Sunlit Shadow Dance

Sunlit Shadow Dance

Crocodile Spirit Dreaming Book 5

Novel by

Graham Wilson

Copyright

Sunlit Shadow
Dance

Graham
Wilson

Copyright
Graham Wilson 2015

Smashwords
Edition

ISBN
9781311005922

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

This ebook is
licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share
this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy
for each recipient.

If you’re
reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased
for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your
favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

This book
series has been a labour of love, assisted by many people along the
way. You are too many to name and some do not want to be named, but
you know who you are. I thank you all. Telling this story has been
a long journey, for me as for the story. It is both satisfying and
sad to be at the end.

For readers
who have enjoyed the series, thus far, I thank you for your time
spent in reading. Special thanks for those who told me of enjoyment
through reviews and other means. I hope this final part lives up to
your expectations. For those who have not found it to their liking,
and said so, I thank you for this too, both for your time to read
and to let me know. Soon I will revise these books and this
feedback, both good and bad, will help.

Final thanks
to so many people from across the place called Australia’s Northern
Territory. You, and its vast landscapes in their ever changing
hues, have given me the ideas which grew in my mind to become this
story.

It was a small
hour of the morning, number around 3 or 4. Her mind was sharply
awake in an instant but she did not know where her body was, except
that it was in a bed and the bed was unfamiliar.

There was the
sound of another human drawing breath, in and out, regular but not
loud. She moved her arms around to explore the bed space. There was
another body lying not far away, source of breath sounds, it was a
hard and angular shaped, a body of elbows and bony protuberances.
It must be a man. She had no idea of this man’s name or face. She
knew only that she was here and he was there, sharing this time,
space and place.

Who was she
and who was he? Her mind held no image of an identity, hers, his or
other. It held no image of a future or a past; she knew only that
the present was an unfamiliar place.

She willed her
return to sleep so as not to have to discover a present reality,
feeling a hope for a morning reality where memory and perspective
again became clear, where knowing was returned.

It was early
morning when she awoke again. She knew where she was and she knew
her name was Jane, she was Jane Bennet. That was the name she had
been holding in her hand when she had discovered herself, a person
without a past, some months ago. The name was on a baggage label,
written in crude marker pen writing. It was attached to the small
overnight bag that her hand was grasped around. The bag held a
dress, a pair of loose track pants and top, some underwear and
canvass shoes. And it held an envelope with cash, Australian
dollars to a value of around seven hundred. Her person had no other
label; her memory held none and the name Jane seemed to fit. Jane
rhymed with plain; plain Jane, an ordinary person. So she took the
name and used it.

That first
morning of her remembered life she had awoken in a bus shelter,
lying on a bench seat. The shelter was built from four timber posts
with corrugated iron on three sides and a roof. The fourth side was
open to an empty dirt road which had seen no traffic since she
awoke. It looked like a place built by a local farmer to shelter
his children from sun and rain while waiting for a school bus to
come. Its furniture was two planks of rough-hewn timber, bolted
into a seat shape and standing on four timber legs which rested on
bare red dirt. That was it, her temporary home; it had been a place
to sleep but it was not a place to stay.

She knew she
was in Australia, somewhere. It was not cold so it was probably
somewhere in the northern half. And it was not desert as there were
good sized trees growing nearby, though the ground was dry and the
grass was dead and brown not green. But that was as far as her
knowledge and memory could take her beyond having a name, which she
was determined to hold to. It was the one thing that felt
solid.

She looked at
herself. There was no mirror so she could not see a face, but she
had thin pasty arms and legs, objects long hidden from the sun. Her
hands were soft and free of calluses so they must have done little
manual work of late. Her hair was shoulder length and when she
pulled it to her face it appeared to have a dark brown or black
color. It smelt unwashed. A loose fitting smock, like any other
cheap dress, covered her body in a shapeless manner. It had a pale
floral design and was otherwise indistinct. It gave no clues. As
she ran her eyes over her dress she saw that her belly protruded
greatly. She smoothed her hands over it. The realization came she
was well and truly pregnant, expecting a baby and the baby was not
far off.

As she
contemplated this new fact, and what it signified, she heard a
distant sound. She saw a plume of dust coming towards her, it was a
sedan car. As it came close she saw its occupants were an
aboriginal woman driver and another aboriginal woman passenger. She
waved to the car and it pulled to a stop.

These people
evidenced little surprise in seeing her, not a greeting of
recognition, but a casual welcome. It seemed this was a place where
people came and went. She was but one more.

They spoke in
broken English, “You want ride?”

She nodded;
then held out her hand, saying “Hello, I am Jane.”

The driver
nodded, pointed to herself and said “Me, Rebecca, that one Suzie.”
They took her proffered hand in their own. Suzie opened the back
door and pushed a dog off the seat to give her a place to sit.
After perhaps an hour they came to a place where people lived,
other black people. It had a shop, petrol station and signs for a
hospital and school. The ladies let her off at the petrol station
and waved goodbye before driving on through the town.

Now she had to
decide what to do and say. She did not feel lost, she did not feel
scared or as if she was running away from something. She just did
not know how she came to be here. She had no memories of a life
before today. She felt reluctant to say she did not know why she
was here or where she came from, it sounded weird to talk that way
in plain daylight.

So she found a
twenty dollar note in the bag and walked into the petrol station
checkout. She purchased a coke and a bag of crisps, then asked for
directions to the toilet. In the toilet she washed her face and
tidied herself in front of the mirror. Sure enough she had dark
brown black hair, with a wavy Mediterranean look, and bright blue
eyes in bland but not unattractive face. Her face did not trigger
any recognition in her memory, it was a face that could have
belonged to a hundred people walking along any city street, a plain
Jane face.

She wondered
if she had actually been on her way here, offered a job. Maybe she
had bumped her head and lost her memory which would return in a day
or two. She decided that was the most likely explanation for being
in the middle of nowhere on her own. So, perhaps, she should just
ask the man behind the counter at the petrol station about any jobs
going, say she had been told they were looking for someone to work
in the community and she had made her way here in hope that a job
was on offer. So she asked the attendant if he knew of any jobs
here.

He looked up
at her, showing little surprise and was not unfriendly. “Well we
are not looking for anyone here right now, but I hear tell the shop
just across the road is. They were expecting someone to come from
the town the day before yesterday, to do some bookwork and ordering
along with stacking shelves, but the lady never showed. Perhaps
they got their days mixed up. It may be the job you heard about. So
why don’t you head over there and ask about it. The lady in
charge’s name is Matilda, maybe she is expecting you.”

So she walked
across, carrying her overnight bag. An aboriginal lady was serving
at the checkout and she asked if she was Matilda. Instead she was
directed into a small office at the side. Another older aboriginal
woman, sitting at a desk, looked up at her with a smile as she came
to the door. She introduced herself and said she understood that
they were looking for someone to work here doing bookwork and
ordering, along with other work, and she hoped they might have a
job for her.

Matilda
explained that the local employment service in the main town had
been seeking a book keeper type person for her. The last one had
fallen through, so now the job was hers if she wanted it. It seemed
straightforward. There was a detached building, a one bedroom
cottage, behind the shop. It went with the position. The salary was
$40,000 for working five days a week as a shop assistant book
keeper. She agreed and the job was hers.

They would
sort out the paperwork later but Matilda was glad to have engaged
the services of Jane Bennet. She was shown to a second desk with a
computer in the office. It was hers to use along with a set of
files to maintain.

Matilda
suggested that she go to the cottage, have a shower and a walk
around the town to get familiar with her way around, then come back
after lunch when she would be taken through their systems for an
hour or two before she began proper work tomorrow.

Matilda called
out in an unfamiliar language to the lady at the checkout. She
brought in a set of keys to the cottage which she handed to
Jane.

Now almost a
year had passed, she was Jane Bennet, she lived on a small
aboriginal community on a place called Cape York in north
Queensland. She had two children almost a year of age, delivered in
the local hospital with a minimum of fuss, she had given them the
names Anne and David Bennet, children of Jane Bennet, father
unknown. She knew Anne and David were their right names, though she
had yet to choose middle names. She thought she should know what
these were but could not remember.

A year on her
new life was beginning to create its own new memories and joys. She
was planning a birthday party for her two babies in a month’s time,
a time when her extended friends of the community would come and
celebrate this landmark with her.

Only
occasionally, like last night, did she wake up with fragments of
another life somehow running through her mind and body. But, as
always, with the new day her current and simple reality
returned.

It was a
reality where hers was the only body alone in the bed, except
sometimes when her children cuddled with her. It was a reality
where she felt almost no curiosity about what had been before. It
was a reality where, if someone had asked her if she was happy, she
would have said yes. She could think of nothing else she wanted or
of any other place she wanted to be.

Vic had spent
a week mustering on Vanrook Station, way up towards Cape York on
the eastern corner of Gulf of Carpentaria in North Queensland. It
was a huge block, several adjoining stations under the same
management running to over four million hectares with somewhere
around a hundred thousand cattle. They had a few dry years but last
wet and this had been good and they were now putting together lots
of export steers to go out of Karumba for the South-East Asian
markets, Indonesia mainly.

It was further
east than he knew or had ever worked before, but beggars could not
be choosy, he had a big loan to pay back for his new helicopter. So
he had sucked up the offer of this block of work and ferried across
from Borroloola after two days of work for Macarthur River Mine,
looking at prospective sites, just over the NT border. Next week he
was booked to work in the Barkly Tablelands and the week after Buck
had booked him to do work in the VRD.

So he had two
solid weeks of mustering after this job before he was taking a week
off to go to Darwin to meet with Anne and Alan and see how the
investigation into Susan and the other missing girls was
proceeding.