The Man From the Valley

by Joyce Dingwell

  “No, I say you are king.”

  “Could be.” He shrugged the two words again.

  “But in a very little kingdom.” Terese could not resist that. “Anywhere else...”

  “I’m not interested in anywhere else, only in Backdown. Everything in Backdown interests me, so you do, too, seeing you are here.” A pause. “Why are you here?”

  “To issue your books, of course. I mean”—hastily—“that was what I intended. Now it’s different...”

  “How?”

  “I’m signed off, aren’t I? By the monopoly.” She could not help adding.

  He was frowning at her, the thick brows meeting in one black line.

  “Don’t be a fool. One doesn’t take a bone from a dog. Even an old trusty won’t stand for that, even these old trusties, these old Backdown friends. No, I can’t take you away from them”—he nodded briefly to the people still talking outside—“not this early. I’m stuck with you for a time at least.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dawson.”

  “So am I. If I had had any idea when Joe cabled me ... But how could I? London is a long, long way from Backdown. One could never have anticipated a second encounter. Which brings back my query: Why are you here?”

  “It was a job, Mr. Dawson.”

  “There are lots of jobs in Australia. The land of opportunity we call it.” The clear eyes narrowed over the cigarette. “Did you decide that Backdown offered more opportunity”—he paused deliberately—“matrimonially?” Still deliberate, taking no notice of Terese’s reddening cheeks, he went on, “The cities are losing that reputation, in fact, Australia, as a paradise for women when it comes to getting a man, is going fast down the scale. Only the frontier country boasts male predominance now, the pearling centers, the Inside, the sugar plantations...”

  “You are unbelievably rude,” she said to him.

  “Yet believably correct. Women do set their sights on the male animal. I am undergoing the doubtful pleasure myself of being hunted right now.”

  Terese’s flush deepened. Ginny, she thought. This man was anything but a fool, he would know the girl’s aims almost as soon as she knew them herself.

  The hands of the clock on the dashboard of the bookmobile were indicating that Homeward Bound’s library session was up. Terese was uncertain whether she should keep to her schedule or wait to be dismissed. After all, as Arn Dawson had taken care to inform her, she was working under a monopoly, a one-man show.

  She was spared the necessity of making a decision. Still in his deceptively lazy way he said, “I think you must be ready to move on. Bid goodbye to your borrowers, Miss Librarian, give them the patter of clean fingers, no pencil marks or dog ears, then kindly take the passenger seat.”

  “You have no faith in my driving?”

  “I’ve never seen you drive, but as I have no faith in you I don’t see why I should make an exception of that. Especially in your present condition.”

  “Present...”

  “Look at your hands, please.”

  She glanced down, and saw, to her deep resentment, that they were trembling visibly. In fact, she was considerably shaken. Tears of futility sprung to her eyes, and the next moment she might even have burst into tears had he not, in an abruptly changed voice, said quietly “It’s all right, little one, control yourself, it’s a very small-storm in a very small teacup, as I’ll demonstrate very surely to you in ten minutes. Now leave any awkwardness to me.” He impelled her down into the passenger’s seat, drew up the ladder and shut the back door, then started the bookmobile engine, calling out easily as they set off, “Same time next round ... is that right, Miss Staples? ... and don’t any of you borrowers get the idea I’m claiming a driver’s wages out of the community chest. I’m just showing our librarian our view from Pinnacle Point.” He waved, indicated for Terese to wave too, then they gained speed.

  “I hope I was right,” he said presently, negotiating a bend, “in Pinnacle Point, and that you haven’t seen it yet.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “I thought so, it’s a very difficult track, but it’s still something a Backdowner must know.”

  “Even a temporary Backdowner?”

  “I’ll need all my attention on the route for the next ten minutes, your sarcasm will be in vain.”

  She bit her lip, but obeyed him, glad after a few more bends that it was not her at the wheel, for steep and winding though her own territory had proved, this track was positively tortuous. For all the giddy height, however, the treacherous narrowness of the two wheel indents but little else between then and a gaping gorge, Terese felt no nervousness at all, not with those big steady hands on the wheel.

  With that odd change of approach he had used before, odd when the rest of him was so determinedly ungentle, he encouraged presently, “It’ll soon be over, Miss Staples, just close your eyes.”

  “I have no need to.”

  “Thank you.” The tortuous track was flattening out, and he took time off to flash her a quick, appreciative grin. He looked different when he smiled. Not the king. Not the monopoly. Different. “Here we are,” Arn said.

  He opened the door and she climbed out, wondering at first why he had brought her here, for the aspect should be the same as anywhere else, the same as from his own Homeward Bound vantage point, then she caught her breath.

  Along the narrow fringe they had traveled were the usual small bushes of a mountaintop, but in the valley to the right the trees were totally different from the trees in the valley to the left.

  “This is a marvel,” he was telling her, “and storms in teacups are not even storms in teaspoons in the face of things like this. If Backdown were not so back down it would be a tourist wonder, a phenomenon. This narrow neck divides the top Backdown terrain from the bottom Backdown terrain, or the north from the south, almost as if it divided two worlds.” He swung her round with an impersonal hand. “Look to the right,” he indicated. “Beeches. Firs. Cold country trees.” He swung her impersonally again. “Look to the left. Near-tropical vegetation. Why, some of that stuff you can see up in Northern Queensland, even in New Guinea.”

  She stared, fascinated. “But why? How?”

  “The almost encircling escarpments have formed a sanctuary, they’ve shut in their sections, imprisoned them, so that each form of original vegetation has remained unto itself.” As she still stood spellbound he began to roll a cigarette. “I thought you’d be interested,” he said.

  “Interested? Why, it’s like nothing else on earth!”

  “I think perhaps it is that. I’ve never seen it in any other place.” He put her into a position. “Now you are a northerner.” He put himself in a position. “I’m from the south.”

  “But my trees,” she protested across the space between them, “are the tropical ones.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Yet to a northerner like me trees should be the cold country variety, not lush and wild like that.”

  “I forgot,” he grinned, “forgot we’re topsy-turvy land, that your warmth is south and ours is north. Best, after all, for us to stand on neutral ground.” He stepped into the middle of the narrow division again, and after a moment’s hesitation Terese stepped back, too.

  “Can we stop on this ground, Mr. Dawson?” she asked presently.

  He did not pretend not to understand her. “You have no wish to leave the job, is that it?”

  “I have every wish to remain here. I”—she paused—“I love it. I love the work.”

  “But I told you I couldn’t remove you—not, anyway, this soon.”

  “Take a bone from a dog was what you said.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, unabashed.

  “But eventually a careful master can remove the bone. I’d like to think I had the prospect of a longer stay than what it takes to edge that bone away.”

  “I can’t promise you that.” His voice was non-committal. “I would never deprive these people of something they enjoy until I was certain the
expectation and enjoyment would continue. On the other hand, you would never have been accepted had I known whom you were. I said so, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember, but”—painfully, unwillingly—“I told you I could explain.”

  “Look, that’s all over. As finished as that cold country finishes there and that warm country finishes here. We’ll remain without tedious whys and hows on no-man’s land, Miss Staples, and leave it at that. In short, for the while, and perhaps an extended while ... one never knows ... you stop.” As she opened her mouth to protest, he said, “That’s all I’ll concede.”

  “You’re a hard man,” she told him.

  “Tell that to Ginny,” he answered unexpectedly, the cigarette in his mouth.

  Impulsively, Terese answered, “She says her hardness could match yours.”

  “I see.” His eyes narrowed. “So I’ve already been discussed.”

  “No.”

  “But I must have been, mustn’t I? What it is to be the hunted, Miss Staples.” He gave a low brief laugh. “Or do you only know the sensations of the hunter, perhaps?”

  “Mr. Dawson...”

  “Sorry, but I’m dealing in facts, aren’t I? If you had been hunted I would be bold enough to suggest you would not be here now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe you were the hunter, not the hunted, but that you never caught your ... No, I won’t say prey.”

  “Why not? It could be no more unkind.”

  “Yet true? Come, Miss Staples, don’t look so naive.” He laughed.

  “I never hunted,” she said tightly. “I—I only...” But she knew she could not say “I only loved” to this big hard man.

  But unexpectedly once more he had altered his mood.

  “I’m sorry. I’m damned sorry. I’ve a bitter tongue at times. I let my own knowledge color what probably has its own right color, anyway, I draw on my own experiences. You say you were not the hunter, so I accept that. Only”—a trace of contemptuous amusement in his voice—“tell that established hunter sharing Pickpocket with you that I’m up to her schemes.”

  “Ginny...?”

  “I didn’t refer to Joe. And now if you’re ready...” He nodded to the van.

  They only spoke on library topics on the way back. Arn Dawson fixed a time for Terese to come over to Homeward Bound the next day to discuss more details. “Unless you have an outside schedule at that hour.”

  “I didn’t intend to go out until the afternoon.”

  “Good.” He glanced at his watch and said, “I hope you have no more stops today.”

  “No, I decided to take the van back and work on the catalog.”

  “Very wise. Never loiter past four, Miss Staples, or you might be caught in the mist. I’ll see you, then, in the morning. You can take over from here, I’ll walk home through the bush.”

  He got out in that easy relaxed way of his, gave a brief nod and disappeared through the trees. He did not turn to nod, and Terese was glad of that, for the events of the afternoon had upset her driving, and she stalled the engine twice before she proceeded up the mountain to the plateau.

  Ginny appeared as the book van rolled down the drive. “Hail the conquering hero,” she greeted. “Did you conquer, Terese?”

  “It went well.” Terese opened the book van door and climbed out.

  “You sound rather less than enthusiastic.” Ginny’s shrewd green eyes had narrowed. “It must have been our Man from the Valley, then. Everything was fine before Arn. He’s back, I hear.”

  “Yes, he’s back.” Terese began collecting her papers, conscious of Ginny’s probing gaze.

  At last, unable to bear her considering silence, to feel her speculating eyes on her back, she turned and announced, “It’s quite all right, he disliked me.”

  “Then it’s not all right, is it? He must at least have been aware of you, and that’s not a good thing.”

  Terese looked directly at the girl. “Oh, Ginny, you idiot!” Irritated, she added, “If he’s aware of me, he’s certainly very aware of you.”

  “You mean my intentions have permeated at last? Good.” The girl put her arm in Terese’s. “At least to him, then, I’m alive.”

  “Ginny, he knows what you want, Arn Dawson knows.”

  Quite unabashed, Ginny snapped, “He also knows he wants the best for his land, and that I, unquestionably, would be the best.” She smiled challengingly at Terese.

  But Terese was thinking of that night in London, that woman in Arn Dawson’s arms. Ginny might be the best for his land, but was she the best for Dawson?

  She turned to tell her—best, she thought, for her to know—but stopped by the sight of sudden tear brightness in the girl's green eyes, unshed tears but still there.

  “Ginny...” she whispered, knowing they were not tears for a man as hard as herself.

  “Any moisture you may imagine you see is for the good earth, Terese, have no two thoughts on that.”

  Brittle hard once again, tears brushed away, Ginny detached herself from Terese, and they went into the house.

  At eleven the next morning Terese presented herself at Dawson’s. She did so with misgiving, for the appointment had been for ten, but Terese had planned on taking Ringo but Ringo had not been there. Neither had Sandy, though Terese doubted if she would have had the nerve to mount the more spirited pony. Earlier, Joe had taken the bookmobile along the plateau to have Les Philps, the Backdown handyman, adjust a shelf, but it seemed too much of a coincidence, Terese thought, standing staring at the empty garage, that the jeep was missing as well.

  She wasted no time in walking to Dawson’s, and as she kicked the stones on her path she conceded a win to Ginny.

  Last night in the darkness of their shared room Ginny had puzzled, “I can’t see how Arn would take a dislike to you, Terese, you’re not a dislikable person.”

  “Thank you, Ginny.”

  “I’m not being nice, I’m being practical. Now, people could be excused for disliking me.”

  Terese had murmured a protest to which Ginny had paid no attention. By the silence in the companion bed she was mulling something over, and she must have reached a conclusion.

  “You lied to me, Terese. You did meet him before, you did meet Arn.”

  “Yes, I met him, but until today I didn’t know.”

  She told the story briefly, unemotionally, and Ginny had accepted it in the same strain. Particularly, Terese had noted, she was not at all concerned over the fact that Arn Dawson had stood with a woman in his arms. Instead, she had reviewed with obvious satisfaction the fact that Terese had stood and gazed at the pair ... and jeered.

  “Not jeered, Ginny,” Terese corrected. “I laughed ... I was a little hysterical, I think.”

  “It would seem like jeering, and our haughty Arn would hate that. He’s a perfectionist, Terese, that’s why I know I must get him eventually. This place I’ve worked up for Joe is near perfect, and Arn would approve of that.”

  “But he might have found someone in England.” That woman in Dawson’s arms, Terese was thinking, there had been tender shelter there.

  But Ginny had only dismissed, “If he had, she would be here, beside him, nothing less would satisfy Arn. No, my way is quite clear, Terese, unless...” Her voice had drifted off.

  But it had not been into sleep she had drifted, Terese realized as she walked, not rode, not drove, to Homeward Bound, it had been into schemes and wiles. The wile of removing everything from Pickpocket that would enable Terese to get to Dawson’s at the appointed time. A perfectionist, Ginny had called Arn, and shrewdly she had seen to it that the perfectionist was left cooling his heels for an hour until his new employee deigned to keep their appointment. Even knowing the man as little as she did in this short time, Terese felt he would be disapproving.

  The small girls on the lookout for Terese soon informed her that disapproval was putting it very mildly.

  “Da’s as wild as a warrigal, Tree—a warrigal is a dingo, di
d you know?”

  “You should have been here at milk time, we have ours with Da, and we saw two cups by the teapot and Da looking like he used to with Mummy.”

  “Do you think he’ll bash you, Tree?” Jalna had said rather hopefully, but then, hadn’t she asked for Grimm or something with blood?

  Terese had followed the girls down the path to the house among the trees. More trees stretched to its front gate in the valley where yesterday she had pulled up the bookmobile and issued the books.

  “Da,” called Janet, “Tree has come.”

  “Are you going to do anything to her?” asked Jalna with intrigue.

  “Only to you, if you’re still here by the time I count three!” By his second count the pair had gone, and though this meant good discipline it also meant that he would not let her own tardiness pass unremarked.

  He did not. He said irritably, “When I make an appointment I expect it to be kept.”

  “I expect to keep it, Mr. Dawson.”

  “Then—?”

  She opened her mouth to explain her lateness, but at the same time she saw the direction of his eyes. They were on the jodphurs she had not found time to change.

  “You rode?”

  “No.”

  The dark brows had risen, and Terese said, “I was going to, and then...”

  “I believe I see.” He gave a small lopsided smile that only included himself. “So Miss Ginny still spins the web.”

  “Mr. Dawson?”

  “Kindly sit down, Miss Staples.” Evidently the subject of her lateness was closed.

  Outside, the children argued, agreed, argued again. “Together they fight,” observed Arn Dawson, beginning to roll a cigarette, “but part them and they pine.”

  “That’s the way of families,” put in Terese.

  He looked steadily at her as he licked the edges of the paper together, it was a curious look, part probing, part appeal. Or appeal, it seemed. But would this proud, sufficient man ever appeal?