When Darkness Falls (14 page)

“They generally travel in bands. Listen, Mitti. Tell your mother that I have gone into the tall trees, and hope to be home before dark.”

“Is there something wrong, Father?”

“I don't know, son. It may take me some time to find this bird.”

“Can't I come with you?”

“Not this time, son. If it is there, I will find it for you. And Mitti—”

“Yes, Father?”

“Tell Mother that I love her.”

“Ngala!”

“Baa-Loo?”

“Yes. We have to talk. I have wasted much time trying to get to you.”

“Then come to my home. Meet my family, wash and refresh yourself, then we can talk.”

“No, Ngala. We have to talk now. Later might be too late.”

“Let's sit. You watch my back, I'll watch yours. Now, tell me, Baa-loo, what I think it is you have to say.”

“For a start, I don't know how much time we have or whether I was being followed. I don't really know what's happening. I'm only going on my suspicions, together with a
couple of facts. But one thing I do know ... I'm a dead man.”

“Then talk.”

“When I arrived back at Goodji's with all those skins we prepared, she seemed a different person to the one I left. She claimed all the skins, leaving me with nothing. She had even made up another sleeping area for me.”

Go on.

“I was a slave. At the click of her finger, she expected me to do her bidding. She has obtained some dark liquid that turns her into a raging, frenzied bitch on heat, and she expects to have sex two or three times a day. She bathes whenever she feels hot, and I have to carry water for that. She also demands water cooling in the shade to refresh herself.”

“It was while I was carting water that Ludo's widow told me of his death.”

“Ludo? How did it happen?”

“Everyone says his heart just stopped, but she reckons he was poisoned. She said she once saw one of those giant possums that you used to get for Goodji die by poison. It was frothing at the mouth. Well, she said Ludo did the same.” Baa-loo paused. “Your other witness to your freeing, Jardee. He's dead too.”

“Jardee? By poison as well?”

“Who would know? His remains were found after the dingos had finished tearing him apart.”

“And your suspicions?”

“She sent a runner to your old tribe asking that she speak with them urgently ... she said it was of great importance.”

“When did she send a runner?”

“Sometime after Ludo's death. I was already home.”

“During the season of the storms?”

“Yes. Why he risked his life to take such a message for her I do not understand.”

“She has many people bound to her. But how do you know of this?”

“I thought when I saw Umbagai sneak into her gunya that she'd taken another lover. She'd told me to take a long walk. I listened, I heard.”

“I see. Did my tribe come?”

“Not until it was safe to travel. Umbagai returned with them. She told them that you had deserted her. That she had to take another husband to supply her with food, that I am foolish and lazy and cannot hunt. That you failed in your duty as a husband to father her with a child, that you even gave up trying.”

“Then what shall we do? I know that I can not return to my old tribe nor to her. It would mean my death.” Ngala spoke with sorrow. “We are both dead men.”

“Why? Can't we leave and go to the lands where the sun rises, a place that only you know? We could be on our way before nightfall.”

“They would kill my family ... Goodji would see to that. If I am to die, then my family is doomed also, and the others that live with us, my sister and her husband and their children as well. They would kill them all.”

“Then let us take them with us. Where is their tribe?”

“We wait for them now to arrive. We came back early so that I could fulfil my promises to Goodji, so that the skins would be ready for you to pick up.”

“We are ... to die?”

“Only if we stay in the forest, if we stay near the shadows, or the darkness of the tall trees.”

“But night is falling.”

“We will go to the cave with one entrance. One of us will
have to remain on guard all night. Then we might live until the others get here.”

“Let us at least try—”

Ngala heard the whistling whisper of death—the spear came out of nowhere. He yelled a warning as he dived to safety. He saw the glint as the first of the spear tips emerged through his young friend's ribcage. Then Ngala himself felt the impact as a spear struck his back. Then another.

“Spread them out. Let them lay together, and feel the death pain of those who do not honour their commitments!” voices screamed from the shadows.

Baa-loo turned to Ngala, his expression shocked and his eyes pleading. His breath rattled in his throat, in his lungs air mingled with blood. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth. “Forgive me, Ngala.”

Ngala lay face-down in the sand, two spears sticking out of his back. He could feel his life pumping slowly out of him. “You led them to us.”

Tears welled in the boys eyes. “I'm sorry ... so sorry,”
he wept.

“Young brother ... hold my hand in death. Let us go together to the land of the Spirits. Let them know that in death we are brothers, bound by the deceit of a vicious woman who knows
no honour.
”

Ngala watched as Baa-loo's mouth opened in a smile, his teeth framed in red. He watched as the young hunters eyes glazed. And as he felt his life-force slipping from him, Ngala said his silent farewells to his family.

The boy had wondered at his father's words. Tell his mother that he loved her? Everyone knew that. As the shadows fell and grew long, as the light darkened towards nightfall, the
boy found them lying side by side, hands clasped. Their blood, slowly drying, had spread from the protruding spears across their backs to the sand below.

Blinded by tears, Mitticarla ran home to the safety of his mother. Tears flowing in a steady stream down his cheeks, he blubbered out his terrible news. Imagen, his aunt and the other children followed the boy and his uncle. The shadows were deep and darkness was well upon them as they stood, staring upon the forms that laid at their feet.

As Gullia reached out to withdraw the first of the spears, he felt a sudden blow to his own body—screaming out he crumpled to the ground, lifeless, beside Ngala's fallen body.

The slaughter continued. There were no cries, no screams, no fight. At the close of night two families lay in death.

That was how the old grandmother found her family. She began her death chant; the keening that would carry on until she collapsed from lack of sleep and food. She awoke in the coolness of the new day. She lay quietly, gathering her thoughts, then slowly rose, and on shaky legs walked out into the chill of the coming dawn.

“Culla Mubboo. That's the story?”

“Yes.”

“C'mon, Grandad, what happened to the parrots, and what about the vine? I thought this was supposed to be a story about them?”

“Didn't you like the story?”

“Of course I did. I like all your stories, but I thought you were going to tell me about the Crimson Winged parrots and the
Passionfruit vine and how they came to be, and you didn't even mention them.”

“Oh, them things.”

“Yes, Grandad, them things.”

“Well, Grandson, my throat's a little dry.”

“I'll get you a pannikin of tea, if there's any left in the billy, and you can stoke your pipe while I'm gone.”

“Don't forget to bring me a nice hot coal for my pipe.”

“I will. What would you do without me?”

“You coming, old woman?” “Where?”

“With the rest of us. We're moving on. It is time to go. Soon the storms come.”

“No. I'm staying put. I told my mob the last time, before I went walkabout without them, that when I return to this spot, I'm staying for good. They may be gone, but I'm still staying, I'll keep them company for the rest of my days. When all you fellas come round again next time, you can tell me what's happening out there in the world.”

The old woman lived out her life there. Through the years she gathered seeds and fed the birds; she watered plants for their flowers and the honey that the birds would suckle. All around the cave, along the stream, out of the Tall Trees and from the plains, birds gathered around her through the hard times. The tribe still came and went, and the memory of her children stayed with them. The story of their deaths grew in legend.

Then after one trip, the old woman was no more. They found her remains beneath the fragments of the burial
platforms of her children. They left her where she lay, her spirit too long gone to the Spirit world to those she loved for any ceremony to help her on her way. At nights, when the world was still and the stars shone brightly, the tribespeople would talk of the times that had been.

After many years had passed, an old woman of the tribe, with her grandchildren gathered about her, stood solemnly on the place where the bodies had once lain in the sand.

“This is where she found her family. They had all been speared in the back in the darkness of night. No one ever saw, no one will ever know who did it, but we all know that they were taken off guard, for Ngala was the greatest hunter this tribe has ever known. They say his eldest son, Mitti, a boy of ten summers, died standing over his father, defending his family, the last to die.”

“Did you know them? Were you alive when they were here? Where were they buried?”

“I vaguely remember Ngala, he was a giant of a man, I was about six summers when it happened.”

“And the birds and the vine?”

“One season we reached the river late in the afternoon, and as we came down to the water, a flock of beautiful light green parrots lifted from the bank, where they had been drinking and flew to where the vines hang in those trees over there. The next day they were still there, eating the fruit off this vine. We had never seen this vine before, nor had we seen the fruit. It was growing in the very spot where the old grandmother had died, and where we had left her body all those years ago. Then we noticed the markings on the birds. The females and the young were all a pale green, but the males had this splotch of crimson, a blood-red patch on their backs. The very spot where both Ngala and Baa-loo received their fatal wounds.”

“They're very beautiful, aren't they?”

“Yes, and they stay together year after year. How many families? One? Two? The parents and the children always fly together, feed together.”

And so the old Mother kept her promise to her son and her family when she said, “Of course I'll be here. I'll always be here for you and my grandchildren. There will always be food for you and yours in my camp.”

The story of Ningaloo is based in the area from Secure Bay, just east of the entrance to King Sound, north along the coast to Admiralty Gulf. I'd like to think that Cape Voltaire was the end of the world.

The Watjalum people inhabited the region around Secure Bay and Talbot Bay. There are no
living
indigenous people inhabiting the land in this area today. They were rounded up by missionaries at the turn of the century and taken to Sunday Island.

You can't stop progress, you can't stop human nature and you can't stop human greed. Spending millions to make billions isn't greed—it's called Industry. And the guddias ask, Where are the indigenous people of this land? The people are still there, guddias, they might not have human form, but the spirits of people like Ningaloo and all those gone ahead still live. They live in the land and the trees, the rocks and the reefs, the rivers and the creeks, the beach sands—and my story.

Guddias have established a cultured pearl farm in the beautiful, opaline, clear blue waters of those ancient peoples' homeland—the people of my now thin bloodline, the Watjalum people.

“Grandad, I think it's great, you taking me over to cousin Yungaburra's country for the holidays.”

“Well, it's about time I spent some time with my other children and grandchildren.”

“I just wish that they'd put a grader over this road to smooth out all the bumps. Whoops! That was a bad one.”

“Spoken like a guddia. Next you'll be wanting a fridge in the car to make you cool.”

“I've got news for you, Grandad. It's called air-conditioning.”

“There's nothing wrong with the air-conditioning we have right now, it's free and there's plenty of it.”

“It's just that it doesn't cool you down.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Grandad.”

“Don't mumble, boy. It's hard enough hearing you over the rattles of this old bomb without you mumbling.”

“How come cousin Yungaburra lives on the coast? Why doesn't he live like us, along the river?”

“Ah, such is love.”

“What has love got to do with it?”

“Well, it's pretty simple. Back in the days of my youth, the Elders said who was to marry. They arranged the marriages. They kept the blood-lines pure. Now, with white man's education, comes white man's thinking. No longer do the Elders have a say in marriage. Marriage today is controlled by love—or by lust or stupidity.”

“What's lust?”

“You asked about love. People marry for love. It seems that the heart now rules the minds of men. Whoever is the worst struck by love follows the other's will. The woman wants to stay with her people, and the love-struck male falls over himself to go with her.”

“Didn't they have love in the old days?”

“Oh, Grandson. Love is eternal. Love has been in this land for as long as man has walked the face of this earth. We know this from the stories told by the Old People, the same sort of stories that I tell you today. They come from the Old Times. Some of these stories describe the making of our tribes. Sometimes they explain why the land is barren or fertile, how rivers are made, how the mountains and hills come to be, where fire came from, where the great animals went to. Sometimes they tell of great hunters, lonely women, desolate children, but nearly always, somewhere in the telling, there is a smattering of love.”

“I suppose love is a pretty important thing in our lives.”

“Maybe the most important thing. But Nimiluk, there are many different types of love. The love you have for your horse, is not the same as the love I hold for you.

“Let's leave love alone for today, Grandad. Maybe in another year or two ... You mentioned desperate desolate children: I'd love to hear about them.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Please, Grandad. It will make our journey seem shorter and help take my mind off how rough this road is.”

“Well, there was this story I heard as a young fella, but I'm not sure I can remember it. It was long ago.”

“Please, Grandad. Tell me what you can remember.”

“Then again, it might be too long. We mightn't finish it by the time we get to cousin Yungaburra's place.”

“Then we can pull up and rest under a Boab tree, and I'll make you a cuppa, and you can stoke your pipe. We aren't in any real rush to get to cousin Yungaburra's are we?”

“No, Grandson. We have the rest of our lives to get there, and I could do with a break. A good cuppa might make the remembering so much easier.”

“Good. Pull up at the next big Boab and have a stretch while I light a fire.”

“Have you got fire-making sticks?”

“Aw, Grandad, we're modern day blackfellas, we have gas lighters now.”

“When I was a little younger than you are now, my mother took me to visit her mother, your great-grandmother. She lived in the lower part of the great bay the Whiteman calls Secure Bay, but we call it Wotjalum. All that country, that great bay belonged to my grandmother. She was the caretaker of the land, the rivers, the bays, their waters, the reefs. There are many, many islands that stand within the bay, and even some big ones that lie off the coast.

“Once, a great tribe lived in this secluded area. They were of her people, their origins began back before time, when man was akin to the animals they hunted and ate. This is the story of how that tribe came to be, as told to be me by my grandmother all those years ago.

“Some of the people lived along the rivers, some walked the deserts, others lived in the rainforests and the highlands. Many lived along the coast. Most lived amongst the sand dunes and the flood plains. Very few ventured into the harsh, arid, rocky terrain of the hill country that has lain bare and unwanted from the time of its making. Those who did were never heard of again. Passers-by walked the lowlands and looked off into the hills, knowing that death trod there. They felt thankful to be among the rivers and creeks that flowed peacefully, beyond the reaches of despair.

“The people lived a carefree nomadic existence. They multiplied and gradually moved on, discovering new lands, foods and animals. Territorial rights began to evolve, and people gathered together for refuge and the safety of numbers. Slowly tribes came into existence. Power came with
numbers, rules came with domesticity. People learned to live with one another, sharing and bartering for their needs. Those who lived by the sea got to know the fishes and sea-snakes, the reefs and shells, the crabs and the crays, reptiles and mammals, what they ate, where they hunted, the things that they did for pleasure. Strangely, they discovered that the sea-going mammals had a bonding very much like their own, the thing that we call love.”

In those long ago days, the waters that lapped our shores were home to abundant life and alongside then travelled death and destruction in the form of the great white sharks.

Close to the shore, in the tranquil waters of the bays and estuaries lived the mild-mannered mammals that remain today, the dugongs. Then, as now, the dugong gives birth to its young the same way as its distant cousin, man. It suckles its young, as a woman does. The babies cry and mewl as ours; they even shed tears that run down their cheeks. The sound of a dugong infant sobbing is no different to our own children crying. Parents unite as a couple, and remain as a family. They even breath the air as we do.

One young dugong couple, new to married life, were peacefully chomping on the sea-grass, as carefree as any young couple expecting their first child. They were closer to the land than the rest of the dugongs, close to the place where the mother-to-be would deliver her infant. They had chosen the spot carefully. Plenty of overgrown mangroves gave heavy shade in the heat of the day. Natural springs of fresh water bubbled up from the sandy bottom. A barrier of reef at the mouth of the creek would stop the voracious, ever-hungry sharks that lurked in the deeper waters beyond.

Suddenly the vibrations in the water around them changed. Fear came on its pulse and instantly the male was
moving. He shepherded his wife along the shoreline making for the break in the reef to get into the haven of the birthing place. Something massive beyond belief was wreaking havoc amongst his kind, killing indiscriminately for sport. A hunter enjoying itself amongst a panic-stricken mob.

But the dugong's thoughts were only for his wife and his unborn infant. He felt the hunter as it honed in. It was coming for them, its intent was death. He turned to meet the shark. It was over before it even began.

The great white shark powered beyond what was left of the male and sensed the movement of his mate. When she faced him, he dived beneath the grossly disproportionate body, throwing her up and out of the water with one thrust of his gigantic tail. Over the coral barrier she had been racing for she sailed in uncontrolled flight.

Her flukes took the impact, the water helped cushion her fall, but there was not enough depth to free her from all injury. She heard a snap. Pain hit her and she passed out. When she awoke it was night, and only the light of the stars showed her the way. She paddled her flippers, dragging her broken back inch by painful inch until in the earliest hours of the new day she rolled on her back and felt the first pangs of birth.

By the full light of day she blinked her eyes, as her baby gave a lusty wail, crying for its mother's milk. Through bleary eyes the dugong beheld her son. It didn't quite seem right this thing that screamed and bellowed and demanded her attention. It was so ugly ... its flippers weren't as they should be, they wobbled around in all directions. Its tail was rent in two, the flukes torn asunder. This little squealing thing was an abomination. It rolled around, thrusting its tail about until its mouth found the nipple, then it leeched on to the source of warm, life-giving mother's milk.

From that moment it was accepted. But for the supply of
milk to continue the mother had to feed off the grasses and drink from the springs of fresh water nearby. The infant wasn't equipped to join her in her watery environment, to nestle close to her side as she ventured out into the still waters of the open sea. So with a mother's love, she dug out the sand beneath the heavy overhanging mangroves, fed the infant until it slept, pushed it into the security of the shallows and covered it with sand to hold it still and warm while it slept.

Her trips to and fro to feed were agonising but she knew by instinct that survival of her young depended on milk. Returning to her haven beneath the mangrove canopy, she eased herself onto the beach beside her offspring. Using her flipper she threw off the sand again and again. Suddenly she realised something was wrong. Alarmed she cocked her head to one side to see the sand cradle. Through her blurry vision she realised that what she sought was not there. She cried in anguish and clumsily manoeuvred her body back into the water, then frantically searched the bottom along the banks of the creek.

She returned time and again to the sand cradle. In her mind she knew that she had lost her baby, yet her heart told her to keep searching. Finally in deep sadness she turned her weary head towards the hollow sound of surf breaking on the coral, and glided out to sea for the little time she had left.

“Grandad, what happened to the infant? Did a croc get it? Did the sea eagles snap it up and carry it off?”

“Infant is the right word alright, Grandson. Maybe it was the heroism of the father turning at the bay to take on something unknown. Maybe the Spirits of our Ancestors looked kindly on the ordeal that both the mother and the father had to go through
to make sure the baby was born. Who knows? But the gods of the Universe saw fit that she gave birth to a son, a human son.”

“He was a
boy?”

“Yes, Grandson. A baby boy.”

“But that's impossible! A human child?”

“It is only a story. It is the Old People's way of explaining the unexplainable. A mysterious orphan found abandoned, lying in a cradle of sand beneath a mangrove in some tidal creek with absolutely no sign of how it got there.”

“But what happened to the boy? Did he have a name?”

He was found by an old couple, who had tired of the nomadic ways of the tribe, following the same routes every year. These two had sought a haven which would give them plenty of fresh water, plenty of food, as well as protection from the cyclones that came in the time of the rains. A place that would last them for the lifetime they had left.

It was while they were searching they happened upon the child. They had come upon the secluded, sheltered bay, full of reefs with clear blue waters. They smiled at the abundance of wild fruit and medicinal plants, and were enthralled by the variety of sea food. They named the place Ningaloo, after their newfound son.

Here they lived and raised the boy for the next fourteen years. The mother taught him skills of medicine. She showed him how to tan the hides of the animals that his father taught him to hunt, and how to make simple garments for warmth and protection. And she gave him an abundance of love. His father gave him the skills of hunting and tracking, and showed him the wisdom of his years. And he, too, gave him an abundance of love.