Out. Get out, now or never...
Billie threw herself through the opening and landed on the grass on her side, lungs screaming. Bright flames licked the broken gap she had emerged through. The house itself was roaring now, as if withobjection, having lost its human sacrifices. It moaned and cried in the darkness.
Billie lurched to her feet, not sure how fast their party could move. The motorcars? Perhaps she could start one of them and drive them out of this mess, together? As if in answer, angry flames danced across the dry grass, light, swift, and deadly, snaking with speed to the rear of the nearest shed. The shed she had been inside. It lit like a pack of matchsticks, as if it had been waiting for this moment. The Packard and the Daimler would be surrounded or even engulfed before they had time to find the keys or force them to start. Billie watched as the fire raced over the treetops and lit the hill behind the homestead. Her own automobile was down the road, fifteen or so minutes away by foot, but less if they ran. If the roadway remained clear they could reach it, but the fire was already moving at a terrifying rate, devouring the dry summer grasses and spreading toward the roadside. She didn’t like their chances with the girls in tow and a struggling Franz.
“To the river,” Shyla said, “it’s our only chance,” and she pointed the way.
Together, the five women and girls, with Franz as their captive, struggled down a dusty path, bent over and moving their feet as fast as they could. Billie’s lungs protested and she spluttered and coughed but kept on, her suit streaked and torn, her hands and arms scratched and grazed. Behind them, the wrathful fire was rising, the wind shifting and starting to blow harder, creating a roar of the kind Billie had only ever heard during bombing campaigns in the war. Shyla lifted one of the young girls into her arms, carrying her and running forward with impossible strength for someone her size.
“Feuer, Feuer...”someone was saying as they ran and stumbled down the track toward the river.
It was Franz, the man who was to blame for all this. The man who had forced the girls into those prison rooms, who had started the fire. He stopped, crouching and whimpering, as terrified as a small child, the roles now reversed. He repeated the same word again and again. “Feuer, feuer.”
Fire.
He was terrified of the flames, Billie realized, now sure that he had tried to free himself from the ropes but had not counted on the lamp spilling, had not counted on the dry Australian bush, which came alive with terrifying flame at the slightest opportunity. Not counting on the drought and the hot Australian summer. The bush here loved to burn; the burning was part of its nature, part of the cycle of life and death. And he’d triggered it.
“Feuer,” he cried again. He was wailing now, trying to cover his head.
Shyla put down the girl she was carrying and told Billie to get her to the river. Billie took the girl’s hand, urging her onward, Ruthie and the other girl running in front of them. Shyla grabbed the ropes binding Franz and hauled him through the paddock like a bull. “You won’t get far in Darug Country,” Billie heard her say to him as she yanked at him fiercely.
They pushed through a thicket of thorny bush, Billie cutting her hand, tearing her stockings, her suit, and then they were through a fringe of trees and jumping down to the level of the river, where beige sand glowed in the moonlight. Here was water, slow, lazy water, enough to keep them from the flames. They waded in, submerging themselves to the thighs. The two younger girls were immersed tothe waist, and Ruthie was with them, slightly taller, cradling them maternally. The water, cool and welcoming, brought tears to Billie’s eyes, making tracks down her soot-covered face. Shyla reached them, dragging their prisoner by his ropes. He collapsed onto the sand.
The sky was red with flames, embers rising like fireflies and falling again like black snow. The fire was like thunder now, like a freight train, the taste of smoke on their tongues, the air itself filling with falling ash.
Without words, Billie opened her arms and Shyla joined her, then Ruthie and the other girls, too. The five women and girls formed a circle in the slow river, arms locked protectively around one another.
“I’m Eleanor,” the smallest one said, in a child’s voice that tore at the part of Billie that was just barely hanging on.
“I’m Ida,” the other girl said.
The five of them huddled together in the cool water of the Colo River, heads close. Behind them, the white-haired man was curled on the sand of the riverbank, shaking as the world around them roared and danced with flames.
Thirty-one
The Upper Colo homestead inthe early morning light was a vision to behold.
The wooden footings that had held up the homestead had collapsed under the flames, and the blackened walls sprawled out across the scorched grass as if the building had burst its stitching and come apart at the seams. Only two brick chimneys sat in their original places, proud and intact, the rest of the homestead having fallen away. And standing like sentinels from a surreal apocalyptic tale, Mr. and Mrs. Satan were almost untouched: blackened and charred, but their posture unchanged, their glittering eyes feasting on the scene.
The East Kurrajong Bush Fire Brigade had arrived in the dead of night in a single battered red Ford truck with a pump, alerted by a watchful farmer in the hills to the growing inferno at Upper Colo. It was a motley crew of brave locals with firefighting knapsacks on their backs who had erupted out of the truck, six in all, and without pause had begun their work against the raging flames, barelynoticing at first the huddle of women and the strange man cowering at the side of the river. With something like awe, Billie had stood up on the riverbank and watched them contain the blaze after a battle that had lasted hours. The areas beyond the road and river were saved; the evil house and its contents stood not a chance.
The firefighters, all volunteers, had beaten Inspector Cooper in his race from the city. But at five in the morning, fully an hour earlier than he had promised her, Cooper and his colleagues had arrived and the white-haired man known as Franz was placed in irons and driven to the Richmond lockup, while Billie, Shyla, and the girls were ordered to stay put and await questioning. There wasn’t a vehicle big enough for them all.
Shyla, Ruthie, Ida, and Eleanor were huddled together on the wool blankets provided by the firefighters, talking in low voices and sipping from shared cups and a thermos. Young Eleanor was still in something of a trance since she’d been taken from her prison room by Ruthie, Billie had noticed. Those wide dark eyes remained blank, empty with shock. She was the youngest, Billie guessed, and she’d done well to get to the river at all in her state. Ida, who was barely older from what Billie could tell, was more animated, but also showing signs of shock, hands clammy and pupils enlarged. All of the girls needed medical attention, Billie thought. She had left them when the inspector silently signaled for her attention, but even as she stood with him she watched the group in their semicircle, clothes torn and wet, and wondered about their futures.
Now Detective Inspector Hank Cooper was beside Billie Walker, steady and tall, concern written all over his face. “Billie, I got here as fast as I could,” he said to her. “I hope you know that.”
Billie was almost unrecognizable, covered in streaks of soot, hersuit filthy and ruined, a wool blanket wrapped around her and a steaming cup of black tea in her hand. Her muddy oxfords were drying, so a spare pair of oversize boots, volunteered by the firefighters, covered her feet. Her tilt hat had been lost somewhere, probably engulfed in the house, and her curls were unrestrained. Unruly locks framed her streaked face like a mane. Her eyes were bloodshot, her elegant hands scratched and bruised.
“I know you did, Inspector,” Billie replied softly.
The firefighters were walking over the paddocks now, putting out small spot fires. Parts of the homestead still smoldered, walls crackling and glowing orange. Above them, the air was heavy and dark, a smoky cloud hanging over the scene even as the early morning sunlight fought against it, the eternal battle between night and day playing out more violently than usual.
“Please call me Hank.”
Billie looked up at Cooper and nodded, and he put an arm around her shoulders, closing the blanket gently across her with his other broad hand. They stood in silence for a while, watching the scene, she cocooned in the blanket and in him. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier,” he said again.
Her shivering stopped. She hadn’t even realized she was doing it. “I know, Hank,” Billie said again. “I know.”
