11. The Long Darkness

STEPPING BACK IN TIME Part 11

It was a week or so after the great fire in the hollow tree that a sore on Owongo’s back, one that must have been caused by something being thrown out of the fire in its explosive fury, refused to heal but instead started oozing a sickly yellow pus and hurt him like nothing had hurt him before. And something about it caused a weariness like nothing he had experienced before.

“Take you to Goboloff, he repair you,” suggested his mother, thinking that she could see a shadow of death descending on the boy. The whole idea of being dragged kicking and screaming to the self-appointed witch doctor of the community by the stream that trickled through the valley made Owongo howl in terror rather than in pain. Goboloff had a great notoriety when it came to healing the sick, or usually killing them off, and Owongo had no desire to get killed off.

“Give me day,” he begged her, “the pretty Mirumda coming soon and she heal me.”

Mingey looked at him sympathetically. She was as aware as was everyone in the valley of the shortcomings of Goboloff and had no desire to see her son fall under what was widely looked on as his evil spell.

“Mirumda heal?” she asked, “Mirumda know magic?”

“Mirumda’s mother know mighty magic,” Owongo told her, “Mirumda mother go into forest, find goodness in the trees.”

“Find goodness in trees?” queried Mingey doubtfully. She knew that there were those who professed to know magic, but that it was often nothing more than an imagined power and had no basis in fact.

“Mirumda mother got magic touch,” nodded Owongo.

By some good grace, at that moment the girl who occupied most of Owongo’s dreams turned up. She stood in the entrance of their cave, smiling when she heard Owongo discussing her own mother even though the woman’s reputation had spread far and wide through the community, especially on the far side of the river where Mirumda’s family lived.

“Mum fame spreads even here,” she said with a giggle, and Owongo blushed when he saw who was standing there.

“Mirumda!” he muttered with a smile.

“Mum know herbs,” she contributed, and then she noticed the sore on Oongo’s back. “And mum know salves to heal boy’s back. She have him better in two.”

“Two?” queried Mingey.

“Two days. Two rises of the sun. Two settings of the moon,” smiled Mirumda. “Then Owongo back be healed and Mirumda can kiss him again!”

“Then Mirumda say take him,” sighed the boy’s mother, “for no faith in old Goboloff.”

And so it was. Painfully and with a raging back Owongo set off towards the river, needing to cross it to get to Mirumda’s home on the far side. But that didn’t present a problem. The water was shallow enough for them both to wade across, and warm so that they enjoyed the feel of it on their skins, and in a way it soothed Owongo and gave him some of his strength back.

Everyone who lived on the far side of the river was a great deal more fortunate than the majority of the people in the community, not just because the caves there were larger, and if there wasn’t a cave then crude houses had been built of materials that came to hand, mostly timber from forest trees. It wasn’t that man-made structures were unknown to Owongo because small outhouses were far from being unknown. Even his mother had one where she stored odds and ends that would have cluttered the home cave. But whereas theirs had a fragility that made it unlikely that anyone would want to spend the night in it, there was a sturdy permanence to the one across the river.

Mirumda’s mother was delighted to see them. She had heard of Owongo’s bravery and the way he had saved her daughter and she wanted to have an opportunity to thank him personally for what he had done.

“Mirumda tell Jeweleye about brave Owongo,” she said with a broad and very beautiful smile, Jeweleye being the name by which she was known.

Owongo wanted to say that it was nothing but somehow felt that a self-deprecating comment along those lines would be inappropriate because what he had done had certainly been something.

“Owongo like Mirumda,” he said awkwardly, his face colouring under a layer of dust and grime, “Owongo want to save Mirumda.”

“Then Jeweleye help Owongo,” smiled the woman, and Owongo could see why Mirumda was so special because the girl’s mother had both beauty and charm, as well as a sparkle in her eyes that mirrored that in her daughter’s eyes.

She didn’t seem to rush in any way, but hardly any time had passed before she was urging the two youngsters in front of her and onto a path created by both humans and animals. That path led away from the river and onto an area of marshes where few people needed to go. It wasn’t a place where it was safe for hunters to pursue any prey large enough to be called worthy of the name prey and there were few other things of any worth that might be needed by a community whose requirements were almost invariably basic.

“We find herbs,” she said when Owongo, struggling along, asked why they were seemingly going nowhere.

Owongo knew what herbs were: to him they were sometimes tasty addition to meat and occasionally used by his mother to soothe a fever when he was ill. But he had never heard of anything that had dome much good to open wounds.

As they walked along he began to feel ill as the infection on his back spread into his blood.

“Owongo stop,” he said suddenly, and he sunk to his knees on the moist soil of the swampy land.

Jeweleye looked at him sadly. She knew the boy was in a bad way and that he would be unable to go much further.

“Jeweleye bad, making you walk,” she said sadly, “Mirumda, you wait with Owongo and I hurry to find herbs and stuff.”

“But mum, hurry,” begged Mirumda, taking the boy by one hand squeezing his fingers gently. “Mum find goodness,” she whispered when they were on their own on a primeval marshy plain with the sun beating down on them. And that sun made Owongo feel worse.

“Jeweleye kind,” he croaked as he watched the woman disappear into the distance, pausing as she went to pick this or that from the undergrowth, though what she was picking was unseen by either of them.

The day dragged on and Owongo continued to feel worse and worse. For a start, there was no shelter and the heat from the sun was unremitting.

And as that sun passed its zenith a darkness descended on him, one that stole the senses from his thoughts, and he lay there with his head resting on Mirumda’s shoulder, waiting in a gloom that existed inside his own head for something to happen.

He was, he knew, waiting for the end.

© Peter Rogerson 26.02.22

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