‘You will see, Dannyboy,’ she sings to a tune of her own making, ‘how I can cope on my own and look after the farm.’ Then she adds, on a sadder note, ‘But come back soon, my darling man, for your sweet wife is lonely.’
She drips her way inside, tears off her sodden clothes, pulls a dry shirt of Danny’s over her head, then wraps an old blanket around her waist. Her sodden dress and jersey lie where they fall. Outside she can hear the water lapping at the porch steps. Stella rubs at her hair, looking around the house, planning the next move. This is like war, she thinks: me against flood.
An hour later the first creeping finger of water runs under the door. Stella lifts the sack of flour and places it on the table. The precious bag of sugar and tin of tea follow. Soon the table is piled with food, the mattress, blankets, the rug and their pillow. Stella looks around for any other soft thing. The towel, her pile of clean sacks, waiting for any of many uses. She leaves her wet clothes; they are already floating.
There is a desperate scratching at the door. Stella is unwilling to open it but Danny would never forgive her if she let Finn be swept away.
‘Quick, in with you!’ she says. In the brief moment the door is open a gush of muddy water enters. Finn shakes himself vigorously, showering Stella’s dry clothes. When she shouts at him he flattens himself to the floor, loads his hair afresh with water and goes through the whole drenching process again. Stella can only laugh. She guides him up onto the bare boards of their bed, where he is for the moment above the rising tide.
Water pours in under the door, spreading wide and dirty over the floorboards. Stella tries stuffing a sack against the flow but the water is too strong. Inch by inch it rises. There is a crack in the wall almost a foot up from the floor and already water is pouring through it in a steady stream. Stella lights a lamp and hangs it high from the rafters. With a sigh and a cloud of sooty steam the fire on the hearth is extinguished. Now the rising water is black with ash. Stella stands ankle deep in the icy mess, holding the precious sack of seed potatoes which cannot find space on the piled table. She climbs onto the bed with the dog. He whines and pushes his muzzle into her leg. The water continues to rise. Finn growls at it; his hackles rise. He lowers his head and eyes the water but it will not hold still like the sheep.
‘Oh Finn,’ says Stella, fearful now and glad of his bedraggled presence. ‘Please God it won’t rise any further.’ But it does, gradually reaching the top of the bed-boards. Stella shifts to the bench, which is only a few inches higher.
An hour later the water stops rising. Stella is still on the bench, her feet propped on the stool and the seed potatoes still cradled in her arms. Finn shivers on the submerged bed-boards. Stella shakes too. The blanket is a blessing but her hands are not free to pull it up around her shoulders. She would give anything for a hot drink.
‘Danny, Danny,’ she moans. ‘Come home, my Dannyboy.’ Her head rests on the rough hemp of the sack but she dares not fall asleep. What if Danny is caught in this flood? It will be far worse downriver. Stella imagines the great volume of water from the Ohura River and all the other tributaries that drain into the Whanganui. Surely the farms below the gorge will be swept clean away.
As dawn breaks, the water level inside the house begins to fall. Stella stands stiffly, heaves the wretched sack of potatoes to her shoulder and wades to the door. One-handed, she drags it open. Finn splashes over and they both watch as the water drains away out of the house, down into the waterlogged paddock below. Here is a new heartbreak: to see the goodness in the soil, the new-sown grass and most of the vegetables, sucked into the roaring muddy Ohura and away downriver.
LATER THAT MORNING, as she is sweeping the last of the water over the doorstep, she sees Danny walking up over the paddocks.
‘Dannyboy!’ shouts Stella. ‘Oh Danny!’
He looks up for a moment, shielding his eyes, lifts a tired hand in greeting and plods on. Something about the way he walks — hatless, coatless, empty-handed — frightens her. There is also the fear of what she might hear.
Finn streaks down the field, yapping his greeting. Danny touches his nose but shows none of his usual exuberant affection for the dog. Finn’s tail droops. He settles quickly and trots quietly at his master’s heels, looking up, ready for instructions that do not come. Danny looks right and left at the devastation — mud where grass should be, fences lying flat, a dead sheep caught in the wire. On he comes, up onto the porch and into Stella’s arms. He lays his head on her shoulder with a deep groan and stays there, wordless, while she rocks him. He begins to sob then — dry, hopeless sobs the like of which she has never heard from him. Finn whines in sympathy.
‘Dannyboy, Danny love,’ says Stella. ‘You’re home. It’s all right, sweetheart.’
But he won’t be comforted. His clothes are torn and sodden, his muddy hair plastered flat to his head, his face lined with exhaustion. All he can do is bow his head on his wife’s shoulder and sob.
Stella strokes his back as if he were a baby. Seats him gently on the porch bench. ‘It’s not all lost, sweetheart. I saved all the food inside, and most of the kitchen garden. See?’ She shows him the sack of potatoes on the porch. ‘And I took Freda and Nick to high ground. They are safe. Also the chickens. Oh, I worked so hard all night, Danny. You would be proud of me how I managed.’
He looks up at her sadly then. ‘You manage better without me, Stell, and that’s the truth.’
She chatters on, still high-spirited from the dangers of the night. ‘The water came right into the house, Danny — you should have seen it! I piled every stitch of clothing and blankets on the table …’ She breaks off at his impatient shrug.
‘Aye, girl, I’ve got the message. You needed no man to lend a hand. You did just fine while your husband was away ruining his life forever.’
‘Oh Danny.’ Stella could bite her proud tongue out. ‘I missed you so much.’
‘So you say now.’
‘Sit here. I’ll get a fire going.’
She takes the axe and picks her way through clinging mud to the lean-to at the back of the house. The wood at the top of the stack is still dry. She splits one of the logs into kindling. It is a task she enjoys — the rhythm of it and the accuracy; the thunk at the end of each stroke as the iron blade beds into the soft wood of the old stump. Back in the house she coaxes a fire into healthy life and sets the kettle to heat. The sobbing on the porch has stopped but now there is silence — no reassuring rumble of his voice, no kind word for the dog. Stella has to know.
‘What is it, Danny? Tell me!’ She stands in front of his drooping figure but he will not look up. She goes to touch him, but before she reaches him he is on his feet and off the porch, down into the sea of mud below. Dogged, silent, he makes his way to the far end of the paddock, hauls at a fallen fencepost, heaving it upright, then wades through mud to the next and the next. As he sets each one straight he whacks it hard with a loose post, driving it back into its waterlogged hole. The strength it must take to haul post and wire out of the clinging mud can only be guessed at, but Danny works on, raising the free post high above his head each time to bring it down with a thud that echoes off the watery field. She can see each shockwave run through his body.
‘Come in! Come in and eat!’ calls Stella, startled and a little frightened by what she sees. Danny does not even glance in her direction. He must be driven far inside himself to behave so. She goes to the kitchen garden, ostensibly to gather or replant uprooted vegetables but in truth to watch over him. Now he is striding up the hill towards the animals. Stella runs after him.
‘I have taken straw up,’ she shouts. ‘I’ve seen to them.’
He stops. Turns to looks at her. ‘That is my task,’ he says. ‘You could leave some small thing for your husband to do.’ His blue eyes seem almost black as they stare at her. She can see his legs trembling through his torn trousers.
‘Danny,’ she whispers, ‘Danny, it’s all right. The girl was saved, she is not drowned.’
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‘I know that.’ His voice grates, not quite in control.
Stella is a little frightened of him — the first time she has ever felt fear in his presence — but she continues.
‘Danny, you’re too tired. Not thinking right. Come in and eat something.’
He stands there, looking at her, breathing hard. She reaches out to take his hand. ‘Danny? It’s so good you’re back. God knows I need you, with all this …’ she indicates the ruined fields and tries a smile, ‘… this bloody mess.’
He comes then, walking silently beside her. She can feel his hand in hers shaking violently. At the back door he stops suddenly.
‘Stella … Stell.’
She waits. At least he has spoken her name.
He groans. ‘Oh dear God, Stell.’ He is swaying, almost out on his feet.
Stella pulls him inside. ‘If you have lost the logs we can still manage.’
‘It’s not that.’
Stella thinks he means the girl. That they might come for him and take him to prison.
‘Come in and warm yourself,’ she says, drawing him forward gently as she would a wounded animal. ‘We’ll manage the other things later.’
He lets her fuss over him, stands silent as she draws off his wet shirt, clucking at the cuts and scratches. He will not look at her but his expression softens at her chatter, her rough worker’s hands towelling him dry.
‘Holy Mother, look at this bruise! Blacker than Satan himself, God bless us. Oh Danny, I worried that you might be gone. I couldn’t have borne that. And the rain last night! You should have seen the flood. But were you out in all that? What is it like down at the landing? Now, where are your good trousers in all this mess? If you are not made decent this minute I will be getting ideas, you bad man.’ And then, seeing him sway, ‘Danny, love, sit down in the name of Heaven before you keel over.’
Danny sits, meek as a lamb, by the fire. Drinks his sweet tea and chews on a wedge of raisin loaf. The colour begins to creep back into his face, but he shakes still, and will not look up.
Finally he speaks. ‘I have lost the logs.’ He glances quickly up at his wife and then down again.
Stella draws in a breath, remains silent for a moment. ‘Well then,’ she says at last, ‘I had guessed that. Nor was I ever a great one for the logs, if you remember. A madcap scheme. At least we have you back in one piece.’
Danny looks into the fire. His voice is so low she can hardly hear. ‘Was the steamer damaged?’
Stella is eager to reassure him. ‘Damaged a little. Not too bad. Some plates bent. Rivets lost. She set off downriver next day.’
‘And the girl?’ Danny’s voice is stronger when he mentions her.
‘All we know is Charlie Chee took her to Pipiriki House and she is safe. Alive.’
Danny sighs. Nods. A little smile nudges the corners of his mouth. ‘Good. The sweetest young lady. At least she survived.’
After a moment Stella adds, ‘She is a McPhee, Danny.’
Danny looks up at that. ‘Strange … struck by the log her father was on fire to buy … very strange …’
‘But how did you come to hit? What happened?’ Stella needs to hear the rest: why he would risk that rapid before the Wairua steamed up it.
Danny presents both hands to her, palms up, fingers spread. It is a gesture she knows well — one he uses when he has made a mistake and wishes to exonerate himself. As if to show her that his hands are clean. Like Pontius Pilate, she thinks disloyally. His voice rises higher as he speaks. Indignation is there, but also fear.
‘We waited and waited. He wanted to go … Pita … He was pushing at me to take risks — you know how he is, Stell. I said wait longer. He laughed at me for a coward. Still no boat came … Pita was drunk — hard to hold back … then even I thought the Wairua wouldn’t come … thought maybe they had cancelled because of the high river …’
Stella bristles. ‘You should know better than that, Danny. They never cancel.’
He looks at her, frowning. She has the sudden impression that he had forgotten she is there. ‘Well, maybe, yes, it’s easy to say that now. You weren’t there, Stell. Pita was … difficult. He untied one rope and was worrying away at the other. By the time I noticed, the raft was swinging out. I could have stopped, I suppose.’ His eyes plead with her to understand. ‘I was angry … desperate.’
He tells then of the approach to the rapid, the fierce pull of it. His fear at seeing two deckhands on the bank at the top of Ngaporo with a winching rope around a tree, that sighting coming at the very moment the rapid dragged them into the V of fast water. Then the helpless rush towards the labouring steamer. If the Wairua had been in the centre of the rapid, says Danny, the boat would surely have been destroyed, but the winching line pulled her a little to one side, away from the roughest water, so the collision was a glancing blow.
‘Even so, the shock tipped us both into the river …’ Danny hesitates, frowning. ‘I can’t remember … I heard screaming. The river took me close to the bank and I held to a branch there for a moment … could see the Wairua pitching … heard screaming again. The boat seemed to steady … the winch was holding … then Ngaporo ripped me away and down I went. At the bottom I saw the raft and tried to swim to it …’ He hesitates again.
‘Go on,’ says Stella. She wants to keep him talking. Wants to get at whatever is really troubling him.
‘I think the raft must have hit me then. The rear end was swinging out.’ He looks up. ‘That might account for the bruise, Stell. I don’t remember how I came to the bottom of the other rapid.’
He remembers bumping over rocks and boulders in the shallows. Remembers the shock of seeing the girl floating face down there beside him. When he turned her over she lay in the water — drowned, he thought — staring up at the sky with empty eyes.
‘I dragged her to shore, poor wet thing. Dear God, I was desperate, Stell, thinking we had caused her death with our mad scheme.’ Danny’s speech slows.
Stella prompts him. ‘And Pita?’
Danny doesn’t answer. Perhaps he didn’t hear. After a while he clears his throat — a rasping bark that shocks her after his jumbled words. ‘I don’t care about the logs. After …’ he coughs again as if clearing away the drowning water — or other worse memories. ‘… After that, I had no more stomach for logging. I walked home.’
‘You walked all the way up?’ Stella smiles at him, amazed. ‘Holy Mary! But you had to come home to your wife, my sweetheart. And now you need to sleep.’
Indeed, Danny’s eyes are already closing. He sways forward towards the fire.
Stella takes his arm, guides him towards the bed. ‘You saved the girl, Danny. That will surely count in your favour.’
‘I saved her, yes,’ mumbles Danny into her neck. He stands in a stupor as she spreads sacks on the wet bed-boards and then lays down the mattress and blankets. She is surprised to feel him stumble forward, wrapping his poor scratched arms around her, kissing her dreamily. ‘I saved the girl, didn’t I? At least I did that.’
‘Some might even say you’re a hero,’ says Stella, humouring him.
‘A hero!’ He kisses the back of her neck again then pushes hard against her. ‘Come to bed. Come with me, love.’ He is suddenly urgent, fumbling at her clothes.
‘Danny,’ she laughs, ‘I would have thought there was no strength left in you!’ But she lies with him gladly, eager to feel him inside her. The house is a muddy chaos, the farm in ruins, but he is back and in need of her.
Later she asks him again after her brother. ‘What about Pita? Is he all right?’
But Danny is already asleep.
ALL THAT DAY and night Danny sleeps, restless, muttering, sometimes whimpering like a child. In his dreams he relives endlessly the long trek home through the bush: the slapping of wet branches, his own plodding feet, the chilly nights with only ferns for cover. He dreams that the track has disappeared; that the dark bush leans in, mocking him. He hears the crunch of broken bone
and high cries of pain.
The cries are his own. Stella shakes him awake. ‘Danny, love, you would raise the dead with your moans.’
He tries to sit up. Every muscle aches. How long was he walking? Two days? Three? How did he cross the river? Then remembers the canoe he ‘borrowed’ and left tied up but on the wrong bank. It will surely have been torn away in the storm. Another nail in his coffin.
Stella hands him a mug of tea and a wedge of bread. ‘I’ll be off shortly,’ she says. ‘The river is down. The service will be up again.’ She speaks lightly but they are both wondering if she will be welcome down at the Houseboat. If Danny’s actions cost her the job, then they are truly in trouble. It will be months before the farm is back in order.
Danny says nothing. Sucks at his tea.
‘The McPhee girl,’ says Stella. She has his attention now. ‘How did she get to Pipiriki?’
‘I carried her up to the hermit’s hut and he went for Charlie Chee. The Chinese fellow brought his barrow and took the girl to Pipiriki. Then I left.’
‘Why did you leave it to them?’
‘Can’t you see?’ Danny cries out. ‘They might arrest me! I thought maybe the boat was destroyed. And then … Also I had to look for …’ Danny’s face has closed down again.
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