Billy and Old Smoko

by Jack Lasenby

  “Take them a cup of tea,” he whispered over his shoulder. “They won’t be in any hurry to get up.” He winked, jumped the fence into the paddock, and pretended to graze.

  Billy gave the grown-ups tea with toast and marmalade in bed. “I’ve done the milking and taken the cans down,” he said. “There’s some fresh pig rooting up the back paddock. I thought I might take Old Smoko and have a look.”

  “There’s a dog-scoffing wild boar pig been hanging around, waiting for the ewes to drop their lambs,” said his lackadaisical father. “Take the twenty-two.”

  “The boy’s too young to trust with a rifle,” said Billy’s stepmother.

  His father hummed “Home On the Range”, leaned against his pillow, and went to sleep.

  “You heard what your father said,” Billy’s stepmother told him and went back to sleep, too. She snored, her red-lipped mouth wide-open, and Billy noticed that, on either side of her lower jaw, one tooth had grown a bit longer than the others. He looked but couldn’t see if she had grinders in her top jaw.

  He took his father’s straight-edged sticking knife out of the cutlery drawer, a packet of .22 longs from the hot water cupboard, and the Browning pump-action twenty-two from behind the back door.

  Old Smoko saw the rifle, but said nothing. Up in the back paddock, he pointed at some rooting so fresh, the soil hadn’t had time to dry out. As Billy looked, a clod rustled, collapsed, and slid in moist crumbs of dirt.

  “A boar pig,” Old Smoko whispered. “Just ahead of us!”

  “How do you know it’s a boar?”

  “The stink.” Old Smoko sniffed the air. “Those tracks – as big as dinner plates. And look at his poops – the size of a two-pint billy. My sainted aunt, Billy, we are on to something big!”

  By his language, Billy could tell Old Smoko was excited. They tiptoed across the churned-up dirt.

  Old Smoko pointed at mud smeared high up the trunk of the old kahikatea that stood like a turreted green castle in the middle of the back paddock. “See how he’s worn off the bark, rubbing his neck to get rid of the ticks? He must stand six feet high at the shoulder. I fear that a pea-rifle will be of little use against so enormous a pig.”

  “I’ll nick back and get Dad’s three-nought-three!”

  “Too late,” Old Smoko whispered – with unusual brevity, Billy thought. The air turned a coppery colour, a smell like burning linoleum filled his nostrils, and a snout the size of a beer barrel shoved between two whitey-woods on the edge of the bush above. As Billy stared, an enormous boar pig bent the trees apart, strode to the fence, put one hand on top of a strainer post, and vaulted into the back paddock. He was long in the snout, heavy in the shoulder, black-bristled, with a long hairy tail, and carrying tusks like cutlasses. Billy noticed that the tusk and both legs on the downhill side were longer.

  “That is the boar pig, and he is coming for us,” said Old Smoko. Billy went up the kahikatea remarkably fast. Even so, Old Smoko overtook him and reached the top first. “You climb well for a draught horse,” said Billy.

  “I had much practice in my youth,” Old Smoko replied. “Now, that is what I call a Captain Cooker!”

  Billy stared down at the enormous boar pig.

  “I will wager that Johnny Bryce has never even dreamt of tusks so big,” Old Smoko murmured.

  The Captain Cooker trotted across to the kahikatea, reared up on his hind legs, beat his chest with his front trotters, and bellowed something. Billy could not understand the boar pig’s language, of course, but it sounded very like, “Fee-fi-fo-fum!”

  “Where have I heard that before?” Billy exclaimed aloud. “I know – it was in a fairy story my real mother used to tell me!”

  “I have warned you before about your tendency to impertinence,” Old Smoko whispered, poking out his lips and moved them carefully so Billy could see what they were saying, “Do not mention fairy stories. Boar pigs have excellent hearing and are very sensitive about their dignity!”

  Unfortunately, the sensitive monster had heard Billy. “Scoff! Scoff!” Sparks gushed off the grinders as the gigantic Captain Cooker whetted his tusks. “I’ll show you I’m not a fairy story!” he said. He bent his knees, put both arms around the trunk, took a deep breath, and tried to pull up the huge old kahikatea by its roots.

  The earth around it bulged, a root snapped like a .303 going off, and Billy and Old Smoko hung on. The enormous boar pig threw back his long-snouted head, looked up the trunk, and grunted something. Billy curled up his toes as he felt its hot breath on the soles of his bare feet.

  “He is asking, ‘What is your name, cheeky little boy?’” said Old Smoko.

  “Johnny Bryce,” Billy started to say, then remembered his real mother had told him always to tell the truth. “I’m Billy.”

  “Silly Billy,” said the Captain Cooker, “And what’s your funny-looking friend’s name?”

  “Dash his impertinence!” said Old Smoko. “I am not funny-looking! I will have you know, my name is Old Smoko!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Why Pigs Cannot Climb Trees, Why Hoary Old Captain Cookers Aren’t Much Chop for Tucker, and the Sulphurous Stink of Hard-Boiled Cabbage.

  “Haw! Haw! Haw!” the monster scoffed. “I knew you’d have a funny name.”

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones,” said Old Smoko, “but names will never hurt me.”

  “We’ll see about that… .” rumbled the Captain Cooker. Billy was finding it easier to understand what he was saying.

  “Ask him his name,” Old Smoko whispered. “Politely!”

  “Please, sir, if you don’t mind telling us, what is your name?” Billy called down.

  “Bert Brute!”

  Old Smoko trembled so the tree shook. “Bert Brute!” he mouthed silently to Billy. “The savagest dog-scoffing Captain Cooker in the length of the Kaimais.”

  “Yeah, that’s me monicker. I see you’ve heard the name before… .” The monster boar squinted up, his head on one side to see them better. “Billy Boy, Billy Boy, come down and be me friend,” Bert Brute sang out, and Billy understood every word clearly this time.

  “Ignore his flattery,” warned Old Smoko. “He just wants you for lunch.”

  “Shall I take a shot at him?”

  “A twenty-two would bounce off that hide and only annoy him.”

  “I’m using longs!”

  Old Smoko shook his head. “What can we do?” cried Billy.

  “Try telling him, ‘No, by the hair on my chinny chin chin!’”

  “But it sounds childish.”

  “Of course it does,” said Old Smoko. “But I am unable to think of anything else to say.”

  “Billy Boy, Billy Boy, come down and be me friend,” the enormous Captain Cooker repeated.

  “No, by the hair on my chinny chin chin!” Billy said and, to his horror, Bert Brute scoffed his tusks and began shinning up the tree.

  “He’s coming up!”

  “Never fear! Pigs’ trotters are not adapted for the arboreal life.”

  “But you got up here.”

  “I should like to remind you, Billy, I am not a pig!”

  “Let me get past you!”

  “I repeat: pigs cannot climb.”

  “I can feel his hot breath on the soles of my feet!”

  “Have confidence in me,” said Old Smoko, gripping the branch above Billy. A second later, Bert Brute uttered a rude word and tumbled to the ground.

  Billy was so relieved, he pointed. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  “Shhh!” whispered Old Smoko.

  Billy giggled. “He looked so undignified!”

  “To mock his dignity is the worst of insults to a sensitive boar pig,” Old Smoko told him, but it was too late.

  “I heard that!” Bert Brute bellowed. “About me lookin’ undignified. I’ll fix youse. I’ll bash, and I’ll crash, and I’ll smash your tree down!”

  “You can bash, you can crash, but you won’t smash my tree down,” Billy yelled back. Old
Smoko put his finger to his lips and shook his head.

  The Captain Cooker trotted up the paddock, turned, and ran at the trunk, head down. “Bash!” The kahikatea creaked and swayed. The earth around its base heaved, cracked open, and another root exploded, and Billy and Old Smoko hung on tighter.

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum! Come down or fall down, Billy Boy, we’re gonna have some fun, me’n you’n your dozy-looking mate, too.”

  “I’ve already told you, ‘No, by the hair on my chinny chin chin!’”

  Bert Brute scoffed and shrieked, “Then I’ll shake, and I’ll quake, and I’ll break your tree down!”

  “You can shake, you can quake, but you won’t break my tree down!”

  “Perhaps it was unwise to say that,” Old Smoko muttered. “All the same, he has no right to call me dozy.”

  Bert Brute galloped up the top end of the paddock and threw himself against the fence – like a wrestler throwing himself against the ropes. The wires screeched through the staples, stretched, tightened like a spring, bounced back, and catapulted him through the air a good fifty yards where he hit the ground, all four trotters going flat out.

  Scoffing, chopping, steaming, and puffing, the monster thumped into the trunk. His jaws slammed, his tusks clashed, his breath whistled, and the huge old kahikatea groaned, leaned, and began to fall.

  “Watch what I do, Billy,” cried Old Smoko, “and take care to copy me exactly!” Just before the top of the tree smashed into the ground, he farted and rocketed straight up in the air. Billy copied him exactly.

  The trunk thumped the ground, buckled, bounced, and boomed, but Old Smoko and Billy came down on the grass with only a little skip, their arms out sideways to keep their balance.

  “One moment later,” said Old Smoko, “and we should have been marmalade.”

  The air reeked with the peppery burnt-linoleum smell of old boar pig. Its neck broken, Bert Brute’s carcass sprawled as big as a dead rhinoceros. Billy stood with his foot on one tusk. “Take my photo!” he said.

  “Only sissies carry cameras,” Old Smoko told him.

  Billy felt a bit embarrassed and tried to think of something else to say. “How about all the crackling!” he said.

  “Hoary old dog-scoffing Captain Cookers are not what you call much chop for tucker. The meat is as rank as their stink. The shields on their shoulders are like armour plate, scarred all over from fighting. Eating their crackling would be like trying to chew corrugated iron,” said Old Smoko. “We need something young for the table, plump and tender.

  “Cut out his jaw, Billy. Those tusks are going to come in handy, if we are to make Johnny Bryce eat his words.”

  “But we didn’t kill Bert Brute,” said Billy. “He broke his own neck.”

  “Johnny Bryce is not going to know that.”

  “My real mother told me always tell the truth!”

  “You do not have to say you killed him. Just showing Bert Brute’s tusks to Johnny Bryce should do the trick.”

  As Billy cut out the jaw, Old Smoko threw up his head, sniffed the air, whimpered, took off across the paddock, and hurdled the fence. He disappeared into the bush, his tail going round and round like a dog’s.

  “He must have winded something.” Billy ran after. From the top of the spur, he heard excited barking in a gully below. “That means he’s on to something. Now he’s finding.” A pig shrieked. “That means he’s stopped it.” A regular, steady “Bark! Bark!” came up through the trees. “He’s bailing!”

  Billy worked through the supplejack down the gully, and found a fat sow backed in against a ponga. Tail lashing, his eyes fixed on the sow’s, Old Smoko barked steadily. He flicked one ear to show he knew Billy was there.

  As Billy sneaked behind the ponga, Old Smoko leapt and held the sow by the cheek. Billy whipped in, lifted the back feet, threw the pig on its back, and stuck it through the heart, as Old Smoko had shown him. “Take that, swine!” he grunted.

  “She’s in good nick!” Old Smoko panted. “She’ll eat well!”

  “Where did you learn to be a pig dog?” asked Billy.

  “I grew up at Ruatahuna in the Vast Untrodden Ureweras!” Old Smoko puffed. “At Huiarau Primary School, the first thing they taught us was how to find and bail. Now, Billy, we need a singeing fire with lots of damp smoke.”

  “What’s singeing?”

  “Watch and learn.” Old Smoko rubbed a kaikomako stick on a flat bit of mahoe till it smoked, then blew on the dust he’d made. It glowed and set aflame some dry tea-tree twigs.

  Together they built up a long, narrow fire, and Old Smoko threw on some green ponga fronds. They held the sow by its feet, turning it in the flames and damp smoke, singeing off the bristles. Then Old Smoko took the sticking knife, and Billy his pocket-knife, and they scraped the skin clean. Round the loins and the belly was trickiest, but the damp smoke seemed to lift the surface of the skin so it came clean.

  “The air smells exciting,” said Billy. “It reminds me of the crackling on Harrietta Wilson’s sandwiches.” Old Smoko just nodded and showed him how to gut the pig.

  “She’s fat!” said Billy.

  “She has been on the hinau.” Old Smoko opened the paunch and pointed with the knife. “See the half-digested berries. Tomorrow, Johnny Bryce can keep his old sandwich. Not only that,” said Old Smoko, “but he is going to have to eat his words.”

  Old Smoko got the fat sow on his back, Billy heaved Bert Brute’s enormous jaw over both shoulders, and they staggered down to the house.

  Billy’s lackadaisical father and his wicked stepmother were still in bed, snoring, as they dropped the carcass on the kitchen table. Old Smoko butchered it, slashed the skin for crackling, and put a shoulder and a leg into the oven to roast. Billy put some spuds, onions, kumaras, pumpkin, parsnips, and carrots in the baking dish, and he put a cabbage on to boil – hard.

  As they returned after the evening milking, there came to them the delicous smell of roasting pork and the sulphurous stink of hard-boiled cabbage. They ran for the back door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Why Billy Had His History Book Open During Arithmetic, Why Pork Chops are Not Good for Growing Boys, and Does Masticating Do You Any Harm?

  Inside the kitchen, Old Smoko tapped the crackling. It crunched. “Done to perfection!”

  They were just finishing their enormous meal when “Fee-fi-fo-fum!” said a voice from the bedroom. Billy took in a couple of plates of crackling and vegetables, and his father and stepmother woke up long enough to crunch and munch before falling asleep again.

  “Staying in bed all day has made them like two fat spoiled children,” Billy said. “They ate all the crackling but didn’t even touch their hard-boiled cabbage.”

  “We want more crackling!” called his stepmother’s voice.

  “You can have some more when you eat up your lovely hard-boiled cabbage,” Billy called back.

  “But we hate hard-boiled cabbage,” said his father’s voice. “It stinks like Rotorua.”

  “No hard-boiled cabbage, no crackling.” His father cried, but Billy insisted. When they called out that their plates were clean, he looked and found the hard-boiled cabbage hidden under their pillows. Billy stood over them and made them eat every mouthful before letting them have more crackling and roast pork. Crunching, chewing, swallowing, wiping his mouth, and brushing the crackling crumbs off the sheets, his father asked, “How about telling us one of them stories. Say ‘The Babes in the Woods’?”

  “You shut up!” Billy’s beautiful stepmother told him. “I’m boss around here I want ‘Cinderella’.”

  “If you’re going to argue,” said Billy, “you won’t get a story at all.” They pulled the sheets up over their noses and lay very still while he told them the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk”.

  “Is that all?”

  “The End!” said Billy.

  “That Jack,” said his stepmother, her green eyes flashing, “I’d have given him what for with a big stick! Selling a
good cow for just a few beans!”

  “But they got all that gold!”

  “All the same…. What boys need is a bit of what for with a big stick!” Scoffing her teeth together, Billy’s wicked stepmother rolled over, and snored.

  Out in the kitchen, Old Smoko had made a stack of roast pork and crackling sandwiches, packed them in watercress fresh from the creek, wrapped them in damp tea-towels so they wouldn’t dry out, and popped them into a pikau.

  At the Wardville turnoff, next morning, they handed sandwiches around all the other kids. “A small appreciation for your splendid generosity,” Old Smoko said in his grandest voice.

  “These are the best roast pork and crackling sandwiches in the Southern Hemisphere!” Harrietta smiled at Billy, and everybody yelled, “You bet!” – everyone but Johnny Bryce who was trying to get her sandwich off his little sister.

  “Where’d you fellas catch the fat pig?” Tama Rawiri wanted to know.

  “Down by the river,” said Old Smoko. He didn’t want anyone finding their pig hunting possie, Billy thought. So, even though he was an honest boy, he said nothing.

  During arithmetic, he opened his history book and looked at the painting of Captain Cook. Sure enough, he was long in the snout, heavy-shouldered, and carrying a tusk as big as a cutlass. But the history book didn’t say anything about him hooking up New Zealand, nor anything about his man-eating descendants.

  “Please, Mr Strap, sir?” Billy waved his hand in the air and flicked his finger. “Is it true Captain Cook was a boar pig who hooked New Zealand out of the sea on his tusks?”

  “What are you doing with your history book open?” asked Mr Strap, who was busy hearing the standard threes’ spelling. “Why aren’t you doing your sums off the blackboard? In any case, you’re too young to be reading. Sit up straight, put your hands on your head, eyes this way everyone, paying attention, I’ll only say this once, so you’d all better listen hard.