They Found a Cave (7 page)

Everything had been hauled in and arranged neatly before Nigel and Tas returned with the second load. The cave began to look quite homelike; beds made up on the clean floor, rock shelves lined with newspaper and set out with milk pans and other gear, and a billy of water boiling beside the fire for tea.

‘No milk yet, of course,' Cherry apologized, tapping the billy in the way Tas showed her, to make the tea leaves settle.

‘Who cares?' cried Tas the Tasmanian, tossing off a mug of strong black liquid into which he had tipped half a handful of sugar. ‘Can you spare a second go?' he asked, as he passed back his mug.

‘Mustn't rest too long,' Nigel sighed. ‘There's a lot of stuff still in the Tree, and Ma yelling for us all over the place. Soon
he'll
get back and they'll start a real search.'

They gloated happily over the picture of Ma shouting for them in vain, and especially of when she should open the chaff-house door and find no Cherry inside.

Brick joined the rather weary and reluctant party that turned downhill for the last load. Cherry was left to mind the cave and milk the goats, and to prepare a meal; and with her stayed Nippy. His only job, so he informed her, would be to see that Fluffles felt really comfortable and at home.

‘And what about helping
me
?' Cherry demanded indignantly. ‘What about getting some wild cherry to feed the goats? And who's to collect ferns and leaves for our mattresses, like Tas said? And to fetch firewood, and some dry bark to light the fire in the morning? Aren't you going to do
anything?
'

‘No,' replied Nippy calmly, ‘not till Fluffles settles in his new home. He's tired, but he doesn't understand where he is, yet.' He had the impudence to add, grinning and stroking the ball of fur in his lap, ‘Fluffles may not feel like settling down till he tastes some warm goats' milk.'

‘You mean you want a drink yourself,' Cherry fairly spluttered with rage. ‘Oh! If only Nig could hear you!'

‘But as he can't?' returned Nippy gently.

She flung across to the cave mouth and looked down, not really intending to call Nigel, but hoping to alarm Nippy. As she stared out over the bush, however, for some reason her anger quite suddenly left her. She drew in a deep breath, feeling calm and happy. Today of all days she simply could not bother fighting Nippy.

Picking up the milk-pail she went quietly out to find her flock, cut them bedding, and introduce them to their own cave. This was to be the big one where lay the secret entrance into Capra Cave.

Nippy stared after her, wonderingly. This was a Cherry quite new to his experience. There and then he put Fluffles down and went to fetch sticks to pile beside the fireplace, feeling all the time more surprised at himself than he knew she would be to find him hard at work. He had been so tired by excitement and the hot climb that he had intended to resist firmly any efforts to make him work, but somehow it took all the kick out of things when she left him sitting there in useless triumph. He worked hard, and was rewarded later by her obvious astonishment when she came in. They grinned at one another and she handed him a mug of new milk without a word, and a billy lid as a saucer for Fluffles' share.

‘The goats are so curious about everything,' she told him, ‘they even tried to poke their heads in here. I'm sure they approve and will settle down happily, though I have tied the two leaders, Lily and Angela, by long chains to a sapling, so they can't lead the rest off grazing too early in the morning. You should see them all sitting contentedly chewing—all except the kids. Rufty and Tufty are chasing each other up the most frightful crags, but their parents don't bat an eyelid. Pity some human parents aren't like that, isn't it? Now I must get tea ready. Whatever shall I do for a table?'

‘A table? What for? People who live in caves don't use
tables
,' he scoffed.

‘Then Fluffles will drink the milk and eat up everything. People who live in caves shouldn't keep cats.'

 

The mountain tops were drenched with colour from the setting sun, and the light inside the cave was growing dim when the three staggered in with the last load of the day. They were too tired to talk, only stating briefly that Pa Pinner had seen them and given chase to Brick, who had escaped by dodging round a tree.

They scarcely noticed Cherry's efforts to set out a meal on a table constructed of flat sandstones, but the chops, which Tas had ‘pinched' together with the Pinners' Sunday joint and the meat safe in which they had all hung; the chops, grilled to a nicety on the red embers of the fire; oh, those
chops
, giving out the most enticing smell for the noses of the hungry ones who gnawed them to the last suck of marrow; those chops gnawed from black fingers; ah!—it was the chops which remained as a memory always of that first night in Capra Cave!

Later, when Nippy fed twists of bark to the fire to make it give more light, Cherry moved everything away carefully to shelves beyond the reach of Fluffles. Then she went out to see that all was well in the goat cave. It was not quite dark outside and the tarn hugged a few last gleams to itself from the sky. Except for the noise of the frogs all was still and utterly peaceful.

The goats looked up from their contented chewing and watched her with their long amber eyes. She whispered ‘Sleep well!' as she paused a moment breathing in the cool air, and drawing deep the peace of the bush. They continued to chew and stare indifferently at her, while the kids copied their elders and bulged comic cheeks with cud, like children with too-large bull's-eyes in their mouths. As she lingered, thinking of the day's events and the great unknown tomorrow, the mother goats began to droop their heads sleepily towards the ground.

Nippy was already curled in the blankets, with Fluffles on top, when she returned. At the fire Tas was cooking himself a last supper chop, and explaining carefully to Brick how it should be done. ‘Must be red and juicy inside, see? Hold it right in the flame a minute on each side to seal the juice in, like. Let the fat catch fire if it wants—tastes better so. Cripes! It's done!'

A spurt of light showed the two crouched by the fire, their shining faces streaked with the burned fat of previous chops.

‘You look pretty savage,' Cherry remarked. ‘Isn't it nice, though, to do without knives and forks and good manners and all that rot? Tas, you are a good sort'—here she checked herself and tried to put her meaning into good Australian—‘Tas, you're a bonza bloke I reckon to think this up for us.'

‘She means,' Nigel grinned, as he rolled a coat for a pillow, ‘she means that all this is good-oh, too right it is.'

‘An' that's the dinkum oil,' muttered Nippy, raising his head sleepily for a moment.

Tas grinned and loosened his teeth for an instant from their grip on his meat. ‘Well, we haven't done too bad so far, I must say,' he conceded.

‘I'm chortling over Ma's face when she goes to fetch in their chops from the meat safe tonight,' cried Brick.

‘Umm!' Tas wiped a greasy hand on his clothing. ‘I wonder when we'll taste another chop, though, after these? Gosh! I reckon we'll cry at the thought of chops, soon. It was real bad luck Pa hitting our trail like that, too. Now he'll have an idea where we've gone, shouldn't wonder. It will be a fair cow if he tracks us down up here.'

‘I don't know about fair cows, but he mustn't spot our blonde goats,' Nigel laughed as he kicked off his shoes. ‘He might never find us in this cave, but if he drives off our herd…'

‘I know! Like the old days when they used to raid the women and the cattle,' Brick cried with enthusiasm. ‘You'd better look out, Cherry, or they'll get you and hold you as a hostage, see?'

‘Don't be more of an idiot than you can help,' she returned loftily, stalking away from the fireside.

The great opening of the cave showed an expanse of sky that was almost violet in colour. The stars rode there, magnificent and alive. To her unaccustomed eye the vast spread of tree-clothed hill and valley was one black smudge below the skyline. She shivered, though it was not cold, and glanced quickly over her shoulder, to be reassured by the firelight and a sudden burst of laughter.

‘What does the sky tell us?' asked Nigel, strolling across in his pyjamas. ‘We don't want rain before we're settled in properly, do we?'

He peered into the night until, like Cherry's, his eyes began to distinguish shapes. They stared in wonder for a time, awed by the ageless bush, and scarcely heard the scraps of conversation behind them till Brick shouted a question.

‘What do you think the Pinners are doing at this moment, Nig? Cursing us, and looking for their chops? Just dancing round sizzling mad, like an ants' nest when you pour hot water down?'

‘I dunno.' Nigel lifted his arms, stretched and yawned. ‘Seems funny, but somehow I don't worry much about those two any more. Seem a long way off from us now, don't they?'

The other boys left the fire and came across. They stared down thoughtfully, in the direction of the Homestead which was hidden in black depths below, and nodded without speaking. They knew what Nig meant. But he summed up things in a last sentence before settling under his blankets. ‘It'll take a lot of Pinners to shake us out of here.'

The cave grew quiet when they were all in bed. A dying fire sucked gently round a last hunk of ‘shell' and the kitten sneezed once in Nippy's face. Somewhere over the tarn an owl was calling, calling for ‘More pork!…more pork!' in queer hopeless tones. Cherry lifted her head and listened intently.

‘S'orl right,' Tas called sleepily, ‘haven't you never heard the mo-pokes call before? They're only little owls—“spotted owls” old Mad Dad Williams calls 'em. Go to sleep!'

From the outer cave sounded a regular tinkle-tinkle from a small copper bell. Cherry knew the tranquil sound made when a goat scratched its back with the tip of its horn, causing the bell round its neck to ring, and she snuggled on her hard bed contentedly, and was lulled by familiar music into a deep sleep.

It was easy to forget the Pinners and the danger from their interference in the fun of turning a large, cold cave into a snug home.

‘This beats “Kangas” for a game,' shouted Nippy, as he dragged inside a couple of round poles, a foot longer than himself.

‘Don't make a mess in here. Cut your old firewood outside,' Cherry answered absently, as she stirred sour cream into a mixture of wholemeal flour to make their favourite damper for tea.

‘What do you mean—firewood? Silly! This is my
bed
.' He danced round it indignantly, showing her the saplings he had barked for himself with the back of an axe, and explained everything.

‘Tas knows how to make a bonza bed. See? You put these two poles through an empty sack—like a stretcher—and Tas pinched some spud sacks down at the shed. (D'you know what “spuds” are, Cherry? They're potatoes, and have good strong sacks.) Then you notch places in two thick logs for the poles to sit in, see? About a foot apart. And there you are, swinging high above that horrible, beastly, cold, tough old floor!'

‘Oh, but Nippy! You said you always slept like a top.'

‘Well, how do you know how a top sleeps, Cherry? We all said so, didn't we? 'Member we promised Nig not to grumble. Tas calls it “cracking hardy”. He says we can “crack hardy” when the tucker's done, but there's no need to crack over beds. Ah, here he comes.'

It was Nigel, however, not Tas who came in; Nigel tense from some recent alarm, and gripping his left thumb in his fist. When she saw his face Cherry dropped her work and asked quickly what was wrong.

‘Nothing much. Where is Tas? Get him quick, will you, Nippy?'

‘Have you hurt your hand? Let me see!'

‘I have a bit. Thanks, if you can tie it up for me… I was near as anything caught by old Pa Pinner, but I got away. Are the goats there all right?'

‘Yes, they are grazing on the far slope, well out of sight beyond the tarn.'

‘What's all the fun?' cried Tas, running in with an axe still in his hand and Brick and Nippy at his heels.

Nigel explained how he had gone down to Hollow Tree to fetch a tin of nails which had been forgotten. As he stooped to unfasten the sacking door there was a sudden ‘
snap
', and the jaws of a rabbit trap just missed his hand, catching only, by great good luck, the top of his thumb. At the same moment old Pa Pinner, who had been concealed inside Hollow Tree, made a grab at him.

‘He'd have had me if the sack hadn't got in his way,' Nigel admitted with a wry grin. ‘As it was I was too scared to do anything but bolt for home. Then I saw him watching me and remembered that I must put him off the scent if possible—not let him know in what direction we had gone. So I stopped running.

‘“Nearly had you that time, Mr. Clever,” he called after me, “and you can bet I know where snakes have their holes. If you don't bring the rest of your gang to the Homestead by sundown tonight—listen—
you can stay out and starve—
see?”'

‘Oh! Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? What else did he say?'

‘Oh, just swore a bit, and then he made out that Jandie…oh, some nonsense!…I don't believe a word he says, so what does it matter?'

‘But what
did
he say?'

Nigel glanced at Nippy and turned the subject. ‘Tell you one thing. They must have just about foamed at the mouth with rage over those chops we pinched. And of course they think we'll all creep down there tonight with our tails between our legs to say, “Sorry, dear Mrs. Pinner, that we ate your tea. It shan't happen again, darling.”'

‘Did you shake Pa off?'

‘Yes. Then I hid and watched him. He poked into every hollow tree he could find. Of course he knows we are somewhere up this way, but I don't think they'll worry to hunt for us yet, do you, Tas?'