The Valley

by Hawke, Steve;

  They round a protuberance in the cliff, and Two Bob comes to a halt. The others gather behind him. Riley’s song tails away.

  They are at the front of a cave. The height of three men at the mouth, it curves back deep into the rock, narrowing into the darkness in a graceful wavelike shape. The rockface is a profusion of paintings: dingoes, wandjinas, crocodiles, human figures, echidnas, mysteries. But there is no time to examine and absorb. Two Bob leads them into the cave.

  He intones. ‘Jawandi. Marralam. Grandpa for my sister’s man. Uncle for my Mummy.’ Dancer’s eyes begin to adjust to the gloom, and he sees the bones, stained red with ochre. Beside them, an ancient rifle. ‘Fighter for Jandamarra. Countryman.’

  The bones lie on a ledge at waist height that sweeps in a curve along the back of the cave. Two steps on, Two Bob comes to another arrangement of bones. ‘Nyawurru. Wiyala, wife for Marralam. My big sister Sarah been tell me stories for you. Always makin’ her laugh when she was little one.’

  They follow him as he steps along. ‘An’ Nawangari. Parli. Born here too like me. For those two there, your daddy Marralam and mummy Wiyala. Aaiee, poor thing.’

  Dancer is gripping Andy’s arm. Riley has begun a soft keening that Dancer feels like a scalpel tracing a line on the skin protecting his heart. Two Bob moves to Riley’s side, places an arm tight around his shoulders, then inches them forward to the next skeleton.

  ‘Nyambiyindi, Jinda, Jenny girl. Look at your boy … He’s a good one, Jenny. He can sing. He can talk our lingo. Your Mummy Sarah been start him off, then I been grow him up for you. He’s a good boy, Jenny.’ He whispers in Riley’s ear.

  The curve of the cave leans back towards the light as Two Bob moves them on again. There is one more set of bones. A beam from the lowering sun picks them out. Andy cries out and steps back, shrugging Dancer off. Two Bob is lost in the ritual as he steps towards them, strokes them. There is a paperbark shroud almost intact around this skeleton. But peeping through, incongruous in this cave of earth colours, is the faded purple of a terry towelling material, with the barely discernible outline of a baby elephant in pale blue.

  A fearful intuition sweeps through Dancer, turning his guts to water.

  ‘Nyawajarri. Daughter mine.’ Two Bob falls to his knees, oblivious to the others despite his words. ‘Milly … Milly my girl. I been bring ’em. Like I promised … Your man, your boy! They’re good ones, I tell you. Good ones, good ones, good ones.’ His voice trails away into quiet sobs.

  58

  Andy left the cave before Two Bob had finished his crying for Milly. Dancer hovered in the mouth, torn, until Two Bob looked up, and signalled that he should go with Andy. He couldn’t catch up until they reached the flatter ground at the foot of the gully. Andy turned, but could find no words. Fighting back tears, he headed on down the path. Dancer dropped back, giving him space but not letting him out of sight. Fear for his father left no room to absorb what he had just seen and heard in the cave.

  By the time they reached camp the sun had dropped behind the ranges. Andy set about gathering his gear, stuffing it willy-nilly into his sausage bag. He started to roll his swag, but stopped and knelt there, staring into the distance. He spoke with his back to Dancer. ‘If we had a Toyota I’d leave. It’s a bit fucken late in the day to catch the horses and pack saddlebags though, isn’t it. A bit fucken late in the day.’

  Andy turned to face Dancer. ‘I don’t trust meself, Dancer. I don’t know what I’m goin’ to do when he shows up.’

  ‘There’s got to be a reason, Dad.’

  ‘A reason? For what?’

  ‘For not telling you. For bringing us now.’

  ‘I might do him harm.’

  ‘No, you won’t. You wouldn’t.’

  With a wrenching sob Andy let himself down onto the swag. Dancer could do nothing but come and sit on the ground beside him. Eventually the sobbing eased, Andy’s heaving chest subsided to a quiver, and he was able to speak between sniffs. ‘I’m sorry, Dancer, sorry … can’t make space for you yet … your mother, I know. You’re her great gift to me … but you didn’t know her.’

  He rolled over onto his back, finally meeting Dancer’s eye. ‘I loved her, man. Those bones up there. I loved her like you wouldn’t believe. Like I hope you get to love a girl one day.’ With the back of a hand, Andy wiped tears and snot from his face. ‘How could he do this to me?’

  He reached out to Dancer, placing a hand on his knee. ‘We’ll talk, eh. But just let me lie here for a bit.’

  Dancer got the fire going and set about slicing salt beef and yesterday’s damper for dinner. It was full dark, and he’d just taken a pannikin to Andy when he heard the others approaching. He sat by the fire and watched Two Bob limp in, leaning on Riley, with Rosa on his other side. He lip-pointed at Andy, back in the darkness on his swag, raising a hand to indicate they should leave him be.

  In silence he handed out pannikins and plates of damper and beef, to Andy on his swag, to Two Bob and Riley by the fire, and to Rosa. She put her plate down and grabbed his arm. Used his weight to pull herself to her feet, and wrapped him in her arms.

  When there were no more sounds of eating Two Bob cleared his throat. The four of them by the fire heard the small cough from Andy, and the sound of him sitting up. Two Bob gestured at the fire, and Riley placed a large piece of wood on the coals. They all watched the flames start to grow, licking at the fresh fuel, while Two Bob rolled himself a smoke. After taking a couple of drags, he began to speak, never taking his eyes from the dancing fire.

  ‘Us Walkers’ve got secrets an’ lies in our blood. I’m not sayin’ that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just how we are. We keep things close … Even Milly. She kep’ Riley’s secret.

  ‘You’re the last one, Dancer. The last one, an’ the first one not caught up in the secrets an’ lies … At least not till now.’

  ‘I kep’ the secret,’ said Riley, head low.

  ‘Riley’s the one been find her.’ Two Bob glanced nervously in Andy’s direction. They could all hear him shift his position on the swag. Riley began to hum the lament he had sung earlier that day. Two Bob flicked his cigarette into the fire, and shifted in his seat.

  ‘He was only a kid, but Riley kep’ lookin’, after everyone else been give up. She was high up on Flat Iron Hill. On a ledge lookin’ out Bullfrog Hole way …’

  ‘I been get a dream,’ Riley murmured, with a look at Dancer.

  A long pause.

  ‘I’ve gotta talk this story through now, don’t I,’ says Two Bob.

  A gathering of breath.

  ‘Riley went missin’ one day. It was nearly dark before I found his track. Me an’ Marj set out first light next mornin’, follerin’ him. He was little kid, an’ he been walk right through from Highlands to Unggulala, climb that hill, find her, come back down.

  ‘We been find him walkin’ back, poor little bugger. We tried to take him home, but he just been cryin’, “Milly, Milly, Milly,” till we been turn around.

  ‘Marj couldn’t climb up.’

  He had to prepare himself before he could continue, but still he choked on the words. ‘I had to cut her down from where she was hangin’. Those baby clothes you been see. It was tucked into her bra, close to her heart. She was keepin’ you close, Dancer.

  ‘I had to carry her back down the hill to where Marj been waitin’.’

  Riley didn’t respond to his nudge. Rosa got up and took his pannikin. He rolled another smoke while she topped it up and stirred in the powdered milk.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. Marj was the one been say.

  ‘We were thinkin’ about that boy Johnny that hanged himself at Snake Springs the year before. Police been take his body away. They been slice up his body, makin’ tests and everythin’. Detectives been come. His family couldn’t bury him for longest time … We didn’t want ’em slicin’ up our Milly, Andy. We didn’t want ’em to take her away.

  ‘Riley been fall asleep. We been sittin’
there in the motor car bottom of Unggulala. She been look at me an’ say, “You reckon she was facin’ Bullfrog Hole way?” “Yuw.” “Well that’s where she can go,” Marj been say. “With your mob. Ol’ style. We won’t tell nobody.”

  ‘So … I found right kind tree, right place, quiet one, there near Unggulala. I made little platform with dead branches, an’ we been put her there. Ol’ style. We went home to Highlands, never told nobody … We didn’t want ’em slicin’ up our Milly.’

  He relit and took a few more drags.

  ‘I never told Marj, but I been ring up to Buster, askin’ after you, Andy. I didn’t tell him ’bout Milly, he didn’t know, I swear. But he been tell me you were drinkin’ heavy, that you weren’t in a good way. I kep’ quiet.

  ‘Couple months later Marj had to go Perth for that dialysis. Second one. I reckon she knew she wasn’t ever gunna come back. Before she went she said to me, “Take her.”

  ‘Only time I ever left Riley till he growed up. I been trick Tim, told him I was goin’ with Marj for one week, an’ he took Riley. After I been drop Marj in Broome I cut in the back way an’ up to Unggulala. Wrap her up. No horse that time. I been walk, carry her to the cave. Put her there.

  ‘I been cryin’ too much that time to worry for my daddy. That hut been still standin’ then, an’ I been walk straight past. I been cryin’ too much … I haven’t been back here since then.’

  He hurled his butt into the fire.

  ‘Another fucken secret.

  ‘Always. Always I was goin’ to tell you, Andy. But I couldn’t find right time. Right way. I had to trick you into comin’ here before I could tell you.

  ‘Just think if I been tell you this story before …

  ‘Fucken secrets an’ lies. They get a hold of you.’

  Sparks soared into the darkness as the fire took hold of a new log.

  Andy got up from his swag. He turned and walked into the night.

  59

  Dancer shakes himself into the new day. He wants to hug his father’s sleeping form in the swag a few feet away. He’d fallen asleep in the early hours, still listening for Andy’s return. He looks to the fire, and realises that Two Bob is sitting there watching, exactly where he was last night when Dancer crawled into his swag.

  ‘I’m goin’ up to Jaliwala. You want to come with me?’

  Dancer nods, climbing out of his swag. He grabs a hunk of damper and follows Two Bob.

  ‘You wild at me?’

  ‘Not really. I can see why Dad is, though.’

  ‘Yuwai.’

  They walk in silence, listening to the dawn chorus.

  ‘When I hooked up with Andy at Boxwood, he was about same age you are now.’

  ‘He’s told me about it. You knew my other grandpa too, hey? Old Joe Black?’

  ‘Only little bit. We put up a mill together one time. Good feller.’

  Two Bob starts to sing. He looks at Dancer with a question in his eyes. Dancer nods. Two Bob sings again. Third time round Dancer joins in hesitantly, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. Twice more Two Bob leads him through it, before he breaks off with a smile. ‘You’ll get him. Riley can teach you.’

  They force their way through the dense growth towards the spring. The temperature drops. The birdsong and the sound of water grow stronger together. The pool is less than the size of a house; half in speckled sunlight, half in the deep shadow of the cave. Creepers and low-hanging branches drape into the water. The surface is dappled with leaf litter, some backed up, and some swirling in slow currents. Wrens and bee-eaters swoop and call.

  A secret pool full of birds.

  Two Bob stoops, and comes up with two pebbles, hands one to Dancer. Talking in language, he rubs his under one armpit, then the other, then tosses it deep towards the rear of the pool. Dancer follows suit.

  ‘I’m a bit buggered up from all that climbin’ yesterday. You right to give me a hand on this job, jaminyi?’

  ‘No worries, jaminyi.’

  Two Bob pulls a knife from his belt and hands it to Dancer, then sits himself on a water-smoothed rock. He has Dancer wade through the pool, sweeping the thickest of the surface litter to the sides, then scooping it out onto the banks. He tells him to pull the water-rotted deadwood out. At the mouth of the cave Two Bob gets him to work with the knife, cutting back creepers and overhanging branches that are choking the entrance.

  As Dancer starts on this task Two Bob asks quietly, ‘He right if I talk to you little bit?’

  ‘Yuw,’ Dancer grunts, as he slashes another vine.

  ‘Ol’ man Buster, your Nyami, him an’ me talked sometimes. When he been give you your name, I was happy. Your mum, she was a good dancer, I tell you.’

  Dancer works away at the growth in the cave mouth.

  ‘But I couldn’t come close because … because of what I been tell you last night. The secrets an’ lies were like a barbwire fence holdin’ me back. That, an’ I s’pose I got tangled up with lookin’ after Riley all the time … An’ the longer it went the more shame I been feel for not tellin’ Andy.

  ‘You’ve got the story now. All the story I can give you on the family side.

  ‘Might be you’re too young for me puttin’ all this word on you, but I don’t reckon. You’ve got strong blood in you, Dancer. Both sides. An’ you’re a finder. You keep findin’ stories. I reckon you know how to find the true way.

  ‘Me, I’m an’ ol’ bushman. Proper bushman. Even the Highlands mob reckon I’m like an’ old-time munjon. And look at you, my grandson, a city boy down there in Broome. You prob’ly even know how to work one of them computer things eh.’

  ‘Little bit,’ Dancer admits.

  ‘This ol’ munjon’s been wantin’ to unload all his secrets for a long time now. I knew, soon as I seen you in that church in Broome carryin’ your Nyami’s coffin.’

  Dancer places a last armful of cut brush on the bank, and looks at his grandfather. ‘That good enough now?’

  ‘Yuwai. Foller me.’

  Two Bob unfolds from his spot on the rock, and wades into the depths of the cave, as far as a branch wedged into a crevice of rock. Together the pair of them work at it until it pulls free. Two more steps, and they are at the source; the springwater bubbles directly from the rockface, feeding the stream. Standing waist deep, Two Bob cups his hands, then spreads the sweet, cool water across his face. His smile lights up the dimness of the cave.

  He cups his hands again.

  ‘Jaliwala,’ he murmurs, as he runs his wet hands through Dancer’s hair.

  As they make their way out of the cave back into the dappled light a water goanna scrambles off the rock where Two Bob had been sitting a few minutes earlier, and disappears into the pool. The two of them climb up and take its place.

  ‘No need for secrets any more, boy. You carry this story any way you want to. Inside yourself if you want. Or tell everybody if you need to. God knows if my daddy’s will means anythin’ to that government mob. Crazy ol’ bastard. One thing I got to ask you though. For Riley. Look out for him if you can.’

  ‘I live in Broome.’

  ‘I know. But you belong this country too. You’re a Kimberley man, Dancer Jirroo. You’ve got the saltwater dreamin’, that law for Jiir and Marnburr from Nyami Buster. He told me you dance it better’n anyone he’s seen. But you’re a river man too, a freshwater man from your mother’s side. These hills, all this high country is in your blood too. Your line goes back to Marralam, to those red bones and that ol’ rifle up there.

  ‘You’ve got everythin’ ’cept the desert in you. An’ might be you’ve even got that somewhere on your Jirroo side.

  ‘It’s time for you to go back home to Broome. But you can come back here anytime an’ learn the way for this country. If you want to.’

  A silence falls, except for the twitter of the birds, and the running of the water.

  ‘This was our playground when we were little, me an’ Janga. We were always swimmin’ here.’

  Dancer
pulls off his shirt, and slides into the water. He breaststrokes underwater across the pool, toes trailing in the sand, then back again. He rolls over to float on his back, and drifts. When he rights himself, and shakes the water out of his ears, Two Bob is singing the song of the spring. Dancer sits in the pool, water up to his chest, and sings with his grandfather.

  They don’t stop when they hear the rustle of Riley and Rosa and Andy approaching. Riley sits beside Two Bob on the goanna rock, and joins the song. Rosa stands behind them. Andy sits on the bank near Dancer.

  Dancer slides across to him. ‘You ok, Dad?’

  ‘I’m goin’ up to the cave. Gimme ten, then come up if you want.’

  60

  Andy is sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor of the cave. The bones lie still in their paperbark shroud. Dancer hovers uncertainly.

  Treading as gently as he can, he moves closer. He lowers himself to sit behind Andy, places his hands on his father’s shoulders.

  After a time, Andy reaches up to grip Dancer’s hand. Tight.

  A moment, an aeon? Dancer has no sense of how long that intense, almost ecstatic, yet serene connection is held. When Andy loosens his grip, Dancer gets slowly to his feet and makes his way into the daylight. He finds a spot at the mouth of the cave where he can sit, looking down over the valley with his feet dangling.

  He can’t think. He doesn’t want to think. He just wants to feel the sun on his face.

  Andy settles beside him on the ledge.

  The staccato, truncated chortle of a blue-winged kookaburra somewhere down below intrudes on their silence.

  Dancer smiles.

  ‘There’s going to be a bit left over from that gold after you’ve paid off the bikies isn’t there?’