In Bad Company, and other Stories/Five Men's Lives for One Horse
FIVE MEN'S LIVES FOR ONE HORSE
'Yes; it does seem a goodish price to pay for a half-bred mare—worth ten pound at the outside,' said old Bill, the cook for the rouseabouts at Jergoolah Station, one wet evening, as the men gathered round the fire after supper, with their pipes in their mouths. It had been wet for three days, so there was no shearing. Very little work for the other men either—half a hundred strong—as the wet-fleeced sheep were best left alone. The shearers were sulky of course. They were eating (and paying for) their own rations. But the ordinary 'pound-a-week men,' whose board, with lodging, was provided for them gratis, were philosophically indifferent to the state of the weather.
'I don't care if it rains till Christmas,' remarked a dissipated-looking youth, who had successfully finished a game of euchre with a dirty pack of cards and an equally unclean companion. 'It's no odds to us, so long's the creeks don't rise and block us goin' to the big smoke to blue our cheques. I don't hold with too much fine weather at shearin' time.'
'Why not?' asked his late antagonist, staring gloomily at the cards, as if he held them responsible for his losses.
'Why not?' repeated the first speaker; ''cause there's no fun in watchin' of bloomin' shearers makin' their pound and thirty bob a day while we can't raise a mag over three-and-six—at it all hours like so many workin' bullocks, and turned out the minute shearin's over, like a lot of unclaimed strangers after a cattle muster.'
'Why did ye come here at all?' asked a tall, broad-shouldered 'corn-stalk' from the neighbourhood of Penrith; 'nobody asked yer. There was plenty for the work afore you struck in. It's you town larrikins that spoil the sheds—blackguardin' and gamblin' and growlin' from daylight till dark. If I was the boss I'd set bait for ye, same's the dingoes.'
'You shut up and go home to yer pumpkin patch,' retorted the card-player, with sudden animation. 'You Sydney-siders think no one can work stock but yourselves. You've no right this side of the Murrumbidgee, if it comes to that; and I'd make one of a crowd to start you back where you come from, and all your blackleg lot.'
'Put up your hands, you spieler!' said the New South Wales man, making one long stride towards the light-weight, who, standing easily on guard, appeared in no way anxious to decline the combat.
'Come, none of that, you Nepean chap,' said a good-humoured, authoritative voice; 'no scrappin' till shearin's over, or I'll stop your pay. Besides, it's a daylight start to-morrow morning. I've a paddock to clear, and the glass is rising. The weather's going to take up.' This was the second overseer, whose word was law until the 'cobbler' was shorn, and the last man with the last sheep left the shed amid derisive cheers. After a little subdued 'growling,' the combatants, there being no grog to inflame their angry passions, subsided.
'What's that old Bill was sayin' about horses and men's lives? I heard it from outside,' demanded the centurion. 'Any duffing going on?'
'Why, Joe Downey passed the remark,' made answer a wiry-looking 'old hand,' then engaged in mending one of his boots so neatly that he might have passed for a journeyman shoemaker, had it not been an open secret that he had learned the trade within the walls of a gaol, 'that if a man was to "shake" a horse here and ride him into Queensland, he'd never be copped.'
'Oh, he wouldn't, eh? And why did Bill get his hair off?'
'Well, Bill he says, "You're a d—d young fool," says he. "I've seen smarter men than you lose their lives over a ten-pound 'oss—yes, and bring better men to the same end."'
'But he said something about five men,' persisted the overseer. 'What did he mean by that?'
'What did I mean by that?' said the old man, who had now drawn nearer, in stern and strident tones. 'Why, what I say. It's God's truth, as I stand here, and the whole five of 'em's now in their graves—as fine a lot of men, too, as ever you see—all along of one blasted mare, worth about two fivers, and be hanged to her!'
The old man's speech had a sort of rude eloquence born of earnestness, which chained the attention of the variously composed crowd; and when Mr. Macdonald, the overseer, said, 'Come, Bill, let's have it. It's a lost day, and we may as well hear your yarn as anything else before turn-in time,' the old man, thus adjured, took his pipe out of his mouth, and seating himself upon a three-legged stool, prepared to deliver himself of a singular and tragic experience.
William James, chiefly referred to as 'old Bill,' was a true type of the veritable 'old hand' of pre-auriferous Australia. Concerning an early voyage to Tasmania he was reticent. He referred to the period ambiguously as 'them old times,' when he related tales of mystery and fear, such as could have only found place under the régime of forced colonisation. No hirsute ornament adorned his countenance. Deeply wrinkled, but ever clean-shaved, it was a face furrowed and graven, as with a life-record of the darker passions and such various suffering as the human animal alone can endure and live. Out of this furnace of tribulation old Bill had emerged, in a manner purified and reformed. He gave one the impression of a retired pirate—convinced of the defects of the profession, but regretful of its pleasing episodes. Considered as a bush labourer, a more useful individual to a colony did not live. Bill could do everything well, and do twice as much of it as the less indurated industrialist of a later day. Hardy, resourceful, tireless, true to his salt, old Bill had often been considered by the sanguine or inexperienced employer an invaluable servant. And so in truth he was, until the fatal day arrived when the 'cheque fever' assailed him. Then, alas! 'he was neither to haud nor to bind.' No reason, interest, promise or principle had power to restrain him from the mad debauch, when for days—perhaps for weeks—all semblance of manhood was lost.
However, he was now in the healthful stage of constant work—well fed, paid and sheltered. Cooking was one of his many accomplishments: in it he excelled. While, despite his age, his courage and determination sufficed to keep the turbulent 'rouseabouts' in order. In his leisure hours he was prone to improve the occasion by demonstrating the folly of colliding with the law—its certain victory, its terrible penalties. And of the gloomy sequel to a solitary act was the present story.
'I mind,' he began—pushing back the grey hair which he wore long and carefully brushed—'when I was workin' on a run near the Queensland border. It's many a long year ago—but that says nothin'; some of you chaps is as young and foolish as this Jack Danvers as I'm a-goin' to tell ye about. Well, some of us was startin' a bit of a spree like, after shearin'; we'd all got tidy cheques; some was goin' one way and some another. Jack and his mate to Queensland, where they expected a big job of work. Just as we was a-saddlin' up—some of us had one neddy, some two—a mob of horses comes by. I knew who they belonged to—a squatter not far off. Among 'em was a fine lump of a brown filly, three year old, half bred, but with good action.
'"That's a good filly," says Jack—he'd had a few glasses—"she could be roped handy in the old cattle-yard near the crick. Lead easy too, 'long with the other mokes."
'"Don't be a darned fool, Jack," says I; "there'll be a bloomin' row over her, you take it from me. She's safe to be missed, and you'll be tracked up. D—n it all, man," says I, "what's a ten-pound filly for a man to lose his liberty over? If it was a big touch it might be different."
'"You're a fine cove to preach," says he, quite savage. The grog had got into his head, I could see. "Mind your own business." I heard his mate (he was a rank bad 'un) say something to him, and they rode away steady; but the same road that the "mob" had gone. I went off with some other chaps as wer' inside having a last drink, and thought no more about Jack Danvers and the brown filly till nigh a year after. Then it come out. The filly 'd been spotted, working in a team, by the man that bred her. The carrier bought her square and honest; had a receipt from a storekeeper. They found the storekeeper in Queensland; he'd bought her from another man. "What sort of a man?"—"Why, a tall, good-looking chap, like a flash shearer." Word went to the police at Warwillah. It was Jack Danvers of course; they'd suspected him and his mate all the time.
'Well, Jack was nabbed, tho' he was out on a Queensland diggin' far enough away. But they sent up his description from the shed we'd left together, and he was brought down in irons, as he'd made a fight of it. The storekeeper swore to him positive as the man that had sold him the brown J.D. filly—old Jerry Dawson's she was. The jury found him guilty and he got three years.
'Now I'm on to the part of the play when the "ante-up" comes in. You mind me, you young fellers, it always does sooner or later. He'd no call to shake that filly. I said so then, and I say so now. And what come'd of it? Listen and I'll tell you—Death in five chapters—and so simple, all along of an unbroke filly!
'Now Jack wa'n't the man to stop inside of prison walls if he could help it. He and another chap make a rush one day, knock over the warder and collar his revolver. Another warder comes out to help; Jack shoots him dead, and they clear. Man's life number one. Big reward offered. They stick up a roadside inn next. Somebody gave 'em away. Police waitin' on 'em as they walk in—dead of night. Soon's they see the police, Jack shoots the innkeeper, poor devil! thought he'd sold 'em. Man's life number two. Jack and his mate and the police bang away at each other at close quarters—trooper wounded—Jack shot dead—mate wounded, dies next day. Men's lives number four.
'Who gave the office to the police and collared the blood-money? Friend of Jack's, a pal. Five hundred quid was too much for him. What became of him? Job leaked out somehow—friends and family dropped him. The money did him no good. Took to' drinking straight ahead, and died in the horrors within the year. Men's lives number five.
'Yes; he was the fifth man to go down. Two pound apiece their lives fetched! They're in their graves because Jack Danvers was a d—d fool, and when he was young, strong, good-looking and well-liked, must go and duff a man's mare out of sheer foolishness. He didn't see what was to come of it, or he'd 'a cut off his right hand first. But that's the way of it. We don't see them things till it's too late. But mark my words, you young chaps as has got all the world before you—take a fool's advice. It don't pay to "go on the cross"—never did; and there's no one has cause to know it better than old Bill James.'
'By George!' said the overseer, 'that's the best yarn I have heard for a year. And if the parson preaches a better sermon when he holds service in the woolshed next Sunday, I'll be surprised.'