The Unknown Zone

by Phil Smith

  The Unknown Zone begins with the 1965 story of fifteen-year-old Hemi Ratana who, traumatised by a humiliating incident, climbs a giant kauri on the Coromandel Peninsula in a do-or-die test of courage. High in the head branches of the kauri, Hemi finds a human skeleton. Around its neck is a key on a chain. What does the key unlock?

  Nearly 160 years earlier, on the West Coast of the South Island a group of Australian sealers is taken captive by Ngai Tahu marauders. In a desperate bid for survival one of these captives joins up with another Maori group and they all journey to the eastern Coromandel.

  These two stories intertwine in a powerful, gripping and passionate tale of land rights, spirituality, coming-of-age and love.

  Phil Smith is a first-time author who lives in Mount Maunganui. He has worked as a journalist, wood carver, stained-glass artist, timber worker, forklift drive, builder and scenic-tour guide. He is a keen surfer, rock climber, tramper and amateur geologist.

  Whatungarongaro te tangata: toitu te whenua.

  People perish: the land lives on.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  The Legend of Moanawhakamana

  1 Humiliated

  2 A fate sealed

  3 A man of strength

  4 Flight from the cannibals

  5 The weta

  6 The pounamu trail

  7 Descent from fear

  8 Prosperity under Reweti

  9 A new start

  10 Change in fortune

  11 Fishing on the Firth

  12 The fire goes out

  13 The disappearance

  14 Get us back our land

  15 Business booms

  16 Come out with your hands up

  17 A new alliance

  18 The unknown zone

  19 The two tribes

  20 Return of the marakihau

  Copyright

  The Legend of Moanawhakamana

  The Sea and the Land were once friends.

  Until one day the Sea told the Land:

  You’re growing too enormous.

  Your mountains rise higher each year,

  Your promontories spurn my kind affection,

  You invade my expansiveness with every passing age.

  The Land sneered:

  My nature is to be vast.

  My ambition is to expand.

  My scheme is to enlarge my dominion.

  My destiny is to grow into a great continent.

  The Sea resolved to teach the Land a lesson.

  She told her friend, the Wind, of Land’s obduracy.

  The Wind said: I, too, have been insulted by the Land.

  I will consult my friends, the Volcanoes,

  I will prevail upon the Great Fire Below,

  I will mention our concern to the Earthquake.

  The Fire learned of Land’s insolence.

  His thunder boomed beneath the ground,

  His rage boiled molten under the Mountains.

  His wrath rumbled, tumbled, cracked and crashed,

  His fury wrecked the Forests, turning the Rivers to muck.

  The trees and the creatures cried to the Land:

  Cease your foolishness: we’re being destroyed!

  Desist before the Great Fire devours us all.

  End this terror of smoke and flame,

  Conclude this atrocity now.

  The Land loved the forests and rivers,

  He saw what pride and arrogance had done.

  He repented to the Sea, the Wind and the Fire:

  He begged forgiveness for cruelty and malevolence.

  He abandoned his wickedness and bowed in humility.

  The Sea was compassionate but nevertheless said:

  Show us a sign, a symbol of your sincerity,

  Show to the Wind and the Fire and me

  Some reason we should trust you.

  Some proof of your penitence.

  So the Land wept.

  His tears fell upon the rocks,

  turning them into greenstone.

  Forest lands flourished green and pristine again

  Streams flowed sparkling and clean again

  Greenstone tumbled into the rivers

  And was swept down to the sea.

  A man found a piece of greenstone on the beach.

  Inspired, he shaped it into a mysterious ornament;

  A kind of Taniwha, a Marakihau, or fish-man.

  The artisan named it Moanawhakamana

  Because it evoked the power of the Sea

  And the beauty of forgiveness.

  1

  Humiliated

  Hemi Ratana saw the whole thing.

  The Kaimiro Valley had been lashed by rain overnight and the normally clear stream had turned to a torrent. In several places the riverbank had been undercut and had subsided, leaving the boundary fence hanging over the water.

  From his precarious observation platform in the top of the pohutukawa, Hemi had been watching his young cousin, Te Maika, climb out onto the suspended section of fence.

  Te Maika’s father, Baldy Hapeta, was busy on his knees digging a fence-post hole and failed to notice what, from Hemi’s viewpoint, was an accident about to happen. Hemi was horrified but before he could shout a warning the top staple twanged free from the strainer, the fence flipped and Te Maika fell head first into the water.

  She thrashed for the riverbank, clawed at the soft soil and managed to kick a foothold. It held briefly then collapsed and she drifted out into the current.

  ‘Help! Help! Uncle Baldy! Te Maika’s gone in the river!’

  Baldy leaped to his feet and hurled the spade to the ground. ‘Hold on!’ he screamed. ‘Oh hell! Someone do something!’

  With the fluid agility of a primate in the jungle, Hemi swung down from the branches to his tree hut. The structure was built on a huge forked branch that arched over the stream like a bridge.

  A ship’s cargo net that Hemi had found on the beach had been rigged beneath the hut for safety. Seizing his tomahawk, he dropped into the net and with two thwacks hacked the ropes holding the downstream side. The net slumped to water level and Hemi felt the cold surge against his legs.

  Te Maika, wide-mouthed and shrieking, swirled closer.

  ‘Over here!’ Hemi yelled, reaching out to his stricken cousin. The girl splashed towards him.

  ‘We’ll only get one go at this!’

  A short way downstream, mist and spray wafted like smoke from the top of the thundering waterfall.

  ‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘You can do it!’

  The girl lunged for him and Hemi seized her by the wrist.

  The ropes tightened around his arm and leg.

  He pulled her closer and Te Maika snatched at the net.

  The ropes went taut and the pair clung together in the river before drawing themselves up to the safety of the branches. Te Maika lay on the floor of the hut, sobbing with shock and relief.

  ‘You blasted little fools!’ Atawhai’s screeching rent the air like an air-raid siren. ‘Get the hell back over here right now!’

  Hemi led the trembling girl by the hand across the broad tree-trunk walkway and helped her up onto the land.

  Atawhai rushed towards them and smothered her sobbing child in her arms, stroking her hair soothingly. ‘There, there, my precious thing, Mummy’s got you now. You’re safe. It’s all right now.’

  As she enveloped the child she trained her most malevolent gaze on Hemi.

  ‘You could have got y’selves killed,’ she hissed. ‘You know that? You know what you put me and your uncle through, with your bloody irresponsible antics?’

  Hemi felt his shoulders slump and he bowed his head in resignation.

  ‘But, Auntie Atawhai …’<
br />
  ‘We’ve had about enough of you, always doing damn stupid things. You’re just a bloody nuisance swingin’ around in them trees, doing dangerous stuff, teaching our daughter your crazy ways. You’re eleven years old — it’s about time you grew up.’

  ‘But it’s not my fault she fell into the stream,’ said Hemi, stung by the injustice. ‘And it was me that saved her. She’d be over the waterfall right now if it wasn’t for me.’

  Hemi reeled from a blow to the ear. Everything went red. Stars danced before his eyes.

  ‘Don’t you bloody speak to your auntie that way!’ barked Baldy. ‘You know what she’s saying. You’re a rotten influence, that’s what you are. You’re turning your cousin into a daredevil tomboy. She wouldn’t have been swingin’ on that fence in the first place if she hadn’t learned them tricks from you.’

  Hemi, immobilised with guilt, stood defenceless. He knew things were not going well with the farm. Times had been tough and Hemi was a target for his aunt and uncle’s animosity.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ They turned towards the booming voice. ‘What’s happening, Dad?’

  An overweight teenager in gumboots and orange Affco overalls came swaying down the hill, wading through the long grass like a Friesian bull into a paddock of heifers.

  Baldy, fists clenched, glowered at Hemi.

  ‘Bloody orphan’s been acting the goat as usual, Tamatea. Nearly got his-self and our little girl drowned this time. Almost went over the bloody falls. What do you reckon we ought to do with the bugger?’

  ‘Give him a hiding, I reckon,’ said Tamatea. ‘Make sure he’s learned his lesson, then kick him out. He’s not wanted here. This is our land now, eh Dad.’

  ‘I’d say it is,’ said Baldy, ‘seeing as the orphan here can’t do much about it. Now go and get me the chainsaw, and be quick about it.’

  Baldy called Hemi an orphan whenever he was angry or upset, which was much of the time, specially when he’d been on the booze.

  He’d called him an orphan ever since the night last June when the black and white Vauxhall Velox with the light on the roof crunched up the driveway to the homestead and two cops stood in the doorway with their helmets under their arms.

  Hemi had been doing his homework upstairs at the time and he knew immediately something was wrong.

  ‘Oh God, oh no!’ Baldy sobbed, covering his face with his hands. ‘No! It can’t be! You’re having me on! It must be a mistake!’

  Hemi came down in time to see Tamatea standing wide-eyed in the kitchen like a possum in the spotlight, muttering, ‘What’s happening, Dad?’

  ‘Road accident I’m afraid, Sir,’ said the policeman, stiffening slightly. ‘Terrible tragedy, Mr Hapeta. Your wife’s sister I believe, Hinehopu, is it? She and her husband, Mr Sonny Ratana, were returning from Paeroa. Been to a rugby match apparently. Around eight-thirty. A boulder in the Karangahake Gorge fell from the cliff and crushed their car. Died at the scene before the ambulance arrived. Multiple injuries. A dreadful thing.’

  Baldy reared up like an opera singer going for a high note. ‘So who’s going to look after this dump, then? And their bloody orphan here? Ah, that drunken bastard Sonny! Been to the rugby, had they! I bet they was pissed as farts. Had they been on the piss?’

  Hemi knew the answer to that. The Ratanas had been occasional drinkers until the Hapeta family had arrived on the farm two years earlier and gave regular demonstrations of what alcohol does to people. Sonny and Hinehopu had given up booze as a result and Hemi was stunned by his uncle’s crude insinuations.

  ‘There’s no sign at all of alcohol involved, Sir. They were just in that exact spot when the rock fell. A freak accident. The chance of that happening must be a million to one. We’d like to take some details if you don’t mind, and then we’ll need you to identify the bodies in the morning, over at Thames.’

  Always swift to apportion blame, Baldy glared at Atawhai: he knew when Hinehopu married Sonny there’d be trouble sooner or later. ‘We should never have left Auckland. Now we’re buggered, good and proper. Stuck with another mouth to feed. An orphan on our hands!’

  Hemi had glimpsed a sneer from Tamatea who stood leaning against the door frame, arms folded staunchly. That suppressed Hemi’s urge to cry out in grief and rage.

  ‘It’s all right, officers,’ said Atawhai. ‘Just ask your questions. Don’t mind Baldy, he’s had a few. By the way, anyone else feel like a beer?’

  Acrid blue oil smoke and the snarl of a chainsaw hauled Hemi back to reality.

  ‘No, Uncle Baldy, no!’ he cried, standing with his arms outstretched on the ancient trunk. ‘Don’t cut the tree down, please don’t. The hut’s got my tools, all my stuff in it. Dad helped me build it. I won’t let you wreck it! Let me get my things first. Don’t destroy the tree! It’s not my fault Te Maika fell in the river!’

  Baldy’s gaze was as bleak as the Desert Road in August.

  ‘This is your final chance, Hemi,’ he boomed above the roar of the machine. ‘One more stunt like this and you’ll be down the road with buckshot in your bum. In fact, once the land’s signed over to us you’ll be on your way for good. You’ll have no part in Kaimiro any more.’

  He raised the revving bar above the immense branch.

  ‘Now get back over here or you’ll go down with the tree.’

  Pink sawdust spurted as the blade sliced into the trunk and Hemi sprang to the safety of the land.

  The timber popped and split.

  The ancient tree is groaning now

  Slumping slowly then cracking

  Breaking, dropping, crashing

  Straight down into the flood.

  Revolving sadly, sinking slightly

  Strong current takes hold of her

  Spreading the crimson flowers

  Of pain upon the surging flow.

  Now tumbling over the precipice

  Toppling to destruction below

  Where the sleeping taniwha

  Is roused in consternation.

  2

  A fate sealed

  ‘Quick, man, douse that light!’

  The candle flame was snuffed ’twixt Pierce Flanagan’s thumb and forefinger. We waited in no small trepidation ’neath the upturned whaleboat, which served as our sleeping-shelter on that forbidding shore.

  ‘What is it?’ one of the men whispered.

  ‘Someone approaches, and I’ll wager more than one,’ said I, peering out through the large rocks that supported the hull above our heads so conveniently.

  For nigh on six months, since our gaff tops’l ketch the Arrow had sailed out of Sydney and landed us at Jackson Bay, our gang of twenty-eight souls had been harvesting seals in a bay known to the Maori folk as Okahu.

  Our vessel had been bonded to return for us long before this November day of 1808, and our cargo of five thousand tanned skins and six hundred barrels of oil lay in store awaiting export to Europe and Asia.

  ‘Yes, I hear voices,’ said the Irishman, sitting upright.

  ‘Could be natives with vengeance in their hearts,’ growled Dougal Standring, the convict; and he should know for it was he who had forced himself upon two native girls at knife-point a fortnight ago. He had boasted boorishly of his indecencies.

  Our sojourn on this ungodly coast had been fraught with tribulation of tempest foul and tempers raw. I was with a crew of tough men cast upon an hostile place to club tame and trusting creatures, even the pups, then strip their furry pelts and rend their pink blubber in cast-iron cauldrons like Macbeth’s witches concocting some sinister spell.

  Indeed how sick we’d got of seal meat, its sinews stuck betwixt our teeth, the reek of carcasses rolling in the tide, entrails swirling amongst the stones as carrion for the gulls.

  How I longed to sail again into Sydney’s sapphire waters, to great Australia, my home of seven years. Its harsh, hot, glistening beauty seemed paradise now. Or better — yes, even better than paradise — would be to glimpse once more those cheery Cliffs
of Dover. Oh, how I’d pined for the Old Country, so fair, so far away. Thought of snapdragons and misty moors. Palaces and pimpernels. To my companions I’d recount my melancholy transit across the turn of the eighteenth century; from social sophistication and privilege as the youngest son of the Earl of Norfolk, to my inelegant banishment to a far-flung colony. I’d failed, it seemed, at every attempt to satisfy the lofty expectations of an excessively authoritarian father. I was posted to New South Wales to serve as Assistant Administrator of His Majesty’s Prisons. There, faced with inhuman treatment of men, some of whose only crime was the theft of a loaf of bread, I had defiantly rejected this miserable career and, instead, embraced the thrill of joining the Arrow’s company for a sealing adventure across the mighty Tasman to the New Sea-Land.

  Yet now I was cowering like a dog ’neath an upturned boat. This was not the kind of adventure I’d reckoned on!

  ‘We’re done for if we don’t flee now,’ the trembling Standring hissed, making for the largest gap in the rocks that served as our entrance and only escape. His voice precipitated the urgent crunch of feet on pebbles. Then shouts in primitive tongue and the sound of fighting-staves on the boat’s hull forced us from our shelter to stand before a throng of warriors whose deplorable demeanour froze us in speechless fright.

  One of our crew, Cartwright, a Londoner shipped to the colony for taking a barrow of coal to warm his family in the winter of 1795, was sleeping along with the remainder of the crew in the cargo hut, up among a thicket of nikau palms. Roused by the commotion Cartwright emerged with a musket and, clumsily assessing our plight, fired a shot into the throng.

  A Maori tumbled forwards, clutching his wounded side.

  Cartwright frantically commenced the reload but before he could get his powder horn to the muzzle the invaders sprang up the slope with animal ferocity.