The Book of the Bush - George Dunderdale (life books to read txt) 📗

right hand, and to guide the horse by the bridle with his left, but he soon found that a dead man was a bad rider; Baldy kept slipping towards the near side or the off side with every stride of the horse, and soon fell to the ground.

Nosey was in a furious hurry, he was anxious to get away; he cursed Baldy for giving him so much trouble; he could have killed him over again for being so awkward and stubborn, and he begun to feel that the old shepherd was more dangerous dead than alive. At last he mounted his horse, and called to Julia to come and help him.

"Here, Julia, lift him up till I catch hold of his collar, and I'll pull him up in front of me on the saddle, and hold him that way."

Julia, with many stifled moans, raised the body from the ground, Nosey reached down and grasped the shirt collar, and thus the two managed to place the swag across the saddle. Then Nosey made a second start, carefully balancing the body, and keeping it from falling with his right hand, while he held the bridle with his left.

The funeral procession slowly wound its way in a westerly direction among the black rocks over the softest and smoothest ground to avoid making any noise. There was no telling what stockman or cattle-stealer the devil might send at any moment to meet the murderer among the lonely Rises, and even in the darkness his horrible burden would betray him. Nosey was disturbed by the very echo of his horse's steps; it seemed as if somebody was following him at a little distance; perhaps Julia, full of woman's curiosity; and he kept peering round and looking back into the darkness. In this way he travelled about a mile and a half, and then dismounting, lowered the body to the ground, and began to look for some suitable hiding place. He chose one among a confused heap of rocks, and by lifting some of them aside he made a shallow grave, to which he dragged the body, and covered it by piling boulders over and around it. He struck several matches to enable him to examine his work carefully, and closed up every crevice through which his buried treasure might be visible.

The next morning Nosey was astir early. He had an important part to act, and he was anxious to do it well. He first examined the axe and cleaned it well, carefully burning a few of Baldy's grey hairs which he found on it. Then he searched the floor for drops of blood, which he carefully scraped with a knife, and washed until no red spot was visible. Then he walked to Baldy's and pretended to himself that he was surprised to find it empty. What had happened the previous night was only a dream, an ugly dream. He met an acquaintance and told him that Baldy was neither in his hut nor with his sheep.

The two men called at old Sharp's hut to make enquiries. The latter said, "I seen Baldy's sheep yesterday going about in mobs, and nobody to look after them." Then the three men went to the deserted hut. Everything in it seemed undisturbed. The dog was watching at the door, and they told him to seek Baldy. He pricked up his ears, wagged his tail, and looked wistfully in the direction of Nosey's hut, evidently expecting his master to come in sight that way.

The men went to the nearest magistrate and informed him that the shepherd was missing. A messenger went to the head station. Enquiries were made at the township, and it was found that Baldy had been to Nyalong the previous day, and had left in the evening carrying two bottles of gin. This circumstance seemed to account for his absence; he had taken too much of the liquor, was lying asleep somewhere, and would reappear in the course of the day. Men both on foot and on horseback roamed through the Rises, examining the hollows and the flats, the margins of the shallow lakes, and peering into every wombat hole as they passed. They never thought of turning over any of the boulders; a drunken man would never make his bed and blanket of rocks; he would be found lying on the top if he had stumbled amongst them. One by one as night approached the searchers returned to the hut. They had discovered nothing, and the only conclusion they could come to was, that Baldy was taking a very long sleep somewhere-which was true enough.

Next day every man from the neighbouring stations, and some from Nyalong, joined in the search. The chief constable was there, and as became a professed detector of crime, he examined everything minutely inside and outside the two huts, but he could not find anything suspicious about either of them. He entered into conversation with Julia, but the eye of her husband was on her, and she had little to say. Nosey, on the contrary, was full of suggestions as to what might have happened to Baldy, and he helped to look for him eagerly and actively in every direction but the right one.

For many days the Rises were peopled with prospectors, but one by one they dropped away. The chief constable was loath to leave the riddle unsolved; he had the instinct of the sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. He had been a pursuer of bad works amongst the convicts for a long time, both in Van Diemen's Land and in Victoria, and had helped to bring many men to the gallows or the chain-gang. He had once been shot in the back by a horse thief who lay concealed behind the door of a shepherd's hut, but he secured the horse thief. He was a man without nerves, of medium height, strongly built, had a broad face, massive ears, wide, firm mouth, and strong jaws.

One night after the searchers had departed to their various homes, the chief remained alone in the Rises, and leaving his horse hobbled at a distance, cautiously approached Nosey's hut. He placed his ear to the outside of the weatherboards, and listened for some time to the conversation of Nosey and his wife, expecting to obtain by chance some information about the disappearance of the other shepherd. Nosey was in a bad temper, swearing and finding fault with everything. Julia was prudent and said little; it was best not to say too much to a man who was so handy with the family axe. But at last she made use of one expression which seemed to mean something. She said, "Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged." There was a prophetic ring in these words which delighted the chief constable, and he glued his great ear to the weatherboards, eagerly listening for more; but the wrangling pair were very disappointing; they would not keep to the point. At last he walked round the hut, suddenly opened the door, and entered. Nosey was struck dumb at once. His first thought was that his plan had been sprung, and that the murder was out. The chief addressed Julia in a tone of authority, imitating the counsel for the crown when examining a prevaricating witness.

"Now, missus, remember you will be put on your oath. You said just now, 'Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged.' Those were your very words. Now what did you mean? On your oath, mind; out with it at once."

But Julia was not to be caught so easily. She replied:

"Oh, bad luck to him, he is always angry. I don't know what to do with him. I did not mean anything."

"You did not mean anything about Baldy, I suppose, did you, now?" queried the constable, shamefully leading the witness, and looking hard at Nosey.

Julia parried the question by heaving a deep sigh, and saying: "Hi, ho, Harry, if I were a maid, I never would marry;" and then she began singing a silly old song.

The constable was disgusted, and said:

"My good woman, you'll find there will be nothing to laugh at in this job, when I see you again."

As he left the hut, he turned at the door and gave one more look at Nosey, who had stood all the time rivetted to the ground, expecting every moment that the constable would produce the handcuffs. Soon afterwards Julia went outside, walked round the hut, and stayed awhile, listening and looking in every direction. When she returned, Nosey said, in a hoarse whisper:

"Is he gan yet?"

"I think," replied Julia, "he won't be coming again to-night. He has thrown away his trouble this time, anyhow; but ye must hould your tongue, Nosey, if ye want to save your neck; he means to have you if he can."

Nosey stayed on the run some weeks longer, following his sheep. It would not be advisable to go away suddenly, and, moreover, he recollected that what the eye could not see might some time be discovered by another of the senses. So he waited patiently, standing guard as it were over the dead, until his curiosity induced him to pay a farewell visit by daylight to the place where Baldy was buried.

There had been hot weather since the body had been deposited in the shallow grave, and the crevices among the piles of bluestones had been filled by the wind with the yellow stalks of decayed grass. Nosey walked round his own particular pile, and inspected it closely. He was pleased to find that it showed no signs of having been touched since he raised it. It was just like any of the other heaps of rocks around it. He had, at any rate, given Baldy as good a funeral as circumstances would permit, better than that of many a man who had perished of hunger, heat, and thirst, in the shelterless wastes of the Never-Never Land, "beyond Moneygrub's farthest run." Nosey and the weather had done their work so well that for the next fifteen years no shepherd, stockman, or squatter ever gave a second look at that unknown grave. The black snake coiled itself beneath the decaying skeleton, and spent the winter in secure repose. The native cat tore away bits of Baldy's clothing, and with them and the yellow grass made, year after year, a nest for its young among the whitening bones.

Everything, so far, had turned out quite as satisfactorily as any murderer could expect. Nosey had been game to do his man, and he had done him well. Julia was prudent enough to hold her tongue for her own sake; it was unlikely that any further search would be made for the lost shepherd; he had been safely put out of sight, and not even Julia knew where he was buried.

Nosey began to have a better opinion of himself than ever. Neither the police nor the law could touch him. He would never be called to account for putting away his brother shepherd, in this world at any rate; and as for the next, why it was a long way off, and there was time enough to think about it. The day of reckoning was distant, but it came at last, as it always does to