Wilderness Trek (1988) (31 page)

At last the dawn came, from gray to daylight, and then a ruddiness in the east. He awakened Red from his hard bed on the grass. They rounded up the remuda, and changed their mounts for King and Duke.

"Red, it's dirty business to risk Leslie's horses in that river," said Sterl, as they rode campward.

"Wal, I was thinkin' thet same. We won't do it, 'cept to cross them. We'll fork two of these draft hosses. But, Holy Mackeli, they cain't keep one of them crocs away! I swear, pard, I never had my gizzard freeze like it does at thet thought."

"Nerve and luck, Red!"

"Them drovers shore had it yestiddy." Breakfast was over at sunrise, Friday approached the fire to get his fare.

"Crocs alonga eberywhere," he announced.

That silenced the trekkers like a clap of thunder. Slyter, the cowboys, and the drovers followed the striding Dann out to view the stream. A dead steer floated by in mid-channel, gripped by several crocodiles. Downstream a cow or steer had stranded in the shallow water. Around it ugly snouts and notched tails showed above the muddy water. Upstream on the far side a third cow, stuck in the mud, was surrounded by the reptiles.

Larry explained, "Night before last a number of cattle rushed into the river. We heard them bawling and plunging."

Slyter said, "Blood scent in the river will have every croc for miles down upon us."

"It may not be so bad as it looks," replied the leader with his usual optimism. "Let's cross Bill's dray at once. Tell Bill to keep out food and tea for today and tomorrow. One of you to put tucker on the dray for the boys across there. A kettle of hot tea! Who'll drive Bill's dray?"

Red Krehl elected himself for that job. But Dann preferred to have the cowboy on shore, rifle in hand, and selected Heald. He drove in until the water came almost to the platform of the wagon. Then the procedure of the day before was carried out with even more celerity. It struck Sterl that in their hurry the drovers were forgetting about the crocodiles, which might have been just as well. The big job done the drovers took time out for a cup of tea. That inevitable rite amused Sterl.

"Ormiston's wagon next," shouted Stanley Dann. "That duty falls to Eric."

The drovers hitched two teams to this wagon, while others, at the leader's order, unpacked half of its contents. Flour in special burlap sacks and other food supplies came to light.

At the take-off the leading team balked, and upon being urged and whipped they plunged, and Eric laid on the stockwhip. No doubt a scent of the dead crocodiles came to them. Stanley Dann boomed orders that Eric did not hear or could not obey. About a hundred steps out was as far as either of the other vehicles had been driven. But Eric drove until the teams balked, with the leaders submerged to their shoulders. This was extremely bad, because it was evident that they were sinking in the mud. Half a dozen drovers urged plunging horses to the rescue.

At that critical moment Friday let out a wild yell. Sterl saw a dead steer, surrounded by crocodiles, drifting down upon the teams.

"Back, Heald! Back, Hood!" shouted Sterl, at the top of his lungs. "Crocs!"

Snorting, lunging, the horses wheeled and sent mountains of water flying. They reached the shore just as the dead steer drifted upon the teams and lodged. Stanley Dann was yelling for his brother to climb back over the wagon and leap for his life. Eric might have heard, but his gaze was glued to the melee under him.

The dead steer drifted in between the two teams to lodge against the wagon tongue, and the great reptiles attacked the horses. The snap of huge jaws, the crack of teeth, could be heard amid the roar of water and the clamor of the drovers.

Eric pulled his gun and shot. Not improbably he hit the horses instead of the crocodiles. The left front horse reared high with a crocodile hanging to its nose. Sterl sent a bullet into its head, but it did not let go. It pulled the horse under. The right front horse was in the clutches of two crocodiles. The rifle cracked. Sterl shot to kill a horse if he missed a crocodile. The second team had been attacked by half a dozen of the leviathans.

And at that awful moment for Eric Dann, horses and wagon were pulled into deep water. The wagon sank above its bed and floated. Eric leaped to the driver's seat and held on. As he turned to those on shore his visage appeared scarcely human. The wagon drifted down the river.

"Fellers, fork yore hosses!" yelled Red. Leaping on Duke, his rifle aloft, he raced into the bush downstream. Sterl was quick to follow, and he heard the thud and crash of the drovers at his heels. When he broke out into the clear, a low bank afforded access to the river, which made a bend there. He came out at the edge of the mud. Red had Duke wading out. The wagon had lodged in shallow water. A horrible fight was going on there. Beyond it several other crocodiles were tearing at a horse that had been cut adrift. Eric Dann still clung to the driver's seat.

Stanley Dann and his followers arrived. For once, the leader's booming voice was silent at a crisis.

Red threw aside his rifle. He held his revolver in his left hand and his lariat in his right. At that moment, a lean, black-jawed crocodile stuck his snout and shoulders out of the water, and, reaching over the wagonbed, snapped at Eric. He missed by more than two feet.

The horses had ceased to struggle. What with the tugging and floundering of the crocodiles the wagon appeared about to tilt over. It would all be over with Eric Dann if the reptiles did not tear the horses free.

Red sent his grand horse plunging into the water. Duke's ears stood up, his piercing snorts made the other horses neigh wildly. Red was taking a chance that the crocodiles would be too busy to see him. When Duke was up to his flanks and the curdled, foamy maelstrom scarcely a lasso's length distant, Red yelled piercingly, "Stand up Eric!"

The man heard, and tried to obey. But he must have been paralyzed with horror.

"Stick our yore laig--yore arm!" shrieked Red, in a fury, and he shot the outside crocodile, sliding into view.

But Eric was beyond helping himself. Again that ugly brute lunged out and up, his corrugated jaws wide, and as they snapped they missed by only a few inches.

Then the lasso shot out, and the noose cracked over Eric's head and shoulders. Red whirled the big horse and spurred him shoreward. Eric was jerked off the wagon, over the very backs of the threshing crocodiles. Red dragged him free, through the shallow water, up on the mud. He leaped off, to run and loosen the noose. Eric's head had been dragged through the mud. Stanley and two drovers lifted the half-dead man, and carried him ashore. Sterl sat on his horse with his throat constricted. He had not cared much about Eric Dann, but the mad risk that intrepid cowboy had run!...

"He ain't--hurt none," Red panted, coiling the muddy rope. "I was afraid --I'd get the noose--'round his neck. But it was a damn narrow shave! Pard, that's one hoss--in a million. By Gawd, I was scared he--wouldn't do it. But he did--he did!"

They laid Eric Dann on the bank to let him recover. Sterl dismounted, and every time a head or a body lunged up he met it with a bullet. But the angle was bad. Most of the bullets glanced singingly across the river. One by one the horses were torn loose from the traces, and dragged away, until they disappeared under the deep water.

The heavy wagon had remained upright, with the back end and wheels submerged. The tide was falling.

"Miraculous, any way you look at it!" exclaimed Stanley Dann. "Red Krehl, as if my debt to you had not been great enough!"

"Hell, boss. We've all been around yestiddy an' today, when things came off," drawled the cowboy.

At low tide Ormiston's wagon was hauled out and back to camp. The girls clamored for the story. Red laughed at them, but Sterl told it, not wholly without elaboration. He wanted to see Beryl Dann's eyes betray her quick and profound emotions.

"For my uncle! Red--when he hated you!"

"Beryl, all in a day's ride," drawled Red. "Now if you was only like Duke!"

"Red, I am not a horse. I am a woman," she rejoined with no response to his humor.

"Shore, I know thet. I mean a hoss, if he's great like Duke an' cottons to a feller why he'll do anythin' for you." Red also had turned serious. "Beryl, I'd die for him, an' shore he'd die for me."

"I'd like you to feel that way for me, Red Krehl," she returned, vibrantly. "I would die for you!"

"Wal, yore wants, like yore eyes an' yore heart, air too big for you, Beryl."

Leslie let go of Duke's neck to face Red.

"Red, I give Duke to you. And you can return Jester to me," she said.

"Wal! Dog-gone-it, Les, you hit me below the belt!"

"It'll make my happy. And Beryl too." Stanley Dann broke in upon them with his booming order:

"Cut more poles. We'll relay the road and cross my wagon before this day is done."

While his drovers worked like beavers, he had Beryl's bed and baggage unloaded. Stanley drove his big wagon across. Friday sighted crocodiles, but none came near. Load and wagon were crossed in record time, after which six drovers carried Beryl's belongings across in two trips.

The sun set red and evilly. The trekkers ate, and tried to be oblivious of the abo signals, the uncanny bats, the howls of the dingoes and the unseen menace that hovered over this somber camp. Stanley Dann roused them all in the gray of dawn. It was wet and chill. Dingoes bayed dismally in the bush. The cowboys found two of Dann's drovers mustering horses for the day. The cowboys bridled Duke, King and Lady Jane, and drove the rest of Leslie's horses into camp. Stanley Dann's hearty voice, his spirit, the drab gray dawn lighting ruddily, the hot breakfast--all seemed to work against the gripping, somber spell.

"Men, this is our important day," boomed the leader. "Roland's wagon first. Unload all the heavy articles. Pack these bags of dried fruit Ormiston had--unknown to me. Slyter, will you drive Roland's wagon?"

"Yes," replied Slyter. "Mum, you ride with me."

"With Beryl and Leslie that will be a load!" said Dann.

"Dad, I won't cross in the wagon," spoke up his daughter decidedly.

Leslie interposed to say, "I'm riding Lady Jane."

The leader gazed at these pioneer daughters with great luminous eyes, and made no further comment. He hurried the unpacking, and the hitching of two big draft horses to Roland's wagon. The sun came up gloriously bright. When Slyter mounted the high wagon seat, shouts from across the river told him that the drovers over there were ready. Roland straddled one of the lead horses of the teams. The tide was on the make, wanting a foot in height and a dozen yards up the mud bank to fill the river bed.

"Friday! Everybody watch the river for crocs," ordered the leader.

Leslie sat her horse, pale and resolute. She knew the peril. At this juncture Beryl emerged from the tent, slim in her rider's garb. She carried a small black bag.

"Red, will you carry me across?" she asked, simply. Her darkly dilated eyes betrayed her terror.

"Shore, Beryl, but why for?" drawled the cowboy.

"I'd feel safer--and--and--"

"Wal, dog-gone! There. Put yore foot on my stirrup. Up you come! No, I cain't hold you that way, Beryl. You've gotta fork Duke. Slip down in front of me. Sterl, how about slopin'?"

"Friday grins good-o," replied Sterl, grimly. "Les, keep above me close. Larry, keep upstream from Red. Idea is to move pronto!"

They plunged in, passed Slyter's teams and the drovers, reached the deeper water, breasted the channel.

"Fellers, get ready for gunplay!" shouted the hawk-eyed Red. "Shet yore eyes, Beryl!"

Across the river from the reedy bank above Roland's position came a crackling rush, a waving of reeds, then a zoom, as a big crocodile took to the water. The guns of Roland's group banged; mud splattered all around the reptile.

Farther upstream, muddy-backed crocodiles, as huge as logs, piled into the river. The drovers were clamoring in fright and excitement. Slyter had driven his teams in up to their flanks. One drover was unfastening the traces, while two others were ready to drag the teams into the channel. Sterl spared only a glance for them. Roland and his men came pounding through the shallow water. Halfway across--two-thirds! Bligh's horse was lunging into the channel above Larry, carrying the tackle and rope for the wagon.

Suddenly, almost in line with them, an open-jawed, yellow-fanged monster spread the reeds, and zoomed off the bank. Red, Sterl, Larry, Roland, were shooting. But the crocodile came on, got over his depth, and disappeared.

"Watch for the wake!" called Red. "Thet feller is mean. Heah he comes! See them little knobs. That's his haid!"

Sterl espied them. He regretted having left his rifle in the wagon.

"Drop behind me, Leslie," he called. "Don't weaken. We'll get by him."

Sterl did not fire because he did not want to drive the brute under water again. Evidently Red had the same thought. He headed Duke quarteringly away from the long ripple, and leaned far forward, gun extended. His left arm held the drooping girl. At the right instant he spurred Duke. Just then Duke struck bottom, and lunged. The crocodile was less than six feet distant when Red turned his gun loose. The bullets splashed and thudded, but they did not glance. With a tremendous swirl the reptile lurched partly out of the water, a ghastly spectacle. Sterl sent two leaden slugs into it. Falling back, the monster began to roll over and over, his ten-foot tail beating the water into foam.