‘Kilt, kilt, kilt!’ Billy repeats happily. He balls his fist in front of his face and his forefinger shoots up. ‘A-da!’ He looks at his finger proudly, then the second finger follows, ‘Win-fred!’ and then he wiggles his thumb, ‘Ga-wen!’
‘You killed them? All three?’
Billy looks at Jessica and nods his head vigorously. ‘One, two, three, Billy caught a flea, flea died, Billy cried, one, two, three!’ He recites the nursery rhyme perfectly and then claps his hands.
Billy stops clapping when he sees Jessica isn’t responding and hangs his head and then sniffs.
‘Billy, why did you come here?’ He sniffs again but doesn’t look up. ‘Look at me, Billy.’ He raises his head slowly and looks at Jessica as she asks again, ‘Billy, why did you come to Jessie?’
‘Billy bad boy!’ He looks slyly at Jessica. ‘Jessie hide Billy.’
Jessica shakes her head. ‘No, Billy, can’t be done, mate. They’ll be after you, they could be out looking for you already.’
Billy Simple looks over his shoulder as though he expects his pursuers to come through the kitchen doorway at any moment. ‘No, no, Jessie hide Billy!’ he cries again.
Jessica remains silent for some time, looking down at her hands, then she raises her head and, sighing, looks at Billy. ‘Billy, someone will have found Mrs Thomas and the two girls. They’ll see you’re missing and they’ll come after you. Look, if I hide you they’ll find you soon enough. And if you run away, they’ll run you down, find you in the bush.’ Jessica pauses, then adds, ‘They won’t be good men, Billy, they’ll shoot you down like a mad dog.’ Jessica’s heart skips a beat as she realises what she’s just said, but Billy doesn’t seem to notice.
Billy crosses himself. ‘Hail Mary -’
‘No, Billy, don’t!’
But this time he ignores her. ‘Hail Mary, Mother of God,’ he repeats, ‘would you like to see the big cock Jesus gave me?’
Jessica can see he’s getting upset again and she changes tack. ‘Billy, would you like to sleep, have a good kip, eh?’
Billy nods his head slowly as though he’s thinking about this idea.
‘Did you sleep last night?’ Billy shakes his head.
‘Where were you all last night, you poor bugger?
C’mon then, you can use Joe’s bed, it’s nice and long, out the back in the sleep-out.’
Billy looks suspiciously at Jessica. ‘Men come shoot Billy like mad dog.’
Jessica sighs. ‘True enough.’ She shrugs her shoulders. ‘But if you won’t come to Narrandera with me you might as well have a good sleep.’ She continues with this peculiar logic, ‘It’s a bloody sight better than sitting on yer arse shittin’ yer britches, waiting for them to come and get ya. Ain’t it now, Billy?’
Billy looks up, surprised. ‘Narran-dera?’
Jessica remembers that Billy is afraid to ride a horse. ‘It’s near twelve hours by sulky. They won’t think you’d head for Narrandera, they’ll expect you to go bush, into emu country,’ she says, knowing it’s a lie, that he’d be dead of thirst and the sun in a day and a half. Billy would be driven back towards the river if he were on his own without water.
He suddenly removes his hat and drops his head and parts his hair with his hands, exposing the scarred pathway. ‘Narran-dera Hos-pit-al fix me ‘ead, Jessie.’ He removes his hands from his head and looks up at her eagerly. ‘Narran-dera good! Jessie take Billy to Narrandera to fix me, eh?’ He takes his hat and pulls it back over his head.
Jessica can’t believe her luck. ‘Yes, Billy, someone there will know what to do with you.’ ‘Jessie come too!’ Billy says in sudden alarm. Jessica nods her head. ‘You won’t make it alone, mate.’
She now realises she’s been on the edge of panic, worrying that someone may already have discovered the murdered women at Riverview and be heading straight over, Joe’s place being the nearest property to the Thomases’ station. But she knows that their cook has Saturday afternoon and Sunday off to visit her sister, the cook at North Yanco Station, and won’t return to Riverview till this Sunday evening. And she figures it can’t be much past nine o’clock, still a little early to expect callers. With Jack and his old man out mustering, there’s just a chance there’ll be no one at the homestead and the bodies may not yet have been found.
Although if a stable boy comes in to groom the horses or to harness the Thomas sulky for church, he’d be sure to raise the alarm.
Anyone going for help would probably ride to one of the bigger stations to report the murders. Narrandera and Whitton are both too far, a good nine hours on horseback. They might go looking for Jack and old man Thomas in the bush but they’d be lucky to spot them inside a couple of hours, or more if they’re working one of the more distant runs. They’d know Joe’s the nearest male to Riverview and might sensibly decide to begin recruiting a search party by starting with him.
Jessica reckons it’ll take half a day to gather a mob of men to come looking for Billy, maybe even longer. She probably has four hours or a little more lead on them if she and Billy get going soon. If she stays here with Billy and if the mob arrives, probably drunk, they’re just as likely to lynch Billy on the spot, string him from the windlass. She can’t just sit here and wait for that to happen, and Jessica shudders at the thought of more death. No, she makes up her mind, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with Billy, but she’s got to get going in the next half-hour.
‘Billy, I’ll have to go harness the sulky, will you come with me?’ Billy nods and goes to stand up but she raises her hand. ‘No wait, I’ll pack some food for the way first.’ She finds a large basket and puts in two of the loaves, adds half a packet of tea and a small tin of sugar, then slices several thick wedges from the leg of bacon and wraps them in a cloth. Finally she makes a nest of straw and puts a dozen eggs carefully into the basket. The eggs remind Jessica that she hasn’t fed the chickens or the pigs and she hastily makes a bucket of meal mash for the pigs and fills an old jam tin with cracked corn for the chooks. It’s double rations for both so if she’s away tomorrow, as she expects, they’ll be hungry but they’ll last until she returns. ‘Billy, will you go to the well and draw water for the chook
s, and then go back and get another couple of buckets for the pigs.’
Billy rises from the stool and Jessica sees he is now limping very badly.