The Valley

by Hawke, Steve;

  ‘I picked some up when I was in Broome.’

  Dancer breathes rapidly in and out as inconspicuously as he can, trying to cool his palate. He doesn’t mind hot, but this is ridiculous.

  It is the night of their arrival. They are perched on plastic chairs on Two Bob’s verandah. A reality show is spouting loud nonsense from the TV inside. He can sense Riley staring fixedly at him from a dark corner as he wolfs down his stew. But he is watching his father and his grandfather. Trying to make sense of it.

  There is an ease and a familiarity between them. An obvious joy in reconnecting. But both are as tense as roos in a hunter’s spotlight.

  He sits up in his swag the next morning, momentarily uncertain where he is. Andy’s snoring a few feet away is comfortingly familiar. The looming shape of the truck behind him in the pre-dawn greyness reminds him: Highlands.

  He shrugs out of the tangle of blankets, steps free of the swag, and takes in what he can in the dim morning light. Off to his right an improbably huge boab tree. He can just make out the girth of gnarled, irregular trunk, and against the lightening sky an intricate network of branches. In front of him a gently sloping plain, grasses waving in the early morning breeze. The road they came in on last night cuts across the plain, disappearing into the murk.

  Two Bob’s house sits like an outlier, slightly separate from the others, and facing away from them. Beyond his place there is a scattering of boxy houses, then a transportable that looks like it could be an office, more clearly visible than the other buildings thanks to the light on the verandah with its swarm of moths. Next to it is the store. Beyond them another scatter of houses. Across the way a bougainvillea hedge half hides a saggy-roofed sprawl that must be the old homestead and its outbuildings.

  He wants to walk and explore. But he is a stranger here, and doesn’t know who may be watching from the verandahs or windows of the houses. He nervously prowls the apron of grass in front of the truck, then heads down to the boab. Under its branches there is an old flour drum, and a fireplace in a ring of smooth stones. He holds a hand over the fine ashes, and can sense a faint warmth still from yesterday’s fire. The ground around the fireplace is raked clean in a wide circle. The rake leans against a pile of firewood.

  He places a palm against a bole of the enormous, knobbled trunk, as if in salutation. It is cool against his hand. Calming. He cranes his neck to peer up through the branches, with random leaves and pendant nuts, to a sky beginning to blue.

  Turning to find Two Bob approaching with a billy and the makings for tea.

  ‘Up before me! Not many young fellers do that.’

  ‘I always get up before dawn. Always have.’

  ‘You musta got that from me. I always had to shake your ol’ man awake.’

  ‘Nyami was the same, might be it came from him.’

  Two Bob chuckles. ‘Might be too. Most of us old-timers can beat the rooster. He was a good man, your grandpa. One of the best. What you call him?’

  ‘Nyami.’

  ‘Broome lingo?’

  ‘Yawuru.’

  ‘You know the Bunuba word?’

  Dancer shakes his head.

  ‘Jaminyi.’

  Dancer nods, but does not try to say the word.

  Waiting in vain for Two Bob to talk after the initial chitchat about how he takes his tea, and the size of the boab tree.

  Until the sudden blare of the television.

  ‘Riley’s up.’

  The blaze of anger in Riley’s eyes when Andy suggests the TV is a bit loud.

  Riley’s refusal to acknowledge Andy.

  Riley always staring at him. The way his eyes slide away whenever Dancer returns his look. He half remembers something he saw on TV about body language and lying.

  Riley bent over his drawing, concentrating intensely, refusing with a shake of the head to join them in an inspection of the station plant. The moment they step off the verandah he springs up and turns the TV volume to high.

  In their swags last night. They hear the TV being turned off. Night sounds emerge. A mopoke. Before Andy can fall asleep Dancer asks, ‘What’d’you know about Riley?’

  ‘Mystery boy! It’s sort of a long story that I don’t know the beginnin’ for.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Andy lets out a sigh. ‘When I started courtin’ your mother, he was in the way, you might say. First glance, you would’ve sworn they were mother and son. Only that didn’t make sense. He was about four I reckon. An’ she was fifteen.

  ‘I had to ask her, actually, once we got to know each other proper. Just to be sure. She just shook her head in that way of hers, an’ smiled at me. “His mother’s passed on has she?” I asked her. She nods. I wait for her to say somethin’. She can see I’m waitin’. We were lookin’ in each other’s eyes. After a bit she says, “He belongs to me and Dad.” That’s all.’

  ‘That’s pretty weird.’

  ‘Yep. Pretty weird.’ He expels a breath forcefully. Suddenly he moves in his swag, and is propped on an elbow, looking at Dancer. ‘Hey, you’re not thinkin’ …?’

  Dancer suddenly understands the unfinished question. ‘No no! No … I just meant it’s weird.’

  ‘No … Yes. It was pretty weird. But she never offered up anythin’ more.’

  They lie back in their swags, elbows out, fingers linked, heads resting in the palms of their hands. Still the mopoke calls.

  ‘See that shootin’ star?’ Andy asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Make a wish?’

  ‘Yeah. You?’

  ‘Yeah. You can’t blame him for not likin’ me, Dancer. Far as he was concerned, poor little bugger, she was his mum. An’ then I come between ’em. It’s as simple as that I think. Looks like he still carries the grudge.’

  ‘It’s a long time.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a long time. But none of us has been given the chance to get over anythin’ … I wish that mopoke’d shut up. G’night Dancer.’

  Dancer watches the night sky for a long time, wondering if there might be another shooting star, but not sure what his second wish might be.

  Other than that his mother’s name has not been mentioned once. At least not in his hearing. And he is sure those two have not spoken about her in the cab of the ute.

  29

  Two Bob is cooking dinner. The TV is blaring. Andy is tinkering with the truck’s engine; his preferred way of escaping everyone.

  Dancer is down at the boab, trying to get Riley’s song back in his head. He’s been loving the days of driving; standing in the tray gripping the top rail, bracing his knees against the vagaries of the track; feeling the wind in his hair. Loving the grasses, the birds, the creeks, the ranges. But he has been feeling like a rather useless appendage.

  Until the moment Riley started singing. Through the song he felt for the first time the pulse of his mother’s land.

  Marnunbarrigu.

  He can hum a phrase here or there, but only fragments; the melody line escapes him.

  He hears the Landcruiser with the bad exhaust start up from somewhere behind Two Bob’s. Three days now and he has yet to meet anyone other than Two Bob and Riley. He knows that lots of the mob here at Jimbala Wali are relations of one sort or another. He has been bracing himself. But Two Bob has had them out on the road early each morning, and back late. He’s not once mentioned any of the people in the houses behind his. And no-one has made themselves known.

  Is Two Bob an outcast? Are he and Andy being shunned? He has no idea what’s going on, but it doesn’t feel right.

  Nothing I can do, but.

  He hums a phrase and can feel the next one on the tip of his tongue, when the lights of the Landcruiser sweep across him as it turns. It idles a few moments, as if uncertain, then swings towards him, creeping along so as not to raise dust. It pulls up by the pile of firewood.

  Dancer stands up nervously as the driver and her companion approach.

  ‘Robert?’

  Her question throws him off
balance. He stutters, ‘No … Yeah … I mean … Sorry. That’s my name, but everybody calls me Dancer.’

  ‘So I hear. I’m Rosa. This is my brother, Tim. We’re cousins for your mother. Your granny was our Auntie Marj.’

  Suddenly Dancer is bawling. He does not even realise that Rosa has gathered him up in a hug, until he senses Andy there, breathless, hovering beside them. Dancer disengages awkwardly, embarrassed now.

  ‘You ok?’ Andy asks.

  He nods. He doesn’t know where to look.

  ‘Rosa. Tim.’ He can hear the tension in Andy’s voice.

  ‘Andy,’ they answer together, not coldly, but there is a hesitancy.

  No-one seems to know what to say next, until Andy plunges in. ‘Tell me, Rosa, are we welcome here?’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘I thought you might be comin’ to tell us to clear out. We’ve been here three days, an’ no-one’s come near us.’

  ‘Fucken Two Bob! It’d be easier if he just explained things straight up sometimes. He asked for a few days on his own with you two. We couldn’t wait any longer though, we wanted to meet this boy! Look at him, Tim, you can see he’s a Rider!’ She ruffles Dancer’s hair, with tears in her eyes.

  Two Bob comes down from his house and joins them, looking shamefaced. ‘You right there, Dancer?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  There is another shuffling, uneasy silence. Rosa breaks the ice by changing the subject. ‘So Andy, d’you reckon you and this uncle of mine can come up with a plan to save Highlands?’

  As they wander up to Two Bob’s verandah, Rosa drops back beside Dancer and says quietly, ‘It’s good to meet you, Dancer. It’s good you’ve come here. We’ll talk hey, but I’ve got to do some business now.’ She strides ahead to join the others, calling cheerfully but firmly, ‘Hey Riley, turn the bloody TV down will you. We can’t hear ourselves think out here.’ To Dancer’s surprise, the volume is almost immediately muted.

  30

  Rosa and Tim decline Two Bob’s offer of tucker. He sorts Riley out, then brings three plates of stew. Dancer forks down the meal as he listens to the talk bouncing around between Rosa and Andy and Two Bob, with an occasional contribution from Tim. He has a sense of unreality that almost touches on anger.

  What about my mother? Last time you saw them, Dad, you drove away leaving her here, and you never saw her again! Maybe they know something. Who gives a fuck about cattle?

  But there seems to be an unspoken consensus amongst them to ignore the elephant in the room as they talk station business.

  It is a story of slow decline. Never enough money in the station account to do anything properly. Kenny who took over from Two Bob did his best, but things kept slipping further back. The feller after that didn’t really give a bugger. They started resorting to contractors. Some were outright scumbags. Some were well intentioned, but as Two Bob points out, the good operators follow the money, and none of them reckoned they were going to make a killing out of Highlands. The last two years there hasn’t even been a muster.

  Rosa is scathing about the last council. They just gave up on the station, she says; reckoned they couldn’t afford to keep throwing good money after bad. Not even repair work on the floodgates after the wet season. Tim said he’d go out and fix them, but they wouldn’t put up the money for the wire and pickets. ‘They could’ve used the CDEP account, the pricks,’ she says angrily. ‘It was just all these bloody family arguments getting in the way.’ And since then two bores have fallen idle with no funds to repair them.

  Now there is a crisis. She has discovered that the rents and rates on the pastoral lease are over a year in arrears. The Aboriginal Affairs mob aren’t interested; they reckon their rules don’t let them put money into a business that hasn’t got – ‘What was it?’ Rosa tries to remember the government-speak. ‘That’s it, “a viable five-year enterprise development plan.” What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘It means they reckon we’re fucked,’ Two Bob offers.

  ‘They’re saying they can send in a consultant to do a plan for us,’ says Rosa.

  ‘Prob’ly cost more than the rates bill,’ says Two Bob.

  ‘What are you saying we should do, unc?!’ Rosa does not try to hide her exasperation. ‘They’re saying we might have to forfeit the lease!’

  ‘What?’ Dancer has spoken without meaning to. ‘They can’t take it off you.’

  ‘They can. I’m not saying they will. But they can.’

  ‘What? And kick you off?’

  ‘Not kick us off. This square mile here where the community is, that’s a different lease, with the Lands Trust mob. But they can take the cattle lease.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Hopefully not, Dancer. Not while I’m chair. The question is, what’re we going to do now?’ She turns to Andy and Two Bob. ‘Have you two come up with any bright ideas yet?’

  Two Bob pushes his plate aside and pulls out his tobacco tin. He coughs. But instead of speaking, he begins to roll a smoke. Andy gives him a sharp look. ‘Listen, Rosa, I’m not sure exactly what this lambara of mine has told you. An’ I don’t know what you know about me after all these years, but I’m not the man who’s goin’ to save Highlands for you. I’m not a musterin’ contractor. I’ve got no plant, just me truck. I only ever did two years ringin’, you know.’

  Two Bob rounds off an exhalation with a perfect smoke ring that expands as it rises above them. ‘Nothin’s gunna happen this year. It’s too late in the season.’

  He starts quizzing Rosa about whether she can find money from anywhere to pay the rent and rates, or even make a part payment to keep the buggers at bay for a while. She says she’s working on it. He embarks on a long and intricate discourse about the various contractors who’ve been on the place over the years, and how not one of them knew the place or knew who to ask; how the back country on the far corners of the station is still full of cleanskins. Tim murmurs his agreement.

  Two Bob tries to explain himself. ‘I’m not sayin’ Andy can save the station. That’s not it. But if I’m gunna be any help to you, Rosa, I need someone I can trust to talk it all through with. Not some gov’ment idiot with a computer. Not some contractor hungry for money. I need someone who can read the country with me. We’ve gotta look those back country bullamon in the eye an’ work out how to play ’em. They’re clever buggers, livin’ on their wits out there.’

  He doesn’t know the money side of it any more, what they might be worth. But he does know there are bullamon out there, if he can work out a way to bring them in next year that doesn’t bust the bank; even if it’s just enough to clear the debts and hold on for another year or two. He’s not saying that Andy has to do the muster. He just needs someone to drive the country with him. Help him find a plan, or tell him no plan is going to work any more.

  Half the time he seems to be talking to himself, trying not only to find the words, but the ideas behind the words, as if he is working it out in his mind as he speaks. But now he turns to Andy. ‘I’m just an old pensioner these days. Rosa here’s the one with the weight on her shoulders. But I’ve been here long time now. I don’t want to lose this place, Andy. You might’ve only been a two-year ringer, but you were a bloody good one. You were born to be a manager.’

  Tim chuckles into the silence that follows. ‘He’s right about one thing, sis. It’s too late to do anythin’ with the cattle this year. Let ’em have a go.’

  ‘Born to be a manager,’ says Dancer. ‘Wasn’t just you and Mum had that dream by the sounds of it.’

  ‘Life plays tricks on you,’ Andy says.

  ‘Was that your shooting star wish back then?’

  ‘You’re gettin’ a bit close to the bone, son.’

  They are back in their swags. Under the Kimberley stars, it is a mighty big room, but the elephant is still in it.

  ‘Ol’ Two Bob’s still puffin’ away. G’night Dancer.’

  Dancer looks over to the verandah, and sees the glow of cigarette
as Two Bob inhales. He pulls the swag cover over his face.

  Be patient, he tells himself. Suck it in and be patient.

  31

  Two Bob flicks the butt.

  I’m smokin’ too much.

  Nevertheless, he rolls another.

  ‘Fucken Two Bob! It’d be easier if he just explained things straight up sometimes.’

  He’d heard it.

  Trouble is, Rosa girl, there’s nothin’ straight up about it.

  A sudden random memory. Down at the waterhole. Marj nursing toddler Milly. Little Rosa throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t like fishing much at the best of times, but wrestling with impenetrable knots in the tangled line of a screaming five-year-old who’s just lost a fish in a snag is as bad as it gets.

  Oh Bob, am I fuckin’ this up?

  He hears the low murmur of voices from up by the truck, and the rustle of movement in swags. He takes another drag. Tries to blow a smoke ring, but it disintegrates in the breeze.

  I can’t just spit it all out, Rosa, it’s not that simple. It’d scare ’em off, I know it. An’ what would you say? Straight up doesn’t work after all this time. An’ there’s still another twist I’ve gotta work somehow.

  All is silent up by the truck. He should’ve been asleep a couple of hours ago. But instead of going inside he makes his way back down to the boab tree. Another sign from his brother would be good. Maybe. But the breeze has gone. All is still. The old tree towers silently above him.

  32

  Driving and yarning. Yarning and driving.

  Old man’s bush track driving. Not once in the whole week over fifty kays. Caressing the road. Nursing the vehicle. Nursing the lads in the back as much as he can. The flat stretches are for examining the country, not for speeding up: for lip-pointing and gesturing to Andy; for explanation and speculation about those cattle pads wending their way up past that hill, wondering how many bullamon there are in Poddy’s Pocket, the little valley that opens up behind it.