In fact, Jessica knows now that she can’t kill Billy Simple in cold blood, come what may. She looks over to where he sits with his back against the boree tree. He’s finished his tucker and now holds the empty mug on his lap, as he lies fast asleep with his chin tucked into his shoulder.
He’d never even know if I put a bullet between his eyes, she thinks for the last time. Jessica grins sadly to herself. He is so bloody ugly, but she knows instinctively that he won’t harm her, and that he’s her responsibility. The poor bugger must have copped so much from those Thomas women over the years to do what he’s done.
Jessica has no doubt that Billy will be hanged for what he’s done. But it must be done by the law, done fairly and respectable and not by a drunken lynch mob. The least Billy has coming to him after his miserable life is a fair trial. There is terror enough in that, but it isn’t as bad as being strung up out here in the bush. Someone ought to speak up on his behalf, say what the Thomas women did to him. It won’t help, but at least people will know the murders weren’t done in cold blood. They’d know he was provoked real bad. Jessica remembers how fair Billy had been when he dealt with the tar boys the day all this started, four years ago. It’s only right that he’s treated with some kindness in return, though she knows that before the night is out she may still witness him hanging from the branch of a gum tree or see his big, clumsy body riddled with bullets. Jessica feels the tears starting to well up.
She’d once heard tell of how Ben Hall was gunned down, bullets smashing into him. A terrible picture passes through her mind, it is of Billy lying helpless on the ground looking up at her., his eyes confused. Then of men rushing over to fire point-blank into him, the way they did with Ben Hall, emptying their magazines into him, so they could later claim they’d personally shot him.
Poor bastard can’t even make a run for it with that leg of his, she thinks, he’d just stand there facing them. He’d be whimpering, confused, not knowing what was going on, looking over at her, thinking she’d let him down, then looking at them, until the first volley of bullets knocked him down, his chest pumping blood into the warm dust.
The sun goes down quickly out here in the southwest, sinking below the flat horizon like a coin slotting into a money box. Nor does it take the moon long to rise in the eastern sky. By the time they have to move on, a moon two days short of being full is up and the track’s easy enough to follow in the moonlight. There’s been no sign of the mob, no sound of hooves, and Jessica lets herself hope that they haven’t crossed the river tonight. She can barely think straight, she’s so bone-tired. Billy is drifting off to sleep beside her, moaning every once in a while. His injured leg stretched out in front of him is clearly giving him pain.
Jessica inspected it before they’d left their last camp.
The horsehair stitches still hold and the wound looks clean enough, though Billy’s leg is badly swollen and he’d winced when she’d dabbed fresh iodine over the area of the stitches, even though she’d applied it very gently. She’s left the original bandage off to give him some relief. The leg has stiffened and Billy is having great difficulty bending his knee, so she’s cut two stout black box saplings the length of his leg and used them as splints, tying one on either side of his damaged leg so that the splints rest on the rail of the sulky’s footrest and Billy’s leg is stretched rigid out over Napoleon’s rump. Under the prevailing circumstances it is the best she can think to do to make the poor bugger feel a mite more comfortable.
The pony seems fresh enough as they continue their journey, and the heat has gone from the air, so Jessica wraps Billy in a blanket and throws one over her own shoulders as well. The surrounding countryside is now ghosted in moonlight, and the only other sounds besides the jangle of Napoleon’s harness and the rattle of wheels are the occasional hoot of an owl or the cry of a nightjar. Billy has long since stopped imitating their cries. The further they travel tonight the more confident Jessica grows that the men have not crossed the river.
It is almost midnight when they finally stop for the night. The river, which has been at some distance from them since crossing the punt, has taken a wide loop of several miles and is now only a hundred yards or so from the track. With water for the pony available, Jessica decides here’s a good spot to camp for the remainder of the night.
They move to a clump of cypress pines growing from sand dunes near the river, which Joe says are the last traces of what was once a great inland sea. The softer sand makes a good bed for their blankets and is an unstable environment for a snake to make its hole.
Jessica has a . lot of trouble getting Billy down from the sulky. And again, once on the ground he finds it impossible to move on his own, so that he has to put his arm about her shoulders to move a few steps. He then holds onto the trunk of a cypress pine while she spreads his blanket for him. He collapses gratefully down on it with his back propped against the trunk of the tree.
‘Sorry, Billy, I’m too tired to make you something to eat or even make a brew. Tell you what, how would you like a smoke?’ Jessica reaches into her pinny pocket for the makings she took from Joe’s bedside and rolls Billy a cigarette. She licks the sticky edge of the cigarette paper and hands him the slim tube of tobacco. Billy brings it to his lips and Jessica lights it for him and goes about the business of setting up for the night.
She unharnesses the pony and lowers the sulky shafts to the ground. Then she reaches for the Winchester and slings it over her left shoulder together with the water bag. A rifle isn’t ideal if she should come upon a snake, but she tells herself it’s better than nothing, though Joe would disagree. ‘If you ain’t got a shotgun use a stick or an axe, girlie. You got Buckley’s of making a head shot with a rifle, even if it’s a repeater.’ But Jessica hasn’t got a stick and thinks about going back for the axe, but decides bugger it, she’s too tired to bother. She keeps a sharp eye out in the bright moonlight, though, as she leads Napoleon down to the river to drink.
On her return she finds that Billy has finished his smoko. His eyes are closed and his lips are moving, and in his hands are his rosary beads, which he pushes along the string awkwardly as he mumbles his prayers. Jessica swallows the lump in her throat as she wonders how it’s all going to end for Billy Simple.
She lets the pony have his nosebag of oats and hobbles him for the night. She pours a mug of water for Billy, then refills the water bag and hangs it from its place at the rear of the sulky so that the condensation through the canvas will cool it overnight. Finally she ties the tucker basket to the highest branch she can reach on a cypress pine in case a fox or a dingo comes sniffing around the camp while they’re asleep and jumps up onto the sulky to steal what’s left of the bacon.
Jessica brings the mug over to Billy, along with their blankets for the night. ‘Here, Billy, drink some water,’ she commands, interrupting his prayers. Billy opens his eyes as though startled to see her, then he takes the tin mug and drinks greedily, water spilling from the sides of his mouth and running down his chin and neck. Finally lie hands the mug back to her.
Jessica sits down beside Billy and wraps the blanket about him. ‘Good night, Billy, sleep tight,’ she says to him, touching him lightly on the cheek with her free hand and then settling herself under the other blanket, the Winchester next to her on the ground.
Billy’s eyes fill suddenly with tears at her touch and he begins to sob quietly, the rosary beads resting in his lap. Jessica wonders to herself how long it’s been since someone has wished Billy Simple goodnight. ‘You’re a good boy, Billy,’ she says quietly and, bending, kisses him lightly on the cheek.
Billy looks up at her from under his hat. He sniffs and then says in a sob, ‘Billy not a good boy! Billy bad boy, Jessie. You shoot him tonight, eh!’
Jessica is horrified at this, and her heart goes out to him. She puts a protective arm around him and Billy moves close to her — it’s probably the first comfort he’s known in years. ‘
You’re all right, Billy,’ she says softly as they lie there in the moonlight by the cypress pines.
‘Jessie look after Billy?’ he asks, gazing up at her.
‘Yes, Billy,’ Jessica replies, a lump in her throat.
‘Thank you, Jessie,’ he croaks, and snuggles against her.
‘Go to sleep now, Billy.’ She points to the rosary beads on his lap. ‘You ask God to keep us both safe.’
The sky is the colour of old pewter when she wakes and Jessica knows at once that it’s less than an hour before sunrise. She rises from her blanket, wiping off the grit that’s blown over her shirt and moleskins during the night. Stiff and sore from all yesterday’s efforts, she walks slowly over to untie Napoleon and leads him to the river for a drink. Then she tethers him to a shrub while she washes her face and arms. She’s annoyed with herself for over-sleeping — they should have been well on their way at least two hours before sunrise.
On her return she fills Napoleon’s nosebag with fresh oats. With the pony now rested, watered and fed, Jessica will try to make the remaining four hours of their journey to Narrandera without stopping. She quickly gathers the few sticks she can find and builds a fire for breakfast.
Then she chops what remains of the bacon into the skillet and waits for the rind fat to grease the pan before breaking eight eggs over it, which she scrambles together. The billy goes on the embers to boil while she hurriedly eats a small portion of the eggs straight from the pan. Jessica adds the last of the bread to the eggs and bacon and she carries the pan over to Billy, then shakes him awake. Placing Billy’s breakfast beside him, she helps him to prop himself up against the cypress pine. ‘Eat your breakfast, Billy, we’ve got to get movin’. I’ll bring you a cuppa in a shake.’
‘Billy gotta piss,’ he moans, knuckling the sleep from his eyes. The cuts on the back of his arms where the dogs have bitten him look nasty.
‘Can’t you do it sitting down? No, I suppose not,’ Jessica says, impatient to get under way. ‘C’mon, lemme help you up. Don’t worry, I’ll turn me back.’
Eventually she gets him to his feet and goes over to make the tea, conscious of the loud plopping noise as Billy’s hot piss hits the dry dust at his feet. She steals a look at his broad back — the poor lad looks like any normal, healthy bloke from this angle — then she turns back to the tea until the noise has stopped. ‘Ready, Jessie,’ Billy calls.
With her mug of tea in her hand, Jessica moves over to help him. As she draws closer Billy half turns, calling out, ‘All done!’ like a small child, and Jessica finds herself staring directly at his gift from Jesus, which hangs, drooping from his open fly, a good eight inches down his trouser leg.
Jessica gasps in surprise then says sharply, ‘Put it away, Billy! Put it away at once!’
Billy, alarmed at her unexpected anger, takes a step backwards and with his leg in splints loses his balance and falls sprawling onto his back, his large member plopping against his moleskins.
Jessica, still holding the mug of hot tea, points down in the direction of his open fly, though with her head now averted.
Billy looks confused, then realises what she means and, still on his back, he fumbles desperately, clumsily buttoning himself up.
‘All done, Jessie,’ he now says.
Jessica looks down warily and, seeing he has successfully completed the task, says, ‘Good boy, Billy.’ She places the mug of tea down and puts one foot on either side of Billy’s hips. Then, gripping both hands about his wrist, she manages to pull him up into a sitting position. She brings the skillet over to him. ‘Eat your breakfast and don’t take all day!’ she scolds him, in an attempt to cover her embarrassment.
It’s almost sunrise before they finally get away and Jessica chides herself again for sleeping in. The men will have crossed the river at dawn, delayed no more than fifteen or twenty minutes by the log she’s jammed into the rope drum.
She’s still got enough time to get to Narrandera, but Jessica knows that if something goes wrong on the track the mob could still reach her in time to get hold of poor Billy.
Despite the birds calling at sunrise Billy has been strangely quiet and Jessica thinks he might be sulking because of her angry outburst. Billy can’t keep anything much in his mind for very long, though, and Jessica expects he’ll cheer up after a while. But when he remains silent she stops the sulky so she can take a good look at him. His face is flushed and covered in sweat and he’s trembling badly. She puts her hand on his forehead. He is burning up. Billy has a fever and Jessica doesn’t need to be told it is probably his leg. She gently pulls up his trouser leg and looks at his calf. Somehow, perhaps when he fell onto his back, he’s split the stitches in his leg and the wound is open and festering. The flesh around the stitches has turned shiny and inflamed with the infection that’s now spreading up past his knee. Jessica knows Billy is in serious trouble and she must get him to the cottage hospital in Narrandera as soon as possible.
Jessica starts off again, though she knows if the pony is to last the distance she can’t make him go too fast. She judges they’ve been going for nearly an hour and a half now, and as the sun climbs higher it grows unbearably hot. The black flies cluster around Billy’s wounds and seem to grow thicker all the time. Eventually Jessica stops and cuts two small branches from a bush for them to use as fly-swats. But they don’t help much, and the flies cluster on Napoleon’s rump, feeding on his sweat, until it’s hard to see the colour of his hide.
When they are two hours down the track, the left wheel, the one on Billy’s side of the sulky, begins to wobble. Jessica feels her heart sink, and she pulls up. In all the anxiety of yesterday’s events she’s entirely forgotten about the faulty axle. Joe had said it’d need to be re-heated ill the forge and straightened or it was likely to snap.
She climbs down and walks over to Billy’s side and inspects the wheel. The axle has bent alarmingly and she can see a fracture beginning in the metal near where it enters the hub. Jessica is no smithy but she knows at once that the sulky can’t make it much further along the road and that they’ll be stopped well short of their destination. It’s almost more than she can bear and she begins to weep softly, leaning against the side of the sulky. Nothing is going right; she’s at least ten miles from Narrandera, the mob’ll be no more than three hours away now, and while she may be able to walk it, Billy can’t move a yard. They’ve even left the scrub plains behind. It’s open country here, flat as a table, mostly desert without a tree or a blade of grass to be seen, only an occasional ball of tumbleweed breaking the remorseless flat land.
Out here there is nowhere she can hide Billy and go on foot for help. By the time she returned he’d be a bullet torn carcass left on the side of the road for carrion or brought into town slung across the back of a horse, like a slaughtered beast.
Joe once told her that after the bush ranger Dan Morgan killed six men the government brought in what was known as the Felon’s Apprehension Act, whereby anyone could shoot a known felon on sight and, furthermore, if you were found helping such a person to escape you were liable to receive a fifteen-year jail sentence.
Even though it was fifty years ago, Jessica reckons it could still apply to her helping Bill} Simple. Joe says they never change laws that are against the poor. Billy is now a known felon all right, having just murdered Ada Thomas and the two girls. You don’t get more known than that, do you? Jessica asks herself darkly. What’s more, if they come upon them on the track, she can’t prove she’s taking him to the police magistrate. It’s her word against theirs. They’re free to shoot Billy down on the spot and they’ll soon realise that she isn’t his hostage, that she’s obviously helping him, so they’ll arrest her as well. Fifteen years in the clink and no chance to prove she’s innocent.
Joe had gone on to tell her how after they’d shot Morgan they’d severed his head to be given to the scientists in Sydney, his beard was skinned like a po
ssum and tobacco pouches were made from the skin of his penis and scrotum. Even worse than that, afterwards they’d put his headless body on public display outside the town lock-up, where townsfolk queued to be photographed standing beside his decomposing corpse. Panicking now, and working herself into hysterics, Jessica sees all of this happening to poor Billy Simple, with his gift from Jesus being cut off and put on the train to Sydney addressed to the scientists with a note, ‘Biggest ever seen in the Riverina’.
‘Jessie?’ she hears Billy call fitfully from the sulky directly above her, ‘Whassa matter?’
‘Axle’s broke, Billy, we’re beat, mate,’ Jessica sobs and then grows suddenly furious and takes a kick at the wheel. ‘Bastard!’ she yells.
Billy is silent for a bit, then he speaks quietly, ‘Billy sick, Jessie, you shoot him now, eh?’ Jessica looks up to see Billy is still shaking and burning up with the fever. ‘We’re gunna get you to the doctor, Billy. Remember? We’re goin’ to the hospital in Narrandera where they fixed your head up good.’
‘But Billy no good no more, Jessie.’ He points to the Winchester, his voice pitiful. ‘Shoot me, Jessie.’
Jessica feels a slow anger growing inside her gut. The bastards are not going to get Billy Simple, she vows to herself. Not now, not ever, fuck ‘em!
Jessica Page 15