The Valley

by Hawke, Steve;

  Only when Bessie swiped herself with the iron, reopening her mourning wounds afresh, did Billy move. He grabbed it, threw it aside, and held her tight. She wailed, and beat her hands against him as their blood mingled.

  This time his mother really did want to leave. But Sarah would not. She’d spent her life absorbing her parents’ fear of the world beyond the valley, believing as a matter of faith that she’d be stolen away like Bessie’s young brother if she left.

  Bessie’s grief hung over the camp. The only relief came on the days when Sarah would take her out looking for bush tucker. When Sohan’s smoke signal came, Wajarri helped his father cart the stores back into the valley. But by the time the rains came, he could endure no longer without his other half.

  With dread in his heart, one morning he followed the creek north, and found his way to Highlands. To Janga, who had become Bob. Wajarri became Two Bob. He had never eaten janga again.

  The boab nut can only be a sign from Bob. But telling him what? He stirs the coals under the camp oven. The Oprah Winfrey theme tune wafts on the air.

  Riley must be up.

  He breaks off another piece of pith, and sucks on its sourness as he ponders, and remembers.

  The only other sign Bob ever gave him was unmistakable, the night before he left the valley. He’d followed the dream’s instructions, and after two days had spied Highlands; the gnarled monster boab he sits beneath now, the homestead and outbuildings, the humpies of the camp, and down beyond them the post and rail yards.

  He hovered for hours on the ridge, watching, waiting. Sure of his dream one moment, full of doubt the next, wondering if he should turn tail back to the valley. Then as evening approached he saw Bob make his way to a snappy gum on a low rise, where he stood and watched. With his heart singing, Two Bob whistled the call of the kite hawk, and moved out from his cover. Bob came running.

  He stretches as he looks around. The yards are hardly recognisable now, though a couple of the original posts remain. The humpies have been replaced by a scattering of houses. The office and clinic appeared a few years ago. Then the telecom tower like a skinny, overheight windmill that has delivered a phone, a fax and the TV signal that has changed Riley’s life. But the boab tree is still here, and Highlands is still the end of the earth, eighty miles in from the Gibb River Road with nothing but the rough station tracks beyond.

  8

  Highlands.

  The word, the name, the unknown place has been a mystery in Dancer’s psyche all his life. Yet in his funk he has gone along with this plan with little thought, and hardly more than grunted okays.

  Andy eases off the pedal as the car in front decelerates to take the turn for Fitzroy Crossing. Once it is gone, he floors it again and straightens in his seat. ‘’Nother forty kays an’ we’ll be on the Gibb River Road. Headin’ for the good country.’

  ‘What are we going to be doing up there, Dad?’

  ‘Remains to be seen, to tell you the truth. Your grandpa’s not really one for phone chats. I finished up just sayin’ we’d come up an’ play it by ear.’

  ‘He was the one in the cowboy shirt hey? Going a bit bald?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘He was staring at me.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Dancer moves in his seat, looks across at his father. ‘He’s my own grandfather, and I’ve never met him.’

  Andy keeps his eyes on the road as he shifts down a gear to ease into a dip, then back up again. ‘It’s complicated … He’s a good man, Two Bob. One of the best I know. But it got complicated.’

  Dancer waits.

  And waits.

  Of course it’s bloody complicated. As if I haven’t worked that out by now.

  The silence rolls on. Half an hour later Andy leans the truck into the turn for the Gibb River Road, at which point he plucks a Pigram Brothers CD from the array he has in a sleeve on his sun visor. Mowanjum on the right. The bitumen narrows from double to single lane width. Still nothing from Andy except his soft accompaniment to the music.

  Andy has only ever sung harmonies and choruses in the band, but Dancer is always struck by how pure his father’s voice is when he hears him sing alone. His rendition as he breaks into the Kimberley trucker’s song is note-perfect.

  Unfolding like a flower, dewdrop in the dawn

  Rising like a mountain, through the foggy morn

  Riding this live dream, catch me if I fall

  Starting to rise now, my shadow’s up the wall

  And I’m rollin like a road train, four dogs and thirty ton

  Gliding like a mountain, towards the blazing sun

  Gliding through the valley, the wedgetail is my friend

  Winding like a river, to the bitter end.

  It’s been like this for as long as Dancer can remember. The mother he never knew. If anything touches on her, even faintly, Andy snaps shut like a hermit crab in its shell.

  It’s about to change, one way or another. He can feel it in his guts. He hasn’t really taken in the how or the why through the madness and despair of the last two weeks, but they are heading towards her.

  There had been that one moment, three years ago now. ‘This is your Unggurr, your spirit place,’ Dad had said on the bank at Bullfrog Hole. It had opened a window in Dancer’s heart. A window that flickered alternately with an alluring light and a murky shadow that scared him deeply. But Andy had offered nothing more in all the time since.

  Dancer has no choice but to wait. He knows from long experience that pushing, asking, questing will only serve to set him back.

  There’s something about the sensation of rolling like a road train down this thin strip of bitumen that helps him deal with the unease that he feels.

  The bush is changing. There are more boabs on either side of the road. Then they float down a gentle descent and plough along the road’s furrow through what seems a limitless, almost treeless plain dotted with a city of dun-brown anthills. There is a faint shimmer of the ranges ahead. It’s a landscape too old and wondrous to concern itself with his problems.

  He eases back in his seat and watches the anthills.

  9

  When Bob limped into Highlands he told the mob he’d come up from Fitzroy side; that he’d had a fight with the boss at Fish Creek Station. The boss had chained him up and gone for the police, but he’d escaped before they got back. And he told them that he had a twin brother who would follow him as soon as he could.

  The high country was still a wild world in the 1940s. The ranges to the north-east, where the headwaters of the big East Kimberley rivers rose, were known as the Outlaw Country; home to gangs of horse thieves until not too long past. There were still a few fellers who hadn’t taken to the station life, roaming the ranges living by the spear. There’d never been many whitefellers, and at that time there were even fewer than usual, with Stumpy and others having taken off to the war. Amongst black and white it was a country of closed mouths, minding your own business, and taking people at face value. When the pale-skinned youngster turned up, the Highlands mob took Bob at his word, or at least chose not to ask too many questions.

  He joined the stock camp as the junior man; horsetailer, woodchopper and cook’s offsider. It was the cook who gave him his new name. When Wajarri arrived, and the same man saw the two of them side by side, he said with a laugh, ‘Well if he’s Bob, you must be Two Bob.’

  The twins cobbled together a camp of bush timber and scraps of iron; a bachelors’ camp at a slight remove from the rest of the humpies of the Highlands families. It was understood between them that the lost valley they’d come from would remain just that; it was not their place to betray the secret. This reserve, the obvious hole in their life stories, was not questioned, but it hung as a mystery that marked them as different and apart. They were accepted, even put through the law, but not embraced to the mob’s bosom.

  Year in, year out, like all of the men and a good number of the women, they worked the cattle. When the great cycle of the
annual muster swept down to the southern reaches of the Highlands run, the stock camp would set up at Bullfrog Hole, the waterhole closest to the valley. And each time, Bob’s demeanour would harden. To the day he died, his heart remained unforgiving towards their father.

  Two Bob excelled in the stockman’s arts, year by year moving up the hierarchy; his steady, methodical manner getting the job done whatever it might be, his quiet humour making him well liked. Bob equalled him in skill, but didn’t share his passion for the craft. He was a young man of dreams and daring and a quick temper, who did the job because that was his lot, not his love.

  Bob came to life during the wet season layoff, when for a couple of months the mob were not at the beck and call of the manager. They were free to immerse themselves in the joys of swapping visits with relations on neighbouring stations, walking the country, hunting and socialising; and to turn their attention to the business of ceremony. Bob distinguished himself as a singer and dancer in the wanggas and junbas that filled these nights.

  When Wiligula the Jalgangurru became aware of Janga’s ability to send dreams and messages, he was taken under the old man’s wing, and began to progress in the ranks of the lawmen, to learn the arts of the healer and wise man. The twins came to understand that though they would remain ever joined in spirit, their temperaments and talents would see them take differing paths.

  Two Bob had been at Highlands three years when the Boxwood boss turned up one day and told them that he was the new owner. Stumpy had been killed in the big war, he said, and he’d taken up the lease.

  The new boss didn’t last long, nor his successor. They came and went every few years. Some were new owners with grand plans, believing they could defy Highlands’ reputation as a battler’s graveyard. Others were managers who just wanted to get the muster out of the way – it wasn’t a place that attracted ambitious employees. Some bosses were rougher than others, some years the weekly tucker ration was better, but the comings and goings of the whitefellers made little real difference to the lives of the mob.

  Two Bob was the constant through it all. Even before he became the head stockman, he was the trusted one who stayed behind when the rest of the mob went walking, saw to the essentials and made the emergency repairs after storm damage, until the road dried up enough for the year’s business to get underway. Sometimes there would be a whitefeller camped in the homestead with the title of caretaker, but more than one of them fled to town, unable to cope with the isolation. A good few spent the wet in a rum-soaked stupor. Other years the boss just locked the homestead and took off for a couple of months.

  When the law business was at Highlands, Two Bob played his minor part, taking brotherly pride in Bob’s prominence. But when the mob took off he was happy to stay behind. He had another kind of business.

  The year after they got the news of Stumpy’s death there was great excitement amongst the Highlands mob as the working year wound down. They were heading east to Turkey Creek. It was a two-week walk to get there, but plenty of country to see and hunting to be had on the way, and a new ceremony from the Territory side to take part in.

  Two Bob saw his chance, and made his excuses. Highlands had become his home, and stockman his vocation, but the valley and those he had left behind were never far from his thoughts. The tiny community who still called the valley home. He felt that he had to let them know of Stumpy’s passing. There would be no resumption of the annual supplies. And he’d heard that Sohan had turned loose his camels, and disappeared from Wyndham and the Kimberley. How would they all get by?

  He spun a yarn to the caretaker about checking a couple of mills whilst fitting in a bit of hunting. He took off with a packhorse loaded with bags of flour and other supplies, as well as his riding horse. He even managed to palm a few sticks of nicki nicki from the store for Bessie.

  When he got to the round hill he wondered whether he should light a signal fire.

  With that thought he realised that he no longer belonged to the valley. He would be a visitor, not entirely certain of his welcome in a place that turned its back on outsiders. But there was no reason to think they would be on the lookout for a fire. He rode on to where the creek emerged from the cliffs. There was a thrill of familiarity, and a tightness in his chest as he began disentangling the jumble of driftwood that concealed the path into the ravine.

  10

  It is but five days ago that I buried my only daughter Sarah.

  Yesterday I bade farewell to her grandson Riley. He was perched upon Othello’s shoulders, and happily did he wave back at me as they turned the corner of the track. They will be through the gorge by now, that portal to the world beyond, and on the road to Highlands. ‘Hold the lad close,’ I asked.

  For many a year now Othello has been the lifeline for me and mine, but our peculiar arrangement has run its race. I told him not to bother with disguising the entrance any more. There’s naught to hide. He begged of me to go with them, but he and I both knew the walk to be beyond me. The pneumonia is in my lungs, and I know not how long I will last. Even if I could have gone, I do not think I would have. I am a sinful man who has shunned the world.

  Last night I wrote my Will & Testament, and double-wrapped it in an oilcloth, along with the stones it promises. They are secure in my trunk, laid atop the red dress of Bessie’s. It was a night of turbulent reflections and recollections. In the witching hour the fancy struck me that a way to calm the storms besetting my thoughts might be to give them shape as words on a page. A sinner’s confession, if you like. But to whom? As of this day, I am truly Robinson Crusoe.

  How I delighted in that tome as a young’un. Defoe and Dickens were my favourites from Mother’s library. On her deathbed Ma had urged me to head for Perth, and to find gainful employment as a clerk. She had schooled me well, for an outback boy. But I took my own counsel and, after burying her in Nullagine, did make my way to the port of Cossack, and thence by steamer to Derby. I was seeking to find the only flesh and blood left to me, my older brother Desmond, known as Des, whose last known address was ‘via Mount House Station’. And thus my course was set.

  Where to begin? Perhaps as I began my Will & Testament:

  My name, my true name, is William Noakes. I was born in the Nullagine goldfield in the year of 1900. Mother Mary Noakes, boarding house proprietress. Father Rudolph Noakes, mining engineer and prospector, lost on Gallipoli’s shores.

  But there is more to tell than the brief accounting in my Will. I have had many other names. The Billygoat. Julyee, as Bessie and her people called me, once they decided to spare me. Many years ago, when I needed a name to give a stranger, I made Julyee into Charlie, and for a surname I chose Walker, for that is what I had become in this horseman’s land, the man who walked.

  It is a strange affair in this country, the business of names. My Othello is now known as Two Bob. His mother called him Wajarri, that being the name in her language for the nut of the boab tree. His twin brother she dubbed Janga, for the creamy white pith of that same nut, whilst I called him Hamlet.

  We are all of us less clever than we think ourselves, but both Bessie and the station fellow at Highlands who renamed Othello were closer to the mark than I. The man saw them for what they were, two of a kind; Bob and Two Bob. Bessie knew that they were two parts of a single whole; Janga and Wajarri, pith and shell, pale and dark, indivisible. I chose to bestow them with the names of the white prince of Denmark and the dark prince of Venice; a fancy that none but I embraced.

  I call myself a sinful man. I confess to two great ones. Many smaller, but two of consequence. A murder, and a grave injustice on my own flesh and blood. The latter scarred me more. Hamlet held a deep resentment towards me until the day that he died.

  The murder first. Yes, call it that, for all the truthful reasons I might advance by way of justification.

  In the late dry season of the year of 1916, some weeks before the first storms, I did shoot Jock Jones, more commonly known as Twelve Inch, at Poison Hole on the Pac
khorse Creek, some three days ride north by west of Mount House Station. The next day I did burn down his hut, with his corpse still inside, and then did abscond, taking with me many of his goods and possessions.

  There. It is said.

  It is true that he would have killed me without a thought, had I not got in first. It is true that he had earlier shot my own brother, and almost certainly Bessie’s parents, amongst others. Yet it is also true that I lay in wait for him, gun in hand, knowing what would come.

  I would like to explain myself, to justify my actions, but that bald confession must suffice. The Reaper stalks this valley as I write, and I shall be his prey. If that sounds overly morbid, there is a more practical matter too. My supply of salvaged pages and pencil stubs is scant. I shall spend what time and stock I have to write of those I’ve loved, and wronged.

  11

  Two Bob tests the stew, breathes in the aroma, pleased with his efforts. It’s ready if they get here tonight, but it’ll be even better by tomorrow. Even so, he adds another dollop of blachan. He can’t help peering down the road yet again. The waiting is getting to him. There’s a deep-seated tension in his body, a restlessness that provokes an uncomfortable memory of his first return to the valley.

  He was edgy as well as expectant as he walked his horse up the valley towards his old home. Would his father make him welcome, or scorn him as a deserter? Would they all still be there, still be well? Had Bullet come back to Sarah like he promised? And Bullet’s mum, Parli, the last of the old families, living there in the old camp across the creek?

  Sarah and Parli were the only ones around when Two Bob rode in. And Sarah’s baby Jinda. He’d become an uncle! His parents arrived back from their hunting trip to find him dandling the child with a silly smile on his face. Bullet strode into camp as the sun was setting.