I Got His Blood on Me: Frontier Tales Page 5

  I laughed quietly. Ignoring this, he watched Hine again, scratching at the topmost bandage on his thigh.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone you came here,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anyone where we are.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said.

  ‘Swear on Mary’s life. I’m not joking, Miller.’

  ‘On Mary’s life,’ I said, wincing.

  Easing his bad leg in front of him, its cocoon of bandaging, he nodded.

  Now the food was ready. Hine brought it in wooden bowls, first to me, then to Smith. It was a thin sort of soup with joints of eel submerged and flaking in its depths. I was hungry and it smelled very good. It seemed we would eat inside. This surprised me. I also waited for someone to give some kind of karakia kai, but Smith’s head was bent over his food before Hine had even sat down. She lowered herself to a stack of hessian next to the fire, and I caught her smiling in the direction of Smith again—he was guzzling loudly—and knew I was being mocked somehow. She seemed to find it endearing, how much Smith was enjoying making me uncomfortable. I tried to make allowances for him. Nevertheless I remained with my bowl in my lap, waiting, and at last Hine said a few words in a blessing I’d never heard before, then gestured at my food to indicate that I should begin.

  I began the meal politely, but it was good, if a little light on the salt. As I ate it came to me that it was now normal not to tell Mary I’d be eating elsewhere, and it saddened me. I thought of flipping out my phone to text her, and didn’t. I hoped she wasn’t worried.

  ‘Thank you for the food, Hine,’ I said. ‘It’s very good.’

  She met this with a smile, then returned to her own meal. Everything about her, about this place, made me feel coltish and uninitiated. She seemed someone of vast resources. She was altogether nicer than Smith, but already I could see she would be just as impervious to me as he had been, perhaps more so. Dipping a surreptitious finger in my food, I wondered about their relationship. I wondered what she made of Smith, his reduced circumstances, whether she’d thought of leaving him while he’d been away.

  Smith barked into my thoughts. ‘Don’t think about us, Miller,’ he said. ‘You leave us alone, after this.’

  I nodded, blushing.

  ‘We’re all right,’ he said. ‘Me and Hine. Don’t you think about us anymore.’

  Again I nodded. I kept my eyes focused on the ground.

  ‘We’ll recover from this,’ he said. ‘My leg—we’ll recover. We’ll survive.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you both will.’

  I felt more than saw him bend over his food again. Hine had not lifted her eyes. I finished my meal in silence, timing it to coincide with hers. Almost immediately, she was crossing the room, lifting away my bowl.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It was very good.’

  She went to Smith. As he handed up his bowl something passed between them, a murmured and coded endearment that I couldn’t hear, but which drew a smile from Hine, and as she straightened she lent her hand on his knee as if for balance but really for the contact, and he chucked her behind the ear, laughing. Then he offered up another sentence and she laughed and pushed his shoulder, the one that didn’t have the butterfly wound, mock-admonishing him in reply.

  I stood and cleared my throat. ‘I’ll leave you now,’ I said. ‘Thank you again.’

  They looked at me as if surprised to find me still there, or by the sudden dimensions I had taken in the room. It was a moment before they said anything.

  ‘Don’t say thank you all the time,’ said Smith.

  ‘Pardon?’

  He wouldn’t meet my eye. Instead he looked beyond me to the dark rectangle of door. ‘Don’t say thank you all the time,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  He gave me a twisted sort of smile, and I realised I’d just received the closest thing I would get to a direct thank you from him.

  Hine came across and took my hand. Again I was too embarrassed to mention the food I was leaving in the bags, and I soared with an absurd hope that she hadn’t seen them yet. She squeezed my hand, then stood back and nodded rather finally, and it was clear that she never expected to see me again.

  I went to the door and gave a dorky little wave, then ducked out.

  ‘Wait,’ said Smith. He had one hand on the wall and another on the mat. Slowly he heaved himself up. It was painful to watch, but I didn’t go to him, and Hine didn’t either. She studied the floor instead, as if to watch him in this moment of debilitation would steal something important from him.

  At last he was at the door, supporting himself on the door-poles. He poked his head out, looking round the clearing and then upstream. The light coming from behind him caught his hair, and I wondered what Hine would make of its new and shampooed bounce and smell. I hoped she would tease him.

  ‘Goodbye, Miller,’ he said. He extended his hand, and I took it.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  He shook his head to remind me what he’d said about that. With his palm, he indicated the harakeke, the creek beyond it, the way home.

  The Starlet seemed oddly hollow on the remaining drive, a thin rattlebox that whined its small way up the motorway to Paraparaumu, then down the side-road to Paraparaumu Beach. The village was quiet and closed, Kāpiti Island sleeping on the water beyond the Parade. In the dark I trundled my car onto Wharemauku Road and parked behind Mary’s.

  Inside, she was sitting with her knees up on the couch. Her laptop wasn’t on, not even open. She was watching an American show. She looked different in her face—something had gone from it.

  ‘How are you?’ I said, quietly.

  She shrugged, and I wanted to sit beside her.

  The show resumed and I stood there a moment longer, then went across, watching the TV without speaking. Not touching her yet. The house standing silent around us, all the rooms doused in the quiet that follows a big argument.

  At length a commercial break came. ‘How was your friend?’ said Mary.

  ‘He gave me dinner,’ I said. ‘His wife did.’

  ‘That was good of them,’ she said. She was three-quarters facing away from me, watching advertisements for holidays we could no longer afford. She shifted and her hand brushed against mine, and I surged with a wave of hope and pain.

  ‘I’m going to retrain,’ she said, still not facing me. ‘I’ve decided.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said.

  The show came back on and we watched it a little longer. A father was negotiating a crisis in the family home by running loudly up and down the stairs, reversing then reinstating his decisions about the children. The laugh track didn’t even annoy me.

  ‘What in?’ I said. ‘At uni?’

  I felt Mary shrug, rather than saw her. ‘Who cares?’ she said. Then, more gently, ‘Anything. I don’t mind.’

  I squeezed her hand, then she took hers away, and we watched the show until it ended. Then Mary stood and went away to the shower and I wished that she’d kissed me before leaving, just pressed her lips to the skin below my eye. While the credits rolled I let the moisture of that imagined kiss slowly leave my cheekbone. Then I heard the shower come on and took a moment to duck out to my shed.

  In the backyard the night was still and cool, sea sounds coming from just a few houses over. The dew had made the shed door sticky, and it made a tinny sound when I pushed in.

  The lights took a while to warm up. I’d fitted energy-efficient bulbs and I was still getting used to them. Everything was in its place, though, if a little neglected. A book was propped open on my armchair, a mostly-drunk cup of tea on the table at the side. From my desk in the far corner my laptop showed its screen blackly.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said, pointing at it. ‘It starts tomorrow.’

  I was meaning my job search, because it was time I got back to it. But there was scarcely any evidence of it there. All that was spread over the bench and the spare seat was the Smith material, all my books
and scribbled notes and theories. It shamed me to see its quantity, how much the project had enveloped me. All those notes I’d taken, all those stories and lies I’d listened to. You wanted to hear them, he’d said. You enjoyed them.

  THE PATHWAY

  It should have been a safe enough crossing. The Turakina had been swollen—not flooded, but swollen. It was easily fordable. Had Burtt not purchased a poor horse and ridden it bizarrely, he could have come across in perfect safety behind Marcus. Yet Burtt had done those things. He’d ridden a flighty horse in eccentric fashion, and accordingly he had been thrown.

  Sitting upright in the night, alone in his asthmatic vigil, Marcus confronted these facts about his friend. It pained him to do so—it pained him to think poorly of a man so possessed of the true zeal—but he couldn’t sleep, and it hurt to breathe, and he couldn’t put the knowledge away from him any longer. Burtt had failed in the first practicality of ministering. He had failed to stay alive.

  *

  It had been raining all day. They’d left Te Awanui that morning and as they travelled the rain only intensified, beating and plucking at their hats and their hands where they held the reins. Marcus was in the lead, picking first along the trail on Pono, his large and implacable mission horse of these past several years, Burtt coming along behind.

  Marcus was keen to get home. He’d been a fortnight at Te Awanui and even now as they rode the younger man was talking of the mission—his still-burgeoning congregation at the pā, the new church the people had built, and the kindness they’d shown his wife, who was again with child. He was full of the fruits of the Lord’s work, and Marcus was pleased for him, but in the past weeks he’d heard a lot about Te Awanui. Subtly he urged Pono forward, not out of hearing range but almost, so he could still hear Burtt and respond when required, but savour as well the flick of wet mānuka against his hands as he went through, the high silence of the leaking sky.

  No one seemed to have travelled their way that morning and Marcus was first down the path that led to the Turakina. He found its surface brown and high and circling. In a moment Burtt came down the bank too and reined in, the river’s bulk forcing him quiet. In the rain they faced it, Marcus on his larger horse, the smaller man beside him, rain dripping from their hat-brims.

  ‘What do you think, Reverend?’ said Burtt. ‘Is it fordable? I didn’t think it would be this high.’

  ‘Certainly it can be crossed,’ said Marcus.

  Burtt fell silent, and Marcus let it stretch out for a time. Burtt had been in the colony three years now, but was still his junior in most things.

  ‘We could ford it here,’ said Marcus, ‘but these are shifting sands. It would be easy to bog the horses.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Burtt.

  ‘I saw a man get stuck badly here, once,’ said Marcus. ‘It took some work to free him.’

  Burtt said nothing.

  ‘I think we would be better at the river mouth,’ said Marcus. ‘Are you confident of crossing, John?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Burtt. ‘But we would be in deeper water, at the mouth. It would be tidal water, too.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Marcus.

  They surveyed the river again. There were no branches or trees coming down—it was not that flooded. It was only swollen, but it was a difficult river in the best of conditions, and it would be a demanding swim for the horses, and there was the quicksand.

  ‘I think we should try here,’ said Burtt. ‘It might not be as bad as we think. Let me try.’

  ‘Allow me,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ll go on Pono. He has the experience. He won’t panic, should the riverbed be sticky.’

  Burtt nodded and eased back.

  Marcus paused to ready Pono, then kneed him forward. There was a bank before the shallows, then the main bulk of water, and the big horse went in willingly—he was a strong swimmer; if it could be crossed, Pono would ford it—but no sooner were they in the shallows than he sank almost to his belly, water climbing up Marcus’s legs while the horse laboured to pull free and turn around. A long moment of sloshing followed, Pono snorting with the effort of fighting the sand and turning free; then they were pulling back up the bank, water streaming from Pono’s legs and down.

  ‘We’ll have to try the mouth,’ said Marcus. ‘It’s not possible here.’

  ‘Have you crossed there before?’ said Burtt.

  ‘I have,’ said Marcus. ‘How’s your horse in swimming? I trust he is sturdy.’

  ‘He’ll be good for it,’ said Burtt. ‘He’s a fine river-horse now. We’ve had a lot of practice.’

  Marcus did not look at the horse beneath Burtt for fear he might betray his misgivings about it. He didn’t trust the creature, but he hadn’t been there at the purchase, and Burtt had to be free to make his own decisions. ‘Let’s move on then,’ he said. ‘It is raining.’

  And so they turned and tracked downstream with Marcus in the lead, rain drumming on the two men and their horses, the Turakina sliding thickly by beside them. Marcus was keen to get through. A tremendous load of work awaited him at his own mission, and after another hour or two along the way towards Ōtaki, Burtt would turn round to make Te Awanui by nightfall, and from there the remainder of the day’s riding would be left to Marcus to complete on his own.

  At the mouth the noise was considerable. The river was high and turbulent where it met the incoming tide, and the surf beyond made a pouring noise. The footing seemed safer, though, the sand beaten to a firm bank by the years. It would be a stern swim for the horses, nothing more.

  ‘Are you ready, John?’ said Marcus. The surf and rain made his voice small, so he said it again, for the certainty. ‘Are you ready, John?’

  Burtt looked at the river and nodded firmly. ‘I am.’

  ‘Straight on, then. Stay close to Pono—he’s been through before. What are you doing, John?’

  Burtt had lifted out of his stirrups and was kneeling on top of his saddle. All his weight was balanced on his knees up there.

  ‘What are you doing, John?’ said Marcus. ‘Why are you seated that way?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Burtt. ‘I’ll cross this way.’

  ‘I would not attempt that, John. It’s not safe. You should remain in the saddle. It’s not safe up there.’

  ‘This is the way I do it now,’ said Burtt. ‘Pegasus and I—we cross this way.’

  The reins were too tight, gripped hard so Burtt could maintain his kneeling balance, and now—as if on cue—the horse pranced and threw its head. The bit was pulled too severely; the horse’s jaw stood out while he snorted and danced.

  ‘I must counsel against that,’ said Marcus, when the horse had settled. ‘It’s too dangerous. You need more control—particularly in these waters, John. You can see that the river is swollen.’

  ‘This is the way I cross,’ said Burtt. ‘I do it this way, now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It keeps me dry,’ said Burtt. ‘I can’t get wet.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I can’t get wet,’ said Burtt. ‘I remain dry this way.’

  Marcus considered the rain falling on them, falling on everything. He waited for Burtt to consider it too. When he didn’t, Marcus said, ‘But you are already wet, John. We both are—the rain.’

  Burtt’s face closed. ‘I’ll cross this way.’

  Marcus adjusted the lie of his own reins. He did not want to harangue Burtt, but neither could he allow him to attempt such a crossing. ‘Are you concerned that, should you get wet, you’ll fall ill? Is that your fear?’

  The younger man did not reply. Instead he held the reins too tight, forcing the horse to toss his head again, and fixed his attention on the river in front of him.

  ‘If you are worried about getting wet and falling ill, we could dry off on the other side, John,’ said Marcus. ‘We could build a fire and dry our clothes before we move on. Lord knows I, of all people, would not wish illness on anyone.’

  Burtt did not smile at the reference. Scarce
ly anyone on the coast was unaware of Marcus’s asthma or its tendency to debilitate him, but Burtt gave no sign of that now. He simply shook his head and grew more determined. To save him, Marcus glanced away. Perhaps the man was concerned for Mrs Burtt. Perhaps he did not want to fall ill with a child expected. It was a fair concern—they’d lost two already, Marcus knew, one before birth and one shortly after—but it was clouding his judgement.

  As if he’d heard his thoughts, Burtt glanced sharply at him. ‘I am ready, Reverend,’ he said. ‘This is the way we cross now, Pegasus and I. We’ve crossed many rivers this way.’

  ‘Be careful, then,’ said Marcus. ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like the way you’re mounted, but I trust you. I trust your judgement, John.’

  Burtt nodded and adjusted his kneeling position.

  Marcus brought Pono alongside, in order that he might calm the smaller horse.

  ‘We should come out near that point there,’ he said, pointing. ‘We’ll be carried a short way, I expect, but I doubt we’ll go much past there.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Marcus. ‘Straight on.’

  The first few yards were straightforward, Pono’s hooves firm on the river floor while the water pushed coldly at Marcus’s trousers and into his boots. Then the depth increased suddenly and the current shoved from the side, and Pono’s legs began to beat out in front, and Marcus leaned up with the reins knotted loose in his mane, encouraging him. They were making downstream, the bank sliding by on the far side, but not enough to concern him. Even in this current Pono was strong underneath him. Marcus winced as the water stole higher and clutched through his trousers at his groin.

  Then Burtt made a sound and Marcus turned. Burtt’s horse was well back and its head was up—he’d reared. Burtt was off the horse and falling sideways.

  ‘John!’

  From his horse Burtt fell slowly and unresistingly as if into a bed, and just as gently the water closed brownly over him. It removed his hat and circled it lazily downstream to bump and eddy on the surface. No hand came up, no sign of swimming struggle. Burtt’s horse turned and began swimming back towards the bank, abandoning him.