warmly close about him, and the smooth cheek rubbing Randal’s was torture. He crushed the boy down, kneeling on him, forcing him with all his gasping strength; and round him, and overhead, rose up the ghost country, haggard, void and unending. Under him Art Scannell struggled, cursing, and scratching as a weka scratches with spurred wings and feet. Dead trees reeled past, white stripes on the broad back of night, with long shaggy moss blowing from them like a beard on the chin of Death.
“That is a dead man calling me across the distance,” said Randal, speaking without volition, for sense told him that it was a mo-poke frightened by the gallopping hoofs.
Beneath his knees Art Scannell was still, and a fear colder than death took him by the heart strings. He half rose. And then Art Scannell caught him about the middle, and the reins were gripped in his white young teeth. The bleared trees drew in, right and left; plunged at Randal, and held him fast. This was Death, with a tearing pain in the sinews, and that dead man calling as a bird calls in the middle of the night.
A sentence struck him from no given place as the leaders rammed a tree butt and turned the coach over. It was curt, and very intense, and it never came out of the Prayer Book. But it brought Randal to his feet.
“By ———, Murray!” he said, “have you been there all the time? Where’s Art?”
“I don’t know where he is,” said Murray, watching the wheelers kick the fore-carriage into excellent firewood. “But I very sincerely hope he’s had his neck broken. Didn’t you hear me trying to get through the window?”
“This is a short cut into Three Corners,” said Art Scannell, coming out of a bank of bracken with scratches blood-lined across his cheek. “Come along down, you two, and have a nip. I’ll shout.”
Murray fell on a white tree bole and rocked with laughter.
“I’ll bet you will, my innocent. Just wait till Randal gets his hands on you———”
“Just put your back into this, and shut up,” said Randal, in vivid command; and Murray went where the noise of straining leather and burst wood was calling. Randal loosed the four, and slashed at the latest with a curse.
“They’ll go home,” he said, “and Conroy will have to send an engine or firestick for the coach. Come on. I’ve got to hunt up a horse to get back with.”
“Couldn’t you have ridden———”
“No, thanks. Nor could you. I know those four. Besides———”
He staggered a little, pulled himself up, and trudged forward. Art Scannell followed, singing after his kind, and Murray tailed in the rear, marvelling that he did not slay young Art and bury him in a decayed log.
The angels had strung all their diamond necklaces across the purple velvet of the sky; and their pure breath was in the night air, and the shadow of their wings on the far hills. Randal stumbled between the shed pits of the matai trunks and the long slivers of ribbonwood bark; climbed a wire fence; crossed a paddock with bog and a smell of pigs, and came to anchor before the Three Corners Hotel. Murray, closing up, saw the horrible white of his face under the kerosene lamp hung out for the 2 a. m. train. He caught at the shoulder that swayed, as Art Scannell passed to the bar whistling.
“What have you done to yourself? Randal, you owl, you’re hurt———”
Randal was assured that his words came through a thick blanket.
“How—how’s Art?” he asked, for the third time.
“Art,” said Murray, distinctly, “was very drunk to-night, and tried a game on. He’s gone into the bar to get drunk again; but if he tries any more games, I’ll know why. Now, come in here, Randal, and let’s see what is wrong.”
Within the two ends of a half-hour Randal had quarrelled with Wallace of the hotel, with Murray, and with the three men who had turned up at the siding for the train. For he sat on the horse-hair sofa with twenty-one yards of bandage rolled round his body by Murray, and defied them.
“You can talk till you’re black,” he said. “I’ve got to get back by seven. I’ve got to bring the coach down for the midday.”
Art Scannell swung his legs from the table edge where he was nursing a half-glass of brandy.
“I’ll drive you both back, and no questions asked,” he suggested. “Though mind you, I do consider it jolly cheek of you both to bring me down here just to watch Randal bleed.”
Murray felt in his pockets.
“My child,” he said, “you had two emetics before you left Argyle, and you’ll have another if you don’t take a reef in that tongue of yours. Can you keep him here till midday, Wallace, and I’ll drive Randal back if he’s beyond persuasion?”
“I’ve got to take the seven coach down,” said Randal, and came to his feet to clinch the matter.
Wallace provided his little trotter and a gig; and Randal made no complaint when they bumped over a broken culvert in the dark hour that goes before all sunlight. For the second time that night Murray forgot the creeping things that dogged him.
“You’ll be in a fine state by the time those horses have pulled you about all to-day,” he said. “Why don’t you take it easy, man, and let someone else have a buck at them?”
“I told Conroy I’d be back. I don’t break my word if—if I can help it.”
“Well, you can’t help this. You———”
“Don’t talk rot,” said Randal, roughly. “Do you think I’d take it on if I thought I was going to peter out and mess things up? A man knows what he can do, and what he can’t. Or if he doesn’t he ought to.”
To the break in his voice Murray gave a pitiful silence, and slowly the day came: not flushing with girlish shyness as she comes to dimpled valleys and homesteads, but standing grave and beautiful on the mountains, to press wreaths of blood-red thorns down on their snow, and to fling her great javelins of light from pinnacle to jagged scarp and bowed bared shoulder of flint.
The tussock deeps either side the saddle lay naked as an unseen hand swept the white mists out of them, and the very faint sound of sheep cropping grass came up through the new-made air. And the sunlight burst up the gullies, and along the hundred-foot river banks, striking their clay to beaten bronze, and chasing a riot of onyx and jasper and hyacinth-blue from bluff up to reaching bluff until all the western sky was laughing with it.
Murray pulled slow for the ford, and a little black-and-white stilt darted away from under a niggerhead, its red legs flashing in the light.
“A new day is as solemn a thing to see as a new soul,” said Murray, then.
Randal laughed in one syllable.
“The solemn thing, as I take it, is a soul that will never be new any more. But you see them every day.”
“I don’t,” said Murray, taking his lungs full of scent-flooded air, as they rose the cutting beyond through gold and pearl of the flowering broom.
“You could if you looked,” said Randal, carelessly. “How does time go?”
“Just six. Feeling very fagged, eh?”
“No, I’m all right, thanks. Lick him up a bit along here, can’t you?”
“Don’t you fret. I’ll be up to time.”
But with the flat daylight on the familiar things again Murray’s torture woke and ran behind him, and neither man was speaking when the gig swung into the alleyway, and Conroy came out and asked questions.
Murray explained seven things in one sentence. Then Conroy said:
“You got ten minutes ter have a feed and a nip in, Randal; and then for Heaven’s sake, take ’em if you can. I haven’t got another man can handle that team wi’out makin’ a blamed mess o’ things.”
“Keep your hair on. I’m going to take them. Did—anyone send word up to Mains?”
“No. We waited ter hear the end of it—knowin’ young Art. He do have his own idea of a joke.”
Randal was on the box-seat as the men brought the team out to the street. He was crumpled, and tired—tired—until he could not remember a time when he was not tired. Then the jar of wheels was close on him; Effie Scannell pulled in the bay cob with a turn of her wrist, and tossed the reins to the groom beside her. There were boxes in the back of the cart. Randal saw them in one swift eye-flash. But he did not look again until it was necessary to stoop over and bring her up to the seat by the hand. The pressure in the meeting grip was hers only, and she said underbreath:
“I want to speak to you.”
Kiliat’s voice sounded at the wheel.
“You going down too. Miss Effie? Oh, I say! I don’t deserve such luck, you know.”
Effie leant over, speaking with quick little ripples of laughter as pole-straps and traces met buckled, and the mail bags were flung up to Randal. Behind, a heavy-footed woman and two complaining children made the body of the coach shake. The horses stirred impatiently with the freshness of the morning blowing on them, and yet Kiliat talked by the wheel to Effie.
The quick twist of a grin was on Randal’s mouth. He caught the heavy reins where they spun to him, and the brake flew up as the horses leapt as one.
Kiliat passed behind with a shout and a quick scramble that brought him to his knees in the coach-bottom. Randal cut the leaders with the lash, thanking Heaven that the coach carried no window.
“Say what you want to before we get to the bridge,” he said. “I must walk over that. The offsider is too skittish.”
“You—you haven’t said you’re glad to see me, yet, Guy.”
Randal’s deep breath was very nearly a groan.
“Does a man go about saying he is glad to be alive? What can I tell you that you don’t know, Effie?”
Her hand was on his left arm, and her face was close to his shoulder, as Art’s had been so few hours ago.
“Tell me that you’re not forgetting me, Guy.”
“Effie—don’t! Dear, you don’t know how cruel you are to me sometimes. I—wouldn’t ask you that.”
“I’m going to test you, Guy. I’m going away. For months; I don’t know how many.”
“Where?”
“The North Island—Sydney—Melbourne. I’m going with Mr. Kiliat’s mother and sister.”
Randal took the turn to the coach bridge with absolute precision. Then he said:
“Have you anything else to tell me?”
Then the tears came, and she caught the lapels of his coat with a little sob.
“Guy! Guy! I don’t want to go! Oh dearest, don’t you understand that—that they are sending me away, Guy?”
“I understand. They are sending you away from me, Effie. And—it is better that you should go.”
“It won’t make any difference. I shall come back. You—you’ll wait here for me, Guy?”
Randal stooped over and kissed her on the lips.
“I will wait,” he said.
Then he drew rein on the bridge planking, and apologised to Kiliat when he came round to the wheel in white wrath.