The Biggest Scamp in the Camp by A G ‘Smiler’ Hales
The rough log shanty was flooded with warm red light, the bark still clung to the unhewn cedar trunks out of which the hut was built, the floor, though scrupulously clean, was of clay and the table in the centre of the room was made of odd pieces of old beer crates. In one corner stood a primitive bedstead, but the sheets were as white as the hands of a woman could make them, and no maidens head ever rested on a pillow of such snowy whiteness than those found in Grant McIntosh’s lumberman’s hut in the ‘Black Boy’ Ranges 100 miles east of the city of Perth. A sandalwood root burned in the wide yawning fireplace and filled the cabin with its strange almost oriental perfume, and the spluttering flame that the oil wood sent up glistened on the few pictures that adorned the walls.
There was ‘The Last Stand of the Old Guard’, further on ‘The Death of Nelson’ sparkled in the fire rays, whilst between the two a coloured portrait of Australia’s equine hero ‘Carbine’ which somewhat showed the character of the master of the cabin. But there was another picture there, a fairer one that any artists hand had painted – a living breathing piece of womanhood – Grant McIntosh’s wife. Tall and straight as a woman should be, with a great arched bust and queenly shoulders, with large round soft waist, and hips broad and full. No dainty sickly child of a city slum, but the woman fashioned to be the mother of a race of soldiers. Her sun-kissed skin was fair, with the blue veins running like pencil lines beneath the skin in nature’s daintiest tracery.
She stood with one hand pressed on her bosom, the other resting on the edge of the rough deal table, and her head was bent forward as she listened for something, and the light in her eyes told that she longed for that for which she listened whilst the trembling of her red moist underlip that dread mingled with the longing.
Outside the hut the moon was at its full, and the silver rays lit up the mountain stream that dashed and foamed though the narrow gorge until it looked like a streak of molten silver, hissing and boiling where the rocks crowded in upon it, moaning and crooning like a mothers lullaby to a sick child where the pass was wider. Far up overhead the ranges ran grimly, the great trees with their somber foliage casting great shadows deep and dark all around until the ranges in their funeral blackness looked like frowns on the face of nature. All around the hut lay the settlement of splitters and sawyers, each cabin was the counterpart of its neighbors. Here a dog barked in the moonlight, there a woman sat with feet wide apart with a little feverish child on her lap. Further on a crowd of lumbermen stood in their shirtsleeves smoking and yarning. Strong, rough, bearded burly men for the most part, with just sufficient sentiment to their natures to make them appreciate a woman as something very handy to have about the house.
Straight through the lines made by the cabins a man moved with rapid but classic tread, and as he passed on towards the home of Grant McIntosh, the woman looked up and nodded shyly as he greeted them, whilst the men stopped in the middle of their stories and nudged one another silently until he passed, for they had long since learned to know that figure and not one of them dared to hint at the things to his face they uttered so freely behind his back. The man moved on steadily till he reached the last cabin in the line on the highest point of the settled ground, where the rising slope and the rough range met in nature’s embrace. He did not pause a moment at the door but entered it with the light quick touch of a man sure of the welcome that awaited him on the inside.
The door swung too with a clashing sound, and Eve McIntosh stood face to face with ‘”the biggest scamp in the camp”. He had another name, but men and women alike in the settlement knew him by no other – it was a name he had earned too. Women, both married and single, had looked in his face and had lived to weep over their folly. Men had measured their strength with his and had good cause to regret the trial. Fierce as a whirlwind in his love or his anger, reckless and thoughtless, proud of his bull-like strength and activity, bold and daring to the very edge of mania; fearing nothing, venerating nothing, handsome, hard-drinking, generous. He looked what he was – a pirate leader wasted. In his wooing or his fighting, he never stayed to count the cost. At the forge he would do the work of two men; at the bar, he did four men’s drinking; whilst he did the wooing of a dozen.
“What have you come for Ned?” “For this Eve.”
With a movement which was wonderful for its speed in a man of his build he passed the table that has stood between them, and turning her face to his he kissed her on the mouth – she tried to draw from his great strong arms, but he laughed, and bending his lips to her ear he spoke for a moment.
“No, Ned; No. Oh God, Ned; have you not enough on your soul.”
“Look into my eyes, Eve, and tell me that you do not care for me; tell me that for months and months whilst your husband has been away on the Goldfields that you have never craved to hear me say ‘I love you Eve’. Look up little one and say it from your soul if you dare.”
Slowly, steadily the big soft blue eyes were raised to his reckless laughing face, and her lips tittered the falsehood that was written all over her face. “No Ned, I never loved you”. He did not hear or heed the words she said. He took his answer from her glowing cheeks, from the light in her faltering eyes, from the soft clinging touch of her hand, took it and laughed – and the red light in the cabin burned low, the shadows gathered around ‘The Death of Nelson’ hanging on the wall and nothing was heard but the caressing voice of the ‘biggest scamp’ in the settlement.
Outside the cabin a man was standing in the moonlight; his horse waiting patiently beside him, the bridle was thrown over his left arm. In his right hand he held a revolver firmly gripped. He never moved, never seemed to breathe, so still, so deadly still he appeared to be – and the red light in the cabin burned lower. One by one the lights in the neighboring huts went out, yet the sentinel never moved, never so much as lifted his head. A dog came from the darkness of the trees and sniffed suspiciously at the horses’ hoofs and went away again, and yet the sentinel didn’t so much as shift his weight from one foot to the other.
At last, the door was opened and the light was bright enough to show the woman standing with one hand over her face, the other was in the hand of the ‘greatest scamp of the camp’; he had one hand on the threshold and on one the latch lock. He drew the woman to him and stole one long last caress and turning looked into the very throat of death. He made one quick move of his body, and that move covered Eve from her husbands’ eyes. No word was spoken; steadily the revolver barrel was dropped until it lined his chest, then the flame leaped forth. There was a sudden whip-like crack and ‘the biggest scamp in the camp’ swayed about a little to the right, a little to the left and then he looked as if he would pitch face downwards. But he held himself upright, and with supreme effort faced round to the woman inside and motioned her with his hand to fly.
Then nature claimed her own, and he slipped gently to the earth and lay right across the threshold and as he fell the husband threw the revolver on his upturned face, vaulted into the saddle, and rode into the shadow of the trees, turning his horses head once more towards the Goldfields. Out from every cabin came the lumbermen and their wives, wondering at the sound that had broken their rest and they saw a woman kneeling beside a man with his head in her hands.
“Where ―is ―the ― gun ―dear?”
The words came slowly as his mouth was full of foam and blood which pumped up each time he drew breath. “Its on the ground beside you. Oh, Ned, I knew our sins would find us out.” Even then a half-smile crossed the twitching lips. “Put the gun in my hand dear”.
“What for Ned, Oh God what for?”
“To – save – him – and – to – shield – you, I am past all help now – little woman.”
The people crowded around him, the women sobbing the men cursing, and they lifted him up and carried him into the cabin and laid him upon the bed, and the white sheets were soon stained with the ugly splashes of a man’s lifeblood … Then one of the men who was a clerk at the big mill drew near to him and said, Bill Hastings has gone for the doctor Ned, but I think you have been sent for this time old man. Tell us who did it?” “Did what?” asked the dying man.” “That,” said the clerk pointing to the hole in his chest from which a continuous stream of pink was trickling onto the white sheets. ‘I ―did―it ― myself.”
“Suicide, by thunder!” muttered a man nearby, with a sigh of relief. “I feared it was murder Ned”.
“No – suicide it is – not – murder. I – was – fool ―enough – to – fall – in ― love – with – McIntosh’s – wife – and – she ―refused – to have anything to do with me.”.
“You shot yourself Ned” ― “Yes, life without her was no good.”
A man pushed through the crowd around the bed, it was Eli Dartmoor, the local preacher. He had his bible in his hand. “Have you spoken the truth Ned?” Again that quizzical smile gleamed on the blue lips. “I never lied ― to a man – though I may – have done – to many a woman. Why should I ― lie now?”
The preacher kneeled down and placed the bible between the cold brown hands and said “Ned, swear this, As I am a dying man, I swear that there was no wrong between me and Eve McIntosh and I swear before God that no man caused my death, but I die by my own hand, I swear it, so help me god.”―
Every man in the room bowed his head, every woman held her breath; then for the space of half a second, all was still, and the red light in the cabin burned lower. Then the dying sinner raised one hand over his head and clenched the little bible firmly, he lifted the sacred volume to his lips, turned his eyes longingly on the face of the woman and said:
“I ― swear that is – the ― whole truth, so help me god – and may – the Lord have mercy on my ――”
Down came the upraised arm, the bible slid to the floor and out into the night went the soul of the ’biggest scamp in the camp”.
Moya Sharp
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