Billy rises painfully to his feet. Jessica knows she’s got no more than an outside chance of getting Billy all the way to Narrandera in the sulky, especially if the men are out after him now on their horses. As Joe would say, ‘Not a good risk, girlie, you’re on a hiding to nothing, better give it a miss this time.’
But Jessica knows she can’t do that, she’s got to try to bring Billy to safety. Along with Jack Thomas, she’s Billy’s only friend. You don’t let a mate down when the going gets rough, no matter what. Joe says it’s a rule you can never break. She knows that to do what he’s done, poor Billy Simple must have been provoked beyond any possible endurance — sh
e knows he’s suffered for so long now in that household. She is aware that he can’t ever be forgiven and will die for his crime. Jessica knows this for sure, but she’s not going to let a mob of drunken shearers and stockmen string him up, give him a dose of bush justice and have a real good time doing it, then boast to their grandsons one day how they did this noble deed. She feels certain Jack would do the same as her if he were standing in her boots right at this moment. This last thought gives Jessica some comfort. Jessica watches as Billy limps over to the sulky. He struggles to climb aboard, glancing anxiously at Napoleon. Poor bugger can’t even run for it, she thinks. Then she remembers the Winchester in the wood box and races to the kitchen to retrieve it. She can hear Joe’s voice chiding her for her carelessness, ‘You’re getting too bloody cocky, girlie. Remember the poor bastard’s mad as a meat axe — if he comes for yiz, shoot him dead!’
Billy sees the gun and pulls back in alarm. ‘It’s for Joe Blakes, Billy. We may have to camp the night. Don’t want you bitten by a mulga, now, do we?’ Jessica wonders what else they’ll find out there, apart from snakes. If a mob catches up with them, would she stand her ground, use the Winchester? Like standing up to George Thomas? She doesn’t know, can’t think about it now.
She climbs aboard and sits beside Billy, placing the gun at her feet and taking up the reins. ‘Ha, Napoleon!’ She raps the reins across the pony’s rump and he moves off, happy to be out and about.
Jessica knows she’s got the next twelve hours to try to keep Billy Simple alive in the bush, away from a drunken, hostile mob out to get him. Joe wouldn’t care for the odds on her succeeding, she thinks. Jessica knows she doesn’t much care for them herself.
CHAPTER FIVE
They hug the river, keeping the sulky close to the trees. Jessica knows that anyone coming after them from the open ground will have difficulty picking them up against the darkness of the river gums. They’re two hours away from the punt where she and Billy must cross the river if they are to make it to Narrandera.
As the sulky moves along at its steady, slow pace, Jessica tries to think about the mob of horsemen that she’s sure will be out after them.
She reckons that it’ll take at least four or five hours to get a mob of men together from the various homesteads and stations around, then they’ll proceed to Riverview to inspect the three dead women. If they decide to tell the two Thomas men of the tragedy, locating the run where they’re working might take another hour at least and the return to Riverview the same. Getting to Joe’s place will add yet more time, which means they wouldn’t arrive there till late in the afternoon.
After that, drunk or sober, there’ll be some good bushmen among them and they’re not men to be easily fooled. They’ll see the dead dogs, the milk pail and billy abandoned together with the broken shotgun. Then they’ll come up to the house and see Billy’s discarded clothes floating in the tub beside the windlass, and her own stuffed into a bucket in her bedroom. There’ll be blood on everything, evidence of violence everywhere. It wouldn’t be too hard to make a decision as to what’s happened. Jessica runs the most logical sequence through her mind, trying to think as the men might do. They’ll conclude that there’s been a struggle of some sort at the pepper tree and that Billy has slaughtered the dogs. Then, when they go up to the homestead and find Billy’s torn rags and her own blood-stained clothes, the most likely conclusion they’ll reach will be that he’s murdered Jessica as well. But when they can’t find her body, they’ll change their minds and decide Billy’s taken her hostage and that her life is in danger.
The missing sulky will confirm this. After that it won’t take them too long to discover the sulky’s tracks running along the river front and they’ll be on their way in hot pursuit.
Jessica does have one thing in her favour, if it’s all going as she expects. If the men get to Joe’s in the afternoon, and then spend an hour looking around before they set off for the punt, they won’t get to it till sundown, the time when the snakes come out to dance. She knows a good horseman won’t take the risk of a snakebite to his mount, so with any luck the mob will agree that they can’t track Billy in the dark and that setting out in the morning is much the better plan of action. The country on the far side of the river and stretching all the way to the Lachlan is lightly wooded at best and most of it is flat as a pancake, black soil and scrub country where it isn’t difficult to track a man down once you’re onto him. They’ll probably have a black tracker along with them, too.
Jessica reckons they’ll assume that Billy is in charge and she, if still alive, is his hostage. Billy, they’ll think, has long since lost the skills of the bush and will have trouble finding water or earning his tucker off the land. There is simply no hiding for long in this type of country and once they’ve picked up his tracks they’ll reckon they have a better than even chance of tracking down their quarry before sundown tomorrow.
Most of the men will have come out without rations, eager for the chase and with half a skinful of Sunday grog to cloud their judgement. Some, with the drink already leached out of them in the day’s riding, will now want to go home and pick up enough rations for a couple of days. Unless Jack Thomas or his old man has thought to issue rations to the horsemen before they’d set out from Riverview. But it’s better not to think that way, Jessica decides.
Jessica thinks she’s left the homestead around nine o’clock in the morning, which, after they’ve negotiated the punt, should put them across the river a little before noon. On. the other side of the river they’ll take the road to Narrandera and from there, if the track isn’t too rutted, they should make pretty good time.
She reckons the journey to Narrandera will take her and Billy around twelve hours in the sulky, allowing for stops every three hours to give the pony the spells he will need. If nothing goes wrong, they could make it to Narrandera just before midnight, although Jessica isn’t fool enough not to know that something almost always goes wrong and that no journey in the bush is ever completed according to plan.
The drought has left very little grass about and their wheel tracks in the black soil won’t be hard to follow. The mob’ll soon enough know that she and Billy have headed for the punt. If they’ve reached Joe Bergman’s place earlier than she’s supposed and make it across the river before sundown, then they’ll have plenty of time to catch her. No matter what Jessica does, the sulky can’t outrun a mob of men on horseback. So she prays silently that she’s calculated correctly.
For the first few miles Billy sits nervously in the sulky, watching Napoleon’s rump, but after an hour or so he settles down and even seems to have forgotten about the danger they face. Jessica sees no reason to alert him — she realises that, like a small child, he has put his trust in her and is now enjoying their ride. It is as if they’re on a day’s outing or on their way to a picnic on the river bank. Might as well let the poor bugger have his freedom while he can, she thinks.
Billy loves the birds. The sulky frequently comes across a flock of galahs feeding in the dust, though on God knows what — there must be grass seed waiting for the rain. Billy’s eyes grow bright as they approach the feeding birds and he chortles with delight when the rose-breasted galahs rise at the last possible moment in front of the sulky. He claps his hands, pleased as punch when they schwark their indignation at being disturbed. Then he does an imitation of their cries, laughing and puffing out his chest, feeling very pleased with himself. Jessica reckons he can do a better than fair imitation of almost every bird call they hear.
‘Jessie, Jessie, look,’ Billy frequently shouts and then he might point to a sulphur-crested cockatoo sitting high up in a river gum. He’ll imitate the raucous sound of the big white bird, and often, to his immense delight, elicit a reply.
He does the same when they see a kookaburra or any of the parrots and rosellas they encounter on the way and he claps and chortles all the while, happy as can be, a small boy with a voice box of tricks showing off in front of her. She is grateful that it’s a game he seems never to tire of playing, leaving her to her own dark thoughts. Again she thinks miserably how kind it would be just to kill Billy out here, while he’s still happy and free, before anyone gets to him.
The sun is almost directly overhead when they arrive at the punt. Jessica can hardly believe her luck — it is moored on their side of the river. She sees the winch on a small platform built into its side, with the wind-in rope strung back to the far shore and the take-up neatly wound on its drum close to where she stands. Bringing the punt across the river is a tiring task, usually managed by two strong men. She hopes that Billy, with what help she can add, has the strength to wind them over to the other side of the river.
Jessica drives the sulky onto the punt and signals for Billy to climb down. ‘Billy, you’ll have to wind us over now,’ she says, taking him by the hand and standing him in front of the winch barrel with its large wheel. ‘You’re a strong lad, Billy, will you show Jessie how you can turn the wheel?’
Billy is delighted at the compliment. ‘Billy strong boy, Jessie!’ He smiles, rubbing his hands together and then spitting onto each palm.
Jessica releases the drum brake and adds her strength to the wheel as Billy starts to wind the rope in on one barrel while paying it out on the other, grunting as he pulls the punt slowly across the river. It is hard work, and the river, even though turgid and its current slow, catches the side of the punt, pushing it downstream so that Billy and Jessica must fight to keep both the ropes taut to prevent it from slipping sideways. Billy is soon drenched in sweat and near exhausted by his efforts and Jessica thinks her arms must surely fall off. Nearly half an hour passes before they reach the far shore of the Murrumbidgee.
Jessica leads the pony and sulky off the punt and up the embankment and gives Napoleon his nosebag of oats. Then she takes the hand axe, cuts a stout pole from a river gum and returns to the water’s edge to jam it into the rope drum so that it cannot release if an attemp
t is made to pull the punt back to the other side of the river. It isn’t much of a delaying tactic, as all it will require is for a man to swim across and unlock it again, but if as she’s hoping their pursuers arrive at sundown they may just decide to leave off until the morning, afraid of the snakes. Even if some of the men have packed rations, they may decide to stay the night and camp some distance away from the river bank to cross at first light, by which time she hopes to have reached Narrandera or to be no more than two or three hours away.
Billy is knackered and sits on the punt. Jessica calls for him to follow her and he climbs slowly to his feet and tries to walk, but the torn muscle in his leg has stiffened and he seems unable to move.
‘Come on, Billy, you must try,’ Jessica urges him. He tries to hobble and then hops on one foot towards her. It is at once obvious that he cannot manage the steep incline up the river bank. Jessica returns with the pony and sulky and, after much effort, manages to get Billy up into the seat and now tries to lead the pony up the embankment. But the horse is harnessed for flat country and wears no breastplate, and it cannot pull Billy’s added weight up the slope, making but a foot each time and then sliding the full distance back again.