Ghost Stories and Mysteries (23 page)

“It’s that cursed Chinaman hunted me. The one who cut his throat.”

“Did you see him?” asked Mac in an awed voice.

“I did, indeed, with the bandages round his neck just as they found him. I meant to go in to the station and tell the boss he must send out somebody else. When I remembered that you were nearer and came over for a bit of company. Now, don’t laugh at a fellow—just you go and stop in my hut for a night or two.”

“No fear,” returned Mac emphatically.

“Well I thought I didn’t care for anything,” said the boundary-rider, “but this caps all. You should see—cripes! what’s that!” For a long, lugubrious howl sounded outside, followed by the rattling of a chain. Both men forced a very artificial laugh.

“It’s Boxer,” said Smithson, Suddenly illumined. “I left him tied up, but he’s got his chain loose and followed me.”

A very wet and woe-begone dog came in at his call. Smithson detached the chain from his collar and they sat down again.

“Boxer didn’t fancy being left alone,” remarked Mac.

“Seems not. It gave me quite a turn when he howled like that. What do you say?” Taking the hint, Mac arose and the two went into the bar.

“All alone to-night?” asked Smithson.

“Yes, the missus is in town; there’s only deaf Ben in the kitchen.”

“Well, I hope that d—d Chinaman won’t follow the dog.”

“Don’t get talking like that. How did he come to cut his throat? It was before my time.”

“The fellow who had the contract for the paddock-fence lived in the hut with two men, and the Chinaman was cooking for them; he was there for over six months. Chris, the contractor, he paid off the other men; and he and the Chinaman stopped for a week longer to finish up some odd jobs. One morning Chris came in to the station as hard as he could split—the Chow had cut his throat the night before. Chris said he wasn’t quite dead, and that he had tied up the wound as well as he could. The super and another man went back with him, but when they arrived the Chinkie was as dead as a door-nail. Now, the strange thing was that the stuff Chris had tied round his throat was quite clean; but when they moved the body, with Chris holding the shoulders, the blood commenced to soak through, and turned them all quite faint. All Chris knew about it was that when he awoke in the morning the Chinaman was lying outside with a sheath-knife in his hand and his throat cut.”

“And did you see nothing until to-night?”

“No. Just after dark I heard someone calling, and I went to the door and looked out. I can tell you I just did get a fright, for there by the lightning I saw the Chinaman standing, with bloody rags round his neck, and the knife in his hand.”

Mac shuddered and passed the bottle.

“Now,” said Smithson, “comes the strange part of it. That shout, or coo-ee, I heard, came from some way off, and that there ghost I saw was not looking at me, but listening for that shout, and smiling like a man who was expecting a friend coming.”

“What did you do?”

“I slammed the door to, picked up my saddle and bridle and got out of the back window. I knew my old moke was not far off, but I was that scared I left his hobbles where I took them off. I heard Boxer howling as I rode away.”

* * * * * * *

It was a beautiful morning after the storm as Smithson rode in to the head station. So bright and cheerful was it that the boundary-rider felt rather ashamed of the yarn he was going to tell and half-inclined to turn back. However, he went on and had an interview with the superintendent. Naturally, he was laughed at, and this, of course, made him stubborn.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Morrison, the super, at last. I’ll go back with you this afternoon and stop the night with you, and we’ll see if we can’t quiet the Chinaman.”

Smithson agreed, remarking that perhaps it was only on one particular night he walked, as he had never seen him before.

Morrison turned up an old diary and glanced through it. “Oh, that’s nothing,” he said, pushing it away.

* * * * * * *

The two men rode up to the lonely hut, Morrison slightly ahead. “There’s something queer there,” he said, pulling up. Smithson stared eagerly; while Boxer, who was with them, sat down on the road and howled dismally.

Recovering themselves, the two rode on. A man was lying in front of the door stretched out in death. Dismounting, they approached and examined him.

“No, no!” cried Smithson, “don’t touch him—we mustn’t till the police come.”

With an impatient gesture Morrison stooped down and turned the dead face up. In the throat was a rude wound, and in the open eyes a terror more than human.

“It’s Christy,” said the superintendent in a quiet voice.

“The man who employed the Chinaman?” asked Smithson in an unsteady tone.

“Yes. How, in the name of God, did he come here? Tell me exactly what you saw and heard.”

“I was in the doorway, as I told you,” said the boundary-rider excitedly, “standing just there, and by the flash of lightning I saw the Chinaman here”—and he indicated the spot.

“He was standing like this”—and he bent forward like a man watching and listening—looking in the direction the cry came from over there.”

“And you saw a knife in his hand?”

“Yes, and he was smiling as though expecting somebody he wanted to see badly.”

Morrison put his hand on the other’s shoulder and pointed to the knife in the hand of the corpse. “Was it that knife?”

“It looks like it,” chattered Smithson.

The superintendent glanced about and shook his head. “No tracks to tell tales,” he said.

“No, all the storm was on afterwards.”

Morrison mused a bit. “Get a sheet of bark,” he said, “or one of those sheets of iron there. We must put him inside, and then I’ll give you a letter to take in to the police. You can get back with the sergeant by to-morrow morning, and we’ll bury him.”

“You’re not going to stop here?” said Smithson.

“No,” returned Morrison. “I’ll get over to Mac’s.”

They lifted the dead man on to the sheet of iron and carried him into his old dwelling-place, Smithson evidently much averse to the job. Morrison tried to close the staring eyes before they put one of Smithson’s blankets over the corpse; but the lids were rigid. “Evidently he didn’t like the look of where he’s gone to,” he muttered. The two set out—one to the little township, the other to Mac’s pub.

The night was as calm and fine as though thunder were unknown. Morrison mused deeply over the tragic occurrence, trying to recall all he knew of the past and put a common-sense construction on it, but he failed, and only made himself nervous.

“There’s one very strange thing about the affair,” he said to Mac, when they were discussing it that evening. “When I paid Chris for the contract—over which he lost, by the way—I gave him separate cheques to pay off his men, including one for the Chinaman of about $30. That cheque was not found, and, moreover, it has never been presented to this day.”

“What sort of a fellow was Chris?”

“A good fencer, but a stupid fellow, not fit to take contracts. I often wonder if he took the cheque off the body before he came in.”

“Then why didn’t he present it?”

“That was his idea
,
no doubt, at first. But I tell you he could scarcely read or write and I suppose after he heard me tell the sergeant that I would give the bank notice and instruct them to watch for the cheque, he got frightened.”

“Before that he imagined that one cheque was the same as another, and that you could not trace a particular one?”

“Yes, just about what he would think.”

“Perhaps he killed the Chinaman?”

“Perhaps he did,” returned Morrison, after a long and thoughtful pause.

By sunrise Morrison and Mac were at the boundary-rider’s hut, and soon afterwards the sergeant and Smithson arrived. The examination did not take long, and they prepared to dig a grave.

“Better not bury him alongside the other,” said the sergeant.

“No,” replied Morrison. “Let’s see, we buried him over against that tree; didn’t we, sergeant?”

“Yes, and not very deep either. It was dry weather, the ground was hard, and we came upon a big root.”

The obsequies were not prolonged. Sewn up in the blanket, the dead man was soon laid in a damp grave. While the others were filling it up, Morrison, still thinking of Mac’s remark, strolled over to the spot where the Chinaman slept, not expecting to see any mark of the place left. He started and turned pale.

“Here! Quick! Come here!” he cried.

The men came hastily, the tools still in their hands. The earth over the old grave had been loosened and disturbed.

“My God! he’s got up!” murmured Smithson. “I’ve heard they can’t rest out of their own country.”

“Give me a shovel,” cried Morrison; and commenced to carefully scrape the earth away. The sergeant assisted him, and they soon came to the skeleton, for nearly everything but the bones was gone.

“What, do you expect to find?” asked the sergeant.

Morrison was carefully brushing the loose dirt off the thing with a bough.

“Look here!” he said.

Clasped in the fleshless hand was the missing cheque

“It wasn’t buried with him, I’ll swear,” said the sergeant.

“And if it had been, it would have decayed long since,” answered Morrison.

“He got up and took it from Chris last night. He was bound to get his cheque back,” said Mac.

“Well I’m going to pack up my traps,” remarked Smithson.

“I’ll send down and have this hut shifted,” said Morrison. “Although now he’s got what he wanted, I don’t suppose, he’ll get up again.”

“By gum, I won’t trust him,” said the boundary-rider.

A STRANGE OCCURRENCE ON HUCKEY’S CREEK

(1897)

The heat haze hung like a mist over the plain. Everything seen through it appeared to palpitate and quiver, although not a breath of air was stirring. The three men, sitting under the iron-roofed verandah of the little roadside inn, at which they had halted and turned out their horses for a mid-day spell, were drenched with perspiration and tormented to the verge of insanity by flies. The horses, finding it too hot to keep up even the pretence of eating, had sought what shade they could find, and stood there in pairs, head to tail.

“Blessed if there isn’t a loony of some kind coming across the plain,” said one of the men suddenly.

The others looked, and could make out an object that was coming along the road that led across the open, but the quivering of the atmosphere prevented them distinguishing the figure properly until within half-a-mile of the place.

“Hanged if I don’t believe it’s a woman!” said the man who had first spoken, whose name was Tom Devlin.

“It is so,” said the other two, after a pause.

Devlin walked to where the water-bags had been hung to cool, and, taking one down, went out into the glaring sunshine to meet the approaching figure.

It
was
a woman. Weary, worn-out, and holding in her hand a dry and empty water-bag. Although only middle-aged, she had that tanned and weather-beaten appearance that all women get, sooner or later, in North Queensland.

With a sigh of gratitude she took the water-bag from Tom’s hand and put the bottle-mouth to her lips, bush fashion. There is no more satisfactory drink in the world for a thirsty person than that to be obtained straight from the nozzle of a water-bag.

Tom regarded the woman pityingly. She was dressed in common print and a coarse straw hat, and looked like the wife of a teamster.

“Where have you come from, missus, and what brought you here?”

“We were camped on Huckey’s Creek, and my husband died last night. I couldn’t find the horses this morning, so I started back here.”

“Fifteen miles from here,” said Devlin. “We are going to camp there tonight, and will see after it. You come in and rest.”

He took her back to the little inn, where she could get something to eat and a room to lie down in. Then they caught their horses and started, promising to look up the strayed animals and attend to everything, according to the directions the woman gave them.

The three men arrived at Huckey’s Creek about an hour before sundown. They examined the place thoroughly, but neither dray, horses, nor anything else was visible. The marks of a camp and the tracks bore out the woman’s story, but that was all.

“Deuced strange!” said Devlin. “Somebody must have come along and shook the things, but what did they do with the man’s body? They wouldn’t hawk that about with them.”

“Here’s the mailman coming,” said one of the others, as a man coming towards them with a pack-horse hove in sight.

They awaited his approach, standing dismounted on the bank of the creek. The mailman’s thirsty horses plunged their noses deep in the water and drank greedily.

“I say, you fellows,” he called out, “you didn’t see a woman on foot about anywhere, did you?”