by Sarah Lark
“Then it would be too easy,” David said optimistically. “And then everything would already be gone, since it took us so long to get out here. Hey, I’m hungry! Why don’t we stop for a bit?”
Lucas shrugged, though the path they were on was ill suited for a rest stop, being rocky and lacking grass for the horse. So they agreed to ride for another half hour and look for a better place.
“Doesn’t look like there’s gold here anyway,” David said. “And when we do stop, I want to look around.”
Their patience was soon rewarded. A short while later they reached a high plateau on which grew not only the omnipresent ferns but also lush grass for the horse. The Buller followed its course far below them; directly beneath their stopping place was one of the small strands of golden-yellow sand.
“Do you think anyone’s ever had the idea to pan there?” David took a bite of bread, forming the same idea Lucas had earlier. “Could be that it’s full up with nuggets.”
“Wouldn’t that be too easy?” Lucas smiled. The boy’s enthusiasm cheered him up. But David refused to give up that easily.
“Exactly! That’s why no one’s tried it yet. What do you bet, they get green eyes when we pan a couple of nuggets out of there nice and easy?”
Lucas laughed. “Try it on a strand that’s easier to reach. You’d have to be able to fly to get down to that one.”
“Another reason no one’s tried it. This is the spot where we find our gold, Luke! I’m sure of it. I’ll climb down there.”
Lucas shook his head, concerned. The boy seemed to have become possessed. “Davey, half of all the gold panners take the river. They’ve already been through here and have probably rested on that strand the same as we’re resting up here. There’s no gold, believe me.”
“Now how do you know that?” David leaped up. “I, at least, believe in my luck. I’m going to climb down and have a look!”
The boy searched for a good point of departure, and Lucas watched him, horrified, over the precipice.
“David, it’s at least fifty yards! And it gets steep near the bottom. You can’t climb down there!”
“Of course I can!” The boy disappeared over the edge of the cliff.
“David!” Lucas had the feeling his voice sounded like a screech. “David, wait! At least let me tie a rope around you.”
Lucas had no idea if the ropes they had brought along were long enough, but he pulled them out of the saddlebags, panicking.
David didn’t wait. He didn’t detect any danger; climbing was fun for him, and he didn’t experience vertigo. However, he was not an experienced mountain climber. He could not tell whether a rock ledge was secure or likely to break, and he had not counted on the soil on that seemingly secure ledge, on which grew a patch of grass, being wet and slippery from the rain when he carelessly burdened it with his whole weight.
Lucas heard the scream before he had finished gathering all the rope. His first impulse was to run to the cliff’s edge, but then he realized that David must be dead. No one could survive a fall from this height. Lucas began to shake and for several seconds leaned his forehead against the saddlebags that were draped over the patient horse. He did not know whether he could summon the courage to look down at the shattered body of his beloved.
Suddenly he heard a weak, choked voice.
“Luke…help me! Luke!”
Lucas ran. It couldn’t be true; he couldn’t…
Then he saw the boy on a rock protrusion maybe twenty yards below him. He was bleeding from a wound above his eye, and his leg was bent at a strange angle, but he was alive.
“Luke, I think I broke my leg! It hurts so bad.”
David sounded afraid; he seemed to be fighting back tears, but he was alive. And his position was, for the moment, not especially precarious. The rock protrusion was big enough for one, maybe two people. Lucas would have to lower himself down on a rope, grab hold of the boy, and help him climb up. He considered whether he could make use of the horse, but without a saddle on whose horn the rope could be knotted, it wasn’t very promising. Besides, he didn’t know the animal. If it ran off while they were hanging on the rope, it could kill them both. So he’d have to tie it to one of the rocks. Lucas looped the rope around one. It wasn’t long enough for a descent all the way to the canyon floor, but it easily reached David’s precipice.
“I’m coming, Davey! Stay calm.” Lucas slid over the rocky ledge. His heart was beating heavily, and his shirt was damp from sweat. Lucas had never been a climber—heights scared him. But lowering himself down was easier than he had thought it would be. The rock was not smooth, and Lucas kept finding handholds on ledges, which gave him courage for the climb back up. He just couldn’t look down.
David had dragged himself to the edge of the protrusion and awaited Lucas with outstretched arms. But Lucas had not correctly estimated the distance. Though he was now at the same height as David, he had ended up to the left of the rock protrusion. He would have to get the rope swinging lightly so that the boy could grab hold of it. Lucas felt sick just thinking about it. Until then he had maintained at least a light grip on the rock, but in order to swing he would have to push himself away from the cliff.
He took a deep breath.
“I’m coming now, David! Reach for the rope, and pull me toward you. As soon as I have a foothold, scoot over to me, and I’ll grab onto you. I’ll hold onto you; don’t be afraid.”
David nodded. His face was pale and streaming with tears. But he seemed to be holding himself together, and he was very capable. He should have no trouble grabbing hold of the rope.
Lucas let go of the rock and kicked off forcefully in order to land close to Dave with as little pendulating as possible. On his first attempt, however, he swung in the wrong direction and ended up too far from the boy. He felt around for his foothold, then tried again. This time he succeeded. David seized the rope while Lucas’s foot cast about for a hold.
But then the rope slackened. The rock above on the cliff’s edge must have moved, or Lucas’s ineptly tied knot must have slipped. At first Lucas’s body slid down only a few inches. He screamed—and then everything happened in a few seconds that stretched into an eternity. The rope above the cliff came completely loose. Lucas fell, and David clung to the rope. The boy tried desperately to halt his friend’s fall, but from his prone position, it was hopeless. The rope slipped faster and faster through his fingers. If it slipped all the way, not only would Lucas fall to the ground, but David’s last hope would be gone. With the rope, he might still be able to lower himself to the river’s edge. Without, it he would die of hunger or thirst on this rock ledge. Several thoughts raced through Lucas’s head as he fell. He had to make a decision—David could not support him, and if he landed below alive, he would in all likelihood be injured. Then the rope would be no good to either of them. Lucas decided for once in his life to do the right thing.
“Hold onto the rope!” he called up to David. “Whatever you do, hold tight to the rope no matter what happens!”
Pulled down by his weight, the rope slipped ever faster through David’s fingers. They had to be rope-burned already; he might have to give in to the pain at any moment.
Lucas looked up at the desperate but beautiful face of the boy he loved—for whom he was prepared to die. Then he let go.
Searing pain shot like knife strokes through Lucas’s back. He was not dead, but with every appalling second that passed, he wished he were. It could not be long before death took him. After falling maybe twenty yards, Lucas had crash-landed on David’s “gold strand.” He could not move his legs, and his left arm was broken; he could see the shattered bone that had punctured his skin. If only it could be over soon…
Lucas clenched his teeth so as not to scream and listened to David’s voice above him.
“Luke! Hold on, I’m coming!”
The boy had held onto the rope and secured it somewhere on the rocky ledge. Lucas prayed that David would not fall as he had, but deep in hi
s heart he knew that David’s knots would hold.
Shaking with fear and pain, he followed the boy’s descent on the rope. Despite his broken leg and his no doubt raw fingers, he shimmied adeptly down the rock surface, finally landing on the beach. He carefully shifted his weight to his good leg but then had to crawl to get to Lucas.
“I need a crutch,” he said, feigning cheerfulness. “Then we can try to follow alongside the river to get back home…or ride down the river if we have to. How you doing, Luke? I’m so glad you’re alive! That arm’ll work again, and…”
The boy crouched next to Lucas, examining his arm.
“I…I’m dying, Davey,” Lucas whispered. “It’s not just my arm. But you…you make it back. Promise me you won’t give up.”
“I’ll never give up!” David said, but he could not manage a laugh. “And you…”
“I…listen, Dave, would you…could you…hold me?” The wish burst out of Lucas; he could not hold it back. “I…I’d like…”
“You’d like to see the river?” David asked amiably. “It’s beautiful and gleaming like gold. But…maybe it’s better if you keep still.”
“I’m dying, Dave,” Lucas repeated. “Any second now…please…”
The pain was excruciating when David lifted him up, but then seemed suddenly to vanish. Lucas felt nothing except the boy’s arms around him, his breath, the shoulder he was leaning on. He smelled his sweat, which was sweeter to him than Kiward Station’s rose garden, and he listened to the sobbing that David could no longer suppress. Lucas let his head sink to the side and placed a surreptitious kiss on David’s chest. The boy did not feel it but pulled the dying man more tightly to him.
“It will all be OK!” he whispered. “It will all be OK. You just sleep a little now, and then…”
Steinbjörn Sigleifson rocked the dying man in his arms as his mother had done to him when he was little. He found consolation in this embrace; it kept at bay the fear that he would soon be left all alone, wounded and without blankets or provisions on this stretch of sand. He pressed his face into Lucas’s hair and drew him close, weeping inconsolably.
Lucas closed his eyes and gave himself over entirely to an overwhelming feeling of joy. All was well. He had what he had wished for. He was where he belonged.
11
George Greenwood led his horse into the Westport rental stables and instructed the owner to feed it well. He seemed like a man who could be trusted; the facilities gave the impression of being well maintained. He liked this small town on the mouth of the Buller River. For a long time, it had been tiny, home to barely two hundred residents, but more gold panners were moving in these days—and coal would eventually start to be extracted. George was far more interested in that particular raw material than in gold. Though the person who had discovered the coal deposits was looking for investors who would provide for the eventual construction of a mine, his first priority was to line up financing for a railroad connection, for as long as there was no way of transporting the coal efficiently, a mine would be unprofitable. George planned to use his visit to the West Coast, among other things, to get a sense of the landscape and the possibility of rail or road connections. It was always a good idea for a merchant to look around—and his growing enterprise in Christchurch allowed him for the first time to travel from one sheep farm to another without pressing business concerns.
Now, in January, after the sheep shearing and stressful period of lambing was over, he could even risk leaving Howard O’Keefe—an endless source of concern to him—on his own for a few weeks. George sighed at the thought of Helen’s hopeless husband. Thanks to George’s support, the valuable breeding animals, and intensive guidance, Howard O’Keefe’s farm was finally turning a profit, but Howard himself remained a shaky investment. The man tended to be touchy, liked to drink, and did not like taking advice—and, if he did, only from George himself, not from his subordinates, and least of all from Reti, Helen’s former student, who had slowly come to serve as George’s right-hand man. Thus every conversation, every exhortation, to drive the sheep into the lowlands in April in order not to lose any animals to a possible sudden onset of winter, for example, required a ride from Christchurch to Haldon.
As much as George and Elizabeth liked spending time with Helen, the successful young businessman occasionally had other things to do besides regulating the day-to-day management of a small farm. What’s more, Howard’s obstinacy and his interactions with Helen and Ruben angered him. They were always incurring Howard’s wrath—paradoxically because, in Howard’s opinion, Helen took too much and Ruben too little interest in the affairs of the farm. Helen had long since realized that George’s help was the only thing that could not only ensure their economic stability, but drastically improve their quality of life. She, unlike her husband, was in a position to understand George’s suggestions and their motives. She was always pushing Howard to put her to work, which invariably set him off. It further burdened their relationship when George would then rise to her defense, and little Ruben’s enthusiasm for “Uncle George” was obviously a thorn in his side. Greenwood generously supplied the boy with the books he wanted and gave him magnifying glasses and botanist’s containers to encourage his scientific interests. Howard thought it was nonsense—Ruben was supposed to take over the farm, and for that a basic knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic sufficed. Ruben, however, was not remotely interested in farm work and had only a limited curiosity about flora and fauna. His friend Fleur had largely initiated his “research” in these fields. Ruben shared his mother’s gift for the humanities. He was already reading the classics in their original languages, and his well-formed sense of right and wrong made him seem predestined for a career as a priest or perhaps the study of law. George could not see him as a farmer—a huge conflict between father and son was inevitable. Greenwood feared that even his own work with O’Keefe would eventually come to grief—and he hardly dared to think about the consequences for Helen and Ruben. But he could worry about that later. His current excursion to the West Coast was a sort of vacation for him; he wanted to finally get to know the South Island better and discover new markets. Besides, a different father-son tragedy provided his motivation: though he had not told anyone, George was looking for Lucas Warden.
More than a year had passed since the heir of Kiward Station had disappeared, and the chatter in Haldon had largely subsided. The rumors about Gwyneira’s child had been silenced; it was generally accepted that her husband was spending time in London. Since the people in town had hardly ever seen Lucas Warden, they did not miss him. Besides, the regional banker was not very discreet and thus news of Lucas’s immense financial success in the motherland increasingly found its way into circulation. The people of Haldon took it for granted that Lucas was earning money by painting new pictures. In reality, however, the galleries in the capital were only selling the pieces they had long had on hand. At George’s request, Gwyneira had already had a third selection of watercolors and oil paintings sent to London. They obtained ever better prices, and George shared in the earnings—which was, aside from his solicitousness, another good reason to track down the lost artist.
Curiosity also played a role. In George Greenwood’s opinion, Gerald had conducted far too superficial a search for his son. He wondered why old Warden had not sent messengers to look for Lucas, or even struck out to track him down himself, which he easily could have done since Gerald knew the West Coast like the back of his hand. There were simply not all that many possible hiding places. Unless Lucas had acquired forged papers somewhere—which George did not think likely—he had not left the South Island at all, seeing as the ships’ passenger manifests were reliable, and Lucas’s name had not appeared on any of them. He hadn’t sought refuge on one of the sheep farms on the East Coast, either; word would have gotten around. As for hiding out with a Maori tribe, Lucas had simply been brought up too English. He would never have been able to adapt to the natives’ lifestyle and barely spoke a wor
d of their language. That left the West Coast—and there were only a handful of settlements there. Why hadn’t Gerald taken a finer comb to them? What had occurred to make the elder Warden so obviously happy to be rid of his son—and why had he reacted in such a delayed and disingenuous manner to the recent birth of his grandchild? George wanted to know. Westport was the third settlement he’d visited to ask about Lucas. Only whom should he ask? The stable owner? That would be a start.
Miller, the rental stables’ proprietor, shook his head.
“A young gentleman with an old gelding? Not that I know of. We don’t get that many gentlemen around here.” He laughed. “It could be that I just didn’t hear anything about it. Up until recently I had a stable boy, but he…well, it’s a long story. At any rate, he was very reliable and often looked after the people who were only passing through. Best thing would be to ask in the pub. Nothing escapes little Daphne, guaranteed…at least nothing that has to do with men.”
George laughed politely at the obvious joke, though he did not quite understand it, and thanked him for the tip. He wanted to go to the pub anyway. After all, they might rent rooms there. Besides, he was hungry.
The taproom was a pleasant surprise, just as the rental stables had been. This place too boasted relative order and cleanliness. Still, there seemed to be little separating the pub from the brothel. The young red-haired girl who asked George for his order was heavily made up and wore a bar wench’s eye-catching clothing.
“A beer, something to eat, and a room if there are any here,” George said. “And I’m looking for a girl named Daphne.”
The redhead smiled. “I’ll get you the beer and sandwich right away, but we only rent rooms by the hour. If you want to book me too and aren’t stingy, I can let you stay here too. Who recommended me so warmly that you asked for me as soon as you popped in?”
George returned her laugh. “So you’re Daphne. I hate to disappoint. You weren’t recommended to me particularly for your discretion, but rather because you’re supposed to know everyone around here. Does the name Lucas Warden ring a bell?”