by Sarah Lark
“Have you written to Ruben yet?” Gwyneira asked.
Helen nodded. “But you know how long it takes. First the mail goes to Christchurch, then to Dunedin.”
“Though soon the O’Kay Warehouse wagons will be able to take them,” Gwyneira remarked. “Fleur wrote in her last letter that she’s expecting a delivery in Lyttelton. So she has to send someone to pick it up. They’re probably already on their way. But let’s talk about my wool for a minute—the Maori are threatening to block the road we take to Christchurch, and I wouldn’t put it past Tonga to simply steal the wool—as a little advance pay on the reparations the governor will award him. Well, I’m thinking of spoiling a bit of his fun. Would you be amenable to our bringing our wool to your farm to store in your cow barn until your shearing is done as well? Then we can take it all together by way of Haldon. We’ll be a bit later to market than the other breeders, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Tonga was incensed, but Gwyneira’s plan succeeded. While his men guarded the road, their enthusiasm for the task slowly ebbing, George Greenwood was receiving the wool from both Kiward Station and O’Keefe Station in Haldon. Tonga’s people, whom he had promised ample remuneration, became impatient over the incident and objected that they were usually earning money from the pakeha around this time.
“Almost enough for the whole year!” Kiri’s husband complained. “We’ll now have to move around and hunt like before. Kiri is not looking forward to a winter in the highlands.”
“Maybe she’ll find her daughter there,” Tonga retorted angrily. “And her pakeha husband. She can complain to him—after all, he’s responsible.”
Tonga still had not heard anything about Paul and Marama’s whereabouts, but he was a patient man. He waited. Then a covered wagon fell into the clutches of his road blockade. However, it was coming from Christchurch, not Kiward Station, and contained women’s clothing, not fleece, so really there was no justifiable reason to stop it. But Tonga’s men were slowly getting out of control—and set more things in motion than Tonga could ever have imagined possible.
Leonard McDunn steered his heavy vehicle over the still rather bumpy road from Christchurch to Haldon. This was a detour, but his employer, Ruben O’Keefe, had charged him with dropping off a few letters in Haldon and having a look at a farm in the area.
“But without drawing attention to yourself, McDunn, please! If my father figures out that my mother is in contact with me, she’ll be in a world of trouble. My wife thinks the risk is too great, but I have an uneasy feeling…I can’t really believe that the farm is suddenly flourishing as my mother claims. It will probably be enough for you to ask around a bit in Haldon. Everyone knows everyone in that village, and the general store owner is very chatty.”
McDunn had nodded amiably and, laughing, commented that he’d practice a tricky interrogation technique he knew. In the future, he thought happily, he might have need of it. This was his last trip as a driver for the O’Keefes. The population of Queenstown had recently elected him to police constable. Leonard McDunn, a quiet, squarely built man of about fifty, appreciated the honor and the sedentary nature of the position. He’d been driving for the O’Keefes for four years now, and that was enough.
At the moment, he was quite enjoying his trip to Christchurch, thanks to the pleasant company that had been sent along with him. On the coach box next to him sat Laurie to his right and Mary to his left—or vice versa; there was still no way he could tell the twins apart from each other, even now. Neither of them seemed to care though. One talked to him as cheerfully as the other, asking questions, always hungry to know more, and both gazed over the landscape with the same childlike curiosity. He knew that Mary and Laurie did invaluable work as purchasing agents and salesgirls for the O’Kay warehouse. They were polite and well-bred and could even read and write. Their disposition, however, was simple; they were easily influenced and easy to please but could slip into a state of prolonged moodiness if they were approached the wrong way. That rarely happened, though; usually they were both in high spirits.
“Shouldn’t we stop soon, Mr. McDunn?” Mary asked blithely.
“We did some shopping for a picnic, Mr. McDunn! We even got grilled chicken legs from that Chinese business in Christchurch,” twittered Laurie.
“It is chicken, isn’t it, Mr. McDunn? Not dog? In the hotel they said people eat dog meat in China.”
“Could you imagine someone eating Gracie, Mr. McDunn?”
McDunn smiled widely, his mouth watering. Mr. Lin, the Chinese man in Christchurch, would never pawn dog legs off as chicken.
“Sheepdogs like Gracie are far too valuable to eat,” he said. “What else do you have in your baskets? You went to the baker’s too, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, we visited Rosemary. Just imagine, Mr. McDunn, she came over to New Zealand on the same ship as us!”
“And now she’s married to the baker in Christchurch. Isn’t that exciting?”
McDunn did not think marrying a baker in Christchurch all that thrilling, but kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he looked for a good spot to take a break. They were in no hurry. If he found an inviting place, he could leave the horses to eat and relax for a couple of hours.
But then something remarkable happened. The road made a hairpin turn, revealing a view of a small lake—and some sort of blockade. Someone had laid a tree trunk clear over the road, and it was being guarded by several Maori warriors. The men looked martial and fearsome. Their faces were completely covered with tattoos and war paint, their upper bodies were naked and gleaming, and they wore a sort of loincloth that ended just below the knees. They were armed with spears, which they now raised threateningly to Leonard.
“Crawl into the back, girls!” he called to Mary and Laurie, trying not to scare them.
Finally, he stopped.
“What you want on Kiward Station?” one of the Maori warriors asked menacingly.
Leonard shrugged. “Isn’t this the way to Haldon? I’m on my way with wares for Queenstown.”
“You lie!” the warrior exclaimed. “This way to Kiward Station, not to Wakatipu. You food for Wardens!”
Leonard rolled his eyes and exercised calm.
“I am most certainly not food for the Wardens, whoever they are. I don’t even have a load of groceries, just women’s clothing.”
“Women’s…?” The warrior frowned. “You show!”
In one quick motion, he sprang up onto the coach box and ripped open the cover. Mary and Laurie screeched in terror. The other warriors hooted approvingly.
“Easy now, easy!” cursed McDunn. “You’re making a mess of everything! I’d be happy to open the wagon for you, but…”
The warrior had drawn a knife and cut the cover from its frame. To the amusement of his companions, the wagon bed now lay uncovered before him—as did the twins, who clung to each other, whimpering.
Now Leonard became seriously concerned. Fortunately, there were no weapons or any ironware that could be used as one. He had a gun himself, but the men would disarm him long before he could use it. Even drawing his knife would be far too risky. Besides, the boys did not look like professional highwaymen, but rather like shepherds playing at war. For the moment, they did not present any immediate danger.
Beneath the undergarments, which the Maori now pulled from the wagon and held in front of his chest, giggling, to the elation of his tribesmen, were more dangerous wares. If the men found the barrels of fine brandy and tried it for themselves right then and there, their situation could quickly become precarious. In the meantime, others had become curious about them. They must have been near a Maori village because a few adolescents and older men approached, the majority of them dressed in Western clothing and lacking tattoos. One of them lifted a crate of fine Beaujolais—Mr. O’Keefe’s personal order—out from under a layer of corsets.
“You’re coming with!” said one of the newcomers sternly. “This wine for Wardens. I once house servant; I know.
We’re taking you to the chief. Tonga will know what to do.”
Leonard McDunn’s enthusiasm at the prospect of being introduced to the high chief was tepid at best. Though he did not think his life was in danger, he knew that he could kiss his wares good-bye if he steered the wagon into the rebels’ camp—probably the wagon and horses too.
“Follow me!” commanded the former house servant, stepping forward. McDunn cast an appraising glance at the landscape. It was predominantly flat. A few hundred yards back, the road had forked, and they had probably set off in the wrong direction. This was obviously a private path, and the Maori were in the midst of a feud with its owner. The fact that the approach to Kiward Station was better constructed than the public road had led Leonard to make a wrong turn. If he could break out straight through the bush to the left, he would have to intersect with the official road to Haldon…unfortunately, the Maori warrior was still standing before him, now posing with a brassiere on his head—with one leg on the box, and the other inside the wagon.
“It’s your own fault if you get hurt,” Leonard muttered as he set the wagon in motion. It took a while for the heavy shire horses to get going, but once they did, Leonard knew, they would fly. After the horses had taken their first steps, he cracked his whip at them and steered sharply to the left. The sudden trotting caused the warrior dancing with the underwear to lose his balance. He did not even have a chance to swing his spear before Leonard pushed him from the wagon. Laurie and Mary screamed. Leonard hoped the wagon did not run the man over.
“Duck, girls! And hold on tight!” he called back just as a hail of spears rained down on the cases of corsets. Well, the whaleboning would survive that. Both of the shires were now galloping, and their hooves made the earth tremble. On a riding horse, the Maori would easily have been able to overtake the wagon, but to Leonard’s relief no one came after them.
“Are you all right, girls?” he called back to Mary and Laurie as he spurred the horses on to further exertion, praying that the land would not suddenly become uneven. These workhorses could not stop quickly, and a broken axle was the last thing he needed now. But the terrain remained flat, and another path soon came into view. Leonard did not know whether it was the road to Haldon; it looked too narrow and winding. But it was clearly navigable and showed traces of horse-drawn vehicles—though it looked more like the ruts of light buggies than covered wagons, whose drivers were not in danger of breaking an axle by riding on uneven ground. Regardless, he took it. Leonard urged his horses on further. Only when he thought he had left the Maori camp at least a mile behind them did he slow the team to an easy pace.
Laurie and Mary crawled to the front, sighing with relief.
“What was that, Mr. McDunn?”
“Did they want to do something to us?”
“Normally the natives are so peaceful.”
“Yes, Rosemary says they’re usually so nice.”
Leonard began to breathe easy as the twins took up their cheerful chattering again. Everything seemed to have turned out all right. Now he just needed to figure out where this path led.
Now that they had survived their adventure, Mary and Laurie were hungry, but the three of them agreed that it would be wiser to enjoy the bread, chicken, and Rosemary’s tasty cookies on the driving box. Leonard was still unsettled by the business with the Maori. He had heard of uprisings on the North Island. But here? In the middle of the peaceful Canterbury Plains?
The path wound its way to the west. It could hardly be a public road; it looked more like an unofficial path that had been carved out gradually by many years of use. Riders had gone around bushes and clumps of trees instead of cutting them down. And here was another stream.
Leonard sighed. The ford did not look dangerous and had surely been crossed recently. But perhaps not with a wagon as heavy as his. In the interest of safety, he had the girls get out first, then carefully maneuvered his team into the water. Then he stopped to let the twins back on—and jumped when he heard Mary scream.
“There, Mr. McDunn! Maori! They’re up to something, there’s no doubt about it!”
The girls crawled in a panic under the canvas that once again covered the wagon while McDunn scanned the area for warriors. All he saw were two children driving a cow in front of them.
They approached curiously when they saw the wagon.
McDunn smiled at them, and the children waved shyly. And then, to his surprise, they greeted him in very good English.
“Hello, sir.”
“Can we help you, sir?”
“Mister, are you a traveling salesman? We’ve just been reading about tinkerers.” Curious, the girls peeked out from under the provisionally secured canvas.
“Oh, come on, Kia, it’s just more fleece from the Wardens’. Miss O’Keefe gave them permission to store everything in her barn,” said the boy, while adeptly keeping the cow from escaping.
“Nonsense! The shearers were here a long time ago and brought everything with them. He’s definitely a tinkerer. It’s just the horses aren’t dappled, is all.”
Leonard smiled. “We are indeed traders, little lady, but not tinkerers,” he said to the girl. “We wanted to take the road to Haldon, but I think we’ve gotten lost.”
“Not badly,” the girl reassured him.
“If you take the main road from the house, it’s only two miles to Haldon,” the boy explained more precisely. Then he looked at the twins, who had dared to show themselves again, in confusion. “Why do the women look the same?”
“Now that’s good news,” Leonard said without answering the boy’s question. “Could you two tell me where I am anyway? It’s not…what did they just call it? Kiward Station?”
The children giggled as though he had made a joke.
“No, this is O’Keefe Station. But Mr. O’Keefe is dead.”
“Mr. Warden shot him dead!” the girl added.
As an officer of the law, Leonard thought amusedly, he couldn’t have asked for more informative people. The people in Haldon certainly were chatty; Ruben had been right about that.
“And now he’s in the highlands and Tonga is looking for him.”
“Psst, Kia, you’re not supposed to tell people that!”
“Mister, do you want to see Miss Helen O’Keefe? Should we go get her? She’s either in the shearing shed or…”
“No, Matiu, she’s in the house. Didn’t you know? She said she had to cook for all the people.”
“Helen?” Laurie squealed.
“Our Helen?” Mary echoed.
“Do you always say the same thing?” the boy asked, amazed.
“I think you’d better take us to this farm first,” Leonard said finally. “The way it looks, we’ve found exactly what we were looking for.”
And Mr. O’Keefe, he thought with a grim smile, would not be an obstacle anymore.
A half hour later, the horses had been unhitched and were standing in Helen’s stables. Helen—hysterical with surprise and joy—had wrapped her arms around her charges from the Dublin, whom she had long believed lost to her. She still could hardly believe that the half-starved children from back then had grown into such cheerful, even rather buxom young women, who quite naturally took over the work in the kitchen for her.
“That’s supposed to be enough for a whole company of shearers, miss?”
“Not even close, miss, we need to make it stretch.”
“Are those supposed to be patties, miss? Then we’d better use more sweet potatoes and not so much meat.”
“The men don’t need it anyway, or else they’ll get rowdy.”
The twins giggled happily.
“And you can’t knead bread like that, miss! Just wait, we’ll make tea first.”
Mary and Laurie had been cooking for the customers at Daphne’s Hotel for years. Handling the catering for a sheep shearing gang was no problem for them. While they puttered around the kitchen, Helen sat with Leonard McDunn at the kitchen table. He recounted the strange Maori holdup t
hat had led him to her and Helen reported the details of Howard’s death.
“Naturally, I’m in mourning over my husband,” she explained, smoothing the simple, navy-blue dress she had worn almost every day since Howard’s funeral. There had not been enough money for black mourning attire. “But it’s also something of a relief…excuse me, you must think me heartless.”
Leonard shook his head. He thought Helen O’Keefe anything but heartless. On the contrary, he could hardly get enough of her joy earlier, when she had embraced the twins. With her shining brown hair, her narrow face, and her serene gray eyes, he found her rather attractive. She did, however, appear exhausted, worn out and pale beneath her sun-kissed skin. It was clear that her situation was pushing her beyond her limits. She was as ill-suited to kitchen work as to farm work and had been relieved when the Maori children had offered to milk her cow.
“Your son hinted that his father was not the easiest man to live with. What do you intend to do with the farm now? Sell it?”
Helen shrugged. “If someone wants to buy it. The simplest thing would be to incorporate it into Kiward Station. Howard would curse us from beyond the grave, of course, but I couldn’t care less. As a one-person business, though, the farm is not profitable. There is plenty of land, but not enough for the animals to eat. To make it work, someone would need a great deal of know-how and investment capital. The farm has been run into the ground, Mr. McDunn. Unfortunately, that is the only way to put it.”
“And your friend from Kiward Station…she is the mother of Fleurette O’Keefe, is that right?” Leonard asked. “Does she have any interest in taking it over?”