The Man From the Valley

by Joyce Dingwell

  Arn Dawson did not answer directly. “At least,” he said, “Gavin stopped to put his fire out.”

  “I started no fire.”

  “Then”—and suddenly, quite without warning, he had her in his arms—“what is this?” His mouth was on hers, pressing downward with an aching hunger, with a savagely tender demand, with a declaration that needed no words.

  They were sitting together by the creek when Terese saw the blue glitter. Arn was telling her how Flack had packed up and left after his valley had been wiped out.

  “And Gavin...” she breathed.

  “I’m coming to that. Gavin was at his wits’ end. I told you that what you had taught him would be enough to make him keep straining and striving to the end of the track. It appears that Flack burned every book ... it would be the diabolical sort of thing he would do ... and half frenzied, Gavin started a fire of his own. He told me he wanted to burn out the camp. But he didn’t go through with it. Basically he’s a good lad. Flack’s own fire sprang up, and Gavin blamed himself.”

  “And you let him suffer, Arn.”

  “Yes, I did. I told you before, Terese, a fire is a very terrible thing. I wanted to drive that home in twenty-four hours of torment, so I did.”

  “And you did it to me. The torment.”

  “If I did, it wasn’t anything compared to what you did to me.”

  “Gavin...” she began.

  “Is down at our lumber camp, surrounded, you will be pleased to know, by books. When Flack was burned out and faced with the prospect of moving camp he decided to discard anything that would not be an advantage, so”—Arn shrugged—“he left the lad.”

  “And he’s ours? Ours?”

  Arn took hold of Terese and gave her a playful shake. “You’ve got me, what else do you want?”

  “Nothing, except Gavin, and a library center for the plateau, and—”

  “You have that center. Pickpocket.”

  “But it’s—it’s ... Whose is it, Arn?”

  Arn said smilingly, “Mine. Old Joe’s claims petered out years ago, but I never told him. After all, it was his money to spend on horses and beer and...”

  “And lame dogs.”

  A hand was over her mouth, a big, firm hand. “You were never that.”

  “It will make a fine library center,” planned Terese when the hand was removed. “The plateau people can attend in the evening and I can concentrate on the valley by day.”

  “Yes, you can—for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “I’m marrying for a wife, not for a librarian.”

  “But,” argued Terese, “until the community chest is full enough to afford both...”

  It was then she saw it.

  It must have been like when the first Arn and Joe saw theirs, just shining on the creek bed, no grubbing, no washing, simply there. Big, blue, blue as a summer morning.

  “The sapphire, Arn!” She leaped up and ran, her shoes squelching in the wet creek bed. “The blue beauty. Your father said there would be another.”

  They sat marveling at the shimmering thing.

  “Is it good, Arn?” Terese asked.

  A little remotely he said, “It will set you up for life.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, you found it, didn’t you? Look, Terese, this makes you a rich woman. You can walk out of Backdown. You can return to London. You can—why, you can go anywhere.”

  “Arn, will you stop!” She had raised her voice, and, surprised, he did.

  “This goes into the coffers,” she told him. “It goes for a minister, or a doctor, or a nurse, or a school, a better strip, a new plane, whatever you think.”

  He did not answer at once.

  “Look,” he said at last, “even if you don’t want to get out of here, you must at least keep the thing. Make something or other of it.”

  She looked directly at him. “A ring?”

  “That,” he evaded, “would be up to you.”

  “Then I still do what. I just said. You see”—she paused—“I always had a definite idea about my ring.”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought—you’ll say it’s silly—I thought my grass stone...”

  “It’s quite valueless,” he reminded her, “but if you feel that way...” He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small box.

  “Odd, Terese,” he smiled, “but I had that idea as well. I had it when I stopped in Sydney that time, and I brought it back with the idea still bubbling in me, but would you ask to see it? Oh, no.”

  “I’m seeing it now,” she murmured, “and it’s lovely, Arn.”

  “It’ll be better on.” He put it on. Fourth finger, left hand. “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Terese said.

  The mists were beginning to wreathe in. They walked back to the van. “Where is your Rover?” Terese asked.

  “At the camp. You can drive us home.”

  “Have we time to look at the planting on the way, Arn?”

  “We could be caught, but no matter, we’re man and wife now,” he laughed.

  “We’re not,” she said, “so the stop will be very brief, I promise you. I just want to see my tree.”

  She ran down to the nurslings before him, and there she found the little hardwood tied with the lace edge of her handkerchief. “It’s well. It’s thriving,” she called.

  “I told you,” he called back, “it’s a sticker, it deals in lifetimes, not months and years.”

  “It deals in forever,” she told him. For that, she knew, was what her love for Arn was. Forever.