The Book of the Bush Part 13

The two shepherds were employed on a station north of Lake Nyalong.

It is a country full of dead volcanoes, whose craters have been turned into salt lakes, and their rolling floods of lava have been stiffened into barriers of black rocks; where the ashes belched forth in fiery blasts from the deep furnaces of a burning world have covered the hills and plains with perennial fertility.

Baldy had been entrusted with a fattening flock, and Nosey had in his care a lambing flock. From time to time the sheep were counted, and it was found that the fattening flock was decreasing in numbers. The squatter wanted to know what had become of his missing sheep, but Baldy could give no account of them. His suspicions, however, soon fell on Nosey. The latter was his nearest neighbour, and although he had only the same wages--viz., thirty pounds a year and rations-- he seemed to be unaccountably prosperous, and was the owner of a wife and two horses. He had been transported for larceny when he was only fifteen years of age, and at twenty-eight he was suspected of being still a thief. Girls of the same age were sent from Great Britain to Botany Bay and Van Diemen's Land for stealing one bit of finery, worth a shilling, and became the consorts of criminals of the deepest dye. You may read their names in the Indents to this day, together with their height, age, complexion, birthplace, and other important particulars.

Baldy went over to Nosey's hut one evening when the blue smoke was curling over the chimney, and the long shadows of the Wombat Hills were creeping over the Stoney Rises. Julia was boiling the billy for tea, and her husband was chopping firewood outside.

"Good evening, Julia," said Baldy; "fine evening."

"Same to you, Baldy. Any news to-day?" asked Julia.

"Well, there is," said Baldy, "and it's bad news for me; there's ten more of my fatteners missing" (Nosey stopped chopping and listened) "and the master says I'll have to hump my swag if I can't find out what has become of them. I say, Nosey, you don't happen to have seen any dingoes or blacks about here lately?"

"I ain't seen e'er a one, neither dingo nor blackfellow. But, you know, if they were after mischief they'd take care not to make a show. There might be stacks of them about and we never to see one of them."

Nosey was proud of his cunning.

"Well," said Baldy, "I can hear of n.o.body having seen any strangers about the Rises, nor dingoes, nor black fellows. And the dingoes, anyhow, would have left some of the carcases behind; but the thieves, whoever they are, have not left me as much as a lock of the wool of my sheep. I have been talking about 'em with old Sharp; he is the longest here of any shepherd in the country, and knows all the blacks, and he says it's his opinion the man who took the sheep is not far away from the flock now. What do you think about it, Nosey?"

"What the----should I know about your sheep?" said Nosey. "Do you mean to insinivate that I took 'em? I'll tell you what it is, Baldy; it'll be just as well for you to keep your blasted tongue quiet about your sheep, for if I hear any more about 'em, I'll see you for it; do you hear?"

"Oh, yes, I hear. All right, Nosey, we'll see about it," said Baldy.

There would have been a fight perhaps, but Baldy was a smaller man than the other and was growing old, while Nosey was in the prime of life.

Baldy went to Nyalong next day. His rations did not include gin, and he wanted some badly, the more so because he was in trouble about his lost sheep. Gin, known then as "Old Tom," was his favourite remedy for all ailments, both of mind and body. If he could not find out what had become of his sheep, his master might dismiss him without a character. There was not much good character running to waste on the stations, but still no squatter would like to entrust a flock to a shepherd who was suspected of having stolen and sold his last master's sheep.

Baldy walked to Nyalong along the banks of the lake. The country was then all open, unfenced, except the paddocks at the home stations.

The boundary between two of the runs was merely marked by a ploughed furrow, not very straight, which started near the lake, and went eastward along the plains. In the Rises no plough could make a line through the rocks, and the boundaries there were imaginary. Stray cattle were roaming over the country, eating the gra.s.s, and the main resource of the squatters was the Pounds Act. Hay was then sold at 80 pounds per ton at Bendigo; a draft of fat bullocks was worth a mine of gold at Ballarat, and, therefore, gra.s.s was everywhere precious. No wonder if the hardy bullock-driver became a cattle lifter after his team had been impounded by the station stockman when found only four hundred yards from the bush track. Money, in the shape of fat stock, was running loose, as it were, on every run, and why should not the sagacious Nosey do a little business when Baldy's fat sheep were tempting him, and a market for mutton could be found no farther away than the Nyalong butcher's shop.

Baldy left the township happier than usual, carrying under his arm two bottles of Old Tom. He was seen by a man who knew him entering the Rises, and going away in the direction of Nosey's hut, and then for fifteen years he was a lost shepherd. In course of time it was ascertained that he had called at Nosey's hut on his way home. He had the lost sheep on his mind, and he could not resist the impulse to have another word or two with Nosey about them. He put down the two bottles of gin outside the door of the hut, near an axe whose handle leaned against the wall. Nosey and his wife, Julia, were inside, and he bade them good evening. Then he took a piece of tobacco out of his pocket, and began cutting it with his knife. He always carried his knife tied to his belt by a string which went through a hole bored in the handle. It was a generally useful knife, and with it he foot-rotted sheep, stirred the tea in his billy, and cut beef and damper, sticks, and tobacco.

"I have been to Nyalong," he said, "and I heern something about my sheep; they went to the township all right, strayed away, you know, followed one another's tails, and never came back, the O. K. bullocks go just the same way. Curious, isn't it?"

Nosey listened with keen interest. "Well, Baldy," he said, "and what did you hear? Did you find out who took 'em?"

"Oh, yes," said Baldy; "I know pretty well all about 'em now, both sheep and bullocks. Old Sharp was right about the sheep, anyway.

The thief is not far from the flock, and it's not me." Baldy was brewing mischief for himself, but he did not know how much.

"Did you tell the police about 'em?" asked Nosey.

"Oh, no, not to-day!" answered Baldy. "Time enough yet. I ain't in no hurry to be an informer."

Nosey eyed him with unusual savagery, and said:

"Now didn't I tell you to say no more about your blasted sheep, or I'd see you for it? and here you are again, and you can't leave 'em alone. You are no better than a fool."

"Maybe I am a fool, Nosey. Just wait till I get a light, and I'll leave your hut and trouble you no more."

He was standing in the middle of the floor cutting his tobacco, and rubbing it between the palms of his hands, shaking his head, and eyeing the floor with a look of great sagacity.

Nosey went outside, and began walking to and fro, thinking and whispering to himself. It was a habit he had acquired while slowly sauntering after his sheep. He seemed to have another self, an invisible companion with whom he discussed whatever was uppermost in his mind. If he had then consulted his other self, Julia, he might have saved himself a world of trouble; but he did not think of her.

He said to himself: "Now, Nosey, if you don't mind, you are going to be in a hole. That old fool inside has found out something or other about the sheep, and the peelers will have you, if you don't look out, and they'll give you another seven years and maybe ten. You've done your time once, Nosey, and how would you like to do it again?

Why couldn't you leave the cursed sheep alone and keep out of mischief just when you were settling down in life comfortable, and might have a chance to do better. Baldy will be telling the peelers to-morrow all he knows about the sheep you stole, and then they'll fetch you, sure. There's only one thing to stop the old fool's jaw, and you are not game to do it, Nosey; you never done a man yet, and you are not game to do it now, and you'll be d.a.m.ned if you do it, and the devil will have you, and you'll be hanged first maybe. And if you don't do him you'll be lagged again for the sheep, and in my opinion, Nosey, you are not game. Yes, by the powers, you are, Nosey, d.a.m.ned if you ain't. Who's afeered? And you'll do it quick --do it quick. Now or never's your time."

While talking thus to himself, Nosey was pacing to and fro, and he glanced at the axe every time he pa.s.sed the door. The weapon was ready to his hand, and seemed to be inviting him to use it.

"Baldy is going to light his pipe, and while he is stooping to get a firestick, I'll do him with the axe."

When Baldy turned towards the fire, Nosey grasped the axe and held it behind him. He waited a moment, and then entered the hut; but Baldy either heard his step, or had some suspicion of danger, for he looked around before takingup a firestick. At that instant the blow, intended for the back of the head, struck him on the jaw, and he fell forward among the embers. For one brief moment of horror he must have realised that he was being murdered, and then another blow behind the head left him senseless.

Nosey dragged the body out of the fireplace into the middle of the floor, intending, while he was doing a man, to do him well. He raised the axe to finish his work with a third blow, but Julia gave a scream so piercing that his attention was diverted to her.

"Oh, Nosey," she said, "what are you doing to poor Baldy? You are murdering him."

Nosey turned to his wife with upraised axe.

"Hold your jaw, woman, and keep quiet, or I'll do as much for you."

She said no more. She was tall and stout, had small, sharp, roving eyes; and Nosey was a thick-set man, with a thin, prominent nose, sunken eyes, and overhanging brows. He never had a prepossessing appearance, and now his look and att.i.tude were so ugly and fierce that the big woman was completely cowed. The pair stood still for some time, watching the last convulsive movements of the murdered Baldy.

Nosey could now pride himself on having been "game to do his man,"

but he could not feel much glory in his work just yet. He had done it without sufficient forethought, and his mind was soon full of trouble.

Murder was worse than sheep stealing, and the consequences of his new venture in crime began to crowd on his mind with frightful rapidity.

He had not even thought of any plan for hiding away the corpse. He had no grave ready, and could not dig one anywhere in the neighbourhood. The whole of the country round his hut was rocky-- little hills of bare bluestone boulders, and gra.s.sy hollows covered with only a few inches of soil--rocks everywhere, above ground and below. He could burn the body, but it would take a long time to do it well; somebody might come while he was at the work, and even the ashes might betray his secret. There were shallow lakes and swamps, but he could not put the corpse into any of them with safety: search would be made wherever there was water, on the supposition that Baldy had been drowned after drinking too freely of the gin he had brought from Nyalong, and if the body was found, the appearance of the skull would show that death had been caused, not by drowning, but by the blows of that cursed axe. Nosey began to lay all the blame on the axe, and said, "If it had not stood up so handy near the door, I wouldn't have killed the man."

It was the axe that tempted him. Excuses of that sort are of a very ancient date.

Luckily Nosey owned two horses, one of which was old and quiet. He told Julia to fasten the door, and to open it on no account whatever, while he went for the horse, which was feeding in the Rises hobbled, and with a bell tied round his neck. When he returned he saddled the animal, and Julia held the bridle while he went into the hut for the body. He observed Baldy's pipe on the floor near the fire-place, and he replaced it in the pocket in which it had been usually kept, as it might not be safe to leave anything in the hut belonging to the murdered man. There was a little blood on the floor, but he would sc.r.a.pe that off by daylight, and he would then also look at the axe and put away the two bottles of gin somewhere; he could do all that next morning before Baldy was missed. But the corpse must be taken away at once, for he felt that every minute of delay might endanger his neck. He dragged the body outside, and with Julia's help lifted it up and placed it across the saddle. Then he tried to steady his load with his right hand, and to guide the horse by the bridle with his left, but he soon found that a dead man was a bad rider; Baldy kept slipping towards the near side or the off side with every stride of the horse, and soon fell to the ground.

Nosey was in a furious hurry, he was anxious to get away; he cursed Baldy for giving him so much trouble; he could have killed him over again for being so awkward and stubborn, and he begun to feel that the old shepherd was more dangerous dead than alive. At last he mounted his horse, and called to Julia to come and help him.

"Here, Julia, lift him up till I catch hold of his collar, and I'll pull him up in front of me on the saddle, and hold him that way."

Julia, with many stifled moans, raised the body from the ground, Nosey reached down and grasped the shirt collar, and thus the two managed to place the swag across the saddle. Then Nosey made a second start, carefully balancing the body, and keeping it from falling with his right hand, while he held the bridle with his left.

The funeral procession slowly wound its way in a westerly direction among the black rocks over the softest and smoothest ground to avoid making any noise. There was no telling what stockman or cattle-stealer the devil might send at any moment to meet the murderer among the lonely Rises, and even in the darkness his horrible burden would betray him. Nosey was disturbed by the very echo of his horse's steps; it seemed as if somebody was following him at a little distance; perhaps Julia, full of woman's curiosity; and he kept peering round and looking back into the darkness. In this way he travelled about a mile and a half, and then dismounting, lowered the body to the ground, and began to look for some suitable hiding place. He chose one among a confused heap of rocks, and by lifting some of them aside he made a shallow grave, to which he dragged the body, and covered it by piling boulders over and around it. He struck several matches to enable him to examine his work carefully, and closed up every crevice through which his buried treasure might be visible.

The next morning Nosey was astir early. He had an important part to act, and he was anxious to do it well. He first examined the axe and cleaned it well, carefully burning a few of Baldy's grey hairs which he found on it. Then he searched the floor for drops of blood, which he carefully sc.r.a.ped with a knife, and washed until no red spot was visible. Then he walked to Baldy's and pretended to himself that he was surprised to find it empty. What had happened the previous night was only a dream, an ugly dream. He met an acquaintance and told him that Baldy was neither in his hut nor with his sheep.

The two men called at old Sharp's hut to make enquiries. The latter said, "I seen Baldy's sheep yesterday going about in mobs, and n.o.body to look after them." Then the three men went to the deserted hut.

Everything in it seemed undisturbed. The dog was watching at the door, and they told him to seek Baldy. He p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, wagged his tail, and looked wistfully in the direction of Nosey's hut, evidently expecting his master to come in sight that way.

The men went to the nearest magistrate and informed him that the shepherd was missing. A messenger went to the head station.

Enquiries were made at the township, and it was found that Baldy had been to Nyalong the previous day, and had left in the evening carrying two bottles of gin. This circ.u.mstance seemed to account for his absence; he had taken too much of the liquor, was lying asleep somewhere, and would reappear in the course of the day. Men both on foot and on horseback roamed through the Rises, examining the hollows and the flats, the margins of the shallow lakes, and peering into every wombat hole as they pa.s.sed. They never thought of turning over any of the boulders; a drunken man would never make his bed and blanket of rocks; he would be found lying on the top if he had stumbled amongst them. One by one as night approached the searchers returned to the hut. They had discovered nothing, and the only conclusion they could come to was, that Baldy was taking a very long sleep somewhere--which was true enough.

Next day every man from the neighbouring stations, and some from Nyalong, joined in the search. The chief constable was there, and as became a professed detector of crime, he examined everything minutely inside and outside the two huts, but he could not find anything suspicious about either of them. He entered into conversation with Julia, but the eye of her husband was on her, and she had little to say. Nosey, on the contrary, was full of suggestions as to what might have happened to Baldy, and he helped to look for him eagerly and actively in every direction but the right one.