The Valley

by Hawke, Steve;

  Two Bob’s worry about how they would all survive in Stumpy’s absence turned out to be misplaced. Billy, ever practical, had come up with a solution, as he explained while they butchered a bullock and hung the carcass ready for salting.

  He’d taken a string of mules along the old backtrack through the Leopolds and come out to the north of Halls Creek. ‘Not as far as Sohan’s, but the mules slowed me down something terrible.’ Billy grinned as he wiped the blade clean. ‘At least it meant a month on me own without having to put up with Bullet’s bad moods and unfriendly tongue.’ Presenting himself at the trading post as Charlie Walker, prospector, he had more than enough nuggets to obtain the goods on his list and load up the mules for his return journey.

  For those few days Two Bob once again became Wajarri. Little brother, young son, the junior member of the small community. It made him realise that in a strange way Bob had always been so much older than him. Billy didn’t speak of Bob. Or remark on Two Bob’s departure or long absence. It seemed that as far as he was concerned life went on as normal.

  Mostly that was how Bessie and Sarah acted too. Sometimes of an evening as they all ate together, Bullet would catch his eye, with a look that was knowing, questioning, almost laughing, as if challenging him; but he said nothing.

  Two Bob swirls the dregs at the bottom of his oversized pannikin, then flicks them into the smouldering ashes of his small fire. He eases himself to his feet, and uses a stick to lift the lid of the camp oven. Aah, that smell!

  Ol’ Bullet. I wonder what happened to you at the end, wadu, my brother-in-law.

  He’d always been a bit fearful of Bullet. The big boy scaring the twins witless just for the fun of it when Bessie left them in his care. Bob had got his measure early on. Sarah had been devoted to him. But he’d always somehow held the edge over Two Bob. He’d liked to boast that his family were fighting men, and that he would be too.

  Bullet’s dad had died not long before the twins were born, leaving Parli to raise her son alone. His uncle’s family was one of the trusted handful that came and went from the valley at times, especially in the wet season when it was common enough for blackfellers to be walking the country. But after Bob’s escape from the leg-iron they’d never come back.

  Bullet had gone with them, leaving Sarah to look after Parli with her crippled leg. He returned, as promised, but never to stay. He came and went at his own fancy, with no explanations. When he was there, he and Billy barely tolerated each other.

  The day before Two Bob left the valley he sat with his mother up by the spring, helping her strip the bark she would shred and weave, just like when he was a kid. Three times he tried to find words, and could not. Bessie placed a hand on his knee. ‘We know he’s all right. He talks to Parli in his dreams. He can dance that emu wangga eh?’ Two Bob laughed with relief. He talked to his mother for the next three hours of the life he and Bob were now leading.

  Most years he was able to find a way and a week to return. He would take small gifts from Bob for mother and Sarah; a bright neckerchief, or a mirror. One year he took a tightly wrapped pouch and handed it to Parli without ever knowing the contents.

  He’d sit with Parli sometimes, marvelling at the nimble way she manoeuvred around her camp, ignoring his every attempt to assist. Billy had fashioned her a very serviceable crutch, on which she roamed far and wide. But close to home she found it easier to fold her bad leg beneath her, use the callused heel of her hand as the crutch and move in an awkward but remarkably effective scuttling sort of way. She had a laugh that made him laugh. Her tales of childhood made it seem that the valley had once had a cast of thousands.

  She loved to tell the story of his parents’ arrival in the valley, and remind him that he was lucky to be alive. ‘My daddy the one been savem your daddy eh! My Bullet, his daddy the one was gunna put a spear longa your daddy’s guts! Too many daddies eh!’ She would cackle with laughter at her own joke. As the years passed she took to teasing him about whether he had a sweetheart at Highlands who might help him become a daddy too.

  He would help his father with one task or another that was more manageable with two sets of hands. It became a ritual that the two of them would slaughter and salt a bullock each time he visited.

  With Stumpy no longer taking an annual quota, the cattle numbers in the valley had got out of control. His stockman’s eye was quick to note the poor condition of both stock and pasture. On his third trip back in, Billy agreed to a suggestion, and they spent three days on a two-man muster; him on his Highlands horse, and Billy ungainly as always on his old mule. The stock were nowhere near as quiet as the old days when he and Bob had worked them year round; ‘Best coachers in the Kimberley,’ Stumpy used to say, as he took delivery of the near-tame beasts. But they managed to cut out all but a handful of the bullocks and half the cows, and push them out through the top entrance to the valley, before remaking the fence.

  Billy was always curious for information about Highlands and the world at large. Every now and then he would say something that showed Bessie had passed on to him the stories Two Bob told her of his brother. But only once did he broach the subject directly. They were replacing one of the main upright poles in the kitchen boughshed that the white ants had got to. ‘Have ye asked your brother if he might come with ye one time?’

  Two Bob nodded.

  ‘And?’

  When Two Bob shook his head, Billy closed his eyes whilst he took a deep breath, then turned to the newly cut replacement pole lying beside them. ‘Here, give me a hand with this bastard.’

  And always Two Bob would while away some time at the spring where the creek emerged from the cliffs that ranged behind the camp; the perfect little waterhole where he and his brother had spent so many hours splashing and playing. He’d sing the song for the spring that Parli had taught them. He’d clear any debris that might have accumulated, wade in to the dark, shady spot where the water seeped from the rockface, and press his forehead against the rock’s cold, damp surface before cupping some water in his hands to drink.

  Then he would sit with his mother and sister and tell them stories of his and Bob’s life at Highlands, while Jinda played alone in the pool.

  12

  A new morn.

  I’d write of those I’ve loved, I said last night. Foremost of the few is Bessie.

  After shooting Twelve Inch that fateful night my last action was to free her from the chain on which the beast had held her. When Bessie shook me awake next day my clothes were red with Jones’ blood, and sticky with his gore. The flies were feasting.

  Whilst I had lain asleep she had crept out from her place of hiding to investigate. She could find no foot tracks leading from the natives’ camp, but hoof prints and drag marks convinced her that bodies had been removed. She believed her parents had met the same grisly fate as my Des, and her intended husband. Yet for all that, she was far more sensible to the needs of the moment than was I.

  She urged me to the waterhole to cleanse myself, and pressed me as to my intentions. It became clear that she meant to not let me from her sight. She was a stranger to that country, and feared her fate whomever she might encounter, black or white. She seemed to think she might gain protection from my company.

  The days that followed remain somewhat unclear in my mind. They have the texture of a dream in which vivid moments are interwoven with confusions and absences, but now I have set myself to this task, long-forgotten details are coming back to mind.

  I was enveloped by dread. Two white men could not go missing without an investigation. Barely three years earlier a pair of detectives from Perth had scoured the countryside for months interviewing all and sundry as they sought to prove a case in a suspected murder by one white man of another.

  I had neither the skills to conceal what had just taken place, nor the nerve to withstand an interrogation. My only course would be to plead the deed was self-defence. Yet I did not feel innocent. My fevered imagination was filled with visions of incarceratio
n, or even the spectre of the gallows.

  Such were my thoughts as I scrubbed and scrubbed in that waterhole, like Lady Macbeth in the Scottish play, as Twelve Inch called it, seeking to cleanse myself of all trace of the man I had killed. I had heard talk of a route winding through the Leopold Range that came out to the north of Halls Creek. I thought to seek that track. When I emerged from the water I told Bessie that I had resolved to ride for the Territory and beyond. To vanish, was my intention.

  I cannot properly explain the reasoning in my mind at the time. Indeed, reason was perhaps not uppermost. For the purpose I had in mind, the sensible course would have been to travel less encumbered. I think it must have been the presence of Bessie. There was no stated agreement or purpose between us, merely an understanding that for the time, at least, she would travel with me.

  We departed Poison Hole with all the horses and mules at our disposal, laden with everything we could pack upon them. But first, we burned the hut. I forced myself in, a cloth bound over my nose, averting my eyes from the cloud of flies that swarmed around the corpse as I plundered what I could. I thought perhaps the fire might mask the manner of his death if discovery was postponed long enough. With a stench in the air, and smoke billowing, we mounted and rode with our plant, headed east.

  To state it plain, we became hopelessly lost. I became increasingly panicked as we blundered into dead-end valleys and country that was dreadful harsh on the horses. But I could not countenance return, sure that my initial flight would be taken as a sign of guilt.

  One night, with a dry storm rumbling in the distance, and lightning flickering around the hilltops, Bessie rose from her blankets on the other side of the fire, and came to mine. Little was said, but with that act, she seemed to take charge. The next morn, with her at the lead now, we turned south by west, instead of blundering haphazardly eastward. She may not have known the country but, unlike me, she knew where she was headed.

  A peculiar light headedness took hold of me, a contrast to the weariness of body engendered by endless hours in the saddle, and the heavy tedium of packing the gear on and off. It was in part, no doubt, the pleasures of the nights contributing to this feeling in me. I was a young man, newly admitted to a realm of delight previously but imagined. But it was also a lifting, if not of fear, for that remained strong in me, then of responsibility. I had sensed disaster crowding in on me, and felt wholly incapable of finding a solution. It was a great relief to follow, though I knew not where, after such failure as a leader.

  After some days like this, Bessie propped herself up on an elbow one night as she lay next to me. ‘Mount House that way,’ she said, in her pidgin English, gesturing to the west. ‘Two days ride.’ Sensing my alarm, she quieted me. ‘I know this country now, little bit,’ she said, explaining that she’d walked through this part of the country coming to Poison Hole, and that if we kept going we would cut across the wagon road from Fitzroy Crossing to Mount House.

  It was that night my future was sealed.

  With Bessie’s guidance, I could have found and followed the wagon road to Fitzroy, and then to Halls Creek and on, as per my original plan. However, it became apparent that if such was my choice she was not of a mind to accompany me. She was close to her lands and her people now, and had another scheme in mind. I assumed that her intent was to return to Fish Creek, the station from which she had so recently come. But she shook her head and fell into a silence, then commenced a quiet sobbing.

  Whilst we held each other close she made it plain. Why would she, an orphan now, return there? She had kin there to be sure, but none who might protect her from the manager, a man she seemed to regard in only slightly better light than Twelve Inch. It seemed that her proposed marriage to Thursday, and the long trek with her parents to Poison Hole, had been arranged to remove her far from this man’s clutches. From the frying pan unto the fire, thought I.

  There was more she had to say, but each time she began, the words stuck in her throat. My caresses were meant to help her find the words, to calm her. But before I knew it, we were consumed in the most passionate and abandoned embraces. I have experienced none quite like it in all the days since.

  It was in the quiet aftermath that she told me of her scheme.

  13

  Wandering back down to the hearth beneath the boab tree after checking on Riley, Two Bob is musing about Sarah. His big sister. The only one to know nothing at all of life outside the valley.

  An’ this mob reckon I’m a munjon. He flicks his cigarette butt with a chuckle. Sarah an’ Bullet, what a pair.

  He almost steps on the snake. Jumps back despite himself as it slithers frantically away towards the long grass. Cranky for being so unobservant.

  Ol’ Bob’d read somethin’ into that prob’ly. Just a snake though by my book.

  Two Bob breathed a little easier if Bullet was absent when he arrived in the valley. The drawback was that it meant Sarah would be fretting. Sarah, always scared and nervous. She seemed amazed that he survived from year to year in that awful world outside. Even the gentlest of stories Two Bob told her, thinking they might amuse, seemed to make her flinch. When two years passed with no visit from her man she implored her brother to find out where he was, whether he was coming back.

  Mostly he gave the annual races in Derby a miss. Too much humbug, and too many mosquitoes in that saltwater country. That year he did go in, and found Bullet’s cousin Ganada. There was a silent understanding amongst the few of them who had once lived in the valley, but left. A quiet nod of acknowledgement, but no more. The fierce code of secrecy on which the valley community had been founded sat somewhere in the guts of them all. This time Two Bob edged Ganada to a quiet corner of the roiling paddock behind the racecourse where the mobs from every station in the district were camped, and dared to ask what had become of Bullet.

  ‘Fucken wild man that one,’ Ganada muttered. ‘We thought he must’ve gone back there to die.’ According to him Bullet had been nothing but trouble. Every station he worked on, he got bushed by the boss. He did time in Derby jail more than once. He had two kids by a woman over on Fossil Downs. Ganada’s family worked out that he must be returning to the valley at times to see his mother Parli. ‘But we never heard nothin’ about Sarah, or any baby.’

  Bullet had found his way somehow to the mission down at La Grange, with all that desert mob. Word came back that he had got into an argument with one of the desert men. A spearing left him bleeding badly. He had walked away from La Grange swearing vengeance, and not been heard of again.

  Two Bob always regretted that he did not think to find a lie, or at least a gentler way of breaking the news to Sarah.

  Poor thing, first her feller, then her little girl.

  Jinda followed the course of her uncles; defiant departure. She needed no chaining nor dream to cause her flight. Just an almighty blue with her mother. She had gleaned enough information from Two Bob on his visits, and had enough bush sense to find her way. Unlike him she had not skulked on the hill looking down. She had marched into the station camp one night calling his name.

  Thank god Bob had been there, and grasped the situation in a flash. A gesture silenced the girl, and sent her to his camp. With the haughty authority of the medicine man he had become, he informed the gawkers that this was his niece, his sister’s daughter from Fish Creek. Go back to bed, he told them.

  Two Bob was in Broome at the time, feeling like he’d won the lottery. He’d just become the first Highlander to get his own motor car, thanks to Joe Black the windmill man.

  Since he first started getting wages a couple of years earlier Two Bob had been squirrelling away whatever shillings he could from his one pound a week. But until Joe rocked into the camp at Blundstone Bore two days late and rather the worse for wear, he’d thought he was still years away from his dream.

  Joe had contracted to re-equip a couple of mills. As was the custom, the station provided a man to assist, and Two Bob had been assigned to the task. Joe reckoned Two
Bob was the best offsider he’d ever had. They shared the work of the camp, yarning away. Joe was happy to wash the dishes of a night, and didn’t seem to care a bugger about all the little ways whitefellers usually had of showing they were the boss. He had to do a run back into Broome mid contract, and had a big win on the cudja cudja at one of the gambling houses while he was there.

  ‘How much you got?’ he asked Two Bob the night he got back.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Saved up. For that motor car dream you were tellin’ me.’

  Sixteen pounds and eight shillings was all. But that was enough for Joe. He’d already ordered a new car with his winnings. He even filled the ute’s tank for Two Bob’s trip home before they shook hands and waved goodbye.

  Back at Highlands, Bob hadn’t been able to keep Jinda silent for long. He had no idea how to deal with the angry and confused young woman. By the time Two Bob got back she had jumped in the back of a stores truck returning to Derby. Two Bob thought about turning around and trying to chase her, but he didn’t have enough money left for the fuel.

  Two Bob raises himself from the flour drum seat with an old man’s groan, feeling at his stiff back and wondering how he will go in the coming days, bumping over the station’s backtracks with Andy. He prowls the wide circle of speckled midday shade around the boab, flicking aside a stick here, stooping to pick up a fallen nut there, and trying to hold his spine straight and loose like the gun rider he had once been. Loose limbs are a thing of the past though, as he well knows.

  All this remembering. He supposes it is inevitable, given what he has set in motion. And it is easier than thinking about how he is going to manage what is still to come. That scares him.

  You’re the one always knew what to do, Marj.

  He turns towards the small cemetery where her headstone dwarfs all the others.