Although Kahu confided in her more often, Lara knew he still kept some things to himself. On the first Saturday after her decision to go on the muster, she biked around early expecting to ride with him. Instead, Kahu’s mum said he had got up at first light, packed his tent and sleeping bag, saddled Koura, and asked his father to float them out to the Desert Road. ‘He rides off on his own like that a lot lately,’ Kahu’s mother told her.
When Lara asked Kahu where he rode, he shrugged and said he was just checking on the wild bands. And when she asked if she could join him, he said rather gruffly that he liked riding on his own sometimes. She knew it was pointless to pry any further. He could be as stubborn as she could and she didn’t want them to fall out again.
When the day of the muster arrived, Koura and Robbie were fit and ready. Kahu’s father floated them out to the DOC rallying point in the Rangipo Desert. A light dusting of snow covered the plains and it was bitterly cold. They joined a group of thirty other experienced riders chosen by DOC to help on the muster. Many of them rode semi-wild Kaimanawa horses themselves, as they were wiry and tough and knew the countryside. Lara saw Tusker on his coal-black horse. Kahu had spotted him too and watched him intently.
The riders crammed together in the cold waiting for the order to move out to various points across the wild horse range. The helicopters had already left to round up some of the more isolated bands. About 200 horses were to be mustered into holding yards ready for drafting.
‘Me and the boys will take the area north of the Argo,’ Tusker yelled out to the DOC officer in charge of organising the riders. ‘We hunt out that way and know the terrain.’
Kahu quickly called after him, ‘We’ll join them. I know the area too and my mount comes from there.’ He shot Tusker a wary glance.
‘OK—move on out. Bring in all the bands you can find as that’s a no-go area for horses.’
Lara and Kahu set out with Tusker and the five other men. Their horses snorted at one another and jockeyed for position. Tusker’s skittish black mare kicked out at any horse that came too close. They were keen to head out on the trail. Their muscles rippled under glistening coats and their breath hung in wisps in the freezing air. Even the usually calm, laid-back Robbie tugged at his bit, eager to keep up. Lara felt her nerves tingling and adrenaline pulsing. She was excited and frightened at the same time.
As the horses sorted themselves out, so did their riders. They jockeyed for position in their own band. Tusker was the undisputed leader of his group. Kahu made it clear early on in the ride that he was taking no orders from him.
‘My mare’s looking good, Kahu mate,’ Tusker said sarcastically to him.
‘Like I said, she isn’t your mare and I’m not your mate.’
‘Big talk for a small boy. You oughta watch your mouth.’
‘Better than small talk from a bully. Leave it out, Tusker,’ Kahu said, urging Koura on ahead to get away from the man. Koura was happy to oblige. She feared Tusker and hated being near him. She shot off along the trail, forging ahead of the group. Lara and Robbie did their best to keep up, though Robbie was nowhere near as nimble as the Kaimanawa mare.
‘Wait up,’ Lara cried out, not wanting to be left alone with Tusker. Kahu pulled Koura in and they rode together ahead of the men.
‘Why are we riding with those jerks anyway?’ she asked Kahu.
‘I want to keep an eye on Tusker. He’s got an agenda of his own.’
‘How do you mean?’ Lara asked, puzzled.
‘You’ll see,’ was all Kahu replied.
The disparate group rode on together for a few more hours when Lara caught a glimpse of a horse standing high on a hill watching them.
‘Look!’ she cried out to Kahu. ‘It’s that chestnut stallion, the head of the band we saw the weekend we camped out.’
Kahu called to Tusker and the other riders, ‘There’s a wild band over that ridge. Let’s spread out and bring them in.’
Lara thought about the three foals she had seen playing. She was relieved and surprised when Tusker yelled back, ‘Forget about them! I’m after bigger game.’
A shadow passed across Kahu’s face but before Lara could decide what it meant, it was gone. He yelled back at Tusker, ‘We were told to bring in all the horses in this area.’
‘I’m after the white stallion and his band. Not these brumbies.’
‘The white stallion doesn’t live around here,’ Kahu said adamantly.
‘Yes he does. I’ve seen him. And when all these riders and helicopters flush him out I’m gonna catch him!’ Tusker and his mates headed on along the trail, ignoring the chestnut and his band.
Kahu promptly reined in Koura and followed Tusker.
‘We’re not going with them!’ Lara couldn’t believe it.
‘I’m not letting Tusker out of my sight,’ Kahu replied tersely.
The group rode on in silence. The only noise was the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the scoria plain and the occasional snort from a tired mount. The further they rode, the more worried Lara sensed Kahu become. She peered at him through the lightly falling snow. His head was bowed and he was deep in thought. At one stage he called out to Tusker that he had found fresh horse tracks leading back down the hill. Tusker wasn’t interested. ‘My horse is further up the valley,’ he yelled back. Kahu rode on despondently.
As the afternoon wore on, the sky darkened and the snow began to fall in fierce flurries. They could hardly see ahead of them through the white squalls. Tusker finally decided they should stop for the night and set up camp in case the weather worsened. Lara saw the relief on Kahu’s face.
Lara and Kahu tethered Robbie and Koura in the lee of a hill and helped light the campfire. They ate a scrappy meal with the men, trying to ignore Tusker’s constant baiting. ‘Does your father know you’ve only packed the one tent?’ he leered at them.
‘Come on, Lara, let’s hit the sack. This guy’s sounding like a broken record,’ Kahu said, pulling her to her feet.
In the warmth and privacy of their tent, Kahu lay silently beside her.
‘What’s the matter?’ Lara asked him. ‘There’s more going on than you’re telling me. Something’s wrong.’
Kahu stayed silent for a while longer, thinking carefully before replying. ‘I need your help. It could be dangerous and I’m not sure if it will work anyway. But I have to do something.’
‘What is it?’
‘Come with me first thing tomorrow and I’ll show you.’
12
Standing strong
It felt like the middle of the night when Kahu lightly shook Lara awake. ‘Shhh, quietly. Don’t wake the others,’ he whispered to her. They pulled on their warm clothes in the dark and snuck out of the tent. The sun was far from rising and the air was chilly and still. They crept along the ground with only the pale beam of Kahu’s torch to guide them. The horses nickered lightly as they approached. They saddled them swiftly and silently, slipped onto their backs, and rode them out into the awakening dawn.
Robbie trailed closely behind Koura and Kahu in the near-dark, trusting his friend to lead the way. Kahu didn’t speak until they were some distance from camp. The sun was beginning to crawl over the horizon when he drew Koura to a stop and said to Lara, ‘Whatever happens, you don’t need to be afraid. He won’t hurt you.’
Lara was about to ask who wouldn’t hurt her, when a high-pitched squeal pierced the dawn. Robbie leapt around in fright, nearly unseating her. They both froze as a ghostly shape emerged from the fading night. It was a pure white horse, more beautiful than she could ever imagine a horse to be. For a fleeting second, she saw Kahu’s carving. And then she understood. He had seen this horse before.
‘Don’t move,’ Kahu warned. ‘He only wants to check you out.’
The white stallion paced around them, snorting, prancing and tossing his head. He sniffed at Lara’s heels, squealed shrilly and jumped away, and came back for another sniff. He seemed satisfied that she was no threat, and w
ith a final angry stomp of his foot, swung around and cantered off into the gathering light to check on his band.
When Lara overcame her shock, all she could say to Kahu was, ‘He’s amazing. Just like your carving.’
‘Yeah, and he’s dead if Tusker finds him.’
‘Why don’t you bring him in? You can gentle him, like you’ve done with his son.’
‘He’s different. I don’t think he’ll ever trust humans,’ Kahu said sadly.
‘What will you do? Tusker knows where he is; he’ll catch him eventually.’
‘I’ve got to lead him away from here. He’ll follow Koura. That’s how I first met him. He was trailing us because he wanted to be near her.’
‘How often have you seen him?’ Lara asked, thinking of all the weekends he had mysteriously disappeared.
‘Five or six times I guess,’ Kahu admitted. ‘He only lets me near him because of Koura. He trusts her, and he senses that she trusts me.’
‘What can I do to help?’ Lara was concerned at the desperate look in Kahu’s eyes.
‘Go back to camp and tell Tusker I’ve found the white stallion and I’m tracking him. Then point him back in the opposite direction.’
‘He’ll see our tracks in the snow.’
Kahu pointed skyward. Lara hadn’t even noticed it was snowing. ‘Someone’s on our side. The tracks will be gone by the time Tusker gets up,’ he grinned, more like the stroppy Kahu she knew.
‘He won’t believe us! He knows you hate him.’ Lara realised she was making excuses.
‘It’s our only choice. Even if it only buys me a few minutes, the further away I can lead the white stallion the better.’
Lara knew he was right. She had no alternative. She tried not to think of the consequences if Tusker found out she was lying to him.
‘You had better go quickly,’ she said, swallowing her fear.
Kahu rode alongside her. He bent across and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He whirled Koura around and they sped off after the white stallion.
Lara turned Robbie towards camp. They made their way as swiftly as she dared over the broken track. In the daylight they reached the camp in less than an hour. She wondered how far Kahu and the stallion had managed to get in that time. Tusker and the men were already up and eating breakfast at the campfire when she rode in.
‘Where’s the boy?’ Tusker spat at her through a mouthful of food.
‘He spotted the white stallion. He’s gone after him. He sent me back to tell you.’ She fought to keep the tremor out of her voice.
‘Which way’s he gone?’ he barked.
Lara pointed back in the opposite direction.
‘You’re lying. The stallion’s up ahead.’ He eyed her knowingly and called out to the men, ‘Saddle up. We’ve got a horse and a smartarse kid to catch.’ He snarled at Lara, ‘You’re coming with us. Pack up your gear and spur on that donkey of yours.’
Kahu and the stallion had a head start and hopefully she and the lumbering Robbie could slow the men down. But Lara hadn’t accounted for Tusker’s cruelty. He drove her and Robbie on ahead, following on his swift black mare and lashing Robbie on the rump with his long whip. Robbie pounded across the uneven surface at breakneck speed, leaping over the high tussock grass. Lara had never ridden so fast. Scoria sprayed up into her face and Robbie puffed like a runaway steam train. Behind them Tusker and the other men galloped wildly, yelling like madmen. She prayed that Kahu would hear them and steer the white stallion away.
Up ahead Kahu could hear them but he was powerless to escape. He and Koura lay in a ditch, the mare’s knees slashed and bleeding. Koura had tripped while chasing after the stallion, throwing Kahu clear as she fell. He crawled back to where she lay. She groaned and tried to struggle to her feet. He stroked her quivering neck and sides, willing her to keep still. When he heard the bellowing of the men, he knew that it was over. At the same time, he heard a piercing squeal. He stared up at the white stallion towering above them, his eyes wild and nostrils flared.
‘Clear out!’ Kahu yelled at him. For a dreadful moment, he thought the white stallion wanted to kill him. Then he realised the horse was standing over them protectively. The white stallion spun around to face Tusker and the men as they galloped up. He reared and pawed the air, tossing his head defiantly. ‘Run!’ Kahu screamed at him. The white stallion stood firm. He had friends to protect. He would run no longer.
13
The war horse
As the white stallion turned to face Tusker and the men, his mother’s ancestor’s blood was coursing through his veins. More than eighty years ago, his own forefather had faced a much more deadly foe. It was the First World War, and New Zealand had sent men and horses to fight on the other side of the world in some of the fiercest battles of the war. The white stallion’s forefather, Quinn, was among them.
Quinn had started life as a farm horse. He was big and strong and pulled a plough through the rich earth as easily as if it was a sack of potatoes. When the troops were called up, he was enlisted in the war effort, too. It was a long way from the green fields of New Zealand to the muddy trenches of the Western Front. In place of the plough, Quinn and his team-mate, Bess, now pulled an 18-pound artillery gun.
As the soldiers fought bitterly from the trenches, Quinn and Bess struggled through the mud and barbed wire dragging the massive gun forward to the battle’s front line. Thousands of men died pointlessly to gain only a few metres of ground; many more horses perished alongside them. The horses were killed by shells and machine-gun fire, or became so weakened from overwork and lack of food they fell down dead in their harnesses.
If it had not been for the care and concern of their handler, Gunner McGee, the war would have been unbearable for Quinn and Bess. During the brief lulls in fighting, he did his best to look after them. He removed the caked mud from their tired bodies with the stale straw from his bedding. He supplemented their meagre rations with treats of dried biscuits from his own mess tin. During some of the worst fighting, when the shells exploded so close to them the earth heaved beneath their feet, he stroked their necks and reassured them even though fear shone in his own eyes.
The winter of 1918 saw some of the fiercest fighting as the war drew to a desperate close. Relentless rain turned the battlefields into a quagmire. On a dismal day in January, the Germans launched a last-ditch offensive against the Allied lines. Quinn, Bess and the gunner team waded in knee-deep mud hauling the heavy gun forward. Machine-gun fire whistled above them and shells exploded on the ground spouting mud into the air. Without warning, the horses’ legs collapsed beneath them and the whole team fell headfirst into the yawning mouth of a muddy shell-hole. Quinn and Bess struggled to haul themselves out of the sucking mud but their harnesses held them fast to the 18-pound gun. Bess screeched as a stray bullet hit her in the throat. Gunner McGee lurched through the mud and sliced the harnesses free before he was shot in the leg. ‘Go!’ he screamed at Quinn. Quinn pulled himself out of the suffocating mud—but he would not leave.
Quinn stood protectively over his friends as the shells exploded around them in a hail of mud and shrapnel. The noise was deafening. Every instinct in him told him to flee. He stayed firm. Even when Bess gave her last breath, he remained close to Gunner McGee lying outstretched in the mud. He hung his head down beside the gunner’s arms until the guns fell silent. When he saw the stretcher-bearers searching through the mud for survivors, he whinnied loudly over to them. They led him away alongside the injured gunner.
Quinn was one of the few horses to return home safely to New Zealand at the end of the war. Gunner McGee vowed he would watch over the horse for the rest of his days, just as Quinn had so loyally watched over him. He was stabled at Waiouru army base along with the other cavalry horses. Gradually tanks and armoured cars replaced the horses and in 1941, when a strangles epidemic swept through the stables, many horses were destroyed. Not Quinn. Gunner McGee kept his promise. He released him, along with some others, into the Kaimanawa
Ranges to live out their days.
‘Go!’ he told Quinn as he undid his halter for the last time. ‘You can fight this disease and have a few more years of peace.’ Quinn looked uncertainly at his friend. From the hills, a band of shaggy wild Kaimanawa horses called to him. He glanced back at Gunner McGee once more, and then cantered slowly up the hill to join his new friends.
14
Fighting back
The white stallion drew strength from the bravery and spirit passed down to him from his ancestor. When Tusker and the men galloped up, he was ready to fight. The six men surrounded him, their lassos whirling through the air. The stallion lunged at the flying ropes as Tusker flicked a wire snare over his neck. Swiftly Tusker backed his black mare and the snare tightened around the stallion’s neck, choking him. The stallion grunted in pain though he continued to yank back on the snare, refusing to yield. The wire cut deeper and deeper into his neck.
‘Stop! You’ll kill him!’ Kahu yelled. He leapt out of the ditch and rushed at Tusker’s horse, grabbing for the snare. One of Tusker’s men threw a noose about the stallion’s flailing hind legs and pulled. Lara dashed up on Robbie and tried to shove him aside, but the stallion had already lost his balance. He smashed down, blood and snow flying. Tusker jumped from his horse and fell on the dazed stallion, pinning his head.
‘Truss him up!’ Tusker screamed at the men. As Tusker lay across the stunned horse, the men tied a rope to one of the stallion’s hind legs and fastened the other end tightly around his neck. They pulled the hind leg up towards the neck so that when the stallion rose he would only have three legs to stand on.
‘Get up, ya brute,’ Tusker said, kicking the stallion in the belly. The horse shuddered and heaved himself to his feet. He lurched painfully forwards on three legs. Tusker leapt on his mare and yanked the stallion’s halter lead. The chain shank attached to the halter sliced into the stallion’s nose, forcing him to stagger along beside the mare.
Restless Spirit Page 5