Читать книгу The Squatter King - A Romance of Bush Life - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 10

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Ben Bruce was comparatively a silent man. A matter over which his associates would talk for a week he dismissed with a few words, and never referred to it again except incidentally. Once dropped, it was buried as completely as his past life was buried. He did not forget a good turn; but he returned the favour, when opportunity offered, without mentioning the obligation. Though sociable in his quiet way, and good natured, he seldom smiled, and none of the men he worked with had ever known him to laugh, he talked to Sid more than to anyone else, mostly when they were riding by themselves, or in their room at night. Fits of brooding were more frequent with him than cheeriness. For that reason nobody hankered after his company. Had not chance thrown them together at the outset, Sid would probably have treated him with the same diffidence as the rest.

He had come to know that his peculiar mate was a man of sterling worth. He liked him and trusted him. For all that, there was a mystery about him that Sid could not fathom. Little incidents happened from time to time that set him thinking, and seeking, vainly, to learn something of Ben's history.

The men had been back at the homestead about a week when Luke Cudgen, of Mooban, who had come on a brief visit, accosted Ben as he was riding towards the stable.

"Hi!" he called, from the back corner of the store. "My horse is down the paddock there with the saddle on. Run him into the yard, will you?"

Sid, who had preceded him a few minutes, and was putting his gear away in the saddleroom, saw the old man grip his reins tightly, and turn aggressively towards the speaker.

"Run your d— horse in, yourself!" he snapped, in a low, deep voice, and galloped furiously into the yard, pulling up with a jerk that evoked protesting snorts from the astonished animal.

It was the first time Sid had ever heard him swear; he had never known him before to act discourteously.

He swung to the ground with a violent motion that still further startled the horse, tore off the saddle and bridle, and flung them savagely into the room. This in itself was a surprising diversion, for no one was more careful of his gear than the head stockman. He was more particular over those things than he was about his clothes or his personal appearance. And having disposed of them in that unwonted fashion, he strode rapidly across to the hut, muttering to himself, and clenching his hands, and jerking his elbows as he went.

Dr. Cudgen stood for a couple of minutes with an ugly look on his face. He was a tall man, slightly stooped, bony and sharp featured. He had large, projecting ears and a bull-neck; the centre of his flat pate was a glistening desert, his facial hair very short and very thin. He had tied his horse up on arrival at the garden fence, expecting it to be attended to, and it had rubbed the bridle off. There was no visible assistance at the moment; the captain and the overseer had gone to Bogalby, the groom was cutting chaff, and Brumby, the black boy, was after the cows.

Dr. Cudgen was meditating whether to go after the runaway himself or go back to the house, when Jake, the mailman, appeared opportunely on the opposite hill. He brought the animal along with him, and Sid took advantage of the interval to slip away unseen by the aggrieved owner.

Ben did not come to tea that evening. When Jake and Sid emerged from the dining-room they saw him pacing up and down the fence of the little paddock at the back of the hut, his head drooping dejectedly, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.

Jake tapped his forehead with his finger. "Seems to be gettin' worse."

"I've never seen him like that before," said Sid, concernedly. "And I can't understand what put him out so."

"Had a bit of a brush with the doctor, I believe," said Jake, moving off towards the stable, where his horses were waiting.

"What, is this Dr. Cudgen?" asked Sid, walking with him.

"He was an army surgeon, so they say, He doesn't practise, 'cept now an' again in emergency cases. Chucked the profession for the goldfields—an' after he'd got some good divvies out of them he struck an all right claim in Widow Norrit. He's been on some good wickets in his time, by all accounts; but he was always a rovin' spirit, an' it was the widow that really set him up. I think she must be managing director, for when Luke married her an' started squatting he didn't know a cow from a bull."

"Where did he marry her?"

"At Mooban — or Byndoora. I'm not sure which."

"Was Ben Bruce ever on either of those places?"

"He may have called at Byndoora, but he was never on Mooban. I passed him on the road when he was coming out here; he told me he'd come from the diggings down Gympie way. He had a digger's kit on his pack horse. He was walkin' an' leadin' the quadruped—travellin' dead slow, an' inquirin' into the geology of the territory he was passin' through."

"Perhaps he met Cudgen on the diggings?" Sid suggested.

"If he did, Cudgen's forgotten him. He asked me who the obstreporous person was, what he did, how long he's been here, an' where he came from. Seemed to want to know quite a lot about Benjamin; but I had the royal mail to deliver, an' couldn't stop. I never could cotton on to Luke. He's about as handsome as a gorilla when he's lookin' his best; an' when he's just been told to run his darned horse up himself he looks positively unpleasant. How a fine lookin' woman, with a good home an' independent means, came to throw herself away on him, I can't make out."

"Was Ben Bruce acquainted with her?" asked Sid.

"I think not," said Jake. "I've had more than one chat with her about the people here, an' the old fellow's name didn't enlighten her any more than it did the doctor. A woman doesn't batten her secrets down as tightly as a man does; an' if they'd been mixed up in an early romance, I take it as a natural sequence that she'd be usin' some interrogation marks after hearin of his whereabouts."

"I can't get it out of my mind," Sid went on, "that there's some old score between them. Ben is a kindly sort, and obligin—"

"An' peculiar," added Jake.

"—And a simple request by a stranger to run up a horse could hardly make him act as he did," Sid concluded.

"Well, no," said Jake thoughtfully; "but there's a general suspicion that the old chap isn't all there; an' there's no accountin' for a man who is a shingle short. He's the only one on my track who's got no use for a mailman. The loneliest boundary-rider gets a pill pamphlet sometimes to relieve the monotony, an' even Mrs. Bill Bunty's baby gets a birthday card, or some trifle per parcels post from its lovin' aunt; but old Ben isn't worth as much as a ha' penny stamp per annum to the department. Queerest card I've struck, is Ben."

Sid thought of the stockman's strange conduct at the stables when the police trooper had ridden into the yard, and for the manyth time the query intruded, why was he afraid of the police? Ben had not spoken a word to him about that matter; neither had Sid mentioned it to Jake Gowrie. But it helped him to see more than the mailman could see, to understand that there was a skeleton in the closet that accounted for much in the man's eccentric demeanour. Whatever the secret was, it prompted a sleepless desire for seclusion, for he was never so care-free and self-possessed as when out on the run. Rumour had it that many men who had risked their liberties, or who had run away from unadorable wives, lived on the outer fringe of settlement to avoid the police. Perhaps Ben was one of these. But where and in what way had Luke Cudgen incurred his animosity?

Sid was still puzzling over these things when he returned to the hut. It was then night. A few paces from his room door was the solitary figure of his mate, hands still in pockets, standing straight and motionless as a post.

The, air was frosty, but suffused with the nutty fragrance of the surrounding forest. Soft sounds came across the flat—the weird cry of the myrlumbing, the croaking of frogs, the lowing of cows on far-off hills, the call of a distant bird.

"Do you hear the swans?" said Ben, without moving. He stood with bare head, looking up at the stars, under which the black swans passed from time to time, their great wings beating with a faint, whistling sound, and their occasional call notes dying away across the eastern ridges.

As Sid stopped and looked up, Ned Young, the cook, who had just finished for the night, stepped out from the verandah and joined him.

"Great travellers," he remarked authoritatively. "And they take your thoughts with them of a night—to the old homestead down east, an' the dear girl who put her clingin' little arms round your neck, an' swore she'd die for you—an' then went off an' married some one else."

"Is that the way your girl treated you, Ned?" laughed Sid.

"It's what most of them do," the cook answered. "Don't they, Ben?"

"No," Ben disagreed in a sort of growl. "If your girl jilted you, perhaps she had good reason to."

"I'm not sayin' I was jilted," the cook retorted. "So far's I'm personally concerned, it might have been the other way about."

'Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" And having gruffly expressed himself in these words, Ben went inside and slammed the door.

The cook glared at the door as though he had half a mind to go and kick it.

"If I had that sort of disposition," he commented, "I'd keep pigs."

'What would you keep the pigs for?' asked Sid.

"So's I'd have congenial company," said Ned. "A man who falls out with his tucker, an' can't be respectful five minutes, is a misfit among sociable folk."

"We don't know what's behind it, Ned."

"There's no common-sense behind it! An' what's he know about girls, a disgruntled person like him?" the cook demanded. "Tellin' me I ought to be ashamed, after the exhibition he's been makin' of himself! If you ask me, he doesn't know what's what half his time."

"He's all right—"

"When he's not all wrong," the cook chipped in, lighting his pipe, and puffing noisily. "Perhaps he'd like me to take his tea in for him, an' coax him to have it like a sick wife. It's in the kitchen if he wants it; an' if he doesn't like to go an' get it he can leave it alone. Won't worry me if he never has it. The less he eats the less there'll be to cook."

He looked again at the door, while he filled the immediate atmosphere with tobacco smoke.

"I can't stand cantankerous people," he went on presently. "Nor people with fads. There's Harry Thorn—must have the same knife an' the same pannikin every meal time. Holds it up to see if his name is on the bottom before he drinks a mouthful of tea. He's a good fellow in every way—except he wants his pannikin. An' there's Charley Clay, who always wants the same seat at table, an' kicks up a fuss when he comes in late an' finds somebody has jumped his claim. He's got his initials cut in the table where he puts his plate—which spoils the look of the furniture. Th' table's been there a matter of seventeen years, an' was originally made out of a piano case by a botch carpenter. All the same, Charley Clay's initials don't improve it. An' there's his nibs here—flies off the handle an' won't have any tea because a visitor presumes to make use of him in a small way; an' slams the door in my face because I didn't get married when I had the option. Well, well! It's a queer world we live in."

"It would be a dull world if everybody were alike, Ned. Variety is the spice of life."

"That's so," the cook conceded. "But there's some varieties that wouldn't be missed much if they were struck off the programme. Are you comin' into the fire Sid?"

"No, I'm going to bunk, Ned. Good night."