When Darkness Falls

by John Bodey

  “Grandad! Quick! come with me, I want to show you something.”

  “What’s the hurry, Grandson? I don’t smell smoke, so it can’t be a fire.”

  “It’s birds, Grandad, lots of them, green parrots, and I’m frightened you might miss out on seeing them.”

  “Green parrots with bright crimson splotches on their wings when they spread them? Feeding on the wild passionfruit vine?”

  The boy stopped in his tracks and stopped to look at his grandfather in amazement. “You’ve seen them already? How? You haven’t moved from the camp.”

  “Come, Grandson, let’s go down to the river and find a nice shady spot to sit and watch them, and I’ll tell you the story of how they came to be, and the reason they love this fruit...”

  Countless moons ago when the land was young there lived many people, with different lifestyles. Some came from the desert, some lived by the oceans, others lived along the rivers, and some came from the rainforest and mountains far to the north. This is a story of those people of the mountains and a nomadic tribe that wandered the lands of the desert and the lowlands of the south.

  Over the lands where the mountain people roamed, clouds hung low and wreathed the mountain tops; moisture filled the air and mist floated morning and night. The land was filled with jagged rocks and crags and fast-flowing streams and everywhere hung jungle vines. Great trees reached for the heights far above. Beneath them was a damp dark place, cool in the winters of the world, humid, hot and sticky in summer when the air was damp and breathing came short and shallow with movement limited to necessity. Animals, reptiles and insects, birds and flowers thrived.

  Ferns covered the ground, and palms grew in abundance. The flowers were vivid and bright. There were parrots with radiant plumage. There was no want for food; fish swam in multitudes in the rivers and pools, and turtles crawled the floors of the forests and foraged in the damp undergrowth. There were bandicoots and possums, lizards and snakes. Wombat, and dark-furred wallabies lived on the verge of the forests, where the grasslands came to meet the trees.

  In this land of mountains, rivers and jungle there lived six tribes. Two inhabited the northern and western coastlines, where the mountains came down to the plateaus, which in turn fell into the sea. Their lives belonged to the ocean, the rivers and estuaries. They rarely ventured inland. They had no need; they kept to themselves.

  Where the mountains reached for the clouds, where the jungle and rain was an everyday part of life lived two other tribes. They loved the coolness and the freshness of the high lands. Their lands reached the vastness of the inland, bordered by rivers, protected by great cliffs. These people were the most feared. By day, as well as night, they moved through the shifting shadows of light and dark, their presence unknown until the burning bite of a spear cut you down. They gave no challenges, no warnings.

  To the south and west lived the mystery tribe. Spoken of but never seen, feared even by the mountain people. Their lands were separated from the rest by a river, whose waters were fast and deep and full of man-eating creatures. For the river was influenced by the tidal flow that twice a day raced over a distance it would take a man two days to walk. These people learned at first to fear and respect their river, then in time to honour and love it. It was a natural barrier against their foes.

  Far to the south, where rains fell only when the seasons changed, lived the tribe of wanderers, people who strayed here and there, moving at their will from one source of food to the next, never staying long enough to deplete supplies, leaving plenty for the tribe that followed. Their lands encompassed the sands of the desert to the gibber plains of the great inland, from the brilliant white beaches of the ocean to the foothills of the mountain people. The river that flowed there, a slow, lethargic river that twisted and turned along the flats and out through the saltpans into the sea marked their border. Where it came from nobody really knew. The Oobagooma, as they called it, was their home when the cold winds blew. They would follow the slow meandering of the river to the salty sea. As the cold wind began to fade, and the heat built up, they were already moving down through the sandhills along the coast, following the wind south until they came to the mighty river of the plains then, in time, they would return back to where the springs in the hills oozed out their precious supply ... until the journey began again, when they would turn northwards, a never-ending trek of life.

  Our story begins with the people of the mountains, the Wa-ror-ras. It was the first season of the year. The rains had been heavy and continuous and life had become unbearable, with fraying nerves and shortening tempers. To escape the venom of their wives and the screams of the children, some hunters decided to take a long walk until the rains moved and the weather changed the moods of people. They went beyond the big trees to the plains below. Here they found the great kangaroos, standing as tall as their tallest warrior, with bulging muscles and haunches. Their hides were short, rough and hairy, their meat tough and stringy, but they provided good strong sinews to hold spear heads in place, and the tightness and strength of their great hides meant they were good for trading.

  Back in the long ago, the Wa-ror-ras had learnt an invaluable lesson for their arrogance. Aggressive and confident, a war party had attacked the tribe of wanderers. Those peaceful people had out-manoeuvred the Wa-ror-ras and shamed them. When the Wa-ror-ras had retreated into their own land, to the cover of the “Tall Trees”, the Lowlanders had stopped at the river and camped. Rested, they then moved on, leaving the Wa-ror-ras with the bitter taste of defeat and waiting for revenge. Year after year it continued: the Wa-ror-ras were shamed again as they were pushed back to the Tall Trees. The Lowlanders would camp, rest, and move on. But year by year, less of the Wa-ror-ras died. The people of the plains had no love for hunting and killing. They felt no pride; for them it was simply necessary. They fought for the land and water that was theirs. They had defeated the intruders and had gone on with their lives, and the Wa-ror-ras never really understood how they had been defeated. So now, when they visited the plains to hunt the big roo, they left as quickly and unobtrusively as they could. They no longer stood to fight, but fled before the mystery as to why they were always defeated by people who were small, skinny, hairy and ugly to behold.

  On this day the newly made men of the tribe, their welts swollen but healing, were enjoying the chase. A group following a wounded roo spread out, excited; the skin would be rewarded to the man that brought it down. Suddenly they heard the call of alarm. The feared Lowlanders were somewhere close. The hunters stopped in their tracks and fled for the safety of the Tall Trees.

  A youth of twelve summers, inexperienced and overexcited, his speed carrying him far out to the front, found himself alone, and a long way from cover. Heart beating wildly, blood pounding in his brain, breath wheezing from his lungs, he raced to his limit. A misplaced foot, an unseen hole and he lay sprawled in the high tufted grass, leg askew and broken. He screamed as pain shot through his body. Fright, the will to live, and a great shame that he, a man, should scream like a child, threatened to overcome him, and he whimpered like the child still in his being. Two days passed. His leg was now grotesquely swollen. The pain and the shame he had been holding back broke from his parched lips. His young body had begun to burn with fever.

  “Mother? Mother?” he whispered.

  But no one came. He was alone. No one would be coming for him. He had been sacrificed for the good of the tribe and left to die alone in whatever way the Spirits decreed: thirst, starvation, or by the hand of the dreaded enemy.

  “Mother ... Mother.”

  A girl called Nwunta heard the whimpering and groans of pain as she passed nearby. She thought the earth was speaking to her. Alarmed, she made her way back to her mother.

  “Mother? You are wise. Have you ever heard the earth speak before?”

  “Not speaking. Sometimes, when the Spirits get angry with the stupidity of the people, they make the land rumble and shake. If they are really angry, the land trembles,
trees shake and sway, rocks fall and tumble down hillsides. And if their rage overcomes them entirely, the land splits and opens, swallowing good and bad alike. Sometimes they push the ground to the skies, at other times, it falls away, leaving great cliffs, and dust hangs in the air for a moon at least. We bow before their might, take warning from their wrath. But I have never heard the earth speaking.”

  “I heard it speaking to itself.”

  “There have been no rumblings deep in the ground, no trembling of the land. Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Mother. I wasn’t imagining things.”

  “Wait, Nwunta. A couple of days past the men came across an Old Man Red, badly wounded. You know we don’t hunt him unless we have needs, and then we have ceremonies, to ask his forgiveness for the life we take. He is our tribal totem, our guide to our dreamings. We would never hunt and leave one to die from wounds. He must have been speared by the people from the Tall Trees, and left. It is strange, for we have not seen these people for many, many moons. These sounds ... can you take me to them?”

  “Oh, Mother ... why not leave well enough alone.”

  “I am a healer, Nwunta. It is my place in the tribe. If somebody is hurt, whether it is ours or theirs, it is for me to try to help that person. Daughter, show me.”

  So Nwunta took her mother to the place where she had heard the sounds.

  “This is where I stood ... See my footprints? The sounds came from over there, I’m sure of it, though I don’t hear them now.”

  Her mother went forward into the high grass. “By the Spirits of our Ancestors!”

  “What is it?”

  “A boy ... a very sick boy. Nwunta, go for my medicine bag, quickly. And get Imagen to bring water.”

  She cast an experienced eye over the boy as he lay there comatose. She saw the swollen leg and knew it was broken. He was in a bad way. It was lucky the boy was young. He should be able to fight his way back to life. Her most urgent need was to get him to water to bathe his body and douse the fever that raged in him.

  She stood and looked around her, watching for any sign that someone was out there watching. She saw nothing. The slight heat haze blurred the landscape; nothing moved. She looked to the river, still half a day’s walk away. It would be the best place to take him. They could lay him in the shallows to cool him when the fires blazed in his body then cover him when the chills racked his body, for the moment you doused the fire the body reacted, and then you fought the cold as well.

  But first, before Nwunta returned, she would have to straighten his leg. There was no gentle way. She straightened his body as much as she could, then sat and placed a leg on either side of the broken one. Then taking a good hold of the bent foot, she jerked backwards twisting at the same time. A scream rent the air, then the boy fell back in a deep coma.

  Nwunta and Imagen came at a run, frightened for their mother. They saw her slowly rising to her feet and noticed no dust rising, no signs of a struggle and their panic subsided.

  “Just setting the leg in place,” their mother said: “Now we have to move him to the river to get rid of his fever.” She turned to her daughter, “Nwunta, run back to the camp and get our tools for cutting saplings. Bring that old skin—we will use it to carry him to the river. Imagen, shade his face, and keep sponging him. I won’t be long.”

  “What if he wakes while you’re gone?”

  “He won’t wake, not for some time yet, and I’ll be back long before he does.”

  “But? What if he does?”

  “Then do what all good healers do ... The very first lesson, remember?”

  “Smile?”

  “Yes, my daughter.”

  “I’ll smile mother, but it definitely won’t be for him. It will be for you, and the healing that we practise. I think he’s ugly. Look at him. Long and skinny, hardly any hair on him. The hair on his head is straight as a length of sinew, and as thin; and his skin is so smooth. It’s as smooth as a girl’s, and he’s black; as black as midnight on a moonless night.”

  “He’s just a boy. I’d say he is a couple of summers older than you.”

  “Me? I’m ten summers old, and he’s a lot bigger than me. Only a couple of summers older?”

  “Does it matter, Imagen? ... You don’t like him, so that will make nursing him so much the easier, your feelings won’t be involved, and if we continue talking, our patient might die before we can get him to the river.”

  They carried him on a makeshift stretcher, the girl Imagen walking at his side wiping his face and trying hard to ignore the boy and the strange feelings he stirred within her. For the rest of the day and through the night they sat by the river. When the fires raged within, they immersed him in the cooling waters; when his body needed heat, they covered him with the skins of their bedding. As the morning star rose he slept in peace on the sand, his fever broken. Beside him, Imagen too had succumbed to sleep.

  The light was growing stronger with each passing moment. Suddenly Imagen sensed movement. She watched as the boy stirred, opened his eyes and looked about. She saw fear spring into his eyes as his gaze fell upon her. Panic grabbed at her; and then she remembered her mother’s words. She beamed her most beautiful smile, daring him to reject it, to reject her. He lay watching her. She smiled until her face began to ache.

  “Qua,” he muttered.

  “Qua?”

  “Qua,” he repeated, motioning to his mouth and opening it.

  “Oh, you want water.” She fetched a small bowl of water and knelt beside him. He raised his head and she tried to give him the water, but his strength gave out and his head fell back in the sand, the water spilling down over his face. He turned his head towards her, said something totally unintelligible and smiled in turn.

  “I don’t know what you just said, you ugly boy.” Imagen responded, “I hope you’re not trying to get manly with me.”

  He nodded at her, smiling even more.

  “I suppose I will have to support your ugly face if I’m to get some water into you ... I just hope I don’t drown you.”

  She knelt directly behind him, supporting his head in her lap, his shoulders raised by her knees. The effort drained him and as she reached for the bowl she saw the steady silent stream of tears flowing out of the corners of his eyes.

  “Don’t cry, boy.”

  He did not understand her words, but he was comforted. He tried to help her when next she offered him the water.

  “Come on, boy. Open your mouth.” She made to raise his head and his mouth opened. She hurried to pour in the water, he coughed and spluttered.

  “What are you trying to do, you stupid girl? Drown me? Slow down.”

  Not understanding his words, she acknowledged his rebuke and gently, slowly, lowered the water to his lips. He sipped and sipped, and when at last the container was empty, he closed his eyes and slept. She stayed in the same position, her legs cramping.

  The mother found them so, the boy sound asleep with his head in the girl’s lap. Slowly, carefully, she extricated Imagen, then built a fire to heat the broth she had prepared for the boy’s awakening. She had mixed into it pain relieving medicinal plants to help dissipate the clotted blood that caused his wound to swell. She massaged her daughter’s legs back to usefulness, and when all was done, she woke the boy.

  Alarm showed briefly in his eyes, as he turned to study the face of the older woman. She held his gaze steadily, with no sign of malice. Did he see pity there? A smile appeared and reassurance blossomed in him like a flower; he was safe. He lay back and relaxed, looked to the young one again, and smiled.

  The mother supported his head, and fed him the broth. He slurped greedily and when he had taken his fill he lapsed into sleep again.

  Of the boy’s companions there had been no further sign but the Lowlanders knew they weren’t very far away. As night closed around them, their senses prickled alarmingly when the aura of the men of the Tall Trees radiated into their midst. They kept close to their campfires, their weapons never
too far away.

  After the second such night the tribe decided to move away from the source of imminent danger. The healer woman was told of the decision. She realised the danger she had placed the tribe in. She had done all she could for the boy, she had broken his fever, straightened and splinted his leg, and eased his pain. Silently she took one last look at him and moved the water vessel closer. Imagen lingered a little longer, then set out with her mother, following the path of the tribe.

  Two wandering days along the banks of Oobagooma, the threat now non-existent, Imagen disappeared. It was easy to find her tracks; she had turned and walked back to the boy she had left lying in the sand in the shade of the big Cudgibutt trees. The mother and Nwunta made ready to go after the girl. Laden down with all their belongings, they trudged back the way they had come. By late afternoon the following day, they too arrived back at the camp. They found Imagen lying in the shallows with the boy, sponging him with cooling water.

  “Imagen! What are you doing?”

  “Oh Mother, he is bad, he has fever again. And as for danger, there is none. They have left.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I watched.”

  “You watched them go?”

  “I watched everything. I saw what they did to this boy. They are cruel and evil.”

  “Explain yourself, girl.”

  “The other night ... I heard his voice. He spoke to me in his language and I understood his words. He was lonely and frightened, afraid of what his people would do to him when they finally found him. He didn’t know they were close by. He asked me to come to him, to save him. He wants to live, mother. He doesn’t want to die.”

  “And his people? What of them? They were here I can see their tracks everywhere.”

  “Oh, they were here all right. They hid until all of us had gone, and then they came for him. They knew where he was all the time. They were waiting for us to go.”

  “And you saw them?”

  “As I came along the river bank, I heard this weird chanting. I crept as close as I could, then climbed up that big old Cudgibutt over there and watched it all. There was this crazy man all dressed up, with feathers in his hair and wrapped around his arms and his legs. He kept yabbering and cubba cubba’d around the boy, waving his arms and stamping his feet. Then he went into the trees while the other men took the splint off his leg. When the crazy man came back, he poured water over the boy to wake him, then made him swallow something. Then he began his crazy dancing again, shaking his arms and head and yelling to the trees. Then he must have told two men to lift the boy to his feet, and then let him go. He screamed. And he collapsed.” Tears slid out of the corners of her eyes, and she hurriedly brushed them away.