The Tracks We Tread/Chapter 5
Chapter V
“It’s about time you came down for them,” said Murray. “I ran in three of ’em Thursday night, and the whole gang has been playing Old Harry to-day.”
Murray had been making particular investigation in the township; but this told no more than Purdey knew already.
“What the merry springtime can you expect?” he said. “They’ve had a savage seven months of it up in the hills, and they were just sick for the smell of the township again. They’ll work up to the knocker once I rope ’em back to camp. But you must give a man one chance in the year to blue his cheque. And if you’ll just shut your eyes to a bit of larking———”
“Faith! I’ve had to shut more than my eyes already, my innocent! They have been painting the town red this week-end, and shouting drinks for every mother’s son that can stand up to it. There’s a big hairy brute with one ear gone———”
“Pug Chaney? Yes; I don’t think he would be quite your style. But he’s a first-flight axeman, Murray. If you want to make an example of some of ’em leave me him. I can’t do without Pug.”
Beyond Lonely Hill and beyond North-of-Sunday, Purdey contracted the working of the saw-mill in the Big Bush for Scannell. The strait years through he ruled near a hundred men, all told; and it was only when the frost struck the heavy snow to flint for perhaps a clipped week in the winter, or again when spring floods swamped them out, that Purdey’s camp ran wild; taking payment in the township bars for lean labour-filled days, and grinding Murray down to the bed-rock of desperation and profanity.
“For not all Mains and Behar on an election-night—no, nor on a race-night, either—can see the way your men go when they foregather down here, Purdey. Though I will say you make ’em sweat for it once you’ve got them into the chains.”
Purdey grinned slowly. He was young and soft-voiced and quiet. But the wills of eighteen men out of twenty broke before his when they followed him over the severing tide-way of two worlds, and came under the dominion of the bush.
“I take delivery up at camp,” he said. “They’re to your interest down here—not mine.”
A blast of sound rolled down the street, mixed with the rattle of wheels. A handful of Purdey’s men were driving round the fifteen corners of the township with six beaten kerosene-tins and a couple of concertinas.
Murray moved in his chair uneasily, and shook out his pipe.
“I’ll have to go out and kick up a shine directly, you know,” he said. “Where d’you rake ’em up from, Purdey? They are quite the hardest filings I ever broke a knife over.”
Purdey sleeked his little fair moustache with slow fingers.
“A man’s not a man without a splash of the brute in him,” he said. “They are not pretty; but they’re tough. The bush won’t have weaklings. I bully-dam them from the jump, and if they play up they know it. But, bless you, if I kick them out they come back the next year with their tails down. It’s like to like, and no other job can hold them for long. When the bush calls they’ve got to answer, if it strips half their life off ’em.”
“I know. You see it in every caste. They must run with their own mob; for their ear-mark is struck, and the brand of the wild is on their shoulders. Now, by all the ——— there go the Salvation Army lassies. Three of ’em. I made sure they’d have the sense to lie low to-night. Purdey, those pet lambs of yours will be raising Cain directly. Come on.”
Murray was in plain clothes; but he carried a revolver. Tact would be needed this night; with perhaps straight hitting, and the threat of a shot sent wide. The side-street, with its one lamp at the corner, was given over to a cow cropping grass by the foot-path; but the next flickered with lanterns and roared with sound as the two ran into it. The bleared red eye above Phelan’s door rocked where someone struck the lamp-edge with a stick, chanting a song that made Murray’s ears flame. Purdey’s grip held his arm.
“You’ll get kiboshed if you jump into that,” he said. “They’re drunk as lords. Let him sing. There’s no one at Phelan’s but the old man; and Cox is a pretty muddy puddle if he can harm Phelan. Oh, by Jove! Ring those lassies off———”
The three girls paused on the curb, and lifted a hymn, sweet and clear. By order of the belief which they serve, it is the lassies who pray on the street comers; standing pitiful and unafraid, among the rinsings that wash through all townships, and out again into the unknown. And there is no man so sinful but he will respect the lassies—unless the hand of drink is too heavy on him. From Blake’s bar-parlour Randal heard the first notes of the hymn, and the shout of coarse laughter that followed.
“Come on,” he said, and no more. But eight men pelted after him over the street.
It was to Tod’s eternal sorrow that he was not in Blake’s parlour that night. Lou told all in unblemished vividness later, with the Packer to grunt the burden; and the middle piece came once from Steve when his great blundering heart ached for the unburdening.
“I was mad,” he said. (This was up a dried water-course under the stars, with no one to hear but Tod.) “I was blind, blazin’ mad. What sense had Maiden ter go takin’ up wi’ the Army, an’ ter go singin’ in the street? An’ she innercent as a little soft-breasted bush-wren, an’ them Army lassies hevin’ ter wade roun’ in all the devil’s evil o’ the world. It was Randal cut us out a way through the ruck, wi’ his head under his arms same as we does in a football rush—near got squished too, he did. I hed holt on her ter carry her out ’fore I knew who it was. There was Pug Chaney wi’ his arm roun’ her———” Steve looked down at his knuckles. “Tuk near as much skin offen him as offen them,” he said.
“I was fancyin’ as it was Lou brart her out,” said Tod. “It was Lou she was walkin’ wid up to the cemet’ry lasht avenin’.”
“Was she?” Steve’s voice roughened. “I didn’t think—but she ain’t spoke to me sence last night, an’ Lou—he caught her hand when I was lightin’ out wi’ her, an’ he kissed it. ‘You’re brave. Maiden,’ he said, an’ was inter the thick of it agin ’fore I could lash him. An’ I—I was blind mad—when I set her down at the corner she was cryin’, an’ I was sick wi’ thinkin’ o’ what she’d heard. So I messed it up straight. ‘’Take shame ter yerself,’ I said, ‘ter go listenin’ ter foulness not fit fur men. Git yer home an’ ter bed, an’ furgit it.’ An’ she run from me; up an’ in at the door, an’ I went back———”
“Well then?” asked Tod after a pause.
Steve’s fingers gripped the tussock-tufts until the life flew from them in spurted earth.
“I reckon I did some good work fur Murray.” Then he sat upright, his voice shaken with passion. “Tod—did you ever want ter kill? Ter git on a man, an’ break the back of him, an’ ter see him dyin’ under yer hands———”
“Bedad, I disremimber if iver I did,” said Tod, startled. “Ye’re not afther feelin’ that away wid me, Steve; are ye now?”
“I would hev killed Lou ef I’d had him under me boots in that mix-up,” said Steve slowly. “Maybe I’ll kill him yet.”
“There’s more than wan wud kill Lou with delight,” said Tod, ruminating. “What does he bring Roddy Duncan tu Blake’s for but to git Randal woild wid his gab of Art Scannell an’ Miss Effie? I seen Randal wid murder in the black face of him more than wanst.”
“Art and Roddy were in Phelan’s wi’ the rest,” said Steve, coming to his feet clumsily. “I saw Roddy cryin’ like the girl-baby he is.”
Randal had seen more than that when he burst through the welter of men. In the red of the bar and the lamp Art Scannell stood, capless and coatless, drumming the tambourine snatched from Maiden, and shouting words that brought Randal’s clapped hand over his mouth. Art struck him without delay. Then the surge of the struggle swung them apart. The black night rocked with shouts and cursing and ribald laughter. On a wave-crest Steve’s face gleamed white, with drops of sweat on the forehead, and Randal heard the crack of his shut fist once and again. Came a flash of Roddy’s scared boy-face where great hands forced him down on his knee-bones. Into the tossed wrath and fury, and the stench of spirits and heated men, Murray’s voice clanged like struck iron. Purdey was laughing on the outskirts. It was for Murray to handle these men down here. He would wring out his own payment beyond North-of-Sunday.
Somewhere out of the blaring sounds reared Pug Chaney’s challenging war-note, and Lou answered with his light glad laugh, and the lithe spring of a seeking tiger. The two went down beneath the turning boots, and Randal baulked Murray’s charge with his shoulder. Murray staggered sideways, and Randal saw Ormond’s strong clean-cut face behind. His teeth caught on his lip as he wrenched Murray’s hands from Art’s sleeve.
“Take Pug if you want someone for your credit’s sake,” he said. “But I’m hanged if you’ll touch Art Scannell.”
Ormond had Roddy Duncan upright and half-sheltered by his arm. He paused one instant before buffetting out a track through the locked and reeking bodies.
“Randal—don’t be a fool,” he cried. “Murray has the law———.”
Then the crowd surged in, and Randal understood through the whirl of blood-hot haste that Murray was struggling with swinging handcuffs. He heard the clink as they brushed Art’s arm. He struck straight from the shoulder, and Murray dropped without remark. Then Randal beat a way out to the dark, and the far pure stars, and silence.
The unholy excitement that calls up the beast in man was abroad in the air, and Lou rode on the blast of it; gay, quick-fisted, and undistressed. The Packer, who nursed a twisted arm for a full three weeks, averred that it was Lou who brought peace at the dawning when he turned the mob into Phelan’s bar for another round of nips, and helped Murray and two more to select the ringleaders where they lay in an unmoving slumber.
Randal came to Murray in the red morning. His lip was swelled, and he was not otherwise good to look on.
“It was I who floored you last night,” he said. “Shall I show up at the court with the others?”
Murray walked with a stick, and his hand was skinned. He met Randal’s eyes.
“No,” he said.
Randal flushed.
“I’m not asking your confounded mercy,” he said savagely.
“You wouldn’t get it if you were. Took young Art home all right, did you?”
“Yes,” said Randal, and turned on his heel. “Tell Ormond I came to give myself up,” he added.