“Get up,” he whispered. “Get out of here. Run.”
Frankie climbed to his feet and stood there dumbly, pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. He squinted longinglyat the hotel but Billy took hold of the drum and spun him around facing east.
“I said run, you bastard! Run!”
Another kick up the backside, harder this time, and Frankie began edging away. Billy let him get so far then set off afterhim, kicking him down the road, the crowd howling as the pair disappeared into the darkness at the edge of town, only thewhite drum skin visible, swinging back and forth, accompanied by an occasional clash of cymbals or the honk of a knee horn.
Billy returned to a grand ovation. He wasn’t short of a drink all night.
* * *
Sunlight glinted in the brass fittings and upturned glasses strewn over the tables and bar, smoke and dust hanging in thickswirls. Birds chirruped outside. A carriage clattered by. Slumped in a wooden chair, Billy opened a single eyelid and squintedat the wreckage of the room. Snoring bodies on the tables, in the chairs, on the floor. Someone farted. Billy tried to move.His throat burned like hellfire and both his hands were numb. He struggled upright and glanced out of the window and wonderedwhat had happened to his horse. Could have sworn he’d left Buck outside by the water trough, but he’d not been there whenBilly had chased off that musician last night. He cupped his face with his hands and groaned into the darkness, caught thestale and deathly blowback of his breath.
“Morning.”
Horace wandered through from a back room, carrying a mop and bucket; unshaven, his bald head glistening, white shirt unbuttoned to his chest. He set down his things, fetched a towel and a tray, and began clearing those tables he could get to, gathering up the glasses, wiping the surfaces down.
“What time is it?” Billy croaked.
“Seven.”
“In the morning?”
“What d’you reckon?”
Billy dragged himself to standing, clutching the chair-back for support. “Some night in here last night,” he said.
“There’s water behind the bar if you want it.”
“How about some breakfast n’all?”
“Don’t bloody push it. I should be charging you lot lodging as it is.”
Billy made it to the bar, flung himself against the counter, and clung on. When he had his balance he reached over and founda water pitcher, filled a glass and downed it, filled the glass again.
“Better?” Horace asked, walking over, the tray clinking in his hands.
“Getting there.”
Horace unloaded the tray, watching Billy sidelong, picking his moment to speak. He had known the McBride family for yearsnow—the father had been a touchy bugger too before he died. Now Billy had taken his place in the town and at the bar, camedown from the station most rest days, and usually ended up like this. Not that Horace could blame him. The shit that youngman had been through would have broken most anyone else.
“Ask you something?” Horace said.
Billy lowered his glass and looked at him. “If you want.”
“Why’d you save the hide of that music man last night?”
“Saved you, more like—they’d have tore this place to the ground.”
“Come off it, Billy. You didn’t know him from somewhere?”
“Where the hell would I know him from? Where’d you even find him?”
Horace shrugged. “Wandered in asking if he could play. I’d have sent him packing but Theresa’s got a fever from the clap.”
“You should have changed the chalkboard then.”
“You reckon? And get nobody in?”
“Mate,” Billy said, shaking his head, “where else are we going to go?”
Horace waited to see if he’d speak again, then when he didn’t said, “Suit yourself,” and went back to the tables with histray. Billy sipped his water and watched him in the long mirror, then paused and cleared his throat.
“Reminded me a bit of my brother,” he said.
In the Drover’s Rest roadhouse he ate a plate of sausage and eggs, with fried potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee as blackas tar, then set about finding his missing horse. Buck had once been his father’s, a chestnut-colored brumby he’d caught andtamed, and Billy would have been sorry to lose him, though he doubted he’d got too far. He walked along the main street, returninggreetings as they came: Saturday morning, but already people were at it, happy and eager to start the day. Billy didn’t knowhow they could stand it, this little town, their little lives. If he could have left by now he would have. Had the choiceever been his.
He found the horse in the livery stables. Jones the stableman had spotted Buck wandering and brought him inside for the night:“I fed him and brushed him for you, made sure he slept. Ride all day if he has to. No worries about that.”
Billy pulled a handful of coins from his pocket. “What do I owe you?”
“Oh, no charge for you Billy-lad. Not with all what you done.”
Grimly Billy looked at him. He swallowed, bit down hard. Grinning stupidly, Jones folded his hands into the bib of his overallsand shook his outsize head. Billy dropped the coins back into his pocket. “Appreciate it,” he said.
A half mile out of town the native camps began: once a small smattering of humpies now almost a township in its own right. Makeshift tents and woven gunyahs, piles of salvaged scrap, people living among it, hundreds now it seemed, drifting out of the bush and settling here, arse-to-cheek with the town. They watched him pass, pausing in their chores, children breaking off their games; Billy couldn’t stand to look at them. He rested his hand on the butt of his revolver, kept his head down, and rode through open scrub country toward Broken Ridge cattle station, his home for the last five years. Really there was nowhere else out here. The drought had
