by Joanna Orwin
‘You’re onto it,’ said Hamish soberly. ‘They have to show what’s going to happen next.’
Tama shoved the prints aside roughly. ‘Shit. I’m not looking at any more. What if….’ He didn’t finish his sentence, but Hamish knew what he was thinking. Their fate might be laid out in the prints scattered across the bed.
Despite their foreboding, what happened the next day sent them back to the photos of the rock drawings. Pouākai reappeared during the early morning round.
Hamish and Tama had almost finished when they first heard the now familiar beating of wings. The two boys barely had time to reach each other’s side before the massive form of the giant eagle materialised out of the cover of the fog. They stood tensely, back to back, and waited for him to attack.
The huge bird circled slowly above them, the remorseless drumbeat of his wings magnified by the low layer of fog. Twice, the giant man-eating eagle circled above them. Pouākai. Hamish could see the detail of each pale feather on his faintly speckled breast, each dark flight feather spread stiffly at the tips of his outspread wings. He could see the raised crest on the sleek narrow head turned towards them, the heavy hooked beak. No legend, but a reality. Here, now. Pouākai. And they were his prey. Hamish’s heart thudded so loudly that it merged with the sound of the beating wings.
The boys turned with the eagle as he circled, keeping him in sight. Hamish sensed rather than saw the slight change in direction as Pouākai began his dive. The heavy legs swung down from where they’d been tucked against the eagle’s body for flight. The curved talons thrust forward in preparation to strike.
Just before Hamish flung himself headlong to the ground, he glimpsed the eagle’s expressionless yellow eye. He squeezed his own eyes shut and flattened himself against the earth. The now only too familiar reek of carrion filled his nostrils. He felt the rush of air as the eagle swept low over them. They were reliving a nightmare.
But when they survived a second attack unscathed, he dimly realised something was different. Pouākai seemed to be pulling up short, aborting his strike at the final moment. The third attack convinced him. Neither of them had been touched. Hamish stood up slowly, rubbing a tender spot on his hip where he must have landed on a projecting rock. And then he remembered. The kaitiaki stone. It was still in his pocket.
He felt for the handkerchief-wrapped stone as they watched Pouākai circle once more. Instinctively, he closed his hand firmly around it.
At that very moment, the eagle seemed to hesitate in flight, almost stall. He hung there, motionless, for a split second. Then he gave his long bugle-like cry, and wheeled away into the fog. The lingering echo of the cry resonated through Hamish’s chest. Then all was quiet. Pouākai had vanished.
‘What happened?’ breathed Tama shakily. ‘What scared him off?’
Hamish took the kaitiaki stone out of his pocket, still wrapped in the handkerchief, and showed it to him.
Tama stared at it. ‘The kaitiaki? It worked?’
‘Seemed to. Once I was holding it,’ said Hamish.
They looked at each other speculatively. Their racing pulses began to slow. Perhaps they weren’t as helpless as they’d thought.
‘Looks like you were right,’ said Hamish. ‘Our attempt to return the stone to the rock shelter was meant to fail. The kaitiaki will protect us.’
‘Is that why you brought it with you?’ asked Tama. ‘Good move, bro.’
Hamish shook his head. ‘I forgot it was in my pocket. It’s just chance. I meant to put it back in my soccer bag.’
‘Geez,’ said Tama. ‘They’re not exactly making things easy for us. I thought Tāua Gray said we’d get guidance?’
‘I think we will,’ said Hamish. ‘But, there’s a catch. It looks like we have to act first. We have to work it out for ourselves – trial and error.’
‘And the only clue we’ve got is those rock drawings,’ said Tama.
Hamish nodded. They had no choice but to keep looking at his photos, find the key to the pattern, find out what fate had in store for them.
≈ TEN
HAMISH SPREAD the photos out on his bed in sequence. The human and birdmen figures were clear enough, but the rest of the markings were still obscure. He had no idea how to tackle the task of interpreting them.
They examined each group, their frustration growing. After an hour of fruitless concentration, Tama stood up and stretched his cramped legs. ‘Don’t know about you guys, but I reckon this is a waste of time. We’re not getting anywhere, eh.’
‘It isn’t obvious,’ agreed Kirsten. ‘But we have to keep trying. This is all we’ve got.’
Heaving a sigh, Tama sat down again. ‘What about some of your famous logic, Owl?’ He picked up the first birdman print. ‘Whaddaya call it? Working from first principles.’
‘You’re right,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.’
He mulled it over. The others sat silently, watching him. ‘I think I’m getting somewhere,’ he said at last. ‘Try this for size. We have to assume from what Tāua Gray said that the drawings and the legend both reveal the same pattern – the pattern of events.’ He stopped.
‘Go on,’ said Tod. ‘We’re with you so far.’
‘Well, let’s assume we were right in thinking the first drawings show the attack on Tama and Storm. What if that’s more of a parallel pattern, not exactly the same pattern as the legend?’
‘Now you’re losing me,’ said Tama.
Hamish struggled to sort out his thoughts. He said, ‘Look at it this way. What’s shown in these first drawings seems to represent the attacks on the hunters in the legend and what happened to us. Get it? Parallel patterns.’
‘Hmm,’ said Kirsten. Then she nodded. ‘Okay. Go on, Owl.’
‘So we have to look for other parallel patterns, find the things in the drawings that represent the other bits of the legend.’
‘I thought that’s what we were doing,’ said Tod.
‘Well, yeah. But we didn’t know what to do with the patterns once we found them,’ said Hamish. ‘Each successive bit that mimics the action in the legend will tell us what to do next. Because it’s already been set. Preordained.’
‘Okay,’ said Tama cautiously.
‘So we just have to identify each bit, then find a way to copy what it shows – sort out a parallel action that’ll match the legend.’
He looked anxiously at them, thinking he’d been pretty obscure. But a slow smile was spreading across Tama’s face.
‘Bright guy,’ he said. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’
‘I reckon you’ve cracked it,’ said Tod, nodding. ‘You’re really onto this sort of stuff, aren’t you!’
Hamish grinned sheepishly. He wasn’t used to compliments from Tod.
‘Yeah, I reckon!’ Tama put his hand up to Hamish and they all solemnly went through the ritual of a high five.
‘Now we’re cooking with gas, bro!’ Tama said.
But it was easier said than done.
They spread the photos out again and pored over them with the magnifying glass, only too aware how easy it would be to miss a vital clue. After a while, Hamish pushed the prints to one side again. They weren’t getting anywhere.
‘Maybe trying to see the whole picture isn’t the way to go,’ Kirsten suggested. ‘Let’s try it one step at a time. Just look for the next piece of action.’
Hamish tried to recall the words of the legend the way Tāua Gray had told it, then focused on the print next to the one showing the attack on the dog.
No matter how hard he concentrated, he still couldn’t make any sense of what he was seeing. His eyes began to blur with the effort, the images on the print vanishing into the grain of the photo. Just as he was about to admit defeat, the old lady’s words started to repeat in his head. He could even hear the timbre of her voice. Startled, he sneaked a look at Tama. The other boy’s face was totally absorbed, as if he too were listening to a voice inside his head.
/> ‘… Once the people realised that the bird Pouākai was responsible for the killings, they sought refuge in their village. Only the bravest ventured forth, and of them the bravest was Ruru. It was he who designed a strategy for dealing with the man-eating bird that was destroying his companions. “On the far side of the mountain there is a deep hollow,” he said. “Let a trap be built there, a trap baited with men. Stout timbers will be needed to create latticework for the roof. Timbers that span the hollow, leaving space beneath for the men who will serve as bait….”’
The voice faded away. Hamish was flummoxed, no longer sure that he’d heard anything. How could he hear Tāua Gray’s voice in his head? The strain must be getting to him.
Tama broke the silence. ‘You heard her too?’ he asked cautiously. ‘Sort of speaking in your head….’
Hamish gulped. ‘I thought I’d imagined it,’ he said, his voice faint, almost a whisper.
‘What are you two on about?’ asked Kirsten, bewildered.
But the two boys ignored her. Tama was saying, ‘It was something about a hollow and a trap.’
‘Well, yeah,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘But how could she…?’ his voice died away.
‘She’s one special old lady, eh?’ Tama said cheerfully. ‘Just accept it, bro – you’re always wanting explanations. We’ve been helped again. That’s all that matters.’
Tod and Kirsten looked cautiously at them. Tod shook his head slowly, then shrugged.
It was a while before Hamish got a grip on himself. Tama was right. They were at last on track. They’d been shown how to find the key to the pattern.
‘Okay then,’ he said eventually. ‘We have to look for drawings that show a hollow and a grid of some sort, matching that trap they built.’
Kirsten sifted carefully through the set of prints. ‘How about this one?’ She shoved a print across to Hamish.
Hamish looked at the concentric circles and cross-hatching dubiously. ‘Could be a trap I suppose. These circles could be the hollow all right, and these markings could represent the latticework. But it doesn’t help much, does it? There has to be something that gives us some idea of where this hollow is.’
‘Like a map?’ It was Tod’s turn to look dubious. ‘None of this looks like a map to me.’
But Kirsten was already checking the drawing again. ‘A map – that’s good thinking.’
For a while nothing seemed to fit. None of the markings looked remotely like a map. Then Hamish hit himself on the forehead. ‘Duh! It’s not going to be like our maps, is it? Ruru would’ve been using pictographs or something.’
‘Dunno what they are,’ said Tama. ‘But you’re the expert.’
This time when Hamish looked at the print, something caught his attention. He singled out a group of linked human figures standing to the left of the concentric circles. ‘Aha! Look at this lot. There’s seven of them. What if they represent The Pinnacles? Tāua Gray talked about them as if they were real people.’
The more he thought about it, the more sure he became. ‘I’ve always called those outcrops the Seven Sentinels. I couldn’t have known, of course, but that name ties in with the legend. She talked about them being sentries or something, some Maori word I didn’t recognise.’
‘So?’ Tod wasn’t convinced. ‘Where does that get us?’
‘Well, if these figures are the Sentinels, and the whole drawing acts as a pictograph, that would make the trap circles north or north-west of them.’ Hamish thought hard. ‘That would put the hollow further around the hill from the Sentinels.’
‘What was it she said? “On the far side of the mountain,” that was it,’ said Tama slowly. ‘You know the area. Does anything fit?’
‘Let’s have a squiz at the map.’ Tod fetched the topo map and smoothed it out on the bed. ‘It would have to be somewhere along here.’ He ran his finger along the contours, then caught his breath sharply. ‘Yes! Of course – we should’ve guessed.’
‘What?’ Tama looked blankly at the map.
‘There’s a deep hollow right here, at the base of a shingle slide,’ said Tod. ‘Like a sinkhole, where the slope’s slumped away. It’s about three or four metres across and nearly two deep.’
Hamish agreed. ‘It’s spot on. This has to be right.’
‘So, how easy would it be to build some sort of grid over this sinkhole?’ asked Tama.
Hamish was deflated. ‘Haven’t a clue. Not my strong point, building things.’
‘It’s mine though,’ said Kirsten.
‘Tama?’ Hamish wasn’t sure whether they could involve the other two to that extent. Hadn’t Tāua Gray said it was up to him and Tama?
‘Reckon we need them both,’ said Tama. ‘Too big a job for just the two of us – Ruru had companions, don’t forget.’
Hamish hesitated. It was a big ask. But deep down he’d always known that on their own he and Tama didn’t have a hope in hell of trapping and killing Pouākai. It would be good to have the others on board all right. ‘Okay you two? You’ll help us?’
‘Just try and stop us,’ said Tod.
As they were gathering up the photos and putting them away safely in a drawer, Hamish heard a car pull up outside. Wondering who it could be, he went to the window.
It was Reg Hudson, the lawyer. What did he want? As he watched, two other men got out of the car, muffled in long dark overcoats and scarves against the cold that still held the basin in its grip. Men in suits.
Beside him, Tama said, ‘That’s them, the Asian dudes?’
‘Looks like it,’ said Hamish. The suits had to be from the consortium that wanted to buy The Pinnacles. His mother had come out of the house now, hobbling, on crutches. She tucked the crutches under one arm and greeted the suits, holding out a hand of welcome. The two men bowed over her hand, and Reg was making introductions.
Tod growled, ‘Can’t she see she’s betraying everything Dad believed in? He wanted this land protected for future generations – and I don’t think he meant future generations of rich offshore Asian playboys.’
‘Come on, Tod,’ said Kirsten. ‘We don’t know that’s what they are.’
‘Where’s Pouākai when we need him?’ murmured Tama.
‘It’s no joking matter,’ said Hamish indignantly.
‘I wasn’t joking, bro,’ said Tama. ‘Those guys have even less rights here than you Pākehās. Pouākai would see them off, no sweat.’
Tod bristled. ‘You’ve got a cheek, bringing up Maori land rights. Anyone’d think you had a vested interest in this farm.’ He left, slamming the door behind him.
‘Take no notice of him, Tama,’ said Kirsten. ‘He’s upset. It’s his way of coping – lashing out at the nearest target.’
She was right, thought Hamish. Ever since Dad died, Tod had been loudly intolerant of anything that didn’t suit him. Hamish hadn’t made the connection before.
‘It’s cool,’ said Tama, shrugging. ‘I guess I lash out with my fists.’
When they had gone too, leaving him alone, Hamish found he was thinking of something Tāua Gray had said. Something about this basin once being an important mahinga kai. Hamish knew what they were, from school. They’d been told about how South Island Maori had lost access to their food resources after Europeans arrived. About how they’d been diddled out of their land, with promises not honoured. They’d only recently forced a settlement with the government.
Well, Tama was a descendant of some of those people, wasn’t he?
At the time Hamish hadn’t been much interested. History was pretty dry stuff. And there’d been a lot of disagreement amongst local farmers about whether the government should be dishing out such large sums of money so long after the event.
But now, when his family’s ownership of some of that same land was under threat, he was beginning to see what it must’ve felt like. To lose your whole way of life. To have your trust betrayed. Maybe Tama’s joke about enlisting Pouākai had some justification.
Hamish was beginning to
get the glimmer of another idea. A much more practical one than setting the giant eagle on their unwelcome visitors. Going downstairs, he checked the office was empty, then made a phone call. To Tama’s Uncle Manny. He explained the idea he’d come up with.
‘No worries, boy,’ said Uncle Manny. ‘You’ve been beaten to the gun. Tāua Gray’s already talked to the rūnanga. Leave it to us.’
Hamish put the phone down slowly. So far, so good. Now, it was time to tackle Pouākai. And that was likely to be a more difficult prospect.
That evening, when they were all settled in the living room after dinner, Jane MacIntyre said that the representatives of the Asian consortium had gone away to draft a serious offer. ‘We may have no choice but to accept it. Mr Xiang seemed very keen.’
‘It stinks,’ said Kirsten. ‘They want to turn the place into a resort. Golf course on the home paddocks, that sort of thing.’
‘We’ll get a better price from this outfit than from anyone wanting to farm,’ said Jane wearily. ‘And if we have to sell, we might as well get what we can. Besides, Mr Xiang seems a decent sort of man.’
She just didn’t seem to care about the farm any more, thought Hamish. He came close to hating her for being so indifferent.
‘Let’s just drop the subject,’ said Tod. ‘If we can’t stay I don’t give a damn if the whole basin goes to lousy resorts.’ He switched the television on.
This time it was Rod Jamieson who had made the news, as spokesman for the local farmers. Apparently Doug Armitage had stirred up a hornet’s nest by going straight to his mates in the army for help. The bureaucrats had their noses out of joint.
‘I went into town yesterday,’ Rod was saying. ‘It seems this is a pest destruction matter, so the District Council have to be approached first. We’ve now lodged a formal request with the Council to seek help from the army.’
‘What happens now?’ asked the newscaster.
‘I guess we wait,’ said Rod. ‘We’ve been told that the Council has to go through the police – that’s if they decide the army should be called in at all. But at least they’ve agreed to hold an urgent meeting. That should’ve been today.’