by A. W. Exley
On first glance he thought the warehouse was empty except for the glass-eyed kiwi that were a little too reminiscent of the man he just left. Then he spotted Taylor at his desk, shuffling papers.
“You have a dead man down at the jetty,” he said.
Taylor looked up and frowned, his fingers curling into the paperwork and crunching the sides. “What?”
“I was going fishing but there is a dead man occupying the spot I want. You’d better notify the colonel or whoever. And bring a cart.” Loki wasn’t entirely sure who the correct authority was in this instance, the colonel or the Maori chief.
Taylor dropped his papers. “I’ll raise the alarm. Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Not unless a lack of pulse is normal for him. I didn’t turn him over. I thought it best to wait for others. Is there a doctor here?” He should get back to the body, just in case it got up and disappeared into the forest. Or whatever killed him came back for breakfast.
Taylor nodded. “I’ll fetch the doctor, some men, and a cart and meet you at the jetty.”
Loki took off again. He didn’t run this time. Nothing would save the poor sod, but he walked as briskly as he dared along the smooth grey stones. The scene remained unchanged. The man’s hand still reached for something beyond the end of the pier. Loki sat at the shore end and contemplated his own mortality while he waited.
Miguel was first to arrive. “Only you would go fishing and find a dead man.”
“That’s not fair. It happens all the time in London. The Thames is crammed with just as many dead people as fish.” His employer, the villainous viscount, did his bit to contribute to the number of decomposing bodies weighted down in the Thames.
Raised voices and yelling broke the morning silence. Loki mentally threw his peaceful respite in the water as he rose. Men—some on horseback and others running—and a cart crossed the field and homed in on the little jetty. One man dismounted from his horse and threw the reins to his companion.
In his mid-fifties, he had short greying hair and a tall, narrow frame. “Let me have a look,” he said as he stepped out onto the pier. The rest of the men clustered on the shore. There wasn’t room for more than three or four men on the planks.
“Who are you?” Loki raised one hand, about to knock the man out of the way.
“Doctor Finley.”
Loki let him pass with a swoop of his arm. The doctor knelt next to the man and placed his fingers on his throat, mimicking Loki’s earlier action.
“He’s dead,” Finley announced after a silent minute.
“Yes, I had already established that. I’m more interested in why he is dead.” Loki had hoped the settlement had a competent doctor.
“Let’s turn him over and have a look, shall we? Give me a hand, will you.” The doctor waved Loki closer. With the doctor at the dead man’s hip and Loki at his shoulders, they carefully rolled him over onto his back.
“Matanui’s phantom bear,” Loki muttered.
Once again, three large slashes ran diagonally from shoulder to hip, separating clothing and flesh, digging down to exposed bone.
The doctor peeled the matted fabric of the jacket away from the wound and studied the man’s torn chest. “Poor fellow. Quite apart from the loss of blood, looks like whatever it was also punctured a lung. He didn’t stand much of a chance, even if we had found him earlier.”
Loki stared at the wound, so similar to the one on the dead timber worker.
“It would appear we have a puzzle to solve: What strikes like a bear but isn’t a bear?” Loki stood and gazed across the water. On the opposite bank a group of Maori stood in silence. One by one, they slipped behind the flax and disappeared from view.
“Taniwha.” The whisper came from behind.
Loki turned. The men clustered on the bank muttered amongst themselves but he couldn’t identify which man had whispered of the Maori’s mythical dragon.
Taylor approached, but stopped at the shore end of the pier’s timbers. “Colonel Austin has been advised. He will be here directly.”
“Who is this poor unfortunate?” Loki gestured behind him and wondered if another widow would be seeking passage.
“Toby Alder. Nice chap, soon to marry a local lass. Or rather, was,” Taylor replied.
Yet another happy soon-to-be family man struck down. The phantom bear was rather selective. Why wasn’t it going after drunkards who stumbled into the forest and passed out? What sort of creature snuck up on a man indulging in a spot of early fishing?
“Did anyone see him last night?” Loki asked. Men murmured and shook their heads.
Another point bothered Loki: Neither man had been armed, and they had both been going about their usual activities. A predator normally attacked when it felt threatened, or a mother defending its young. Nothing about these men’s deaths seemed to fit that pattern. If they had a rogue beast, it should have been sighted sniffing around the settlement. What sort of animal crept up on a defenceless man minding his own business? It was either a disgruntled taniwha protecting the land and rivers, or a far more dangerous predator—man.
A swell of noise rolled over the water as the colonel and several of his soldiers rode up. No wonder they lost the war with the Maori. The British were incapable of doing anything quietly. They announced their presence over a large radius and their white bandoliers were targets on their red-clad torsos. Austin dismounted and bore down on Loki.
“What are you doing here? This isn’t any of your business.” He glanced at the dead man with Doctor Finley at his side.
“Firstly, I happened to find the dead man. Secondly, I rather thought I was the most objective party here to investigate. Everyone else seems to be a tad emotional.” Another dead man would stoke tension even higher. He needed to walk up to the pa and hear what the Maori thought without the colonel breathing down his neck.
Austin grunted, then his gaze drifted beyond Loki to the ripped torso of the deceased. “Who is it?”
“Toby Alder,” the doctor answered. He bent down and ran his hands over the man’s lids to close his eyes. “I’ll let his family know.”
Loki stood back as three men came forward. They carried their comrade’s body over to the cart and placed him in the back. Loki followed and threw a blanket over the gaping wound. No need to spark more concern than what already swirled around the town.
The driver caught a glance. “Another one,” he said under his breath, and his hands tightened on the reins.
Loki and Miguel stood on the riverbank as the cart took its cargo back to town. The men followed behind, either on foot or horseback.
“Let’s head up to the pa. I need to hear Hone’s thoughts on this.” Loki mulled over possibilities as they walked. Was there any truth to the settlers’ fears that the Maori controlled a mythical beast and sent it to slaughter them?
10
Loki took his time walking up to the pa as ideas and thoughts swirled in his mind. The two deaths with their unusual circumstances nagged at him. He wished his larger family—of Nate, Cara, and Jackson—were here to talk through events. Miguel was a sharp lad, but he lacked the darker world experience as the others. In their absence, he headed for the one person whose council he instinctively trusted: Hone.
Today the gate to the compound was wide open and Loki found the young chief outside the marae with a group of even younger men. They carried spears, coarse nets of woven flax, coils of rope, and what looked like slingshots. Hone glanced up at him but continued talking to a low tone to the youths. Loki was about to interject himself when he remember Hone’s words about respect. He rocked back on his feet and decided to try something new. He waited.
After a few minutes, the group burst into laughter and then dispersed. Hone watched them leave and then turned to walk toward Loki.
“They look like they are going hunting?” Loki gestured to the lads disappearing out the gate.
Hone fell into step beside Loki as they walked across the packed earth. “They want to c
atch a moa. I was giving them advice from the last one I hunted.”
Loki tried to visualise the creature he spoke of. He vaguely recollected it was some sort of large bird shaped a bit like an ostrich. “What advice was that?”
“Don’t stand behind it if you ever want to father children. They kick hard.” Hone grinned.
Loki laughed, then reined in his humour. They had death to discuss. “I need to talk to you about the deaths, a second man was found dead this morning. There are those who mutter the Maori are behind it. That you are trying to scare the people away.”
“Come with me.” Hone gestured to the wall that enclosed the pa. He climbed a ladder that led up to the catwalk running along the top of the defensive structure. Then he took another ladder even higher, to the lookout tower in the corner. He stood and surveyed the valley as Loki climbed up beside him.
Loki rested his hands on a wooden paling and stared across the landscape. For a moment, he thought he could be at home here. Like an eagle with an eyrie, this hawk could nest here. A place between earth and clouds, and no one here who would bind him with the strictures of society or expectations. He rubbed his chest as the dull ache returned.
“What do you see?” Hone asked.
Their spot gave them a bird’s eye view similar to what Loki was accustomed to from the bridge of his airship. The orderly terraced gardens marched down the side of the hill. At the bottom, the slope joined with the dirt roads that ran into, and intersected, the town. The layout of the fledgling town was obvious from up high as secondary roads were constructed to run at right angles to the main road. As the town expanded and grew outward, the grid pattern would continue and make navigation easier for the residents.
Smoke curled from chimneys atop iron roofs. People the size of insects scurried back and forth, some on foot, some driving carts, others on horseback. Expanding his gaze, small clearings became more prevalent closer to the shore, where settlers felled trees to make way for pastures to graze their livestock. Sheep the size of lice were white dots against the green. The Jenny Elle sat between her mooring posts like a child’s tethered balloon. The river was a blue ribbon, curling around and through swaths of woodland.
Out to the east was the vastness of the ocean. North, south, and west, as far as Loki’s keen eye could see, lay the dense forest. Birds skimmed the canopy and then dived back below. Apart from the settlement, they could be alone in the entire world. It reminded Loki a little of the remote parts of Siberia, although there was much less snow here, and more life.
English settlers carved out their lives on the plains, while Maori stayed on the hilltop. “I see a small, quiet, growing town and two cultures finding a way to coexist.”
Hone huffed next to him. “I see responsibility. We are tangata whenua, the people of this land. It gave rise to us and in turn we are its kaitiaki, the guardians of this place. I have a care to not just my people but the land, the ocean, the birds, and the fishes.”
Loki thought of the tear that had glistened on Paniha’s skin at the sight of the fallen trees. Ancients of the forest slain by white men. Just how deep did the Maori’s protection go? “Does that responsibility include driving off the invaders? There are those who say the Maori sent the taniwha to kill the men.”
It seemed the obvious answer. Kill off the settlers to chase them from the land and protect its pristine state. Yet it didn’t sit well with Loki.
Hone crossed massive arms over his chest and stared at Loki. There was an ancient soul lurking in his dark gaze, yet Loki pegged him as being a few years younger than his own thirty.
“The world changes. We could never stop the British from coming here, only control the flow.”
Loki’s gaze lingered at the bottom of the hill, where the Maori way of life dovetailed with the European. “Yet you won the land wars. You could have driven them completely from these shores.”
A quiet laugh made Hone’s chest heave up and down. “The British came here with rifles when we had none, yet their soldiers are no match for us. They marched through the forest in bright red uniforms. A child with a slingshot could hit one and take his rifle.” Then the chief’s gaze turned sad. “But despite the fact that we are better warriors, we could not have stopped them for long. Every week large ships arrive at our shores and discharge numerous pakeha. You have more weapons and the men cut down our forests. Our treaty with your queen allows us to control who comes here. We have no need to kill settlers when you gave us the words and laws to deal with them.”
That was the bit that bothered Loki. Why kill the settlers when each tribe had strict control over who was allowed to emigrate to New Zealand? But if it were a natural predator, what could it be when there were no bear or large cats?
“Not everyone likes to see their world change. Some find it frightening.” A killer could lurk in the Maori tribe without the chief’s knowledge, striking under the cover of dark to try and turn back the hands of time—perhaps with a desire to revert Aotearoa to a time before the first European, Captain Cook, stepped ashore less than a hundred years ago.
“There are those amongst us who cling to the old ways, but the world changes and we must change with it. We do not all have to like every British settler who comes here, but we do need to find a peaceful way to coexist.” Hone turned back to the vista, his hands curled around the upright stakes surrounding the tower.
Possible culprits for the deaths were thin on the ground. A disgruntled native did seem the most likely offender. Unless the two men were both having affairs with the same woman and her husband took matters into his own hands? Given the size of the settlement it would be hard to keep a scandal like that quiet. “How vocal are those among your people who dislike change?”
“We are very vocal when we disagree.” Another quiet laugh. “But that is good. Everyone should know their voice will be heard.”
The more Loki saw and heard of life here, the more he liked it. The restless part of his soul was soothed by being around these people—or was it one person in particular? An image of Paniha flashed through his mind. He still longed to know her better but at the same time he found himself drawn to Hone. He shook his head to disperse the images of naked bodies that formed like clouds.
“Do you think a man could have been responsible? Could a spear make the marks on the dead men that look like a large claw?” When he first saw the wounds Loki had assumed bear or large cat. But what if it were something that left a similar mark? Slashing a man three times with a knife would look the same.
Hone leaned against the stick barrier and let the sun warm his back. His dark gaze focused on Loki. “There is honour in clashing with an enemy in battle. There is no honour in creeping up behind a man trying to feed his family. If a man did this then he would bring shame on his hapu.”
There was another possibility—one others might dismiss as ludicrous, but not the man who had transported dragon eggs to safety. “But what of the taniwha?”
One large shoulder shrugged. “The taniwha protects. If the serpent did this, it would have a reason.”
If it were a serpent responsible, it was looking more and more like an ouroboros, eating its own tail. Had the men died at the hand of an unknown man or a Maori dragon protecting its people? One man was milling timber, the other fishing. Was it protecting the resources of this land, their taonga?
Loki threw up his hands. “Two well-liked, quiet men. What reason could the taniwha have for taking their lives?”
There was no shrug this time, just the chief’s steady gaze on Loki. “You need to look deeper at what connected the dead men. You will find the link, Kahu, for people are relying on you now.”
Loki paused. The unknown word had slipped over Hone’s tongue in a soft way that turned it into an endearment. Or had he just been insulted? “What does kahu mean?”
The large grin returned. “Hawk.”
No insult then. He liked the sound of his name in Maori. It curled through his insides in a new, but not unpleasant, way.
Loki gripped Hone’s shoulder. “You have given me something to consider.”
Then he turned and descended the ladder. Loki liked Hone, respected him even. The big warrior had shouldered a great responsibility when he had taken up the mantle of chief at a young age. He was fierce to strangers, but revealed a gentler side in his daily dealings with his tribe. Would he protect a killer among his people?
Loki needed to think, something best done in private, lest Miguel joked about smoke curling from his ears. He walked back down the hill, through town, and across the field to the river. He wandered up the bank and stopped at the small pier. The stain remained on the wooden boards. Someone had splashed water over it, but the odd circular patch was darker than the surrounding timbers. What had happened here during the early hours of the morning, and how was Alder connected to Dudley?
Hone said to look deeper—he wondered what dark secrets he would reveal if he scratched the surface of the quiet community. Loki carried on walking. Further upstream the river crept into the forest, where the water widened out and created a swimming hole. The water cascaded over a rocky waterfall at one end before continuing its journey downstream.
Children played and splashed in the water while a few women watched. Loki nearly retreated to find another spot, but the pure enjoyment of the youngsters pulled at him. Perhaps if he watched their play and distracted his mind, his subconscious would work away on the problem in the background.
He sat on the grass at the bank, pulled off his boots and dropped his feet into the clear water. One of the woman turned: Paniha. She smiled on seeing him. There was just the distraction he needed—and an opportunity.
She waded through the water and climbed out to sit next to him. “The tamariki are learning to swim before they go fishing in the deeper water.”
He scratched his side. He had once gone fishing in deep water, and it had resulted in a large scar over his torso “They seem more intent on getting everyone wet.”
“That is how they learn.” Her gaze focused on the splashing children, ever watchful of her charges.