“How long have you been bad? How long has this been coming on?”
He took no notice of the question. I thought it was a touch of rheumatic
fever, or something of that sort. “It's gone into my back and sides
now--the pain's worse in me back,” he said presently.
I had once been mates with a man who died suddenly of heart disease,
while at work. He was washing a dish of dirt in the creek near a claim
we were working; he let the dish slip into the water, fell back, crying,
“O, my back!” and was gone. And now I felt by instinct that it was poor
old Howlett's heart that was wrong. A man's heart is in his back as well
as in his arms and hands.
The old man had turned pale with the pallor of a man who turns faint in
a heat wave, and his arms fell loosely, and his hands rocked helplessly
with the knuckles in the dust. I felt myself turning white, too, and the
sick, cold, empty feeling in my stomach, for I knew the signs. Bushmen
stand in awe of sickness and death.
But after I'd fixed him comfortably and given him a drink from the water
bag the greyness left his face, and he pulled himself together a bit; he
drew up his arms and folded them across his chest. He let his head rest
back against the tree--his slouch hat had fallen off revealing a broad,
white brow, much higher than I expected. He seemed to gaze on the azure
fin of the range, showing above the dark blue-green bush on the horizon.
Then he commenced to speak--taking no notice of me when I asked him if
he felt better now--to talk in that strange, absent, far-away tone that
awes one. He told his story mechanically, monotonously--in set words, as
I believe now, as he had often told it before; if not to others, then to
the loneliness of the bush. And he used the names of people and places
that I had never heard of--just as if I knew them as well as he did.
“I didn't want to bring her up the first year. It was no place for a
woman. I wanted her to stay with her people and wait till I'd got the
place a little more ship-shape. The Phippses took a selection down the
creek. I wanted her to wait and come up with them so's she'd have some
company--a woman to talk to. They came afterwards, but they didn't stop.
It was no place for a woman.
“But Mary would come. She wouldn't stop with her people down country.
She wanted to be with me, and look after me, and work and help me.”
He repeated himself a great deal--said the same thing over and over
again sometimes. He was only mad on one track. He'd tail off and
sit silent for a while; then he'd become aware of me in a hurried,
half-scared way, and apologise for putting me to all that trouble, and
thank me. “I'll be all right d'reckly. Best take the horses up to the
hut and have some breakfast; you'll find it by the fire. I'll foller
you, d'reckly. The wife'll be waitin' an'----” He would drop off, and be
going again presently on the old track:--
“Her mother was coming up to stay awhile at the end of the year, but the
old man hurt his leg. Then her married sister was coming, but one of the
youngsters got sick and there was trouble at home. I saw the doctor in
the town--thirty miles from here--and fixed it up with him. He was a
boozer--I'd 'a shot him afterwards. I fixed up with a woman in the town
to come and stay. I thought Mary was wrong in her time. She must have
been a month or six weeks out. But I listened to her.... Don't argue
with a woman. Don't listen to a woman. Do the right thing. We should
have had a mother woman to talk to us. But it was no place for a woman!”
He rocked his head, as if from some old agony of mind, against the
tree-trunk.
“She was took bad suddenly one night, but it passed off. False alarm. I
was going to ride somewhere, but she said to wait till daylight. Someone
was sure to pass. She was a brave and sensible girl, but she had a
terror of being left alone. It was no place for a woman!
“There was a black shepherd three or four miles away. I rode over while
Mary was asleep, and started the black boy into town. I'd 'a shot him
afterwards if I'd 'a caught him. The old black gin was dead the week
before, or Mary would a' bin alright. She was tied up in a bunch with
strips of blanket and greenhide, and put in a hole. So there wasn't even
a gin near the place. It was no place for a woman!
“I was watchin' the road at daylight, and I was watchin' the road at
dusk. I went down in the hollow and stooped down to get the gap agen the
sky, so's I could see if anyone was comin' over.... I'd get on the horse
and gallop along towards the town for five miles, but something would
drag me back, and then I'd race for fear she'd die before I got to the
hut. I expected the doctor every five minutes.
“It come on about daylight next morning. I ran back'ards and for'ards
between the hut and the road like a madman. And no one come. I was
running amongst the logs and stumps, and fallin' over them, when I saw
a cloud of dust agen sunrise. It was her mother an' sister in the
spring-cart, an' just catchin' up to them was the doctor in his buggy
with the woman I'd arranged with in town. The mother and sister was
staying at the town for the night, when they heard of the black boy. It
took him a day to ride there. I'd 'a shot him if I'd 'a caught him ever
after. The doctor'd been on the drunk. If I'd had the gun and known she
was gone I'd have shot him in the buggy. They said she was dead. And the
child was dead, too.
“They blamed me, but I didn't want her to come; it was no place for a
woman. I never saw them again after the funeral. I didn't want to see
them any more.”
He moved his head wearily against the tree, and presently drifted on
again in a softer tone--his eyes and voice were growing more absent and
dreamy and far away.
“About a month after--or a year, I lost count of the time long ago--she
came back to me. At first she'd come in the night, then sometimes when
I was at work--and she had the baby--it was a girl--in her arms. And
by-and-bye she came to stay altogether.... I didn't blame her for going
away that time--it was no place for a woman.... She was a good wife to
me. She was a jolly girl when I married her. The little girl grew up
like her. I was going to send her down country to be educated--it was no
place for a girl.
“But a month, or a year, ago, Mary left me, and took the daughter, and
never came back till last night--this morning, I think it was. I thought
at first it was the girl with her hair done up, and her mother's skirt
on, to surprise her old dad. But it was Mary, my wife--as she was when
I married her. She said she couldn't stay, but she'd wait for me on the
road; on--the road....”
His arms fell, and his face went white. I got the water-bag. “Another
turn like that and you'll be gone,” I thought, as he came to again. Then
I suddenly thought of a shanty that had been started, when I came that
way last, ten or twelve miles along the road, towards the town. There
was nothing for it but to leave him and ride on for help, and a cart of
some kind.
“You wait here till I come back,” I said. “I'm going for the doctor.”
He roused himself a little. “Best come up to the hut and get some grub.
The wife'll be waiting....” He was off the track again.
“Will you wait while I take the horse down to the creek?”
“Yes--I'll wait by the road.”
“Look!” I said, “I'll leave the water-bag handy. Don't move till I come
back.”
“I won't move--I'll wait by the road,” he said.
I took the packhorse, which was the freshest and best, threw the
pack-saddle and bags into a bush, left the other horse to take care of
itself, and started for the shanty, leaving the old man with his back to
the tree, his arms folded, and his eyes on the horizon.
One of the chaps at the shanty rode on for the doctor at once, while the
other came back with me in a spring-cart. He told me that old Howlett's
wife had died in child-birth the first year on the selection--“she was a
fine girl he'd heered!” He told me the story as the old man had told it,
and in pretty well the same words, even to giving it as his opinion that
it was no place for a woman. “And he 'hatted' and brooded over it till
he went ratty.”
I knew the rest. He not only thought that his wife, or the ghost of his
wife, had been with him all those years, but that the child had lived
and grown up, and that the wife did the housework; which, of course, he
must have done himself.
When we reached him his knotted hands had fallen for the last time, and
they were at rest. I only took one quick look at his face, but could
have sworn that he was gazing at the blue fin of the range on the
horizon of the bush.
Up at the hut the table was set as on the first day I saw it, and
breakfast in the camp-oven by the fire.