When Darkness Falls Read Online Free Page B

stay.
    When the time came for their leaving, as soon as Nijilla had fallen asleep, Nunjupuni would leave her wrapped in bedding outside her eldest brother’s humpy. Then they would leave. There would be no turning back; they would be committed, and if they were caught they would die. Her brother would know what to do. He would guard and protect the little one as his own, whether they lived or died, and if they should ever return for their daughter, he would leave the choice to the little girl. That was his way.
    Dani had planned to move inland, go south along the coast in the water for a day or two, then move directly inland and keep going until they hit the edge of the great sandy desert, then move north until they found a land that they could finally call home. After five or six summers, they could come this way again, pick up their daughter, and return to their own homelands. But Nunjupuni, willing to give up one love, wasn’t willing to give up the other. All her life, she had lived by the great ocean. Every night she had listened to the sighing of the waves on the shore; in her loneliest hours, the ocean had been her strength, her source of comfort, her security. She couldn’t leave it.
    Up or down the coast, then? Up.
    Nunjupuni knew the lands to the south, and her face was familiar to the people there. No, they had to go north. There, she was not known, neither was he. They would go straight into the water from this very beach, then move night and day northwards, leaving the water only to sleep and find food. Ten, maybe fifteen suns they would travel in the sea, then they would leave it for the land and begin their search for their new homelands, many days further along the coast.
    They should leave as soon as possible. But before they did,Dani wanted just once to hold his daughter. To nurse her to himself, to caress and croon and speak words of love. If they should never pass this way again, at least he would have held this child of his own, and she would know that her father had returned to her, if only for a moment.
    The next night, before midnight, Nunjupuni bought Nijilla with her, and for a small time the family sat and became as one. Too late to undo their decision, they both knew that when Nunjupuni took the child to her brother’s humpy it would be time to go. At last Njilla fell asleep in Dani’s arms. Her mother wrapped her well, then with tears in her eyes left the child outside her brother’s humpy and soon she and Dani were on their way.
    The days passed, the water that once soothed and acted as a balm became daunting in its immensity. Time was passing but they had not travelled far. They realised they had made a bad choice but to change plans now would be stupid. Even though the taste of raw fish, mussels and crabs were beginning to make them feel like retching every time they ate, their love helped them to endure this awful journey in the water.
    One night they slept beneath an overhang of rock and in the morning they were woken by the sounds of voices. They crept to the edge and peered over the lip. Men with spears were coming along the waters’ edge. Others were walking on the sandhill, trying to keep pace with those on the wet sand. Some were talking excitedly and pointing towards where they were hiding. It was too late to get back in to the water and make their way out into deep water as they had planned to do if ever they should run into people. There was only one thing to do; go inland.
    Picking up their gear, and without trying to conceal the fact they had camped in the cave, they climbed out onto the rocks around them and disappeared. Their pursuers lookedout to sea, wondering if they might have taken to the water, but could see no sign of them. They decided it was too late to go back to their camp, so they stayed there overnight. Next morning they decided the quarry had eluded them; they would turn back. A young hunter, going into the bush to have a goona before