The Tracks We Tread/Chapter 20
Chapter XX
Blake’s hotel was upside down and inside out. For all the boys from Mains and from Behar were down to do honour to Danny’s wedding: and up and along the passages; in the kitchen and the bar, violins were tuning and stray voices whistling the “Bride’s March.” On the side-path a dozen beat step, with gusts of talk and laughter blown out with the tobacco wreaths.
Moody sat on the horse trough, dabbing his forehead with a red handkerchief. For the tenth time he had dragged Tod over the Town Hall floor on a sack, and, by Tod’s sworn word, “There was not a bhoy in Argyle wud stand up on ut the night, wid the shine of ut.”
“On’y Dennis,” said Ike, strong in the pride of his new black flannel shirt and a white tie. “He’s havin’ ter dance in socks, yer knows.”
Dennis was Danny’s elder brother, and unmarried, and the punishment thereof was an ancient law in the township.
“Sure, then, who wud be lookin’ at Dinnis the night?” cried Tod. “An’ here comes hersilf wid the gossoon! Will ye stand by wid the rice, then?”
Rice had lain thick from the church gates to the hotel door these four hours past. But the boys’ pockets bulged with it yet; and their fists were shut on it, and the air sung with the grains as a girl ran out, flinging up a white muslin arm as shield. Lou followed, with his light gay laughter.
“Hit the wrong nail this time, you chaps,” he cried. “Danny and Suse have gone out the back way. Come on. Maiden!”
In the light from the bar Maiden’s delicate face was flushed above the snow-white of her dress. She stood an instant, half hesitating among the men; her soft hair turned to gold about her head, and her hand clinging to Lou’s. Excitement was throbbing in the very air of the township, and something in her wild-rose beauty tingled the men. Then Mogger lit the spark:
“Three cheers fur the nex’ bride!” he shouted.
The roar startled Danny and Suse where they hurried by a little side street to the Town Hall, and Lou swung off his cap with daring assurance.
“Thank you, boys!” he cried. “Make way there! Maiden, here’s your shawl.”
He flung a soft white thing over her hair, and the blank dark beyond the dazzle of light took them. Tod rubbed the grains of rice from his damp hands.
“Begorra, bhoys, we’d betther be movin’,” he said. “Wud ye let Lou be havin’ it all tu himself down there?”
Steve followed slowly in the wake of eager feet. Four hours agone he had stood up in the church very near to Maiden and had heard the great words whereby Danny and Suse had pledged themselves. But he had looked at none but Maiden, so that Danny might be forgiven for calling him a “silly rotter” when he forgot to hand over the ring, and finally dropped it under the front seat where Lou sat. Lou had picked it up, with a little suggestive movement, and his bold eyes full on Maiden’s. And Maiden had grown red and white, and spoken no word at all to Steve when he took her out of the church, trying to tell her that he envied, not Danny, but Danny’s state, and so mixing himself that Maiden’s wicked laughter called up Lou. It was since that moment that Steve had been giddy with fear and hate. For over-well he knew Lou Birot.
There were cut cabbage trees about the Town Hall, and tall sweet-scented koradis, and little dark corners where Tod had planted chairs. Tod was M.C.; and there were three violins and an accordeon and a long tableful of supper on the platform. Danny was utterly delirious with glee; and when he kissed the bridesmaid in the quadrilles it was Lou called shame on Steve that he had foregone his right with Suse. Steve hung glowering in a corner, and the Packer cried:
“Do it yerself, Lou, yer beggar!”
Lou’s bold glancing eyes met Maiden’s.
“The next best thing, Maiden,” he said underbreath; and kissed Suse on both hard red cheeks, slid his arm round her waist, and whirled her down the room.
Steve came across to Maiden.
“Are you sparin’ any dances ter-night. Maiden?” he said shortly.
The crimson Lou’s words had called there left Maiden’s face. She flung up her head.
“You’ve been in sech a mighty hurry to ask me,” she said.
“No, I ain’t. I near didn’t ask yer at all. But yer’ll spare me one now. Maiden, fur I’ve suthin’ ter say ter yer?”
Maiden turned on her heel.
“Thanks! I don’t want ter hear it,” she said.
“Would yer ruther I said it ter Lou?”
Maiden glanced at him in sudden fear; at his broad honest face set now in a savageness that Lou had seen there before; at his great height and solid breadth as against Lou’s lithe gracefulness. She shivered a little. Then she put her hand on his arm.
“You can have this,” she said. “It’s Ike’s, but he don’t count.”
Steve pushed open a side-door with his elbow.
“It’s hot ’nuff out here,” he said. “No—there ain’t any dew on the grass. Come down ter the gate, Maiden.”
Maiden stepped beside him, holding her muslin dress daintily. The rollicking music behind unsteadied Steve’s nerves. There was a lilt of defiance in it that brought Lou’s laughter very near. He gripped his hand on the gate.
“Are yer thinkin’ o’ marryin’ Lou?” he demanded suddenly.
Maiden brushed a twig from her skirt.
“You said you wanted to tell me something,” she suggested. “Don’t yer think yer ideas is a bit upside down, Steve?”
“I’d ruther not tell yer till I knows that.”
“Well,” said Maiden, lightly, “you’re not goin’ to know that. Anything else?”
“If yer sends me ter him. Maiden———”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll git the truth outen him.” Steve’s voice had a rasp in it now.
“And what good will that do you?”
The distant curve of tussock hills against the stars blurred in Steve’s sight.
“D’yer think I’m carin’ fur myself?” he said fiercely. “If Lou were another man I’d say nothin’. But him bein’ what he is— Maiden! Maiden! yer don’t know him, dearie. Not as I knows him!”
“Likely ’nuff. You’re a bit clumsy at knowin’ anybody.”
“If you’re carin’ fur Lou———” Steve stopped, cutting his nails into the gate top.
“Well?”
“Maiden—if yer’d tell me! Oh, if yer’d only tell me! Maiden———”
Maiden yawned deliberately.
“Must be ’bout eleven, I should think,” she said. “We’ve bin out here an hour, haven’t we? Lou was goin’ to take me in to supper.”
“Maiden—if yer expectin’ Lou ter marry yer—he never will. He’ll like as not be clearin’ out any day at all.”
Maiden drew up her slim throat, and her words came iced:
“I don’t remember givin’ you the right ter be impertinent to me, Steve Derral,” she said.
“I ain’t askin’ no right. I’m jes’ warnin’ yer———”
“I’ve heard folks say as yer ain’t always clever wi’ the words you use. Insultin’ is more like it, I think.”
“He’ll insult yer worse ef you’re engaged ter him ’fore he goes. Maiden—yer got ter listen———”
“Lou! Lou! Come!”
A dark bulk by the steps moved suddenly. Then Lou’s voice was in Steve’s ear:
“Hands off there, will you?”
Steve did not loose his hold on her arm.
“I’m not takin’ orders from you,” he said. “Maiden, it’s your choice, now. Are yer chuckin’ him or me. Maiden?”
His voice was rough with pain, and all the love that would ever be his was in his eyes. Maiden looked on the two in the moonlight. Then she laughed.
“I’m goin’ into the dressin’-room to tidy my hair. So I don’t want either of yer. Let go, Steve! P’raps that’s my choice, and p’raps it isn’t.”
Steve turned on the man when she had left them.
“’Twouldn’t mean much ter me ter be hung s’posin’ yer was thinkin’ o’ breakin’ her heart,” he said. “Yer’d be wise ter remember that. Fur, sure’s death, I’ll never let her marry yer, an’ me livin’.”
Lou’s hands were thrust deep in his pockets, and there was a slow smile on his mouth.
“I don’t fancy you’re going to have much say in the matter, if you ask me,” he said. “I’ve got her name down four times more to-night. Can you beat that?”
Steve’s programme was a bit of blank white paper. He tore it in half and flung it on the gravel.
“I ain’t goin’ ter say anythin’ more ter her.” He paid out his words separately. “It’s you ter reckon wi’ nex’ time. An’ yer’d best jes’ remember—she means a lump more ter me than my life.”
He went out of the gate abruptly and up the street, meeting with Murray and Father Denis at the corner. Murray called gaily:
“Going for the kerosene-tins, Steve?”
“We got ’em,” said Steve, halting. “Fifteen, an’ heavy sticks. It’s goin’ ter be the biggest tin-kettlin’ in the township; both parties being sech fav’rits, yer see.”
“Well, I don’t want to have to run any of you in if I can help it———”
“Bhut there is his duty comes furrst, he wud say, bhoy—what is it, Ormond?”
Ormond was breathless. He had a coat over his pyjamas, and unlaced boots on his bare feet: for he had come at the run from his bed in the little tin hut behind the Lion that had proven too strong for his wrath against Kiliat. He was white-faced in the moonlight, and his words were tumbled.
“Roddy has shot Art Scannell. Kiliat sacked him last week, and he’s been swearing to pay Kiliat out. I saw him with a gun this morning. He nicked the wrong man—I found him crying over Art. And now he’s off after Kiliat. I tried to get him, Murray———”
Murray’s clean-shaped ruddy face was suddenly drawn.
“Is Art dead?”
“Think so; pretty far gone, anyway. But Murray—if he finds Kiliat———”
“Steve, you hop down to the hall and rope in a few fellows. Don’t spread an alarm. Where was he going, Ormond?”
“Kiliat is up at Scannell’s to-night. Roddy was taking a short cut through the bush———”
“Come and get into some of my duds while I rake out a couple of shooters. Father Denis, you’ll take somebody up to Art. He is—where, Ormond? Oh, in Ormond’s hut. Father Denis.”
In Murray’s room Ormond spoke with some hesitation:
“It’s tough work for you, Murray, old fellow.”
Murray was loading his revolvers with quick firm movements.
“That little chap faced what he feared more than death to save me. And I’ve got to bring him to the gallows, perhaps. Pipi’s at the bottom of it in some way, Ormond. Roddy has never been the same since that foolery.”
“You’ve got over it.”
Murray buckled his belt, and wheeled to the head of the stairs.
“He may be paying instead of me,” he said, very low. “I don’t know. Come on, Ormond.”
Where a crowd foregathered in the dark street Murray took command, leading out to the river track and the heavy bush on the hills. Behind was music and the blushing laughter of girls, and a new-made bride; before lay death for themselves from an unseen bullet, or death for the boy who was already a murderer.
Not Maiden nor another woman could hold Lou when danger beckoned. Murray heard his careless jokes, and the sputter of laughter waked by them in the night, and his forehead went hot with sudden wrath.
“He’s the only one going for the fun of it,” he muttered to Ormond. “And, by Heaven! if he hurts the poor little beggar I’ll put a bullet into him myself.” Then he sent his voice out in command: ”There’s to be no rough handling! Remember that, men! The boy’s off his head, and I won’t have him messed with.”
There was a growl out of the dark.
“That’s all very fine, Murray. How if ’e goes plunkin’ lead inter us, eh?”
On the breast of the hill the bush was heavy, and vines tripped them, slashing faces with their thorns, or whipping back with the smarting sting of a supple-jack. The track Roddy had taken lay higher, among the delicate red birches and the straight-limbed matais; and the men climbed for it in haste, for they loved Scannell well, and more than one life was in danger this night.
The underway was rotten with long-fallen boles where the golden and scarlet mosses grew. It was bogged by springs hidden in ferns and in the little purple and red berries that spurt out their juices to the tread. Once a weka ran with a cry before the toe of Ike’s boot; but, for the rest, in all the mighty length and height of the bush was no sound save the crashing of men through the branches.
“It’s hot ’nuff fur another place ’sides this,” said Mogger, wiping green slime from his eyebrows; “an’ dark ’nuff fur ter lose anybody yer didn’t want ter fin’ agin, too. There’s some folk one cud do wi’ losin’—ef yer cud do it wi’out hurtin’ their feelin’s.”
“It’s never wise to think of another man’s feelings,” said Lou, beating the lawyer tangle aside. “You get underfoot each time you do it—and that is where the heat is bred, Mogger.”
Through the bush-thickness he burst on to the track; and the others following saw him struck out in scarlet, like the demon in a pantomime. Below in the gully of pine and tree fern, a welter of flame gallopped up to snatch at the way that led to Mains, and red tongues lapped the undergrowth, licking round the great trunks that barred them. The splash of raw scarlet was over the men with their startled faces; over the low sky behind the far hill; over the wild tracery of giant trees along the gully-rim. The snarl of it was in the air; filling the night with the clashing of falling branches, and the spitting of little springs, and the howl of the tall boles as they pitched downhill where the flames rioted. Flakes of fire blew up, settling softly in the darkness about the boys, and searing out the beauty of fern and creeper before they died.
A smother of smoke came on a sudden; black, choking and acrid. Murray buttoned his coat and turned his collar up.
“I’m only taking volunteers,” he said, “for we’ll have to run for it. Who is coming?”
Tod was fighting the blackness that stank of burning leaves and rottenness.
“Whisht, then!” he shouted. “Wud ye have us ahl tu Purgatory befure our toime, Murray? There’s a way back, yet, glory be!”
“And there’s Roddy ahead with a loaded rifle,” said Murray. “Are you going to let him get to Mains first? He’s taking death for someone with him, by all accounts.”
He tucked in his elbows, put his head down, and disappeared in the smoke. Ormond ran with him, step for step. Since the night in Pipi’s hut, Roddy had been rather dear to Murray, and Ormond knew it, fearing what might be when Murray faced the boy next.
“He—may not do any harm, Murray,” he gasped.
“But he will,” said Murray. “You know it—unless we’re there first. And I’d give ten years of my life to be on any other errand than this, Ormond.”
Ormond made no answer. For the smoke was tart on his eyes and on his lips, and his breath came uneven and laboured. Behind the boys fought, each according to his kind; choking, blackened, sweating; with curses; with Lou’s light jokes, poison-tipped, to gall them; with light lips and staggering unconquered strength. The flames were very near. They singed away Lou’s shirt sleeve and the hair of his arm. He ripped the burning thing off and ran on.
A shout from Murray blew back to them, and Steve interpreted it.
“He’s sighted Roddy. Put yer back inter it, yer wasters. We’ll nab him yet.”
The smoke whirled up into a solid column that rammed the sky and seemed to split it. The whole lurid world beneath was struck out in reds; and Roddy ran down the narrow cleared track with the semblance of blood on his face and hands. Murray leapt after, with long strides. And Ormond alone saw the pain in his set grimed face.
The fire clawed at the track with long thin fingers; shrivelled, then clawed again. The sweat ran thick off each man, and ahead Roddy was reeling. Murray heard the breath pumping in his chest as he closed up.
“Roddy!” he shouted. “Roddy! Stop!”
Roddy wheeled suddenly, and the spit of a bullet past Mogger’s cheek made him pause a moment to consider things. Lou chuckled, and Steve saw the reckless glee of his face.
“Shall we rush the young devil, Murray?” he shouted.
“No! Hands up, Roddy! You haven’t a hope, you know!”
Roddy’s hands moved over the stock uncertainly. His clothes were torn, and his young face was smudged with sweat and grime, and scored with lines that were new.
“Are you—goin’ to hurt me, Murray?” he said hoarsely.
For an instant Murray’s strong face quivered. Then his will took command.
“Very probably—if you don’t sling that thing down, Roddy.”
His finger crooked on the revolver trigger; but the rifle mouth covered him.
“Lie down behind there!” he shouted. “Now, Roddy!”
“I killed Art Scannell,” said Roddy, paying out his words separately. “They will do something to me for that, won’t they? Murray, will I swing for it?”
“I don’t know. Hands up, when I tell you!”
“Murray, you wouldn’t come arter me if I was to swing? I—I didn’t mean it.”
Ormond was biting his lips. His heart was very sore for Murray; but he did not forget Art Scannell, limp as a new-killed chicken, in his arms.
“Hands up, or I’ll shoot you, Roddy Duncan!”
Then Roddy’s answer came in a right and left that sent the boys to cover where the smoke bellied and the young flames were waking. Tod made just one remark.
“Be ahl things,” he said, “I’ll not be takin’ no penances from Father Denis this good while at ahl. Sure, they’re comin’ now tu the lot of us in a lump.”
Ormond heard Murray’s revolver crack in the new-come smarting dark; and he sprang with Murray to kneel on the thing that fought and bit and scratched, unseen.
Murray was sobbing in his throat.
“His shoulder!” he said. “Be careful, Ormond! I had to get him there. Roddy—it’s all right, old fellow.”
“Are they goin’ ter hurt me? Murray—Murray! you’re not goin’ ter let them hurt me?”
Ormond, reaching for the fallen rifle, saw Murray stoop and kiss the piteous stammering lips. And it was not smoke alone that smarted in his eyes as he came to his feet.
“Come on, you there!” he shouted. “Who’ll help carry the boy out of this?”
A hot blast poured over the track; with flame in it, and raging smoke, and the roar of a falling tree. It silenced all other sound as half the boys swept forward down the road to Mains. Steve and Tod were halted by the tree and the man who was caught beneath it, and Ike fled after his mates with a face of pure wordless horror.
Little flames licked Steve’s boot, and a puff of scorching air touched his cheek. He stood unmoving, while Tod, on his knees, tore at the branches in haste.
“Lou! Arrah, then, Lou! git away out ov that, befure the fire has us aiten up entoirely! Lou! Is it dead ye are down there?”
Lou was pinned by the middle. He beat his arms free, and the gay grin flashed in the blue eyes, crushing down the mortal pain.
“Go an’ chuck the earth out of its axis with a crowbar. Tod,” he said. “For you’ll do it before I’m out of this.”
The tree was skeleton-white in a death of long years. But no power save that of the fire would move it where it lay athwart the track. Steve came to his knees.
“Tell us what ter do,” he said stupidly. “We got ter git yer out, or the fire’ll have us all, Lou.”
A whirl-devil of fire spun along the tree, snatching at Lou’s hair, and dropping sparks on his face. Tod swept them off, his light eyes wild with fear.
“We’ll pull ye,” he cried. “Whisht, then, bhoy—git a howld of him, Steve!”
He wrenched the shoulders, and Lou struck at him, cursing:
“Don’t, you———! Let me alone! Ah-h!”
The sweat ran down his face, and Steve repeated, in a daze:
“Tell us what ter do. The fire’s comin’.”
The fire was on them; mocking, leaping, flinging cords of burning vine; and its shouting filled the night. Lou gripped Tod’s sleeve.
“Have you got a knife?” he said. “Or a bit of cord? Put an end to me somehow! Don’t leave me to be roasted alive!”
Tod shuddered down on the ground, stuttering.
“Ochone! Mary be good to us! Say yer prayers, then, Lou, for it’s the hand of God howldin’ ye, an’ no other.”
“Stop that blasted rot,” said Lou, fiercely, “Haven’t you got anything? Steve———”
His blue eyes were hard and bright and his voice grated. Under the smoke that all but smothered. Tod crept away, crazy with horror, and muttering prayers without end or beginning. Steve crushed out some burning leaves with his arm, and stooped lower.
“If I cud do anything—Lou; because as Maiden loved yer———”
Then Lou cursed him, in a fury of passion and pain. But there was no fear.
“Where’s your knife? Your clasp-knife? You had it, I know! Give it here, then, if you’ve not got the mercy to help me out yourself. Give it here!”
“Lou—I—I couldn’t! Oh—God———”
Lou tried to raise himself; fell back with oaths in his mouth, and twisted his hand in Steve’s trousers.
“You’ll burn too if you won’t give it up. Steve—you devil!”
Steve dragged his belt round and jerked the knife out. He thrust it into the eager hand as a blast of flame struck his face, blinding him, scorching hair from eyebrows and eyelids, and sending him, stupid and staggering, down the track before the fire.
He found sense only by the post and rail fence that led by way of a creek to Mains. Behind the fire raged and tossed great arms, crossing the hill to North-of-Sunday. Before lay the peace of the night, and Mains homestead in the hollow. He stumbled down to the whares that were full of light and noise. In the door someone stopped him, exclaiming. Steve looked down at his boots, yet dazed. A spurt of half-dried blood crossed them both.
“Lou were quick,” he said. “D——— quick!”
Then he staggered to the long table, laid his head on it and cried helplessly.
An hour later he was back in the township with Murray, knocking on the side door of the Hall and sending the gaping boy who came, for Maiden.
“An’ you’ll not tell her nuthin’,” commanded Steve, standing gaunt and ragged without the light shaft. “Jes’ ask her ter come a minit. Yer hear?”
The boy fled, and Murray spoke under the throb of the music:
“Plunk it straight, Steve. Let her know that you love her. It’ll be all right, man.”
“You think everything’s all right ’cause young Art ain’t dead,” said Steve bitterly. “I got ter tell her ’cause I seed him last. An’—what will she say ter me?”
Murray went away swiftly as Maiden came out to say it. The flowers on her white dress were crushed; but the brightness was on her cheeks yet, and in her eyes. Steve spoke out of the dark, sick at remembering all that had gone by in the few hours since he saw her last.
“There’s bin a big fire,” he said; “a big fire. I comed back—we ain’t all on us comed back, Maiden.”
Maiden had stood in the door, panting, the smile yet on her lips. At his voice she moved suddenly, her hands shut close on each other.
“Steve—you’re hurt! Steve, what are you speakin’ that way fur? Steve———”
“I’m bringin’ yer bad news, Maiden,” said Steve, slowly.
He came forward into the light. His shirt was torn and charred and one singed arm lay naked to the shoulder. His face was white and drawn under the grime and the smudged smoke, and trouble showed deep in his eyes.
“I—couldn’t help it, my girlie,” he said. “Maiden—I did what I could.”
“Steve—oh, what is it? Yer not hurt—bad? Steve! Tell me!”
“He weren’t fit fur yer. Maiden. But he were game. Ter the very last he were game, dear. He—oh, why was I sech a blamed fool as ter think I could tell yer! I can’t! I can’t!”
Maiden sprang to him, holding him about the neck and never heeding his tattered shirt against her whiteness.
“Steve! You never killed no one! Ah! Not that! Not that, Steve!”
“Killed him! No, dearie! But—he’s dead. Lou’s dead. Maiden. He died game. I near died with him.”
She leant back from him, her lips quivering between laughter and tears.
“And if you had I’d have never forgiven you, Steve. Steve, you silly boy! When you knew there was never anyone else but only you—only you!”
“Maiden! You never tolt me———”
“You never asked me, you mean,” she said.
Steve took her up in his great arms, and in that moment the dead man out on the ranges was forgotten.
“Well; ef I ain’t bin a d——— idjit!” he said solemnly.
FINIS