Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘No! No!’ Billy shakes his head vigorously. ‘I kilt ‘em, Jessie.’ He covers his ears with his hands as though blocking out some sound only he can hear. He rocks, moving his body back and forth. ‘No more, no more,’ he howls.

  Jessica reaches out and grabs his damp bloody sleeve. ‘Killed what, Billy? What did you kill?’

  Billy stops rocking. ‘Three!’ he shouts. Then again, ‘Three!’ Suddenly he gives an excited little hop, like a child impatient to reveal a secret, then, grinning, holds three fingers proudly up to his face.

  ‘Three? You killed three? Three what?’ Jessica suddenly feels cold. ‘Three people?’ Billy nods, still grinning.

  ‘Who, Billy?’ Jessica’s mouth has gone dry, her tongue sticks to its roof. She swallows hard and tries to wet her mouth, running her tongue round her lips. Her heart is beating furiously as she tries to fight down the horror she feels because she knows who Billy’s murdered.

  Billy looks slyly down at Jessica, slowly closing his three raised fingers back into his fist. Then, as though he is performing some sort of conjuring trick, he allows a single blood-stained forefinger to shoot up out of his huge hand. ‘A-da!’ he says triumphantly, pronouncing each syllable carefully, much as a small child might do to please a parent with a newly learned name.

  Jessica thinks she is going to be sick and she finds it difficult to look into Billy’s bloodshot eyes.

  Billy’s second finger shoots up. ‘Ga-wen.’ He pauses and looks at Jessica, as though expecting her to applaud, and then up shoots the third. ‘Win-fred!’ he pronounces proudly. ‘Kilt! Kilt! Kilt!’

  ‘Oh my God, the Thomases! You’ve murdered them, Billy!’

  Billy Simple now senses the distress in Jessica’s voice and looks surprised, then doleful, and begins to whimper and then to sob. Soon great tears run down his blood-smeared cheeks. He crosses himself, ‘Hail Mary, Mother of God,’ he chokes. Then, looking up at Jessica, he smiles through his tears and says, ‘Would you like to see the big cock Jesus gave me?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jessica stands still for a long time, desperately trying to gather her wits. Billy Simple has dropped to his knees in the dust at her feet, hunched over, clutching her ankles with his blood-stained fingers, tears falling onto the scuffed toe-caps of her boots. The kelpies are agitated, but they lie obediently, eyes on their mistress. Red makes sharp little whining sounds, jerking his head upwards, his front paws scratching at the dust, his yellow eyes waiting for her command to attack.

  Jessica looks down, horrified, and sees the top of Billy’s head as he kneels at her feet. There is the great scar that runs the length of his skull where Jack’s horse crushed it. The jagged pinkish-white line, stained dark in parts with dried blood, runs through his matted black hair like a path seen from the top of a hill winding through saltbush and scrub. She has never seen the scar before. Billy’s always worn his hat clamped on his head pulled down to his eyeline, even when he sleeps. Now suddenly Jessica can’t hear Billy sobbing at her feet, or the dogs whimpering, or even the carolling of the magpies — the sounds of the morning are no longer present. It is as though the shock has contained her in a giant wave of silence and the world about her has shut down.

  The silence is magnified by only one sound, the distant cawing of a crow. Jessica thinks it must be in her imagination. Crows are always there, as much a part of the day as the sunrise. The moment you wake, if you stop to listen for a few moments, you’ll hear the mournful cawing of a crow. They say if the last thing you hear before you die is the cawing of a crow, it is the Devil beckoning you to Hell. Church bells are right for weddings, but crows caw at funerals. Dismal bastards.

  Unbidden, it comes into Jessica’s mind to wonder if the crow has been feeding on the snakes she shot last night. She sees their shapes clearly. In her mind’s eye they lie stiffened in death, curled and knotted together, the patterns of their last frantic convulsions plainly marked in the river dust.

  Now she sees the snakes and then the tiny black ants swarming where the birdshot has ripped their putty-coloured under-scales apart. Where do the ants come from? You never see little sugar ants in the bush until something dies. Meat ants are always there, under strips of bark or stones, running along the black stalks of the saltbush or pouring from neat holes in the dry earth. Joe says a swarm of ‘meats’ will demolish a dead kangaroo in a week. ‘Chew the hind leg off a horse if it stands long enough in one spot,’ he jokes. But the little sugar ants appear from nowhere, marching in military precision and then attacking a dead thing in their tens of hundreds of thousands. They’ll carry away a dung beetle a thousand times their size, a million little ant shoulders heaving and pushing.

  Jessica’s panicked, shocked mind continues to wander. Do ants know about snake venom? Would they avoid the pulped mess around the fangs, the flesh contaminated with poison from the burst sacs behind the jaw? The crows seem to know — they’ll never touch a snake’s head. Foxes, too, and kookaburras. Maybe ants are not affected, or there are so many it don’t matter — the first hundred thousand die cleaning up the poisoned area and the rest carry on? Dog-eat-dog.

  All around her are images of death, and Jessica can feel the panic growing. It lies like a coiled serpent in her guts, ready to rise up and strike through her throat.

  Despite her efforts her mind won’t be denied and the sounds of the real world about her begin to come back, growing stronger, intruding into her imagination. They seem to come in a sequence, first Red yelping and the two other dogs whining, then Billy sobbing, followed by the birds chittering in the kangaroo thorn, yellow box and bimble, after them the high-pitched zinging of the cicadas in the red gums by the river and finally the bloody crow again.

  Jessica is trembling, her entire body shaking, the strength in her seems to be leaking out through her hands. Try as she may she cannot maintain her grip on the shotgun and it drops from her fingers to the ground beside her right boot. She can’t move, can’t stoop to pick the gun up. The twelve-bore, with both its hammers pulled back ready to fire, lies no more than six inches from Billy’s hands, which still grip her ankles.

  As the shotgun clatters to the ground, Billy’s sobbing stops abruptly. Then she feels his hold on her ankles loosen. Jessica’s teeth are chattering and she can’t bend her neck to look downwards. Billy now rises to his feet, all six feet and six inches of him, his chest as broad as a stallion’s rump. He towers above Jessica, looking confused, holding the shotgun pointed at her chest, his eyes glazed.

  ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘Billy not shoot them blacks! No, Missus Thomas. No, no no!’ He howls, then sucks his lips tightly inwards, the top covering the bottom, his face flushed.

  Oh God, he’s going to kill me. He thinks I’m Ada Thomas! The thought forces Jessica to regain her wits a little. ‘No, Billy! It’s Jessica. Jessica’s your friend!’ she cries, then takes a deep breath, forcing her panic down. ‘Open it, break it open, Billy!’ Even in her shocked state Jessica doesn’t want him to ease the twin hammers back down to the safety position in case he accidentally triggers one of them. ‘Break it, Billy, break the barrels open!’ ‘Break gun?’ Billy looks puzzled, then grins. ‘Break gun, Jessie!’

  ‘No, Billy, open it.’ She makes a gesture to indicate he should open the gun to expose the cartridges.

  Billy turns the shotgun about so that he’s now gripping halfway up the barrels, the butt pointing at Jessica and the barrels into his own chest. ‘Billy break gun!’ he yells joyously. Jessica screams as he swings the shotgun in an arc and smashes the butt against the pepper tree. There’s a huge explosion as the trigger guard smashes against the trunk of the tree and, denting inwards, drives down both triggers, firing the twin barrels straight into the face of a snarling Red, who has leapt towards Billy to defend Jessica. He is dead before his body hits the ground. .

  The remaining two dogs, shocked by the blast, have fled, yelping and howling for their lives,
but now they turn and fall to the ground to watch. Billy Simple, thrown off-balance by the shotgun blast, has tripped on a root and lies sprawling on his back, his head narrowly missing a large protruding rock. Seeing him on his back, the two dogs now rush snarling to the attack.

  Billy’s arms fold about his face as the two dogs go for him, tearing at the back of his arms, maddened by Red’s blood and gore that now covers the front of his flannel shirt, neck and part of his face. One of the kelpies leaves off his arms and tears into his blood-soaked gut.

  Billy yowls in pain and his knees shoot up into his belly, then his great arms fling wide, sending the kelpie trying to get at his throat sprawling in the dust. Half rising, with one huge hand he grabs the dog caught between his knees and stomach around the top of its neck. With his fingers and thumb pressing behind the kelpie’s jaw, he squeezes down on the dog’s larynx. Then, with his free hand gripping the rock beside him, he pulls himself into a sitting position and scrambles awkwardly to his feet. All the while he holds the dog, which has its back legs on the ground and is frantically trying to squirm out of his grip. The first kelpie has come back again and is tearing at Billy’s calf, hanging on grimly as Billy tries to shake his leg free. But the kelpie’s body weight is too much and the dog has its teeth firmly fixed into his calf muscle. Shouting in agony, Billy brings his free hand to join the other around the second dog’s throat and increases the downward pressure.

  The helpless dog, eyes popping from its head, hind legs kicking frantically in the dust, tongue turned blue and forced from its mouth, is already near dead when Billy swings it up high above his right shoulder and with a grunt smashes its back down against the trunk of the tree. The kelpie, its spine snapped, goes limp in his hands. Billy flings it several yards away where it thuds down, skidding in a cloud of black dust.

  Jessica is unaware she is screaming. Her body is filled with horror. She’s paralysed with fright, too panic-stricken to whistle for the remaining kelpie to pull back, though the dog, maddened by fear and the smell of blood, would be unlikely to respond. Billy now bends and grabs the hind legs of the dog, one leg in each fist. ‘No, Billy! No!’ Jessica screams.

  Billy seems not to hear and jerks the snarling kelpie away from his leg and high into the air, then turns it in a wide circle above his head, almost losing his balance in the process, and he dashes it downwards, smashing its skull against the sharp ridge of rock at his feet, splitting its body open from the neck to its hindquarters.

  Panting furiously, his chest and stomach wet with fresh blood, the left leg of his moleskins torn from the knee down and with blood running down into his boots, Billy turns to Jessica. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s still holding the dead kelpie by the hind legs, its mouth and nose dripping blood and its steaming stomach viscera plopping onto the soil at his feet, its tawny brown body still quivering in the death throes.

  ‘Dogs hurt Billy, Jessie,’ he pants, then adds in a near whisper, ‘sorry, eh.’ Billy casts the lifeless kelpie aside. ‘Dog hurt me leg, Jessie.’

  Jessica falls to her knees, sobbing hysterically, banging the ground with her small fists. Quite how long she remains like this she can’t say, nor is she aware that Billy is standing in front of her with his blood-spattered head bowed and his blood-stained hands folded in prayer.

  Then Jessica feels herself swept up from the ground and realises she’s in Billy Simple’s arms and they are walking away from the dogs, towards the homestead. She kicks and screams, but he holds her so tightly pressed to his chest that she is powerless. She can smell the gore of the dead kelpies, their sinew, blood and bone mixed with the rancid sweat and stink of dried human blood on Billy’s clothes and body. She feels she’s going to vomit and fights to keep from gagging. The right side of her body is sticky from being held against his bloody shirt. Then she realises that she has pissed her trousers. By the time they reach the kitchen door she is whimpering helplessly in his arms.

  Billy puts her down gently. ‘Billy sorry, Jessie,’ he says nervously, wringing his hands, standing in front of Jessica with his head bowed. ‘Hail Mary .. .’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Jessica screams. ‘Amen, Billy!’ Then she bends over and vomits in the yard at her feet.

  Billy starts to weep again. He has taken a bloodsoaked set of rosary beads from his pocket and is counting them off, head bowed, as his lips mumble, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee .. .’

  Jessica remains bent over, her hands clasping her knees. She can feel her wits returning and she straightens up then sniffs. Lifting her pinny to her face, she wipes her eyes and mouth and blows her streaming nose. ‘Oh God, help me!’ she cries.

  Billy stops his mumbled prayer and looks at her. ‘Billy likes Jessie, she his friend,’ he says, surprised.

  ‘Don’t hurt me, Billy! Please don’t hurt me!’ Jessica’s throat grows tight and she begins to sob softly.

  Billy looks confused. ‘Jessie my friend. Billy don’t hurt.’ He lifts his head and sniffs deeply, clearing the contents of his nose into the back of his throat, then he knuckles the tears from his own eyes. ‘Billy hungry, Jessie.’

  ‘Hungry?’ Jessica asks stupidly, not comprehending his meaning.

  Billy claps his hands together. ‘Hungry, hungry, hungry!’

  Jessica slowly becomes aware of the smell of fresh baked bread coming from the kitchen and thinks that she can buy some time to distract Billy.

  ‘It’s the bread, it’s burning!’ she cries. Then she runs into the kitchen and over to the stove and grabs a cloth, opening the oven door. This simple task steadies her.

  She’s lost all sense of time but sees by the loaves that she’s been away no longer than it would have taken her to milk the cow. The loaves stand high and handsome in the bread pans, the brown tops just beginning to turn to a darker burn.

  Billy enters the kitchen while she’s busy with the bread. ‘Bread!’ he shouts excitedly.

  ‘It’s too hot to eat, Billy,’ Jessica says with her back to him. She brings a pan over to the table and up-ends it so that the loaf falls free, resting on its side.

  ‘Bread!’ Billy repeats urgently and grabs at the steaming loaf, picking it up in both hands. There is a moment’s delay before he drops the loaf onto the kitchen floor. ‘Bread hot!’ he yells.

  Jessica has got herself together a bit, though she’s still trembling. She stoops, picks the loaf up with the cloth, and places it back on the table. ‘I told you!’ she scolds, surprised how strong her voice sounds. Billy looks contrite.

  When she’d bent down for the bread she could smell the urine soaking the front of her moleskins. I don’t want to die pissing my pants, she suddenly thinks. The absurdity of this thought almost makes her laugh out loud. Pis sing my pants is the least of my problems, she thinks. ‘I’ll make you some real nice tucker, Billy. What would you like, eggs and bacon, as much as you can eat?’

  ‘Billy hungry now!’ he cries again.

  Jessica looks up at him. His expression is completely harmless — Billy Simple is a little boy who’s hungry and nothing more. She tells herself he’s forgotten all about the dogs, and his confused mind is now concerned only with the need to eat. If she pulls herself together she’ll be all right, if she doesn’t think about the deaths, the deaths everywhere. She takes a deep breath and removes the remaining three pans from the stove, tapping them out onto the table. ‘Don’t touch,’ she cautions Billy, more for the reassuring sound of her own voice than for him to take note.

  Billy watches her, and then smiles again. ‘Soup! Billy want soup!’

  ‘It’s not ready, Billy. I put some fresh vegies in, and they won’t be cooked yet.’ The ordinariness of this carryon in Hester’s kitchen has a calming effect on Jessica. She begins to realise that Billy Simple isn’t going to hurt her unless he thinks himself threatened.

  ‘Soup! Soup! Billy hungry, Jessie,’ he whines, looking disappointed.r />
  Jessica thinks of the Billy she knew at Riverview and understands that, despite her fear, she must take control of the situation. Billy expects to be told what to do, knows no other way to behave. If she doesn’t take charge, he’ll grow nervous again. She must dominate him — it’s the only way he knows. The reason he’s come to her in the first place is because he expects her to take over, to tell him what he must do.

  ‘Billy, you can’t sit in the kitchen like that, you’re going to have to wash and change your clothes before you can eat. You hear me, Billy? Wash! I’ll get you some fresh clobber to wear.’

  Joe is not quite as tall as Billy but he’s nearly as broad in the chest and age has thickened his waist, so Jessica decides his clothes ought to fit Billy well enough. Either that or she’ll have to strip Billy naked and wash what he’s wearing. The thought makes her want to throw up again.

  Jessica thinks about what she’s going to have to do. She’s going to have to take Billy Simple in. Turn him in to the magistrate at Narrandera. Her heart pounds as she realises what will be involved. She knows she can’t keep him on the farm. Even if she can trick him, lure him into a room, there’s nowhere she can lock him up safely until Joe returns in two days or while she rides for help. Billy would break down the door of the shed the moment her back is turned. Unless he could be persuaded to let her tie his legs and wrists?

  Jessica looks at him — she doesn’t much like her chances. Right now Billy Simple trusts her. But if she tries to restrain him or push him he’ll grow nervous again, and she shudders at the thought of what he might do if he’s panicked, as he was with the dogs.

  Billy looks down, examining himself as though for the first time. His torn flannel shirt and ripped moleskins are stiff with dried and drying blood. Red’s gore, bits of skin and hair and tissue add to the mess. Long crimson runnels of drying blood run the length of both arms down to his wrists and over his hands, disappearing between his fingers. It is as though he has been carelessly tattooed or viciously raked. The torn bottom fifteen inches of the right leg of his moleskins are also fresh-soaked, though already starting to darken as the blood dries. Billy Simple is a fearsome and frightening sight to behold.