‘For Pita?’
‘… Yes.’
‘And the logs?’
‘… Yes.’
‘But you didn’t find them?’
‘No, Stell, I didn’t. I had to come home.’
Stella is puzzled by his manner. There is something here he is not telling her. ‘But Pita might be drowned! The logs might be stolen!’
‘I know that! I know it, Stell!’ Danny is shouting now, tears rolling down his face. ‘I did nothing right. I couldn’t think of anything but to come back here. I ran away, Stell! Ran away from the whole bloody mess.’
‘Ah, Danny.’ Stella sits beside him, lays an arm across his shoulders. ‘It is not so terrible. The Wairua is not badly damaged. Pita is a good swimmer. Better than you. He’ll be alive somewhere.’
‘He won’t, he won’t!’ Danny buries his face in his hands.
‘And the girl is saved. You saved her.’
Danny groans. ‘And then ran away. I left her and ran away. Left it to a Chow. I should have gone with her.’
‘You were worried about Pita,’ says Stella, but she is losing patience with his mood.
Danny clings to her. ‘Don’t go today. Don’t go down there.’
‘I must.’
‘They might come for me! They might take me away!’
‘Oh Danny!’ Stella tries to laugh at his extravagant fears. ‘No one is going to come all this way upriver to find you. We will need my work at the Houseboat; I must go. And I might hear news of Pita.’
But Danny follows her out to the porch, still begging her to stay.
ALL DAY, AS he and Finn search for the straggling sheep, Dannyboy fears what news Stella might bring back. Several of his animals have strayed up into the bracken and are now willing to come back to the higher paddock, which has recovered from the storm and promises better feed than the spurned pig-fern. Danny is heartened by the sight of the animals trotting down out of the bush, their wool full of debris, but at least they are alive. It seems they have lost only two of their small flock. The muddy paddocks steam in the sun. Perhaps the layer of silt will do them good. Danny fixes a gate, chops kindling for the fire, feeds the horse, but can settle to nothing. His hands as he pulls at Freda’s udders are shaking and she will not let down her milk. Danny slaps her side in frustration, earning him a stinging flick from her tail.
The fears return. He imagines Pita’s bloated body hooked out of the river and laid out at Pipiriki for the Morrows to mourn. The smashed nose and broken jaw will be noticed. Questions will be asked. The old hermit will tell what he saw and they will come for him. He imagines Stella’s horror, the Morrows’ disgust. Worst of all, he fears standing in the courthouse for all to hear every moment of his shameful acts. ‘Why did you not alert rescuers to your brother-in-law’s fate?’ ‘What poor kind of fellow are you to run away from responsibility?’ ‘You struck your brother-in-law so hard as to break his jaw?’ The accusations hammer at him as if he is already arrested. He has no answer to any.
‘Stell, Stell, come back,’ he whimpers, but she will not be home until tomorrow. And what dreadful news will come with her?
The flood
Advertisement, Wanganui Herald, May 1904
HIS FIRST SENSATION is of churning. The world has gone dizzy, is turning wildly around him — or is he the one spinning? He has been caught by Tarepokiore. The taniwha in the whirlpool is sucking him down. He spews mightily. The agony in his face seems to slow the spinning and he realises he is indeed in the water, but not the whirlpool. He closes his eyes. The pain is too great.
A little later — how long? — he is aware again of water and of movement. His cheek is resting on something rough. The slight movement of raising his head causes a pain so sharp that he screams and then spews again. Let it lie, this throbbing ball of fire. Let it lie.
Later again — or is he still in the same moment? — he feels a soft tug near his armpit. His jacket is pulled up on that side and something scrapes at his side. Oh, sweet Jesus, let him be free of this pain!
Gradually his foggy brain pieces together what is happening. His jacket is caught on the rowlock of the log raft. Dannyboy hit him! How did he become entangled with the raft? Pita doesn’t remember that bit. The jacket has saved him from drowning. He can feel it now. He is being dragged downriver, his feet trailing in the water and his head resting on the rough bark of a totara log. That is enough to know for now. As long as the jacket holds.
It is dark when Pita’s feet touch the stony riverbed. Here the water is rough and the logs buck, sending stabs of pain through his nose and eyes. They are racing down a rapid. He feels the raft driving faster. It strikes something — a rock — turns agonisingly and then slews, drifting into slower, calmer water in among trees. He feels their drooping leaves touch his battered head, sharp as knives. And now a new danger. Pita shouts in fear as the great totara logs, which have saved him and carried him — how far? — now pin him against the bank, crushing his ribs against the tangle of roots and stones at the river’s edge. He is trapped, air driven from his lungs, feet gripped by bottomless mud, still hooked on the rowlock by his blessed jacket.
Once, twice, Pita hauls breath into his aching body. This is too hard. He would like to sink beneath the water and let it all end. But even that is not possible. He is held — crushed — with his head and shoulders firmly in the air and no firm purchase for his waterlogged feet. A third time he draws breath. Perhaps it is easier this time? Yes, the log is swinging away in the current. But before Pita’s dulled mind can take advantage of the reprieve the raft bumps back, pinning him cruelly all over again.
But that moment of release has given him hope. Surely there will be another; this time he will be ready. Pita feels with his free arm up into the leaves above. His fingers search in the dark for a thicker branch, find one and grip. The other arm is tangled in his sleeve. Pita tries to free it but the pain is too strong. It feels as if the skin is cut there, under his armpit, and the rowlock bites deeper with every movement. He will have to rely on the thin branch above. He waits, clearer in his thinking now, though each rasping breath is still agony.
When the moment comes it is all too easy. The totara relents, moves away, gently as a floating feather. Pita hauls on his branch, kicks free of the mud and rolls over onto the raft. There, blissfully on his back, he pats the timber — his saviour and tormentor.
‘You are mine now,’ he growls, ‘so watch out!’
Two days later Pita remembers those words and snorts. He should have known his Whanganui better. Ownership can never be taken for granted where this river is concerned.
PITA IS STILL on the same isolated bend of the Whanganui when the water begins to rise. Two nights and one day he has lain on the bank. He has done his best to secure the raft, has pulled fern leaves down and made a cover for the cold nights, but he can manage little before his strength gives out. Racked with thirst, he has crawled to the water’s edge to cup water and drink. The supplies are gone — washed away, no doubt, when they struck the steamer — likewise mooring ropes and oars. The knife at his belt and the warm jacket are his only valuables. Whenever he falls into a restless sleep, Pita is tormented by nightmares. Again and again he sees the pale figure of the dead girl. Her ghost whispers accusations into his ears. ‘Murderer! I will ride on your back for all time. Never will you be free!’ Her cold fingers tangle in his hair and feel their way into his open mouth like fat worms.
Pita screams and wakes. Even that small movement causes the bones in his cheek to grind and the pain to engulf him. He is desperate for the ease of liquor.
And then he feels water at his feet, opens his eyes and sees the creep of it, stealthy as a thief, up over the waterlogged tree roots and onto the bank. Pita has seen this before many times and knows he must move quickly. Perhaps a storm will soon hit this place; certainly it must have been raining upriver for the water to rise so quickly. Carefully he raises his head. Mid-stream the river is ugly: a bucking, muddy torrent. A dead
sheep is swept past and then a live cow, head still above water, eyes rolling as she fights the current. This will be a bad flood. Pita looks at his pitiful flax ties that moor the raft; they pull taut, then slacken as the logs bump the bank again and again. Then, as he watches, the ties snap and the great totara raft moves away, turning once lazily in the calmer water — a nonchalant farewell before it is swept downriver, a lethal bullet to any in its way, off towards the sea.
Pita crawls to higher ground, grunting with the pain. His face is stiff, though not as sore as it was, but his ribs and the cut on his side slow his progress.
A few drops of rain fall, then a great wind drives in from the west, heralding the downpour. The trees on the riverbank begin to thrash, groaning like humans under the weight of the wind. Almost immediately the rain sheets down, in seconds soaking clothes that have taken two days to dry.
Pita finds a rocky overhang, protected by a clump of bush, crawls into its shelter and crouches there, shivering. The creeping river follows. When the water reaches his feet he stumbles higher, fearing that the land will plateau and he will be trapped. He looks for a tall tree but can see nothing but low scrub. This place must have been burnt off sometime in the past. Pita knows where he is — not far downriver from the mission settlement of Hiruharama — but on the wrong side of the river to find help. There are no farms or Maori kainga here.
The river follows him, faster now that the land is flattening. Pita stumbles on. This is a judgement. He is being punished. He crosses himself, mutters a Hail Mary, and, just in case, tries a karakia to appease the taniwha. The river rises. Pita has never seen such flooding. The rain has eased now and he looks back at the great expanse of river, roaring between its new, wider banks and full of tumbling debris. Pita has lived all his life around the river but this is the first time he has been terrified by it.
‘I’m sorry!’ he yells at the muddy fury. Whanganui creeps on after him.
To one side there is a rocky outcrop, not very high, but at least above the surrounding river terrace. Pita finds a foothold and then another, hauls his aching body onto the flat top and lies there. If the river rises above this he’s done for.
Hours pass — or perhaps only minutes. As he lies there on his back he sees the clouds above him thin, and then shred, as, astoundingly, the sun breaks through. His clothes steam, the broken skin on his face tightens as it dries, but despite the pain Pita opens to the warmth as if to the fire of whisky in his belly. Below, the water has reached the base of his rocks but its force is dissipated by the flat terrace. The river flows quickly through the scrubland, spreading wider and wider but at last no higher.
BY THE TIME shadows creep over his rocky island Pita is ravenously hungry, desperately in need of a strong drink, and feeling better. The waters are receding, leaving this little plateau littered with debris. Grass, scrub, rocks — all are covered in a blanket of sticky mud. His world has turned brown. He notices movement below him and sees one — no, several — eels wriggling through the mud, heading back towards the river. Pita is down off his rock, faster than he climbed up it, and falling onto the nearest. The pain in his ribs is terrible but the thrashing eel is trapped under him. His knife is out; he slices behind the head and the slippery, muddy thing is his! He struggles to haul the tough skin away from the flesh — women’s work — but hunger drives his knife and his fumbling hands. At last the meat is exposed and he sinks his teeth into it, taking the food, bones and all, in great gulping bites. Standing there, ankle deep in mud, he grins. Not as tasty as his mother’s cooking — not nearly as good as a roast of mutton — but sweet and juicy all the same. He spits out bones and mud and takes another bite; feels his belly welcome the food, his body begin to strengthen.
Unwilling to trust the river’s retreat, Pita spends the night shivering on the outcrop. Two freshly killed eels keep him company. But food in his belly cannot stave off the awful nightmares. The girl’s white face returns to haunt him. He and Danny have killed the girl, have damaged a river steamer. Pita whimpers to think of Mr Hatrick’s wrath, his parents’ disgust. Danny’s blows have broken his nose; he cannot breathe through it. His mood slides between terror and self-pity. Mr Hatrick will bring the law down upon them, that is certain. They will go to jail. And what lies might Danny tell? That quick-thinking fellow might lay the whole blame on Pita. Perhaps even now the police are searching. Pita curls tightly on himself for warmth and longs for morning.
First light brings a breeze, and with it something new: the smell of wood-smoke. Pita knows this part of the river — the Maori kainga is long deserted, and no one else has settled here. He remembers rumours of an illicit still. Sly-groggers are active in these parts, as everyone knows, but the source of the liquor is unknown, even to Pita. Perhaps he has stumbled on it! The hope brings on a desire even stronger than hunger. His despair of the night forgotten, Pita climbs stiffly down into the mud and, dragging his two eels, tramps off in the direction of the smoke.
Police Station and McPhee Sawmill, Raetihi
Wanted Known
Patterson’s Sawmill, Raetihi, is looking for hardworking and skilled tree-fellers.
Rate: £2.5/- per felled acre standing bush on Raetihi–Ohakune road.
Wanted Known
‘I can go wherever a bullock team can go.’ Pipiriki – Raetihi – Ohakune.
Timber, general goods, railway supplies.
E.P. Chase, carrier.
Advertisements, Waimarino Argus, 1905
CONSTABLE TIM NAYLOR can find nothing in his rulebooks to help him with this case. He sits at his desk in the tiny, one-room police station, turning pages that deal with sly-groggers, droppers, drunkards, games of chance, theft, violence. He is familiar with all of these; indeed, he has a man in the two-room lock-up behind the station — ‘drunk in charge of a horse’ — whom he arrested last night. The fellow claims he came by the liquor legally, which cannot be proved one way or the other. A straightforward case, nonetheless. The drunkard will remain locked up for six hours, which is considered punishment enough, and his horse grazed in the police paddock until the fellow’s sober enough to ride it home.
But this river business? Tim Naylor can find no mention in his manuals of logging or riverboats. Could he charge the loggers for being a nuisance in a public place? Is the river a public place? He has been told to tread carefully when it comes to the river Maori. His superior officer in Wanganui told him they were a touchy lot, prone to knowing their rights and arguing them in court. The harangue from Bert Morrow down at Pipiriki has unsettled his confidence. Perhaps the Maori down there do have the right to take their logs downriver? Constable Naylor, who prides himself on being sensible in this distant outpost of the law, decides to wait to see whether there are further complaints.
On the matter of the near-drowned girl he has also decided to stay his hand. While at Pipiriki he came across new and interesting information. Naylor feels pleased that his careful questioning of all parties has borne such fruit. Exactly as his training suggested: Never overlook the small details of a case. The interviewing of seemingly unconnected persons may prove of significant interest. Accordingly, Tim Naylor had stayed on at Pipiriki for a day or two making inquiries — and enjoying the beauty and comfort of the peaceful little settlement.
At Pipiriki landing the constable had taken the trouble to have a word with the two deckhands who had been on the riverbank at the top of Ngaporo with the winching cable when the logging raft struck. Naylor found Rangi and Eru repairing the damaged rivets in the Wairua’s under-plates.
‘Won’t be long, boss,’ said Rangi, grinning up from the boat’s hatchway. ‘Watch here. You can learn a new trick.’
He disappeared again into the cramped belly of the boat while Eru leaned over the side with a boat-hook. At Rangi’s shout, Eru fished under the water with his hook and soon brought up a piece of string attached to a nail. Rangi had evidently removed the temporary wooden bung and sent the tethered nail through the rivet hole. Quickly, for t
he Wairua would now be taking water, Eru removed the nail and attached a gutter-bolt. At his shout, Rangi hauled in the line and the gutter-bolt disappeared into the water. Later the constable, who liked to understand the workings of things, climbed into the tiny hold and watched as Rangi used a spanner to tighten the nuts on the gutter-bolts.
‘She’ll be good maybe some weeks,’ Rangi said. ‘Later she’ll be fixed at Mr Hatrick’s foundry downriver.’ Naylor could see several other worn gutter-bolts studding the steel plates. Obviously losing a rivet or two in a rapid was commonplace.
‘Can we talk now?’ he asked, grinning in what he hoped was an easy-going way. There had been much talk, back at the training barracks, of the fighting spirit of the upriver Maori.
Rangi and Eru were happy enough to sit on the landing, light up their pipes and discuss the accident. They considered the whole event a bit of a joke. ‘That Pita Morrow,’ said Rangi, giggling like a schoolboy. ‘Big heart, small head! He should know better than to take on a river steamer. Danny, too.’
‘Did you see the logs hit?’
‘Ae! Winch cable nearly break. Boat waving like a flag. Lucky our tree hold up good.’ Both men grinned. There was pride in the way Rangi spoke.
‘And did you see the girl fall?’
‘No. No.’ Eru sounded angry that the constable would even suggest such a thing. ‘Or we would save her.’
‘That nearly drowned girl,’ said Rangi, serious now, ‘Danny and Pita, their crash did not fall her into the river. No, boss.’
Naylor thought maybe they were protecting the two loggers, but Rangi seemed so sure. ‘I seen that girl just the top of Ngaporo. I hear her scream very loud and I seen the other girl — her sister, you know — fighting her for something.’
Landings Page 10