Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 6

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 6

 Majura sat on her carved stool by the fire. The twins had brought Matthew in and placed him on the other side of the warm stones that stood around the coals and flames. Matthew had not moved nor shown life from the time he had come over the hilltop. She sat watching the light from the fire dance in his hair. This was truly a wondrous thing, to have hair that sparkled like the low sun striking the river and was the colour of igoldi.

The girls sat on either side, kneeling in the soft sand, neither had said a word but waited for Majura's direction they knew was to come. Before Majura would begin she would listen to the Spirit Winds that formed around the young white boy. The smoke wafted over from the fire to smell the boy, to touch his golden locks and measure the courage or fear that resided now in his soul from the bellowing charge and wounding of the rhino.

Etona lay a few feet away by the side of the wall, moved there to make way for Matthew, unaware he had company by the fire. He lay motionless, only the sweat still running down from his face. His body was still raging from the heat born deep inside, his wound lay hot and festering with the hot yellow poison.

Majura motioned to the closest twin besdie Matthew, "Take away the cloth from his wound that I can see the cut and the place of blood.”

Pathera reached over and removed the now dark stained and crusted bandanna. The flies rushed in and were flicked away with Majura's whisk. She could see the cut by the light of the fire. Using the whisk, Majura pulled at the side of the cut to see into its depth. Its ragged edge and dried blood made it difficult to measure. The deep pungent smell of infection caused by the emptying of his bowls was already tugging at her nose.

"Bring some fresh water and wash out the wound. Look up, you will see a pouch with a mark on it, like leopard paw." Gileni reached up and felt and the different pouches that hung from the thatch roof, all thickly covered with the soot of endless fires.

Pathera had risen to fetch water and left through the doorway. In a few minutes she returned, kneeling by the side of Matthew, she began to rinse his wound with water and with a fine cloth. As she wiped the clotted blood away from the open wound, she revealed a pulsating bubble. Here was the place where the life energy of Matthew was spilling away.

A curved bruise up the leg directed her vision to the exact wound. The horn had touched the flesh and cut right under the tender scrotum into the hollow up into a man. This cut had gone up and punctured a secondary artery. Still dangerous if left open, the boy would have bled to death.

Majura leant closer to see the bubble of blood, and it was then she noticed the mystery that had come in her dreams. The small horn above the greater one on the rhino's lumbering head had cut and formed a shallow round tear on the boy's young spear. The skin that had protected it had been torn and lay bleeding to the side, only a small part of the skin still attached. But clearly there in the light of the fire she could see the marking of the Gods.

The washed white skin clearly displayed a dark round crest of the moon.

"Hawou!" she exclaimed out loud with clicking gums, "Ngai is walking and playing with us.” She glanced over to Etona at the far side dreaming in his own river of swirling fevers. This then, was the coming together of the Two Moons. One black moon and one white moon.

These were the fountain heads of her Dream Visions.

She had seen many miracles of the ancestors and spirits and had walked side by side with Ngai as He strolled in the full glow of the night. This was a great wonder to her. The bones had revealed a storm forming on the horizon. Majura did not know it would come from the son of a chief and a golden haired white boy from a flat blue mountain at the southern end of the world.

She paused for a moment, flushed with excitement. A girlish giggle escaping her old lips to the astonishment of the twins who were still waiting patiently for her commands.

Time to think later and ponder the mysteries running clear now in her mind. The bones would dance late into the night revealing more of the making of this twin journey.

But for now, she had to focus on saving the boy. Ngai would not take gladly to her failing to deliver the boy back to the living. His careful plans and efforts to play with Man would have been lost and his direct anger was something to avoid.

So steadying her mind, Majura focused her Milk Eye into the fire and breathed low and hard. Time to begin to bring this sleeping young warrior back from the near dead.

Of all the small wonders she had encountered in dealing with the white man, none had she so admired than the sowing needles she had bartered from an old missionary woman she had met many moons ago when she had traveled up into the hill country of the Shungwaya people in the north. A new chief was crowned and she had been selected to come and bring blessing and herbs from the ancestors. Washing the royal chief with the blood of a slaughtered goat hung up side down over him, she had adorned him with scented flowers and bitter herbs to watch over him.

The missionaries had come to bring their silent God with long words and singing that never brought the sacred rains. They were allowed to remain with the people but the Chief was understood; although the people would kindly listen to the missionary's speaking, no one was to leave the beliefs of their fathers. The white people came with rare things, always giving to the people to buy their friendship so that they would come to their place of speaking and singing. Like children they gave all they had and they finally left when no one would go to the river and be lowered into the waters. They spoke of love and left in anger.

With the quick flick of a flashing blade, Majura removed the remaining link of bloodied skin of the child. The leather pouch between her dried shriveled breasts opened, Mathew's moon skin kept in it for now, to lay with another.

Majura took the herb pouch from Gileni, opened the thongs that bound it and sprinkled the mixed herbs she had collected from the far fields onto her hand. She then raised her hand and herbs to her open mouth, mixing her saliva with the herbs. Then spitting it all out in her bony hand, saliva strands still clinging to her chin, Majura picked up a black coal from the edge of the fire and began kneading it with her thumb in her palm. This she finally placed in a small clay bowl beside her feet.

The giraffe whisk was brought to the light of the fire where she pulled out a single thin black hair. From the back of the leather pouch that lay between her shrunken breasts, a single needle appeared between her thumb and finger. This she threaded to the dim light of the fire with her single eye, her hands steady and firm.

When completed, Majura rose and moved closer to the boy.

"It was good the golden boy slept, the pain would make it difficult to find the thin red stream that spilt his blood" she thought to herself. "The small stitching would be hard enough without the boy squirming like a snake under your foot.”

"Gileni, bring me some fire, so I can see into the cut"

Gileni picked up a small stick from the woodpile to the side of the fire stones. She put the end of it in the fire until it glowed with a new flame. Withdrawing it, she brought it over the wound and waited patiently. Majura bent over the sleeping boy and with the needle flashing briefly in the firelight, the old woman began her work.