Читать книгу Madman's Bend - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 5

Axe and Bullet

The girl sat in a rocking-chair, and on the end of the table beside her lay a .32 Winchester repeating rifle. Four yards separated her from the rear door of the large living-room and, like the front door and all the windows, that door was bolted.

The house was built on a high, level spur stabbing at the Darling River, and it nestled against a wide arc of red-gums. A cold wind blowing hard through the night from the far-distant Southern Highlands complained angrily at the obstructing gums, preventing the girl from hearing what she listened for—the arrival of a utility driven by her stepfather.

She was not quite nineteen, physically strong, her body filling her poplin blouse and man’s trousers and making them appear too small for her. Beneath the broad forehead the dark eyes seldom blinked in the lamplight, and the wide mouth maintained its signal of determined purpose. The lamplight occasionally gleamed on her dark hair, and pitilessly revealed the ravages of sun and wind on her complexion. Hard work had roughened her hands.

From an inner room a woman moaned and then called, “Jill! Give me more aspirin.”

Jill Madden turned up the wick of the lamp on the chest of drawers, where stood a jug of water, a bottle of aspirin, and salves. The woman’s eyes were bandaged; the girl had to raise her on the bed and push the tablets gently between her lacerated lips.

“Still hurting, dear?” she asked compassionately, and after the woman had taken a little of the water she added, “Just try to sleep.”

Her mother sighed as the girl lowered her to the pillow, and said, “It’s mostly my ribs where he kicked me. And my eyes and nose feel like hot irons. But don’t take on, Jill. I’ll be better presently. I’m sure I will.”

“If you’re not by morning I’m ringing the policeman. You and I have reached the limit, and we’ll have no more of it.”

“We mustn’t,” protested the woman. “I’ll be better in the morning, and then we’ll talk to your father. He’ll have to mend his ways, and stop his drinking. You must never call Constable Lucas. We can’t have a scandal. I’ve made my bed and must lie on it.”

The girl checked herself from vigorously denying that William Lush was her father, saying instead, “All right, dear. We’ll wait till the morning. Now just try to rest, just try.”

Mrs Lush sighed again, and, having turned down the wick of the lamp, her daughter stood awhile by the chest of drawers before returning to her rocking-chair and making a cigarette with expert fingers. The old American clock on the mantel above the range bonged once. It was half past eleven. Her “father” should not be long now. He was a careful driver; in fact, much more careful when drunk than when sober. He would certainly be drunk when he left White Bend to drive home through the cold of the windy mid-winter night, and in him all the slights would be bottled tight to be poured out on his wife. Yes, a careful man, one who minded his p’s and q’s in company, but without inhibitions when with those he dominated.

Jill Madden had been out that afternoon mustering sheep into a paddock farther from the river, which was expected to flood within a week. Returning home at about five, she had found her mother on the living-room floor, badly injured and shocked. Not delaying to investigate causes, she had lifted her mother into the bedroom, undressed her and tended the multiple injuries with the bush aids to hand. When the victim of brutal assault was quieter, the girl had learned that her stepfather had wanted a cheque from his wife and had gone berserk when she refused.

The history of this small pastoral property was not uncommon. Forty thousand acres had been taken from a very large leasehold and transferred to Edward Madden by the Western Land Board under the Closer Settlement Act. Madden had himself built his house on the spur of higher ground on the west side of the Darling River, and here Jill had been born. Madden had died when the girl was sixteen years old. During the last year of his life he had been a semi-invalid, and Jill had come home from a boarding-school to help him and take the place of a hired hand. After his death Mrs Madden, compelled to hire a man, had engaged William Lush, an itinerant stockman down from Queensland. The following year she had married him. A month after the marriage Lush had revealed his nature, and life at Madden’s Selection had rapidly deteriorated.

Lush had asked his wife for a cheque for three hundred pounds with which to settle debts incurred at the small township of White Bend. When she had refused because her account at the bank would have been unable to meet it, he had proceeded to punch her, knock her to the floor and kick her. He had then driven off to the township, twenty-four miles down-river.

The attack had been but one of a series, and the worst. Fear, plus her mother’s aversion to scandal, had so far prevented Jill from complaining to the police or to the people at the homestead of Mira Station on the far side of the river; but tonight fear was subdued by desperation, and desperation sired determination to counter violence with violence. It was, of course, impossible to predict accurately the time of her stepfather’s return. Jill knew that he had little cash. He could get credit at the hotel, but it would be limited, and as Lush was the type who must keep up a bold front he would certainly leave when the hotel closed at ten o’clock. It was his habit when drunk to drive at not more than ten miles an hour along the dirt track. Too bad he didn’t drive at sixty and break his neck, Jill Madden thought.

The hundred-year-old American clock, infinitely more reliable than the modern product, whirred and bonged the midnight hour. The vibrations died, and the fury outside again clamped itself about the house. The girl reached for the rifle and again checked the cartridge in the breech and the magazine. She was icily resolute to defend her mother and herself.

One of the two dogs, chained to kennels built of old iron, barked, and Jill thought of the lambs and the enemy foxes, and then of the shearing due to be contracted out next month. She recalled Ray Cosgrove saying he wanted her to marry him, then thought of Ray’s mother, who owned Mira Station. Mrs Cosgrove would certainly forbid anything of the kind, and for that she couldn’t be blamed. She was wealthy, and Ray was like a blazing lighthouse on her horizon. The thought of his marrying the stepdaughter of the lisping, drunken Lush would give Mrs Cosgrove a heart attack.

The dog barked again. The sound seemed far away and beyond the noise created by the wind through the trees and the worried-loose shed roofs. It was not unusual in winter months for the wind to blow night and day for a week, with never a cloud to mask the sun or dim the diamond stars.

The handle of the door was twisted and then the door was shaken.

The girl’s left hand flew to her mouth to prevent herself from crying out, then dropped to grip the rifle. The hand about the stock slid over for the finger to curve about the trigger.

A boot thudded against the door, and her stepfather shouted, “Open up, there! What the hell! Let me in, you bitch.”

“Go and sleep in the woolshed,” Jill said. “Keep away from here.”

“What’s that you said?” shouted Lush, and Jill repeated it.

“Doss in the woolshed?” he yelled. “Doss—” A river of filth streamed through the plain wall-board door.

When it dried up the girl could hear nothing, until her mother wailed and then called out, “What is it, Jill? Who’s that outside? I didn’t hear the utility.”

“Stay quiet, Mother. I’ll deal with this.”

The man must have had an ear to the keyhole.

“‘Stay quiet,’ she says! Gimme an axe. I want an axe.” Lush pounded on the door with boot and fist. The dogs barked furiously, and presently the phrase “Gimme an axe” was continuously repeated in dwindling volume, indicating that Lush had gone for the wood-heap axe.

“Was that William?” asked Mrs Lush, leaning weakly against the frame of the bedroom doorway. Her bandaged head made her look grotesque, the bandage disarrayed to permit her to see with bloodshot eyes. Then: “What are you doing with that rifle, child?”

“I’m going to keep him out, now and for always. I’m going to frighten him out.”

“Then be careful, be careful! Oh God! What have we come to?”

The girl stood, aiming the rifle at the door from her hip.

Lush returned, to kick at the door and yell: “Now, you in there! I’m coming in, see? You let me in or I axe my way in, and if I have to do that you’ll get worse than you ever got. And you too, Jill. I’ll start on you good and proper, my oath I will.”

The girl aimed the rifle at the ceiling, and fired.

“Get away from that door,” she shouted. “Get away if you’re sober enough to understand. I’ll fix you if you don’t.”

“You’ll fix me! What a laugh!”

The axe smashed at the door. The edge of the blade showed through and was withdrawn for another blow. The girl worked the lever of the rifle to discharge the empty shell and force another cartridge into the breech. The next blow brought the axe-head right through the wood hard against the lock. The girl aimed from the shoulder and fired.

The axe remained in the door. Both dogs were barking, and they seemed much nearer in the momentary lull of the wind. The clock bonged once. The wind came again to thrash the gums along the river, and Mrs Lush screamed:

“You’ve shot him, Jill! You’ve shot him!”