A Hero in Dingo-Scrubs.
This is a story--about the only one--of Job Falconer, Boss of theTalbragar sheep-station up country in New South Wales in the earlyEighties--when there were still runs in the Dingo-Scrubs out of thehands of the banks, and yet squatters who lived on their stations.
Job would never tell the story himself, at least not complete, and ashis family grew up he would become as angry as it was in his easy-goingnature to become if reference were made to the incident in his presence.But his wife--little, plump, bright-eyed Gerty Falconer--often told thestory (in the mysterious voice which women use in speaking of privatematters amongst themselves--but with brightening eyes) to women friendsover tea; and always to a new woman friend. And on such occasions shewould be particularly tender towards the unconscious Job, and ruffle histhin, sandy hair in a way that embarrassed him in company--made him lookas sheepish as an old big-horned ram that has just been shorn and turnedamongst the ewes. And the woman friend on parting would give Job's handa squeeze which would surprise him mildly, and look at him as if shecould love him.
According to a theory of mine, Job, to fit the story, should have beentall, and dark, and stern, or gloomy and quick-tempered. But he wasn't.He was fairly tall, but he was fresh-complexioned and sandy (his skinwas pink to scarlet in some weathers, with blotches of umber), and hiseyes were pale-grey; his big forehead loomed babyishly, his arms wereshort, and his legs bowed to the saddle. Altogether he was an awkward,unlovely Bush bird--on foot; in the saddle it was different. He hadn'teven a 'temper'.
The impression on Job's mind which many years afterwards brought aboutthe incident was strong enough. When Job was a boy of fourteen he sawhis father's horse come home riderless--circling and snorting up by thestockyard, head jerked down whenever the hoof trod on one of the snappedends of the bridle-reins, and saddle twisted over the side with bruisedpommel and knee-pad broken off.
Job's father wasn't hurt much, but Job's mother, an emotional woman, andthen in a delicate state of health, survived the shock for three monthsonly. 'She wasn't quite right in her head,' they said, 'from the daythe horse came home till the last hour before she died.' And, strange tosay, Job's father (from whom Job inherited his seemingly placid nature)died three months later. The doctor from the town was of the opinionthat he must have 'sustained internal injuries' when the horse threwhim. 'Doc. Wild' (eccentric Bush doctor) reckoned that Job's father washurt inside when his wife died, and hurt so badly that he couldn't pullround. But doctors differ all over the world.
Well, the story of Job himself came about in this way. He had beenmarried a year, and had lately started wool-raising on a pastoral leasehe had taken up at Talbragar: it was a new run, with new slab-and-barkhuts on the creek for a homestead, new shearing-shed, yards--wife andeverything new, and he was expecting a baby. Job felt brand-new himselfat the time, so he said. It was a lonely place for a young woman;but Gerty was a settler's daughter. The newness took away some of theloneliness, she said, and there was truth in that: a Bush home in thescrubs looks lonelier the older it gets, and ghostlier in the twilight,as the bark and slabs whiten, or rather grow grey, in fierce summers.And there's nothing under God's sky so weird, so aggressively lonely, asa deserted old home in the Bush.
Job's wife had a half-caste gin for company when Job was away on therun, and the nearest white woman (a hard but honest Lancashire womanfrom within the kicking radius in Lancashire--wife of a selector) wasonly seven miles away. She promised to be on hand, and came over two orthree times a-week; but Job grew restless as Gerty's time drew near, andwished that he had insisted on sending her to the nearest town (thirtymiles away), as originally proposed. Gerty's mother, who lived in town,was coming to see her over her trouble; Job had made arrangements withthe town doctor, but prompt attendance could hardly be expected of adoctor who was very busy, who was too fat to ride, and who lived thirtymiles away.
Job, in common with most Bushmen and their families round there, hadmore faith in Doc. Wild, a weird Yankee who made medicine in a saucepan,and worked more cures on Bushmen than did the other three doctors ofthe district together--maybe because the Bushmen had faith in him, orhe knew the Bush and Bush constitutions--or, perhaps, because he'd dothings which no 'respectable practitioner' dared do. I've described himin another story. Some said he was a quack, and some said he wasn't.There are scores of wrecks and mysteries like him in the Bush. He drankfearfully, and 'on his own', but was seldom incapable of performing anoperation. Experienced Bushmen preferred him three-quarters drunk: whenperfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky. He was tall, gaunt, hada pointed black moustache, bushy eyebrows, and piercing black eyes. Hismovements were eccentric. He lived where he happened to be--in a townhotel, in the best room of a homestead, in the skillion of a sly-grogshanty, in a shearer's, digger's, shepherd's, or boundary-rider's hut;in a surveyor's camp or a black-fellows' camp--or, when the horrors wereon him, by a log in the lonely Bush. It seemed all one to him. He lostall his things sometimes--even his clothes; but he never lost a pigskinbag which contained his surgical instruments and papers. Except once;then he gave the blacks 5 Pounds to find it for him.
His patients included all, from the big squatter to Black Jimmy; and herode as far and fast to a squatter's home as to a swagman's camp. Whennothing was to be expected from a poor selector or a station hand, andthe doctor was hard up, he went to the squatter for a few pounds. Hehad on occasions been offered cheques of 50 Pounds and 100 Pounds bysquatters for 'pulling round' their wives or children; but such offersalways angered him. When he asked for 5 Pounds he resented being offereda 10 Pound cheque. He once sued a doctor for alleging that he held nodiploma; but the magistrate, on reading certain papers, suggested asettlement out of court, which both doctors agreed to--the other doctorapologising briefly in the local paper. It was noticed thereafterthat the magistrate and town doctors treated Doc. Wild with greatrespect--even at his worst. The thing was never explained, and the casedeepened the mystery which surrounded Doc. Wild.
As Job Falconer's crisis approached Doc. Wild was located at a shantyon the main road, about half-way between Job's station and the town.(Township of Come-by-Chance--expressive name; and the shanty was the'Dead Dingo Hotel', kept by James Myles--known as 'Poisonous Jimmy',perhaps as a compliment to, or a libel on, the liquor he sold.) Job'sbrother Mac. was stationed at the Dead Dingo Hotel with instructionsto hang round on some pretence, see that the doctor didn't either drinkhimself into the 'D.T.'s' or get sober enough to become restless; toprevent his going away, or to follow him if he did; and to bring himto the station in about a week's time. Mac. (rather more careless,brighter, and more energetic than his brother) was carrying out theseinstructions while pretending, with rather great success, to be himselfon the spree at the shanty.
But one morning, early in the specified week, Job's uneasiness wassuddenly greatly increased by certain symptoms, so he sent the black boyfor the neighbour's wife and decided to ride to Come-by-Chance to hurryout Gerty's mother, and see, by the way, how Doc. Wild and Mac. weregetting on. On the arrival of the neighbour's wife, who drove over in aspring-cart, Job mounted his horse (a freshly broken filly) and started.
'Don't be anxious, Job,' said Gerty, as he bent down to kiss her. 'We'llbe all right. Wait! you'd better take the gun--you might see thosedingoes again. I'll get it for you.'
The dingoes (native dogs) were very bad amongst the sheep; and Job andGerty had started three together close to the track the last time theywere out in company--without the gun, of course. Gerty took the loadedgun carefully down from its straps on the bedroom wall, carried it out,and handed it up to Job, who bent and kissed her again and then rodeoff.
It was a hot day--the beginning of a long drought, as Job found to hisbitter cost. He followed the track for five or six miles through thethick, monotonous scrub, and then turned off to make a short cut to themain road across a big ring-barked flat. The tall gum-trees had beenring-barked (a ring of bark taken out round the butts), or rather'sapped'--that is,
a ring cut in through the sap--in order to kill them,so that the little strength in the 'poor' soil should not be drawn outby the living roots, and the natural grass (on which Australian stockdepends) should have a better show. The hard, dead trees raised theirbarkless and whitened trunks and leafless branches for three or fourmiles, and the grey and brown grass stood tall between, dying in thefirst breaths of the coming drought. All was becoming grey and ashenhere, the heat blazing and dancing across objects, and the pale brassydome of the sky cloudless over all, the sun a glaring white disc withits edges almost melting into the sky. Job held his gun carelessly ready(it was a double-barrelled muzzle-loader, one barrel choke-bore forshot, and the other rifled), and he kept an eye out for dingoes. He wassaving his horse for a long ride, jogging along in the careless Bushfashion, hitched a little to one side--and I'm not sure that he didn'thave a leg thrown up and across in front of the pommel of the saddle--hewas riding along in the careless Bush fashion, and thinkingfatherly thoughts in advance, perhaps, when suddenly a great black,greasy-looking iguana scuttled off from the side of the track amongstthe dry tufts of grass and shreds of dead bark, and started up asapling. 'It was a whopper,' Job said afterwards; 'must have been oversix feet, and a foot across the body. It scared me nearly as much as thefilly.'
The filly shied off like a rocket. Job kept his seat instinctively,as was natural to him; but before he could more than grab at therein--lying loosely on the pommel--the filly 'fetched up' against a deadbox-tree, hard as cast-iron, and Job's left leg was jammed from stirrupto pocket. 'I felt the blood flare up,' he said, 'and I knowed thatthat'--(Job swore now and then in an easy-going way)--'I knowed thatthat blanky leg was broken alright. I threw the gun from me and freedmy left foot from the stirrup with my hand, and managed to fall to theright, as the filly started off again.'
What follows comes from the statements of Doc. Wild and Mac. Falconer,and Job's own 'wanderings in his mind', as he called them. 'They tooka blanky mean advantage of me,' he said, 'when they had me down and Icouldn't talk sense.'
The filly circled off a bit, and then stood staring--as a mob ofbrumbies, when fired at, will sometimes stand watching the smoke. Job'sleg was smashed badly, and the pain must have been terrible. But hethought then with a flash, as men do in a fix. No doubt the scene atthe lonely Bush home of his boyhood started up before him: his father'shorse appeared riderless, and he saw the look in his mother's eyes.
Now a Bushman's first, best, and quickest chance in a fix like this isthat his horse go home riderless, the home be alarmed, and the horse'stracks followed back to him; otherwise he might lie there for days, forweeks--till the growing grass buries his mouldering bones. Job was on anold sheep-track across a flat where few might have occasion to come formonths, but he did not consider this. He crawled to his gun, then to alog, dragging gun and smashed leg after him. How he did it he doesn'tknow. Half-lying on one side, he rested the barrel on the log, took aimat the filly, pulled both triggers, and then fell over and lay with hishead against the log; and the gun-barrel, sliding down, rested on hisneck. He had fainted. The crows were interested, and the ants would comeby-and-by.
Now Doc. Wild had inspirations; anyway, he did things which seemed,after they were done, to have been suggested by inspiration and in noother possible way. He often turned up where and when he was wantedabove all men, and at no other time. He had gipsy blood, they said; but,anyway, being the mystery he was, and having the face he had, and livingthe life he lived--and doing the things he did--it was quite probablethat he was more nearly in touch than we with that awful invisible worldall round and between us, of which we only see distorted faces and heardisjointed utterances when we are 'suffering a recovery'--or going mad.
On the morning of Job's accident, and after a long brooding silence,Doc. Wild suddenly said to Mac. Falconer--
'Git the hosses, Mac. We'll go to the station.'
Mac., used to the doctor's eccentricities, went to see about the horses.
And then who should drive up but Mrs Spencer--Job's mother-in-law--onher way from the town to the station. She stayed to have a cup of teaand give her horses a feed. She was square-faced, and considered arather hard and practical woman, but she had plenty of solid flesh, goodsympathetic common-sense, and deep-set humorous blue eyes. She livedin the town comfortably on the interest of some money which her husbandleft in the bank. She drove an American waggonette with a good widthand length of 'tray' behind, and on this occasion she had a pole and twohorses. In the trap were a new flock mattress and pillows, a generouspair of new white blankets, and boxes containing necessaries,delicacies, and luxuries. All round she was an excellent mother-in-lawfor a man to have on hand at a critical time.
And, speaking of mother-in-law, I would like to put in a word for herright here. She is universally considered a nuisance in times of peaceand comfort; but when illness or serious trouble comes home! Then it's'Write to Mother! Wire for Mother! Send some one to fetch Mother! I'llgo and bring Mother!' and if she is not near: 'Oh, I wish Mother werehere! If Mother were only near!' And when she is on the spot, theanxious son-in-law: 'Don't YOU go, Mother! You'll stay, won't you,Mother?--till we're all right? I'll get some one to look after yourhouse, Mother, while you're here.' But Job Falconer was fond of hismother-in-law, all times.
Mac. had some trouble in finding and catching one of the horses. MrsSpencer drove on, and Mac. and the doctor caught up to her about a milebefore she reached the homestead track, which turned in through thescrubs at the corner of the big ring-barked flat.
Doc. Wild and Mac. followed the cart-road, and as they jogged along inthe edge of the scrub the doctor glanced once or twice across the flatthrough the dead, naked branches. Mac. looked that way. The crows werehopping about the branches of a tree way out in the middle of the flat,flopping down from branch to branch to the grass, then rising hurriedlyand circling.
'Dead beast there!' said Mac. out of his Bushcraft.
'No--dying,' said Doc. Wild, with less Bush experience but moreintellect.
'There's some steers of Job's out there somewhere,' muttered Mac. Thensuddenly, 'It ain't drought--it's the ploorer at last! or I'm blanked!'
Mac. feared the advent of that cattle-plague, pleuro-pneumonia, whichwas raging on some other stations, but had been hitherto kept clear ofJob's run.
'We'll go and see, if you like,' suggested Doc. Wild.
They turned out across the flat, the horses picking their way amongstthe dried tufts and fallen branches.
'Theer ain't no sign o' cattle theer,' said the doctor; 'more likely aewe in trouble about her lamb.'
'Oh, the blanky dingoes at the sheep,' said Mac. 'I wish we had agun--might get a shot at them.'
Doc. Wild hitched the skirt of a long China silk coat he wore, free ofa hip-pocket. He always carried a revolver. 'In case I feel obliged toshoot a first person singular one of these hot days,' he explained once,whereat Bushmen scratched the backs of their heads and thought feebly,without result.
'We'd never git near enough for a shot,' said the doctor; then hecommenced to hum fragments from a Bush song about the finding of a lostBushman in the last stages of death by thirst,--
'"The crows kept flyin' up, boys! The crows kept flyin' up! The dog, he seen and whimpered, boys, Though he was but a pup."'
'It must be something or other,' muttered Mac. 'Look at them blankycrows!'
'"The lost was found, we brought him round, And took him from the place, While the ants was swarmin' on the ground, And the crows was sayin' grace!"'
'My God! what's that?' cried Mac., who was a little in advance and rodea tall horse.
It was Job's filly, lying saddled and bridled, with a rifle-bullet (asthey found on subsequent examination) through shoulders and chest, andher head full of kangaroo-shot. She was feebly rocking her head againstthe ground, and marking the dust with her hoof, as if trying to writethe reason of it there.
The doctor drew his revolver, took a cartridge from his wais
tcoatpocket, and put the filly out of her misery in a very scientific manner;then something--professional instinct or the something supernaturalabout the doctor--led him straight to the log, hidden in the grass,where Job lay as we left him, and about fifty yards from the dead filly,which must have staggered off some little way after being shot. Mac.followed the doctor, shaking violently.
'Oh, my God!' he cried, with the woman in his voice--and his face sopale that his freckles stood out like buttons, as Doc. Wild said--'oh,my God! he's shot himself!'
'No, he hasn't,' said the doctor, deftly turning Job into a healthierposition with his head from under the log and his mouth to the air: thenhe ran his eyes and hands over him, and Job moaned. 'He's got abroken leg,' said the doctor. Even then he couldn't resist making acharacteristic remark, half to himself: 'A man doesn't shoot himselfwhen he's going to be made a lawful father for the first time, unless hecan see a long way into the future.' Then he took out his whisky-flaskand said briskly to Mac., 'Leave me your water-bag' (Mac. carried acanvas water-bag slung under his horse's neck), 'ride back to the track,stop Mrs Spencer, and bring the waggonette here. Tell her it's only abroken leg.'
Mac. mounted and rode off at a break-neck pace.
As he worked the doctor muttered: 'He shot his horse. That's what gitsme. The fool might have lain there for a week. I'd never have suspectedspite in that carcass, and I ought to know men.'
But as Job came round a little Doc. Wild was enlightened.
'Where's the filly?' cried Job suddenly between groans.
'She's all right,' said the doctor.
'Stop her!' cried Job, struggling to rise--'stop her!--oh God! my leg.'
'Keep quiet, you fool!'
'Stop her!' yelled Job.
'Why stop her?' asked the doctor. 'She won't go fur,' he added.
'She'll go home to Gerty,' shouted Job. 'For God's sake stop her!'
'O--h!' drawled the doctor to himself. 'I might have guessed that. And Iought to know men.'
'Don't take me home!' demanded Job in a semi-sensible interval. 'Take meto Poisonous Jimmy's and tell Gerty I'm on the spree.'
When Mac. and Mrs Spencer arrived with the waggonette Doc. Wild was inhis shirt-sleeves, his Chinese silk coat having gone for bandages. Thelower half of Job's trouser-leg and his 'lastic-side boot lay on theground, neatly cut off, and his bandaged leg was sandwiched betweentwo strips of bark, with grass stuffed in the hollows, and bound bysaddle-straps.
'That's all I kin do for him for the present.'
Mrs Spencer was a strong woman mentally, but she arrived rather pale anda little shaky: nevertheless she called out, as soon as she got withinearshot of the doctor--
'What's Job been doing now?' (Job, by the way, had never been remarkablefor doing anything.)
'He's got his leg broke and shot his horse,' replied the doctor. 'But,'he added, 'whether he's been a hero or a fool I dunno. Anyway, it's amess all round.'
They unrolled the bed, blankets, and pillows in the bottom of the trap,backed it against the log, to have a step, and got Job in. It was aticklish job, but they had to manage it: Job, maddened by pain and heat,only kept from fainting by whisky, groaning and raving and yelling tothem to stop his horse.
'Lucky we got him before the ants did,' muttered the doctor. Then he hadan inspiration--
'You bring him on to the shepherd's hut this side the station. We mustleave him there. Drive carefully, and pour brandy into him now and then;when the brandy's done pour whisky, then gin--keep the rum till thelast' (the doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette atPoisonous Jimmy's). 'I'll take Mac.'s horse and ride on and send Peter'(the station hand) 'back to the hut to meet you. I'll be back myself ifI can. THIS BUSINESS WILL HURRY UP THINGS AT THE STATION.'
Which last was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor'swhich no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for--except inDoc. Wild's madness.
He rode off at a gallop. The burden of Job's raving, all the way, restedon the dead filly--
'Stop her! She must not go home to Gerty!... God help me shoot!...Whoa!--whoa, there!... "Cope--cope--cope"--Steady, Jessie, old girl....Aim straight--aim straight! Aim for me, God!--I've missed!... Stop her!'&c.
'I never met a character like that,' commented the doctor afterwards,'inside a man that looked like Job on the outside. I've met men behindrevolvers and big mustarshes in Califo'nia; but I've met a derned sightmore men behind nothing but a good-natured grin, here in Australia.These lanky sawney Bushmen will do things in an easy-going way some daythat'll make the old world sit up and think hard.'
He reached the station in time, and twenty minutes or half an hourlater he left the case in the hands of the Lancashire woman--whom he sawreason to admire--and rode back to the hut to help Job, whom they soonfixed up as comfortably as possible.
They humbugged Mrs Falconer first with a yarn of Job's allegedphenomenal shyness, and gradually, as she grew stronger, and the truthless important, they told it to her. And so, instead of Job beingpushed, scarlet-faced, into the bedroom to see his first-born, GertyFalconer herself took the child down to the hut, and so presented UncleJob with my first and favourite cousin and Bush chum.
Doc. Wild stayed round until he saw Job comfortably moved to thehomestead, then he prepared to depart.
'I'm sorry,' said Job, who was still weak--'I'm sorry for that therefilly. I was breaking her in to side-saddle for Gerty when she shouldget about. I wouldn't have lost her for twenty quid.'
'Never mind, Job,' said the doctor. 'I, too, once shot an animal I wasfond of--and for the sake of a woman--but that animal walked on two legsand wore trousers. Good-bye, Job.'
And he left for Poisonous Jimmy's.