Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

It was half a mile distant, the white sheet of the sand ending abruptly against its black border. Only half a mile! But the soft sand cloyed his feet and before he had covered half the distance he began to experience the sensation of a man in a nightmare.

Then out into the open sprang the hooded man, running fast despite the hessian about his feet, running parallel with the gutter towards the timber line. His tall and robust figure appeared to move without effort, and Bony began to deplore his cigarette-smoking habit. His quarry had appeared at least two hundred yards ahead of him, and now seemed to be increasing the lead.

Yes, there it was. Bony could now see the horse neck-roped to a tree. It was standing motionless, watching the men approach, standing in the shadow cast by the leafy cabbage tree. Useless now to continue in the direct line to the timber, following as he was the hooded man, who would certainly first reach the horse, and, having reached it, mount and come riding back to meet him on the open ground.

Bony veered north-west. The timber still offered him better protection than the gutter, deep and angled though that would be. He clenched his teeth for an instant when he saw the hooded man gain the shadow of the tree beneath which stood the horse. Then he opened his mouth wide to gulp in air and steady his heaving lungs.

Providence had been kind, indeed, and now she was teasing him, teaching him more respect for her, teaching him not so easily to accept her for granted. He was two hundred yards from the timber edge when the hooded man came out from the tree shadow on the horse, plunging into a gallop, riding straight towards him.

Bony halted. He had to conserve his strength. To run was to use up what was left to him. With breath rasping through his mouth and nostrils, he bent forward, arching his body, his hands resting on the ground. With all the might of his mind exerting control over his body, he waited.

The moon was just above the rider’s left shoulder. The man’s hood was almost in alignment with the horse’s head. He held the reins in his lefthand, in his right was the pistol. For the waiting Bony, much depended on the training received by the horse.

As is normal on such occasions of mental stress, time ceased to have meaning. The very condition of mental stress cleared Bony’s brain. He wasno longer conscious of bodily fatigue, no longer conscious of his rapid breathing, and no longer was there any effort required to remain still, to wait. The instinct of self-preservation was now in full control of him.

He could see the rider’s purpose. The hooded man was not going to be foolish enough to ride him down, followed by the probability of his horse tumbling and throwing him. It showed that he hadn’t that confidence in thehorse, or in himself as a horseman. He intended to ride past on Bony’s right and attempt to shoot him. And he held the reins only in his left hand.

The very manner in which he held those reins gave Bony hope. And the very manner in which the fellow rode the horse increased hope. Still Bony waited, crouched forward upon his hands. He waited till the horse was but ten feet from him, headed to pass him, when he sprang upward, jumped high with arms flung wide, and shouted at the top of his voice.

The horse flung up its head in swift fright, and with it missed the head of its rider by a fraction. It swerved far to the rider’s left, almost unseating him, so that he had to bring the pistol hand up and across the other to bear upon the reins. Now the horse was past Bony, and now the rider was engaged in mastering it as it continued to gallop down the slope towards the foot of the distant Walls of China.

And Bony continued his race towards the timber, refreshed by the short space of waiting. He had two hundred yards to cover.

He had halved the distance when, looking back, he saw that the hooded man had mastered the horse and was turning it to ride back to get him before he could cover the last hundred yards. He had reduced that last hundred to fifty yards when he was forced to halt and again meet the charge.

This time he did not wait. Horse and man were fifty feet from him when he began to run towards them, crouching low and zigzagging. The manoeuvre nettled the rider, who came on direct and opened fire. Where the bullet went Bony could never subsequently make up his mind. It was instantly evident that the horse was not accustomed to a pistol being fired close to its ear, for the shock of the explosion so astonished it that it faltered in its stride, almost tripped, and almost sent its rider over its head.

That was when Bony was approximately twenty feet from the horse’s bridle bit, and during a split second he debated whether to rush forward and grab that bit and toss the rider off, or to continue his progress to the timber. He decided on the latter course, and made for it.

He had almost reached the nearest tree when the report of the pistol followed the impact of the bullet into the trunk of a tree to his right. Again the pistol cracked. The bullet must have gone high, for he did not hear its whine.

No lover ever caressed his loved one with such fervour as Bony laid hands upon the trunk of that tree he reached, a nice substantial mulga-tree of about a foot in diameter and as hard as teak. There he halted himself, swung round to its farside, and with astonishment saw the hooded man riding south as hard as he could press his mount.

When he recovered normal breathing the hooded man and horse had disappeared along the timber line, and Bony’s strained face was subsiding to normal.

“Ran out of ammunition… That’s amonty, as son Charles would say,” he said aloud.“But what a nice, determined gentleman! Now what will he do? What will he be planning to do whilst I make and smoke a cigarette, just to calm my nerves? Why, he willbe wanting to get home as soon as possible for two quite simple reasons. One, to shed his ballroom clothes for his workaday clothes among the cinders, and two, to get his horse over the ground as soon as possible in order to give that damned wind every chance of smothering his tracks so that he can’t be tracked to his home.”

Leaning back against the tree trunk, he felt elated whilst he smoked. This case was breaking his way at last, even though fresh questions rose like an army of enemies from the Walls of China. What had that man been doing on the reservoir tank stand? He had been there for some time certainly, because he must have been there all the time Bony had been standing with his back to the cane-grass meat house, and that had been for at least forty minutes.

Examination of the ground about the tank stand and mill, as well as the mill and tank stand itself, might solve that question and provide, possibly, other information. The wind was going to obliterate the faint tracks left by the hessian-covered feet, and it might well cover the horse’s tracks on the white sand and red sand which came down to border it. And, further, with the dawn, the wind would probably increase in velocity.

That the fellow had ridden off to the southward did not indicate that he had come from the south. He left with the knowledge that he had been observed, and he would ride in order to frustrate that observation.

Well, Bony could do little until day came, for the moon even now was against tracking the horse, its light too oblique. He could wait there for daylight and then do all possible to track the horse, or he could return to the hut, boil the billy for a badly needed pint of coffee, and then go out to the horse paddock and catch and saddle his own station horse. Or… But wait…

Tossing aside the cigarette end, he rose and began a long easy trotting run to the township. He covered the distance in three-quarters of an hour, reaching a position due south of the parsonage when dawn was barring with white the sky above the Walls of China. Maintaining that easylope, and conscious of the risk he was taking of being shot at, he skirted wide southward of the township till he came to the wire fence surrounding the butcher’s horse yards and stables.