* * *
Dead of night a noise woke him: Henry Wells snatched open his eyes. He lay listening to the silence, the yips and howls from outside, and realized with a start he wasn’t alone. He could hear breathing. The whisper of clothes. He lifted his head and saw a figure in the armchair at the foot of his bed, guessed it was Reverend Bean before remembering he had locked him in; he thought he’d locked himself in too. The figure shifted slightly. Only a shape in the darkness: tall, broad shoulders, no hat. His leg was jigging frantically and he was wringing something in his lap. Henry pushed himself up to sitting, leaned against the iron headboard, and for a moment the two of them sat like that, watching each other in the scant moonlight.
“Is it money you’re after?” the stranger asked him. “Is that what this is about?”
“Money? What? Who are you?”
“You know who I am, you bastard. Been asking after me all over town. Don’t do nothing stupid now.” And he waved the revolverhe was holding like a flag.
“Mr. McBride? Billy McBride?”
“Answer the bloody question.”
“My name, sir, is Henry Wells and I’m a lawyer out from—”
“What I asked is why are you here?”
“For the inquest, tomorrow, when we shall—”
Billy lunged to the bedside and leveled the revolver at Henry’s head. A glimpse of him in a bar of moonlight, his face twistedand snarling, dark hair and a short dark beard, before Henry clamped his eyes shut and hardly dared to breathe.
“I should shoot you and be done with it. End this circus right now.”
“No, please, wait. I am here because . . . because a witness came to see me, about the Kurrong people. The colonial secretaryordered an inquest, and for me to come out—that is all, I swear.”
“That was twelve bloody years ago. What you raking it all up for now?”
“I know, but the law demands . . . please, could you lower the gun?”
Footsteps, and Henry cracked open an eye. Billy returned to the armchair, hooked an ankle over his knee, lit a cigarette andexhaled. He sat there smoking, hurried little drags, while Henry trembled faintly in his bed.
“Who’s the witness?” Billy asked finally.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Would I be asking if they had?”
“I’m not sure I’m at liberty to say.”
“If you like, I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap, see if you’re at liberty then.”
“Reverend Francis Bean. He was a missionary. He met you all out there.”
It took Billy a moment to register, then: “The priest?”
“Yes, exactly. He says he saw the most terrible things.”
Billy blew out smoke incredulously, crushed the cigarette on the floor. “That’s who’s behind all this? That fucking choirboy?Twelve years after the fact?”
“He remembers it all exactly.”
“He never saw a thing!”
“He went back, saw the crater, what you did.”
Billy unfolded his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, wagging the barrel of the revolver at Henry Wells. “How aboutI tell you what I saw, shall I? Is that what you’re wanting, to hear me confess? All right, listen up: me and my little brother, sixteen andfourteen years old, go out swimming then come home and the whole family’s been shot, bastards even ran through the dogs. Ourdaddy’s got three holes blown in him front to back, Ma’s had half her head took off, our little sister Mary’s bleeding outunder the bed. Now, how’s that for a story? What’s your priest have to say about that?”
“I’m truly sorry for what happened to your family. But they should have held a proper inquest at the time, established forcertain what occurred that day.”
“I just told you what fucking occurred. I was there.”
“But you were children, and it seems to me others may have used your tragedy to commit yet further crimes. In your family’sname, no less. Am I right?”
“Catching the killers was a crime in your eyes?”
“Of course not. But what about the others? A hundred, I heard?”
Billy straightened and shifted, then jumped up from the chair. He paced the length of the room then back again, the revolver swinging in his hand, muttering, “You can’t even prove nothing. You’ve no idea what went on.”
“I believe I do. And that I can.”
Billy stopped abruptly. “You ain’t got no right . . . what’s all this to you anyway? What do you stand to gain?”
“Nothing. I already told you.”
“Well then, how much would it cost to make you go away?”
“It’s not really a question of money.”
“Try me. Or I could just as easily shoot you and bury you and nobody round here would bat an eye.”
“I’m sure that’s probably true, but it wouldn’t do you any good.”
“Do you less.”
“The inquest will continue, I mean. The wheels will still turn. This goes to the highest level in Brisbane, they won’t juststop for me. In fact, they’d probably only investigate all the harder.”
An exaggeration, but Henry was gambling. Billy went to the window and looked out. “So if I can’t pay you, or shoot you, howdo I stop this thing?”
“Work with me. Testify. Tell them what really happened. We’ll put Noone behind bars, or worse. Men have hung for far less.”
Billy laughed and sat down and lit another cigarette. “Have you met him?”
“I have, yes.”
“And you still think he’ll hang?”
“He’s a man like any other, subject to the laws of this land.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Please, Mr. McBride, all I’m asking—”
“Do you have a family yourself, Henry?”
“Of course.”
“Do you want to see them dead?”
“Now just a minute, that’s completely uncalled for.”
Billy blew out smoke and shrugged. “He wouldn’t think so. In fact, he’d probably consider it rude to let them live. Christ Almighty, the balls on you, sitting there talking like this is some game. This is my life you’re toying with. And yours. Them laws might work in Brisbane but they don’t count for shit out here, at least not with a man like Noone.”
“Which is precisely why he must
