The Valley

by Di Morrissey

  ‘Do you think Henry would know who this fellow was?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Can we ring him?’ Dani reached for the sat phone.

  Disappointed, she left a message on the Catchpoles’ answering machine. ‘They’re out. God, what if she really found the letter man and he’s a nutter?’

  ‘The letters did sound a bit threatening. But wouldn’t she have told you if she was going to see him?’ asked Jason.

  ‘I guess so. My mother can be rather impetuous. She probably thought she’d race up there, look around and hope to find him. The thing is, from her TV producing days, she’s pretty good at walking into a story and finding what she wants.’

  ‘Let’s hope she didn’t luck out this time,’ said Jason grimly.

  They didn’t speak much, each wrapped in their private thoughts. They saw only two other vehicles, a ute and a kombi. When they reached the plateau, Jason slowed, trying to decide which direction to take.

  ‘Where’s the town? Village, whatever is up here?’ asked Dani peering into the darkness.

  ‘Not much here. There’s a town further across, went to a nice lunch there once in a cafe craft shop thing. I seem to remember though . . .’ He swung the car along the paved section of road where occasional mailboxes of various shapes, from utilitarian to artistic creations perched, the sole indication of habitation.

  ‘There’s bugger-all up here! No streetlights, no houses, nothing!’ exclaimed Dani in exasperation. ‘Where the hell would she have gone?’

  ‘It’s very pretty, stunning scenery in daylight,’ said Jason.

  Dani didn’t answer, she was starting to become very frightened. The thought that her beautiful mother was out there somewhere, either in trouble or involved in some adventure or story, was driving her crazy with fear one moment, exasperation the next.

  Jason was feeling frustrated at his helplessness, they couldn’t just drive around in the dark. Then in the distance he saw lights. Red and green lights blinked outside a rundown house where figures lounged outside. Dim lights shone through the windows. The house looked to be one of the original cottages built on the mountain. He pulled over and as soon as they opened the car door the sound of amplified rock music assailed them.

  ‘What’s this, the local club?’ commented Dani.

  Jason approached several of the young men outside. ‘Hi, guys. How’s it going?’

  ‘Okay,’ said one warily.

  ‘Sounds good in there. Is this the local music centre?’ said Jason.

  ‘Yeah. Kinda.’ Two of the boys had guitars.

  Jason went to the doorway. A band was playing with someone thrashing a set of drums. A sound console was rigged up and a girl was listening through headphones.

  ‘You can record in there?’ asked Jason looking at the dilapidated state of the house.

  ‘Take a look if you like,’ offered one of the boys as Dani joined them.

  ‘This is kinda neat,’ she said in his ear over the loud music.

  The walls were covered with posters, music graffiti and a board with notes and flyers pinned to it. There were some broken-down tables and chairs, a sink and a rusting fridge.

  ‘What goes on in here?’ Jason asked a girl watching the band.

  ‘Music, dance parties. Just a hang out,’ she said.

  ‘Who runs it?’ asked Jason.

  ‘Anyone can use it. It’s always open.’

  ‘Not locked up? What about the gear?’ Dani thought how Tim would love to get onto the drums.

  The girl shrugged. ‘Nah. It’s for all of us. If anything got knocked off, we’d find them. Not worth it.’

  ‘You could do with a bit more gear, some better facilities,’ said Jason.

  ‘No money up here, mate,’ said the girl. ‘You lost?’

  ‘We’re actually looking for a lady who came up here today. Is there a local copper, someone who keeps an eye on things?’ asked Jason thinking this place could be a popular drug outlet. He’d heard about the drug scene on the mountain.

  ‘Nah, we have a few oldies on the committee. If you want to find someone go down to the general store.’

  Jason and Dani exchanged a glance.

  ‘Is it still open?’

  ‘Yeah, if the door is shut go round the back, there’s always someone hanging out,’ advised the girl.

  ‘Thanks. Where is it?’

  She waved an arm. ‘Two minutes down the road.’

  They hurried to the car and drove slowly down the dark road.

  ‘There . . . lights. Thank God. This place is like another planet,’ said Dani.

  ‘Civilisation!’ said Jason.

  There was an antiquated petrol pump. A large sign decorated with flowers and faded hippy artwork said ‘General Store’. There were tables and chairs outside with several people sitting smoking, holding bottles of beer. They hurried inside. A few people were buying take-away food, browsing through newspapers and standing around chatting.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked the man behind the counter.

  Jason did the talking. ‘We’re looking for a lady who came up here today. She was looking for a local bloke . . .’

  ‘Heard that before,’ grinned the man.

  ‘She seems to have been sidetracked,’ said Jason carefully.

  ‘That’s not unusual.’

  Jason turned to Dani. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly close to tears. ‘My mother is Lara Langdon, in her sixties, blonde, very pretty, warm kind of lady. Did she come in here asking directions or something?’

  The man caught the note of desperation in Dani’s voice and glanced at Jason. ‘Can’t say that rings a bell. We haven’t had many tourists round today. Who was she looking for?’

  Dani was aware people were coming and going. A man waited behind them to be served. ‘I don’t know his full name. He’s an old local who’s known as Thommo. She didn’t know where he lived, she came on a whim, I think.’

  ‘Did you say Thommo?’ The man behind them spoke up and Dani turned to a tall thin man with a grey pony tail, beaky nose and granny glasses.

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’ asked Dani eagerly.

  ‘Can’t say I do, but I had a lady drop into my place – I’m Sagaro. I repair musical instruments and she saw my sign. She was looking for the main part of town, which is here,’ he gestured.

  ‘So what did you tell her?’ prodded Jason.

  ‘I suggested she look in the phone book and she found him. He had an address on The Easement,’ said Sagaro.

  ‘Let’s look in the phone book,’ said Dani quickly.

  ‘Where’s this Easement?’ asked Jason urgently.

  ‘It winds around the backwaters of the big falls. Only a couple of houses are there.’ Sagaro crinkled his eyes as he concentrated. ‘Let me think, I’m pretty sure it was eighteen. Might be hard to find in the dark though.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’ Dani headed out the door.

  Jason hung back a moment. ‘What time do you close here?’

  The shopkeeper lifted his shoulders. ‘It’s ten pm, depends how long that mob hang around.’ He pointed to the drinkers under the awning outside.

  ‘Listen, this fellow could be a bit of a nutcase. If we don’t pop back by here in an hour or so, could you send out some sort of patrol?’ asked Jason.

  ‘No worries, mate.’

  Sagaro watched them drive away and commented, ‘How much trouble could some old codger be?’

  Lara sat on the cold floor hugging her knees. She’d shouted, she’d cried. Now she felt drained and, while scared, resigned to waiting out this ordeal. There was no way anyone would know where she was. She just hoped Thommo would come to some sort of sense in the daylight. Or that someone else just might come within earshot – if she heard them or they her.

  Jason drove slowly, the headlights on high beam.

  ‘There! Look, number eighteen,’ said Dani. ‘Do we just drive up or what?’

  Jason stopped the
car at the entrance to the long tree-lined driveway. ‘I don’t think we should announce ourselves. You wait here and I’ll take a look first.’

  ‘No, I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Dani, let’s not both get into trouble. Stay here, lock the doors and if I’m not back in ten minutes or so, drive back to the store and tell them,’ said Jason firmly. ‘Where’s the torch?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. Be careful. Don’t let anyone see your torchlight,’ said Dani.

  ‘I’ll be okay. Don’t worry, okay?’ He squeezed her shoulder and got out of the car.

  She watched him shine the torch along the driveway, shading its beam with his hand, then he turned it off and set off. Dani pushed down the locks on all the doors and sat there feeling tense and nervous. The tips of the pines swayed in a breeze, the moon was behind wet cotton clouds. She hoped it didn’t rain. The whole place was creepy. She longed for the open expanse of The Vale with its paddocks, the winding clear stream and distant ranges. Being up in these peaks was strangely claustrophobic. As she strained to hear any sound through the tightly wound windows she thought she heard a bird or an animal call and in the background a steady low murmur which she realised must be the waterfall. She was trying to hear sounds far away: faint voices, a dog barking, a generator, a car, anything that gave some indication that people lived around here.

  Her mind was focused on the middle and far distance, so when there was a bang on the window beside her, she let out a scream and jumped.

  ‘Jason?’

  The window was foggy from her breath in the car. She could just make out a figure and a face moving around the car. Dani scrambled across into the driver’s seat, fumbling for the ignition key. She turned the engine on and the headlights flared to life. She was frozen in shock at what the lights illuminated – an old man stood there, pointing a rifle straight at her.

  Shit! Should she drive at him, would he shoot through the windscreen before she hit him? Instead she punched her hand on the horn, a long loud blast.

  He reacted so swiftly, the rifle must have been cocked ready to fire. A headlight was shot out and he was by the driver’s door wrenching at the door handle.

  ‘Get away!’ screamed Dani, bashing at the face at the window. She threw the car into reverse and shot backwards, but then braked as she saw Jason in the beam of the one headlight lunge forward to grapple with the old man.

  Dani leapt from the car and stumbled towards them. Jason had hold of the rifle in one hand and a firm grip on the man under the armpit. He seemed to have crumpled, the threat and fight scared out of him.

  ‘He’s insane. Did you see Mum?’

  ‘I only reached the house when I heard you blow the horn, but her car’s there, panted Jason. He turned the man to face him. ‘Where is Lara? Mrs Langdon?’ he demanded.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ mumbled the man, twisting his face away. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry.’

  Jason glanced at Dani. ‘Where’s the lady who came to see you?’ he asked.

  ‘She doesn’t know, nobody knows. All these years, no one knew ’bout Clem and me . . .’

  ‘What’s he mumbling about? Where is my mother?’ snapped Dani. ‘I’m going to look in his house.’

  She grabbed the torch from Jason. ‘Come on.’ Dani ran ahead, the torchlight bobbing through the blackness as Jason, still holding the old man and the rifle, followed as best he could.

  Reaching the house Dani saw one small light shining inside. She pushed open the front door and ran through the cottage shouting, ‘Mum? Mum? Are you in here?’

  All the rooms were empty. Dani began to shiver. Oh God, what had he done? Had he shot her? . . . Oh please no. Then she heard a noise, a banging, out the back.

  She ran through the kitchen into the overgrown backyard and saw the shed.

  ‘Help . . . Who’s out there?’

  ‘Mum! It’s me, Dani. It’s all right. We’re here.’

  ‘Oh my God, thank God . . .’ came Lara’s relieved and weeping voice.

  Dani couldn’t open the padlock. ‘Mum, hang on, we’ll get this open.’

  Lara was beyond wondering how Dani had found her. Thommo, the man, he has a gun . . .’

  ‘I know, it’s all right, Jason has it. He’s got him. We’ll get this open, hang on.’

  Dani ran around the house, banging her shins against a ladder and shouted for Jason.

  At first she couldn’t hear or see anything. ‘Jason? Where are you?’ She started back down the driveway and then saw the torchlight, but only one figure. She stopped, ready to hide in the bushes until she saw it was Jason.

  ‘Jason, what happened? Where is he?’

  ‘Cunning old bastard, somehow he gave me the slip, I couldn’t see him in the dark, but he can’t get too far.’

  ‘The gun, where is it?’

  ‘I have it. Is your mum there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she is. She’s locked in a shed. I can’t get the padlock open.’

  Lara stood at the back of the shed, her hands over her ears as Jason shot off the padlock and then she fell out into her daughter’s arms.

  Weeping, they both kissed Jason as he led them back inside, turning on lights in the kitchen.

  ‘We’d better go and find that crazy old bugger,’ said Jason.

  ‘Jason, Mum is safe, let’s just get out of here,’ said Dani. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’

  ‘No. I haven’t come through all this not to know what the hell is going on with him,’ declared Lara. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘There must have been a track he knew about. He just wrenched himself free, shoved me to one side and disappeared in the undergrowth,’ said Jason.

  ‘Right, let’s find him,’ said Lara. ‘We’ve got the rifle, what harm can he do to us?’

  Jason retraced his steps. ‘I think it was around here.’ He waved the flashlight.

  ‘There, a track,’ said Dani pointing to the one-person path winding through the thick scrub.

  They followed it single file, no one speaking for the rushing and roar of the waterfall could now be heard clearly. The trees thinned and there was a grassy patch with several large boulders, beyond it a shining pool of water.

  ‘Must be the headwaters where it comes down from the hill,’ said Jason waving the torch back and forwards.

  ‘Be a lovely swimming spot in summer,’ commented Lara.

  ‘Is that a path at the edge?’ asked Dani. It was easier to see without the overhang of trees.

  ‘Yes, it must go to the falls, there’s a lookout somewhere, I recall,’ said Jason.

  ‘Let’s not go near the edge,’ said Lara. ‘Heights worry me.’

  Dani was more concerned that the crazed Thommo was hiding and would rush at them, pushing them into the flowing water.

  They followed the path until it branched into a clearing with a picnic seat and steps leading up to an area that appeared to be a parking lot. From there steps and a paved track wound away towards the signposted lookout.

  ‘This goes for some distance so you look across the gorge at the falls from the opposite side. I think there’s a side view near here too,’ said Jason in a low voice.

  ‘You go, I’m staying here,’ said Lara.

  ‘We’re not leaving you, Mum,’ said Dani.

  ‘I’ll be fine. Leave the rifle with me then.’ She was half joking, but Jason handed it to her. ‘We won’t be long. Fire it in the air if you need us.’ He showed her the safety catch.

  ‘I know how to use this,’ said Lara calmly, startling Dani, who filed her question ‘How come?’ away for a future conversation.

  Jason reached for Dani’s hand and led her along the path, shining the torch behind him so that she could see and he had enough light to also see where he was stepping.

  ‘Your mum seems to be coping well after that ordeal,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, she’s full of surprises. Thanks for helping us, Jason, I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

  He didn’t answer but sq
ueezed her hand. The sound of the rushing wall of water was increasing.

  Lara wasn’t really coping, she was feeling numb. The hours since her long drive up the mountain were blunted by the stark shock of the expression in Thommo’s eyes. What was he so afraid of, so frightened of he’d been prepared to harm her. Or was he? Had he acted out of panic, or had it been premeditated? He couldn’t have known she was going to come up here and find him, it had been an impulse on her part. But somehow he had known what she’d been doing, who she’d been talking to, knew enough of her activities in Cedartown to leave the notes at timely moments. It occurred to her that perhaps the old soldier was more afraid of her than she was of him.

  Lara got up. The pale moon had shed the filter of clouds and gave a shimmer of light. Slowly she picked her way back to the rock-strewn water and looked upstream to the thick overhang of trees and the deeper pool, and then downstream to where ripples of shallow white water were beginning to trail on the surface. She imagined throwing a stick into the water – it would spin and swirl along until it easily slid over the glassy edge of water to dance in the white rushing curtain before splintering on the sharp rocks in the deep gorge below.

  Cautiously she moved along the barely discernible track that only animals and intrepid kids had trampled. She watched where she was stepping until she paused and saw up ahead a chain with a small sign swinging from it. ‘Do not proceed past this point’ she read.

  It would be too easy to duck underneath and slip into the water. How many kids had dared each other to cross this line? She remembered the radio report of the young man who’d been found dead in the gorge when she’d first driven up here. Drugs, foul play, or a seemingly simple solution to overwhelming problems?

  As she stood there, the rifle slung on her shoulder, she knew she wasn’t alone. On the other side of the chain, under the heavy branch of a tree, stood Thommo. His back was to her and he was gazing at the ribbon of water that was swiftly spinning to the abyss and oblivion. There was something about the hunch of his shoulders, the droop of his head.

  ‘Thommo!’ she shouted. But he didn’t hear her above the rushing water. Lara ducked under the chain and went towards him. She didn’t want to frighten him, so she picked up a small stone and flicked it against his back.