The Valley Read online

  The shadows that striped the road swayed from a sudden breeze and appeared to come to life ahead of her. Instinctively she slowed, straining forward, her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It was a creature striped like the shadows of tree limbs. Long legs, high haunches, a small head turned to face the oncoming car, a long rigid tail. Instantly Dani knew this was an animal unknown, unafraid, pausing in its eating of carrion in the dirt road. They stared at each other, the car was still moving slowly forward, until at its leisure and with a certain arrogance the animal sauntered from the side of the road to melt into the fringe of bush.

  Dani swung the car across the road, throwing the headlights in the direction it had taken, hoping to catch another glimpse as she vainly tried to work out what it was. But in the instant her attention was diverted there came from the passenger side a blur of movement as a speeding grey mass was suddenly in front of the car and there was a resounding thud, a dark grey cloud blotting the bonnet. Something heavy had smashed the windscreen and bounced off the side door. Dani struggled with the careening vehicle, which plunged into the undergrowth coming to a stop amidst cracking timber.

  She’d banged her head but knew she was all right, more scared and shocked than injured. Dani snapped her seatbelt and threw open the door, slipping on the grass and rocks. The car was tilted and she flung herself away, afraid it might roll on her.

  In the glaring headlights in the fast-fading light she saw the dazed and injured big grey wallaby, and the buckled damage to her car. She turned, looking for the strange striped animal, but the bush was silent save for the twitching and scuffles of the injured wallaby trying to get to its feet. She was also aware of a wind, more than a breeze, that swirled around her, nudging her, prodding her forward into the bush.

  She spun around against the wind, rejecting its thrust, and took a hesitant step towards the wallaby lying on its side, blood on its fur, large brown eyes accusing. Its feet were narrow, elegant, with long black-tipped claws. She knew she could not possibly lift it, yet she could not leave it there. The decision of what to do was taken from her as she leapt in fright when a man’s voice called to her. ‘Don’t touch it. Keep back.’

  Had he materialised from the bush or around the bend in the road? Dani shrank back at the unexpected sight of the figure of a man on foot striding towards her. What was he doing alone, so far from any farm, close on dark? Alarm bells rang and her mind began to race with what to do if he was to attack her, try to put her in the car and drive away with her. It was dented and the windscreen was shattered, but the car was undoubtedly driveable. She pressed herself against the car and, while staring at the hurrying man, reached in and slid the car keys from the ignition.

  He stood over the wallaby.

  As Dani saw him lift a rifle and point it at the animal, she cried out, ‘Don’t shoot the poor thing!’

  ‘I would if I could. He looks buggered.’

  Dani saw what appeared to be a gun was a stout stick. The man was nudging the animal, which flinched and struggled.

  ‘Leave it alone. Oh, God, what do I do?’ said Dani, now close to tears.

  ‘You’ve done a good job on him. Too bad it wasn’t the other thing.’ The man crouched down in the headlights and Dani saw he was around her own age, well dressed.

  ‘Other thing? Did you see it too?’ she asked.

  ‘The striped dog, panther, tiger, whatever. Yeah. Christ knows what it was.’

  ‘I guess that’s what distracted me. I was watching it and not the road, and the next thing the wallaby came out of nowhere. What was that animal?’

  ‘Nothing I’ve ever seen or heard about. Not that I’m any expert.’

  ‘Why are you out here then?’ asked Dani bluntly.

  He straightened and gave a crooked smile. ‘Ah, on the prowl. Didn’t you know this is haunted country?’

  Dani’s hand tightened on the key. Should she make a run and hope to lose him in the shadowy bush? Maybe if she left the car keys he’d drive away and leave her.

  He gave a low laugh and reached out a hand as Dani shrank against the car. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you. But I was getting spooked back there and when I saw that . . . thing, and then this wind hit and you crashed, it all seemed a bit weird.’ He paused. ‘I suppose my being out here seems a bit odd. He held up his other hand and Dani saw the petrol can. ‘Out of juice. Damned stupid place to run out. Don’t s’pose you’ve got any spare?’

  Relief flooded through her but was instantly replaced with the thought this too could be a ruse. ‘No. Unless you can siphon some out of my car.’

  ‘Not easy without some tubing. My car is a couple of clicks back. Why don’t we just take your car and I’ll get a friend to bring me out tomorrow morning with fuel.’

  Dani was still hesitant. The man seemed pleasant, had a nice voice, and friendly manner. Didn’t all serial killers? ‘What about the poor wallaby?’ she stalled.

  ‘If you don’t mind the blood we can throw him in the back of your car and take him to the vet, or the wildlife people.’ Dani wanted him to put the wallaby in her car and wait there till she sent someone back for him but she knew that made it obvious she didn’t trust him.

  He seemed to sense her hesitation and fear. ‘Listen, it’s getting dark. Please don’t be nervous. My name is Roddy, I’m living in Riverwood, haven’t been around here too long so I misjudged the distance. Really, I’m not a molester, predator or serial killer. Just a bloke who’s pissed off at himself and longing to get home and have a beer.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Come on, let’s do the right thing and take the poor bloody animal in for help. Unless you want to knock it on the head and put it out of its misery.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that! All right. I have an old blanket in the back for the dog, we can use that.’

  ‘Stand back, they kick and scratch.’ Deftly he flung the blanket over the distressed wallaby and, grunting, lifted it into the back of Dani’s car. ‘Do you want to drive? You know this road?’

  ‘No. You drive. There’s no windscreen.’ She handed him the keys, deciding to trust him, and got in the passenger side, helping Roddy push out the last pieces of crazed and shattered windscreen.

  ‘We’d better go slowly. You got a phone?’

  ‘There’s no reception out here. Who do you want to call?’ she asked.

  ‘The nearest WIRES or wildlife carer.’

  ‘I’m sure the people where I’m staying can help,’ said Dani, thinking of the capable Barney.

  They drove in silence, Roddy concentrating on the road, the gushing wind hitting them in the face.

  ‘Breezy eh?’ Then he added, ‘Did you notice the way that wind blew up when that animal appeared? I was walking thinking how still it was when that wind hit me and there was the dog . . . thing.’

  ‘It was a weird dog. More like a tiger with a dog’s face.’

  ‘I reckon it looked like a thylacine.’

  ‘The Tasmanian tiger? No one is going to believe us. They’re extinct.’

  ‘As soon as we get to civilisation we’ll both draw what we saw and compare, okay?’

  They didn’t talk any more until Dani gave him directions to Chesterfield.

  Barney saw them drive in and, noting the missing windscreen and bashed front fender, rushed out to meet them.

  ‘Did you roll her? Or hit a roo?’ he asked as Dani got out and found her knees were shaking.

  ‘Wallaby. It’s in the back. Can you help it, Barney? Oh, this is Roddy.’ It was too hard to go into explanations.

  Tabatha and Toby came running out and were dispatched by Barney to get first aid from Helen.

  An hour later the wallaby had been given some rescue remedy drops by Helen and was laid on straw in an old chicken coop in the shed so it couldn’t escape.

  ‘Not that he’s going far in that condition,’ said Barney.

  ‘Will he be all right, Pop?” asked Toby, who’d stayed close beside his grandfather holding the torch so he could work on the in
jured animal.

  ‘Hard to say, mate. Shock could get him. Best to let him rest quietly. Don’t say anything to Dani, she’s pretty upset.’

  ‘Who’s that man Roddy?’ asked Toby.

  ‘Blowed if I know. Walked out of the bush at the right minute. Said his car ran out of petrol.’

  ‘Pop, he says he and Dani saw a tiger. Or some weird animal. Are they kidding me?’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Barney.

  ‘They’re drawing it. Let’s go and see.’

  Roddy and Dani sat in separate rooms while they did sketches of the animal they’d seen. The pictures were almost identical and Angela and Tony decided they were pulling everyone’s leg. Roddy settled on the sofa, Tabatha curled beside him doing her best to beguile him. Barney handed him a glass of his home-brewed stout, and Helen sat down beside him offering a dish of olives. They all seem entranced with this new friend Dani had found wandering in the bush.

  Dani watched him as he laughed and exuded an easy charm. Roddy was an attractive man in an outdoorsy, boyish way and she suspected he knew it. He was perfectly at ease and no one seemed to think how they’d met the least bit odd. Tony offered to run Roddy out to collect his car the next morning as he was heading that way to inspect a fire trail that was due to be cut back.

  When Angela called the children away for dinner, Roddy got to his feet. ‘Could I call a taxi? It’s not far to my place.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?’ Helen’s eyes sparkled and Dani could see she had already figured Roddy as a prospective beau for her.

  ‘We’ll run you home, no probs, forget spending money on a taxi,’ said Barney.

  ‘That’s kind of you, but it’s no trouble to get a cab if they’ll run out from town,’ began Roddy, smiling at Dani.

  ‘By the time it gets here we’ll have you home. Good thing for Dani you turned up when you did,’ said Helen.

  Dani was about to retort she could have got herself home even with the broken windshield but let it go. She shook his hand. ‘Thanks for helping with the wallaby. And if you find out what it was we saw on the road, be sure and let me know.’

  Before going to bed Dani took a torch and slipped out to the shed where the injured wallaby was lying, breathing evenly. She reached out and touched the top of its head, rubbing behind its ears. Then she heard a step and saw Barney.

  ‘Just thought I’d check on him. That was a fair whack. Reckon he’ll be all right though.’

  ‘I feel terrible. I was just so distracted by that . . . whatever it was.’

  ‘It’s a funny one all right. Might be worth asking Max about it. Possibly a mutant, feral dog or something. Anyway, you made a new friend out of the episode, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I was really scared, Barney. But he seems okay.’

  ‘He seems pretty taken with you.’ Barney grinned. ‘I reckon he’ll be visiting us again. Even on the pretext of seeing to this fellow.’ He shone the light on the wallaby. ‘If he survives the night he’ll have a decent old recuperation before he can go back home. Come on, time to hit the sack.’

  The following morning Dani drove Angela’s car to Cedartown while hers was being repaired. She crossed a low-level concrete bridge with hinged metal railings, which she guessed were designed for easy dropping during floods when a lot of old timber and fallen trees would be swept downriver. On both sides of the river the road running down to the bridge was winding and quite steep. Dani drove slowly imagining what it would be like getting safely across in stormy weather on a dark night and after a few beers. She instantly named it the Sober Bridge. The dark water appeared bottomless with a deceptively fast current below its glassy surface.

  The historical society in Cedartown had a new window display that invited anyone passing to pause and consider taking a look inside. ‘The Past Recreated’ stated a sign near the doorway. But Henry Catchpole, the president, had assured Dani the real engine room of the society was out the back. Dani drove down a lane to the rear of the museum and parked by the low fence of the charming old house next door. She paused to admire the garden of roses and noticed the small sign on the gate, ‘Rectory’. The cottage was set back a little from the edge of a high bank that provided a view of the river curving downstream towards Chesterfield. On the other side, neatly nestled in the sweeping curve of the river, was a beautiful expanse of neatly worked farmland and a bushy ridge. A few houses were scattered amongst the trees along the ridge, fine old homes built by early settlers who appreciated a good view, a view that was worth painting.

  She walked to a doorway marked ‘Private. Historical Society Staff’, poked her head through the open door and was surprised to find so many ‘staff’ at work. Several big tables pushed together were covered in piles of newspapers, bulging folders, books and files. Half-a-dozen people sat around the tables absorbed in shuffling papers, reading and making notes. Three more worked at computers against one wall. The other walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with more reference material. Through an archway leading to the rear of the museum she spotted Henry who gave a big welcoming grin and waved her inside.

  ‘Come in, come in. Welcome to the hysterical society, and say hello to some of the afflicted,’ he quipped, then quickly ran through their names. Polite smiles of greeting went around the room. ‘Mrs Henderson is a refugee from the big smoke for a few days, and wants to know a little more about our sanctuary,’ explained Henry.

  ‘Oh please, call me Dani.’

  ‘I understand Dani also dabbles with paint, and if you’re kind to her she might ask you to pose for a portrait.’

  There was a little wave of laughter and one of the older women struck an exaggerated pose then announced, ‘Great. I’ve always wanted to be hung in the Archibald.’

  Henry gestured to a nearby tea tray. ‘You’re in time for a cuppa, Dani. Pot has just been brewed.’

  ‘Have an Anzac, dear,’ said another of the ladies, offering Dani a plate of homemade biscuits. ‘Baked this morning.’

  Over tea and biscuits the society members explained that they were mainly occupied searching for information to answer queries from all over the country, usually from people doing research into their family background. If anyone got bored with that, there was always a pile of freshly donated documents to be assessed and indexed.

  ‘It beats doing gardening,’ observed an elderly white-haired man, introduced earlier as Martin from the mountain. ‘You never know when you’re going to suddenly find a really delicious bit of historical gossip, some skeleton that raises an eyebrow.’ He turned away.

  ‘I think he just comes for the morning tea,’ winked Henry.

  After their tea Henry took Dani’s arm. ‘Come, I’ll show you around and introduce you to some of the team working on the museum displays, then you can browse.’

  Dani paused to look around the back room again. ‘I’m amazed that there’s so much going on behind the scenes, but then I’ve never been into history. Too busy living for the moment.’

  ‘This is the nerve centre, these good folk give a day or two a week to help bring some order to the chaos. All the old newspapers are being put on computer. Not just Cedartown, but also the Hungerford rag and surviving editions of the old Riverwood newspaper.’

  ‘Riverwood had a paper?’ exclaimed Dani. ‘It’s a tiny village!’

  ‘In fact it had the first newspaper in the district when Riverwood was the original settlement on the river. A big place then with the shipping coming into the wharf, there was a millet broom factory and six hotels. The paper was started by an American in 1866. Quite a colourful Yankee he was. Good writer too.’

  ‘Amazing. What a great resource. Where are the original newspapers?’

  ‘All in the vault.’ Henry led her to a small air-conditioned room with shelves of leather-bound volumes of newspapers, and stacks of loose yellow-with-age papers and letters. He carefully took an old newspaper from one of the piles and opened it gingerly. ‘See,
they’re falling apart. Don’t know how much longer these can be preserved. Hence the need to transfer them all to computer.’

  ‘What about photographs?’

  ‘Thousands on the shelves here. Half of them are mysteries, we’ve no idea who the people are or where or when the pictures were taken. Families donate stuff and no one’s ever bothered to write any info on the back. Still, at least people are more aware. I shudder to think what got dumped down wells or burned when the oldies passed on.’

  Dani suddenly thought of the letters and photographs she’d seen on Lara’s dining room table. ‘My mum is going through stuff she got from her family who settled here yonks ago. She should give it to you guys.’

  ‘Tell her to make sure she adds as much information about them as she can. I don’t think we’ve got your family history in here yet.’

  ‘I’m trying to get her to come up for a look around. It’s ages since she’s been in the area.’

  ‘Great. Tell her that the morning tea is worthwhile. That might help,’ said Henry with his irrepressible grin.

  ‘So many queries from people from all over the place,’ said Dani, looking at a batch of freshly opened letters that had come that day.

  ‘And there’s a pile of emails. Everyone’s doing their family history,’ sighed one of the ladies working quietly in a corner.

  ‘I suppose technology has made it easier,’ said Dani.

  ‘Go on the net and there’s a maze of genealogical sites,’ said Henry. ‘But it’s more than that. So many people today want to know about their connections with the past. Something they can cling on to, to give their life, and maybe society as a whole, some sense of continuity, a greater sense of meaning and purpose. The future seems so insecure these days, what with environmental concerns, wars and terrorism. The world’s full of madmen.’