Читать книгу Collected Short Stories Volume 3 - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 5
ОглавлениеWorker (Wagga, NSW), Thursday 27 December 1906
"A little more of this an' I'm going to chuck it," said Tom Breen as he and his mate, Neil Quinton, sat one hot afternoon in a little canvas humpy among the gibber hills of Mount Browne. A heavy duststorm was sweeping over them, and shrouding the desolate landscape in darkness.
"Nothing but heat, flies, an' duststorms!" Tom continued, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "We haven't struck a color since you rooted out that curse of a skull a fortnight ago."
Quinton laughed. "It's a monument to a dead and dreary land, Tom," he said.
"It is that," said Tom, and new light flashed suddenly into his eyes. "But why stick it up 'ere? Take the blarsted thing to the top o' the rocks and hoist it in a mulga tree. There's enough about here, God knows, to remind us of Hell's Hole!"
"It can't hurt you, Tom; it's only a bit of bone," Neil Quinton answered, turning his face to the wall as the driving red dust beat up under the canvas.
Like dozens of other diggers, Neil Quinton and Tom Breen had been fossicking about Mount Browne off and on for several years. In very dry seasons they shut up the humpy and went shearing or rouseabouting, returning home when work slackened, to potter about the flats and gullies with their cradle and dryblower. They did well enough while waterholes lasted, but it so seldom rained in that desert country that nine months in the year it was a hand-to-mouth existence with them. They had sworn time and again to clear out from the hated glare of Mount Browne as soon as they struck something substantial enough to take them below; they cared not where, providing distance made the glistening sand dunes, the glare of the stone-capped hills, flies, heat, thirst, duststorms, all but a memory.
"We'll never get further than Milparinka now," said Tom; "that skull's brought us bad luck."
Neil shook on his bunk with subdued laughter. "Do you really think it brought the duststorm?" He chuckled softly, and added: "We'll have to whack him, Tom, as John Chinaman does his Joss."
Tom, peering through the floating dust that darkened the humpy, caught the ghostly grin of the skull, and shuddered.
* * * * * * * * *
They were playing cards by the light of a slush-lamp. The storm had long passed, and a million stars shone in a clear blue sky. Dinny Cowle, a neighboring fossicker, who had been down to the wayside pub for the mail, had dropped in. He was "a bit on," and introduced a bottle of wayback special. The mates drank his health, and Dinny took a hand at cut-throat.
They played several games, punctuating them with nips. By this time they were all pretty merry, and tongues began to play instead of hands.
"I'll tell you wot," said Crowle, "I'll give you a tenner for that there skull!"
Breen opened his eyes wide and looked expectantly from Crowle to Quinton. Here was a chance to make a few pounds easily, and get rid of the ghastly relic at the same time. He looked at the skull with fresh interest, but turned from it quickly and cast an impatient glance at Quinton.
"You see," Crowle continued, "that skull is th' remains of me ould uncle, Pater Munn, an' it kinder hurts me feelin's to see the ole feller's brain-box shtuck on a table here 'stead o' bein' dacently buried. It's against me religion, too, an'—look 'ere, Nale," he stood up and banged his fist on the table, "if ye're a man, ye'll give me my uncle's head!"
"Now, don't get excited, Dinny," said Quinton. "That ain't no ordinary skull, that ain't. It's as heavy as a rock, an' it's my belief that the brain's been an' gone and got petrified. If so, that skull's worth all out fifty quid. I'm going to have it examined, anyway."
"Would you take poor Pater's head from his body," cried Dinny, leaning forward. "Shame on you, Nale Quinton! It's yerself that should 'ave more rispect for the dead—an' a God-fearin' man, too, as was Pater Munn! I'm desaved in ye, Nale!"
"Let him have the thing,"' said Breen, impatiently; "we want the money bad enough, heaven knows. What're you thinkin' about? The ghastly thing's not worth ten bob!"
Quinton frowned him into silence, and, turning again to Crowle, he said:
"Wasn't old Munn a bit of a miser? People said he had a lot of money hoarded somewhere when he died."
"Shah!" said Dinny. "Don't they say it av everybody as kapes to himself, and always has a speck to buy rations wid? Ould Pater, I tell ye, was the quintessence of poverty. An' now, whin he's dead an' gone—to your shame be it said, Nale Quinton—ye' would rob 'the poor ole fellow av his head! It's body-snatchin'!"
"There was no body, Dinny," Neil interrupted. "I dug all round for yards, but could find nothing but the skull. I kep' it at first for luck, because, in a dint in the forehead there is, as you can see, a very tiny nugget of gold. We've been digging ever since along the way it was lookin', an' we've never so much as struck the color. So you see, Dinny, there's a bone of contention atween us an' the remains of Peter Munn."
"Ye're a vile heretic, Nale Quinton! A vile heretic." said Dinny Crowle, rising again with outstretched hand. "Pass over me uncle, an' I'll give ye the tenner!"
"To-morrow, Dinny, to-morrow!"
* * * * * * * * *
"There must be something valuable about that old cranium,' said Neil next morning.
"You're a fool, Neil, not to 'ave took that ten quid last night," growled Tom. "As we're halves in everything, I reckon you've robbed me of an' honest fiver."
This nettled the usually good-tempered Neil. "Will you take a fiver for your share now?" he asked.
"Will a duck swim?" said Breen.
Neil thrust his hand into his pocket. "Here you are then," he said, and five pounds were passed over.
"Mind you," he continued, "if that skull pans out anything extra, don't try to come the double or say you wasn't treated fair, or anything o' that sort."
"It's all your own," said Tom, with a chuckle. "I'm quite satisfied."
"Right," said Neil. "I reckon if that skull's worth a tenner to Dinny Crowle it's worth a tenner to me. There's something in it, anyhow—that's a monty. That yarn he pitched about Peter Munn is a pure mulga, for I knew Peter Munn long before Dinny Crowle came to Mount Browne. He was found dead in his hut, somewhere near where we're workin', but he wasn't buried there. He was supposed to have had some money hidden somewhere, an' that old rogue, Dinny Crowle, dug about lookin' for it for months after. But he didn't find nothing. Now, when I seen how that skull excited him, an' he offered to give ten quid for it, it struck me that it must be a clue somewhere to old Munn's treasure. Do you see the drift?"
"No, I'm hanged if I do!" said Tom.
"Well, you are satisfied with your bargain?"
"I am; an' if you can find Munn's swag with that skull, old man, you're welcome to it."
"That's settled then. But I must examine the fakus before that old fraud comes down to claim it."
He placed the skull on his knee, and began chipping it in various places with his penknife. The holes, with the exception of one eye, were blocked up with some hard, white substance like plaster of Paris. The left eye was stopped with a tightly-fitting cork. Neil became deeply interested.
"Hand us the corkscrew, Tom."
Tom laughed as Neil began screwing into the socket.
"I've seen many a glass eye," he said, "but, drat me, if ever I saw a cork eye before."
The eye came out suddenly, and as the skull slipped on his knee, something dropped from it and clinked on the floor.
"Good Lord!" gasped Tom Breen. "Sovereigns!"
"Ah," said Neil, "now I understand old Dinny's anxiety to get his uncle's cranium. See, the thing's been carefully drilled an' cleaned out. It's the treasure chest!"
He grasped it tightly in both hands, and shook it vigorously, and the eyeless socket shed tears of gold that dropped in a glittering heap on the floor. Tom sat back on his bunk, clenching his hands and inwardly cursing his folly, whilst Neil, with an excited glare in his eyes, and beads of perspiration on his brow, continued to shake the grinning skull till the gaping eye had shed its last golden tear.
"Who's the fool now, Tom Breen!" he cried exultantly. "Ain't you sorry you sold out?"
"It looks—" he began, and stopped. "Never mind," he said, "but I'll ask ye to do me a last favor. Give me that skull!"
"There you are!" said Neil. "You can do what you like with it, now."
* * * * * * * * *
Neil and Tom were packing, up when Dinny Crowle called that afternoon.
"Hulloa!" he said, "what's the manin' o' this?"
"Goin' to tackle shearin'," said Neil. "There's nothin' in fossickin' this weather."
"Well, that's thrue," said Dinny. "But—about me uncle, now. Ye won't be carryin' the poor ould chap away wid ye?"
Tom laughed bitterly. "I'd burn th' thing to a cinder first," he said. "We've had one row over it, an' the sooner we see the last of it the better. If you want it, hand over the stuff and take it to blazes!"
Crowle paid him the ten pounds with alacrity. Neil looked at his mate with lifted brows, but said nothing.
"Well, so long, chaps, an' I wush ye luck!" And Dinny Crowle shuffled away, hugging his prize. "Ye're mine at lasht!" he chuckled, taking it from under his arm and weighing it fondly in his hands. "A queer old fellow was Pater Munn, an' it's me, Dinny Crowe, an' no one else, as knew he used th' skull he found in the creek for a money-box. It's powerful heavy—God rest yer soul, Pater Munn!"
Reaching his camp, he took up an old axe and with feverish haste tapped at the skull till he had broken it open. Some sand fell out, and heaps of nuggets—nuggets of lead!
With an oath he took up the axe again and battered the skull into a thousand pieces.
