by Angus McLean
‘True, true.’ More nodding. ‘There will be no more. No more. You go now, and let us do our thing, okay?’
‘Yep, fair enough.’ I nodded and extended my hand.
She shook it with a surprisingly hard grip and pulled me in closer. ‘But don’t come back, my friend. This is our village; not the place for you. Some of our young ones, they…can be hot-headed.’ She nodded to herself. ‘My name is Aroha. I’m the nan to most of these boys. Hot-headed, some of them…and they will be angry.’
I held her grip. She was giving me a message but I had my own to deliver too.
‘I understand that, and I appreciate your honesty. Your young ones also need to get it into their heads that we will not back down. We’re not looking for a fight, but I guarantee you, if they come to us, they will lose.’ I looked her in the eye. ‘Okay?’
The old lady nodded and gave a slight smile. The resilience was showing through now.
‘We understand each other,’ she said quietly.
We stepped back from each other and I glanced over to Bevan. He was off to my side using the ute as cover, still watching the crowd.
‘One more thing before we go,’ I called out, directing myself towards the head honcho who’d been staunching me. ‘Hand over the guns you used against us today.’
‘Fuck off,’ the head honcho retorted.
‘Don’t be silly about it. You’ve got two options,’ I said. ‘Either give them up voluntarily, or we come and take them.’
The old lady said something to him. The guy didn’t like it and he tried to argue, but she cut him off and pointed him towards the car. He gestured at one of the minions, who carefully removed the rifle and carried it towards me like it was radio-active, his eyes flitting constantly to my weapon.
‘Put it in the back of the truck,’ I told him. I turned back towards the head honcho again. ‘And the others? I counted at least three.’
He shrugged arrogantly. ‘’at’s all we got. Musta lost them on the way or something.’
I decided to cut my losses, and backed over to the ute. I covered Bevan while he got behind the wheel then I climbed in beside him, keeping the group covered through the open window.
‘Better not see you again,’ I said to the head honcho as we started to move. He spat and gave me the bird and we drove away.
***
Jake Roimata watched the two men in the ute go, his nerves jangling and his rage barely contained.
‘See you again, motherfucker,’ he muttered. ‘You a dead man.’
He turned and stalked inside the hall, already formulating a plan.
Eighteen
They had watched the ute leave with the two guys in it.
They seemed like the main guys, both having assault rifles and being the ones who had done all the shooting.
Once the ute was gone the guy who was wounded had been helped up and made his way back down the road with a woman they presumed was his wife.
The old man had put the dog back in the yard of the closest house then headed back down the road too. They watched him turn into the driveway at the house they had been watching earlier with Henry and the others. He went inside. Both of the boys breathed a sigh of relief at that point. Even though the dude was old, he carried a rifle and he looked like he knew how to use it.
Cyrus had been on the raid last night and was pretty sure the old man had killed one of the boys. His companion and best friend, Donald, had lost his brother to these men. When Henry and TK got hit, Cyrus and Donald had taken cover in the ditch, Donald still carrying the bolt action Norinco .22 Jake had given them earlier. The other two guns had gone in the cars with the others – the chickenshits had fucked off as soon as people started going down.
Cyrus wasn’t sure if he was brave or stupid, but he knew Donald was spoiling for revenge and he knew they had a job to do. It was supposed to have just been a recce but Henry had fucked that up when he started shooting, not that he would ever say that out loud. You didn’t say shit like that about Henry Roimata unless you wanted your arse kicked. Things had changed now, and Cyrus was smart enough to recognise an opportunity when he saw one.
The only way they could get any revenge for their brothers now was to strike when the enemy were weak. From what he had heard them say, they were going after the crew back to Meremere. The main guy – Henry reckoned he was a cop – had missed him and Donald hiding in the ditch across the road when he’d come and checked after the shootout. Donald had wanted to blow him away then and there but Cyrus had resisted, knowing they would just get blown away themselves by the others.
Better to take their time and do it right.
They rose from the ditch now, both filthy dirty from the mud and shit at the bottom of it, but both also pumped because they had a plan.
Cyrus led the way, cutting across the road and into the paddock on the other side. He was no country boy but he had done a Limited Service Volunteer course a year back. His case worker at WINZ, who’d been trying to get him into a job since he left school and home at fifteen, had put him forward.
Cyrus hadn’t enjoyed it – all cops and social workers and shit trying to be your friend and make you interested in being a soldier. Cyrus had no interest in being a soldier – he was after his Bandits patch and that was that. He lasted two weeks on LSV before he got caught smoking crack and was kicked out.
Donald was sixteen, a lean, hard boy who played league and liked to fight. He’d spent most of the last year in juvie for armed robberies, and he was heading for the big house if he went down on his current charges. It was him and his younger brother who had first tried to break into this place the other night, somehow picking the wrong fuckin’ house first up that night after burgling six others the night before.
They made their way through the paddocks, past the big flash house to the hedgerow that they knew was the boundary of their target house. They paused at the hedgerow and Cyrus looked at Donald, who was still holding the Norinco. It was a cheap Chinese rifle but it would do the job.
‘All goods, bro?’
‘Yeah, all goods.’
‘Get in, shoot whoever we see, take whatever we see, jack one o’ their sleds and get gone, eh?’
‘Fuck yeah, bro.’ Donald pushed his way under the hedgerow, sliding the rifle ahead of him.
Nineteen
Jenny Dobson had been furious to learn that Mark had gone off chasing the guys they’d been shooting at, and Rob couldn’t really blame her.
He wasn’t so happy about it himself, but he did understand the reason why. Besides, Mark was bull-headed and wouldn’t have changed his mind anyway. Not that that had done anything to calm Jenny down, and now she and Sandy were thrashing it out in the lounge, Sandy doing her best to calm the woman down and keep her on track, Jenny venting at the whole damn world and her thick-headed son in particular.
Archie was watching it all with wide eyes, old enough and smart enough to know that Grandma was pissed off with his Dad, but not quite knowing why. He’d heard the shooting and had stayed inside with the women while Poppa went out to help, and he knew that his Dad and the neighbour Bevan had fought with some bad guys.
Rob caught his eye and gestured for him to follow, leading him into the kitchen and away from the tense conversation.
‘Grandma’s really annoyed with Dad, Poppa,’ Archie said, hoisting himself up onto the bench. ‘She said he’s got a thick head. That’s not very nice, is it?’
Rob resisted the urge to draw a comparison to Jenny herself, instead smiling politely and agreeing with his grandson. ‘I think she’s pretty annoyed right now,’ he said, ‘but she’ll calm down. Adults are like that, young Archie.’
‘When will Dad be back?’
‘Shouldn’t be far away. D’you want to help me get dinner ready?’
‘It’s not dinner time yet, Poppa. We haven’t even had afternoon tea yet.’
‘I know, but we need to get ready for it. We’ve got chicken and rice, and we better have some veges too,
I suppose.’
‘Can we have beans and carrots?’
Rob poked him in the ribs with a finger. ‘You still don’t like peas, eh?’
‘Na, gross. But I like beans and carrots though.’
‘Here.’ Rob handed him a bowl of food scraps. ‘Go chuck that to the pig, will you? Then you can help me peel some carrots.’
The boy hopped down and took the bowl of scraps out, and Rob shook his head to himself. The last few days they’d been using a makeshift toilet, bathing from a bowl of hot water, and living communally.
Now here he was in the kitchen. Times had indeed changed.
***
Cyrus was halfway across the turning area at the top of the driveway when he heard the back door of the house open.
He darted behind the red Toyota hatchback parked nearby and ducked down. Donald was closer to the house and Cyrus couldn’t see him now. He heard a little boy’s voice calling out, then Donald’s voice.
‘Ow, boy.’
***
Jenny could still feel her blood pressure hovering somewhere near the ceiling, despite Sandy’s best efforts, and she knew it would take some doing to get things back to normal.
Not that Sandy was ever going to be her pick of sounding boards in such a situation, but at least she’d given it a good effort. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad stick after all.
One thing was for sure – once Mark got home, he’d be getting the bollocking of his life. She didn’t care that he was a grown man; you were never too old for a well-deserved bollocking from your mother, and this one was bloody well deserved. There was no way in the world he should have gone after those thugs and left his family behind, unguarded other than by Rob with his pre-historic rifle.
She let her breath out in a hot whoosh, trying to calm down. If she carried on like this she’d have a damn heart attack. She needed fresh air. She stalked to the back door and pulled it open.
***
Archie heard the man call to him and turned, surprised because he didn’t recognise the voice.
He saw a rough-looking Maori man in a hoody and track pants standing near the side of the house, only a few steps away from the back door. He had a rifle in his hands and a mean look on his face, and he was looking straight at Archie.
The pig snuffled in her pen, knowing Archie was bringing food to her. He saw the man bring the rifle up towards his shoulder.
The bowl of food scraps dropped from his hand and he let out a scream and ran.
***
Jenny heard two things as she opened the back door. The first was Archie letting out a terrified scream as he sprinted across the lawn towards the other side of the house.
The second sound was the pop of a rifle shot.
‘Run, Archie! Run!’
She stepped back inside, moving faster than she had moved for years, all thoughts of her escalating blood pressure and of bollocking Mark gone from her head. She raced towards the hall cupboard by the front door, flinging it open and seizing the shotgun from inside.
***
Cyrus heard a second shot sound and rose up from behind the little Yaris. Donald was working the bolt on the Norinco again, and turned as he did so, a wide grin across his face.
‘I nearly got the little fucker,’ he shouted. He hurried back towards Cyrus, glancing over his shoulder as the front door of the house opened.
Cyrus saw an old lady appear, a heavyset woman in jeans, sneakers and a mustard-coloured jersey. She had a gun in her hands and was locked onto Donald, who was turning towards her and bringing his own gun around.
‘You filthy son of a bitch,’ she shrieked. ‘You try to kill my grandson? You can just go to hell!’
***
Jenny wasn’t even aware of what she was saying, she just wanted to get this bastard.
She saw his eyes narrow as he turned towards her, then start to pop as he saw she was armed.
She didn’t have time to bring the gun up to her shoulder like she knew she should, so she just pointed it towards him and squeezed the trigger.
The shotgun kicked like a mule and she staggered back, her ears ringing from the blast. The guy with the gun staggered backwards, fell on his arse and stared at her in shock.
Jenny jerked the slide back towards her and shoved it forward again, hearing the chunky clack-clack as the action worked a new round into the chamber. She brought the butt up to her shoulder, seeing the guy scrambling away on his hands and knees. Another guy had broken out from behind her car and was trying to help him to his feet.
‘You bastards!’ she bellowed. ‘Have some of this!’
She fired again and saw the standing guy twist and stagger. The first guy got to his feet and staggered after the other one, both of them holding themselves awkwardly as they made a beeline for the paddock.
By the time she had worked the slide a second time the two intruders were in the paddock and limping as fast as they could towards the hedgerow. Jenny brought the shotgun up to her shoulder and took a few steps forward, trying to hold the weapon steady so she could draw a bead on them. It was heavy and her shoulder was throbbing and her arms were trembling but the adrenaline was pumping hard.
She realised that Rob had joined her and also had his gun up in the shoulder. When he fired her left ear went immediately deaf and she fired involuntarily. The wooden fence railings took a hit of buckshot, but the .303 round from the Lee Enfield was more on target, and they both saw one of the guys trip and fall near the hedgerow.
Both of them scrambled beneath the hedgerow and disappeared from sight.
Jenny looked at Rob, realising he was saying something.
‘I can’t hear you.’ She cupped her right ear.
‘I said are you okay?’ he shouted.
‘I think so,’ she shouted back, her voice sounding foreign to her.
He scrutinised her face for a long moment. ‘You shot them,’ he said, his voice quieter now. ‘Both of them.’
Jenny nodded. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘The bastards deserved it.’ She felt her knees wobble beneath her, and she handed the shotgun to him. ‘I think I need to sit down.’
Twenty
The smell of smoke was getting denser in the air, and Shavaunne screwed up her nose. She’d never liked smoke unless she was sucking it up a crack pipe.
They had dropped the car a block back, allowing them to get out on foot and hunt their prey. She was happy enough that they had covered their ground so far, and she was keen to get their patch done before having to regroup with the rest of the family. If her and Dice had to turn up emptyhanded, she’d be seriously pissed. She wanted to come back a winner, lording it over her cousins and proving to Curtis who the real badass was in the family.
They’d slowed down some coming through Takanini, with a riot of sorts going on between a bunch of coons and some soldiers. She’d been in uniform, those blacks woulda copped it. She wouldn’t be standing there taking it like the soldiers had, even when they’d busted out some tear gas.
Dice had wanted to get involved but she was driving, so they kept on going. They’d seen Curtis and Lena a while back, but not the boys. Didn’t bother her though; they’d catch up soon enough when she was crowing about their success.
Shavaunne looked around her again, seeing the odd person moving about but nobody coming near her. The sawn-off shotgun in her hands might have been a part of that. She’d never been much on Papakura – too many darkies, for starters – so hopefully they wouldn’t be here too long. It was the end of their search area for today though, and being late afternoon, they would need to get back to the car and head for the barn soon enough.
That meant getting their kills soon.
Dice reappeared from behind the building she was standing outside, his face as blank as it always was.
‘Sweet?’ Shavaunne said, and he nodded his big dumb head. ‘Come on.’
They walked up to the next building, a block of five businesses with a service alley behind. Some of the front windows were broke
n and one, a boutique of some sort, had been looted. Next door was a travel agent.
Shavaunne jerked her head towards the back and Dice followed her into the service alley. Dumpsters and boxes of crap lined the white concrete wall at the back of the building.
They went to the first back door and she tried the handle. Locked. She stepped aside and Dice hit it with a size fourteen boot. The door crashed inwards and she led the way, moving fast through the ground floor. It was empty.
Upstairs was a storeroom and a staff kitchen. Empty again.
They clattered back downstairs and were coming out the back when they both heard it. A stifled sob, behind them. Shavaunne turned, the stumpy shotgun barrels moving with her. She scanned the rear office, her eyes settling on the only other door in the room. It looked like a cupboard and she’d ignored it on the way in.
She crossed to it now, touched the handle and looked to Dice. He nodded, standing ready.
Shavaunne ripped the door open and stepped back, the shotgun coming up. Dice reached in and seized the occupant of the cupboard by her arm, yanking her out and belting her hard across the face at the same time. She was crying already and wailed even more when he hit her, and he threw her against the wall. She was an Asian girl, maybe mid-twenties, with long dark hair. Blood dripped from her newly-split lip onto her white blouse.
‘Not her,’ Shavaunne said, lowering the gun.
Dice held the girl by her arm, tight enough to make her wince and cry harder, leering at her. Shavaunne knew that leer, and she gave him a warning look.
‘Dice,’ she said, ‘we don’t have time. None of that shit.’
He ignored her and reached out, gripping the neckline of the girl’s blouse.
‘Dice, no.’ Shavaunne knew it was a losing battle – once her brother got the idea in his head it would take a bazooka to stop him. He’d never had a normal relationship with a woman before, but he had a high, and twisted, sex drive.