Toward the Sea of Freedom

by Sarah Lark

“I need to pick up wood from the other end of camp,” he said. “The men have felled trees to make room for more tents, and they want to offer us the lumber. If I can find a few people to help, we’ll put up a solid building for the hospital, at least for the women’s section.”

  Finding such helpers would be difficult, since the men went off to the gold mines every morning. Still, the lumber had to be brought in, and Kathleen climbed up next to Peter on the wagon. As he steered his team safely through the camp, he chatted with Kathleen, whom he liked more every day. She finally seemed to feel safe, she liked her work, and everything seemed to be in order in Dunedin. She even laughed quite openly when he made a joke. And she was beautiful.

  It was a sunny but windy spring day, and a few strands of Kathleen’s hair had come loose. Peter ventured to brush them tenderly back into place. Even a few months before, Kathleen would have shied away, but now she nuzzled her face against his hand. Cautiously, he let his arm wander down around her shoulders, and he pulled her closer to him. Kathleen looked up at him, and he lost himself in her radiant eyes.

  Kathleen gave the reverend a tender smile—but in an instant, her expression, relaxed and illuminated by inner joy a moment before, warped into a grimace of horror.

  “Drive,” she whispered to Peter. Her hands reached for the reins. “Drive, fast. Faster. I have to . . .”

  It sounded so urgent that Peter spurred on the mules without asking—though not without looking over his shoulder. Something Kathleen had spied when she looked over at him had scared her to death. So much so that now she shrunk down beside him and hid her face. It seemed almost as if she wished she could crawl under the box.

  Peter could not see anything that should have provoked this reaction. On the side of the street, a completely normal scene for Tuapeka was unfolding. Two new arrivals—a dark-haired man and a blond boy who looked to be thirteen or so—were starting to unload their wagon, and the man was arguing with his neighbor about the placement of his tent. None of them had taken notice of Peter’s wagon, let alone Kathleen.

  “What’s the matter, Kathleen? Talk to me, please.”

  “Stop, stop the wagon, please,” she mumbled. “Yes, yes, here’s fine. I, I’m sorry, Peter, but I, Sean, the children. I’ll, I’ve got to . . .”

  Kathleen leaped from Peter’s wagon and ran as if the Furies were on her heels.

  Had he done something to scare her? No, it had to be something else. Quickly and decisively, he turned his wagon around to head back to camp. He needed to find Kathleen and get out of her what had shaken her to her core. It looked as if she were running to the church—an indication that it was not him from whom she was running. Between the tents there were shortcuts. She would get there before Peter could with his wagon. The reverend looked once more at the place where Kathleen had frozen. The man and the boy had disappeared. Apparently, their angry neighbor had won out and they had to pitch their tent elsewhere. Could Kathleen’s panic have had to do with the two of them? Or was it the neighbor? But what could she have to do with that old good-for-nothing curmudgeon from Australia? Peter Burton decided to find out later. Deeply unsettled, he shook his mules’ reins and did not stop until he reached the hospital and church.

  “Where is Mrs. Coltrane?” he called to the women still sitting in front of the tents, washing vegetables.

  “Did you two fight?” the chandler’s wife asked.

  Peter did not bother to answer. “Where is she?”

  “She just came past, pale as if she’d seen a ghost, and she ran to the stables. Has something happened, Reverend?” The wife of the postman asked.

  Peter left his team standing there, leaped from the box, and followed Kathleen into the stables. A busy Scotsman rented spaces for horses here, earning more than most of the prospectors. Kathleen was frantically yoking her horses.

  “I, I have to go,” she stammered when she saw Peter.

  “But Kathleen, so suddenly? Do tell me what’s happened. Did I do something?”

  Peter wanted to take her in his arms, or at least soothe her enough that she would look at him, but Kathleen did not stop.

  “You? No, no, of course not. Peter, you must find Sean, or wait until the boys and Heather come back. But then tell him they must come straight home, will you? They shouldn’t wait, just head out, even if it’s at night. Maybe you can find someone to accompany the children. I’ll pay. But we, we have to . . .”

  Kathleen did not finish her sentence. She leaped onto the box and directed her team out of the stables.

  “I’m sorry, Peter. I’m truly sorry.”

  Kathleen had the horses break into a trot as soon as they exited the stables. She steered them toward the road to Dunedin.

  Peter remained behind, stunned.

  The women were talking excitedly about how Kathleen had left without retrieving her belongings or waiting for her children. They gave him looks that were not especially flattering, but he paid no attention to them. He went back to his wagon instead. Whatever had happened, he had to pick up the wood before someone else took it. After that was done, he would look for this man and his boy, whose sight had frightened Kathleen to death.

  Loading the wagon with the lumber was no quick task, and it was hours before Peter could head back to the church. But it was still light out when he passed the spot where Kathleen had fallen into a panic. He saw the man with whom the dark-haired fellow had been arguing and pulled up on the reins.

  “Evening, Terrence. So, good day today?”

  The miner shook his head. “Evening, Reverend. Poor one, actually. Didn’t find much except a lot of trouble.”

  “I saw you were arguing with someone. New neighbors?”

  “I just managed to keep them away. What goes through people’s heads? A fellow needs a little room to breathe—and Lord knows there’s plenty of space around here to pitch a tent. Maybe not so centrally.”

  That was true. The new tent spaces were farther away from the shops and taverns than Terrence’s spot.

  “And the fool wanted to make a trade to boot! Besides prospecting for gold, he wanted to straight pawn the two mules he had with him off on me.”

  Peter frowned. “What was his name? Did he introduce himself?”

  Terrence shook his head. “Nah, didn’t get that far in the pleasantries. Why? You want to buy a mule? Yours ain’t the youngest no more. But that fellow’s critters ain’t, either, although he’d polish’d ’em to a shine.”

  “Do you have any idea where the two went off to?” asked Peter.

  Terrence shrugged. “To the new tent places, I imagine. Or to make a stink somewhere else. The fellow reeks of trouble, Reverend. Better keep away from him.”

  Before looking any more, Peter decided to take the wagon back to the stables. There, he saddled the mule Kathleen had given him before he’d left Dunedin and made his way through the camp. On his mount, he was more mobile and might have better luck finding them. Besides, he could claim he wanted to trade the mule—the fastest means of conversing with a horse swindler.

  The fellow reeks of trouble. Peter decided to trust Terrence’s instincts and turned toward the nearest tavern first.

  “Evening, people,” he greeted everyone. “Heard there’s a horse trader who wants to settle here. Anyone got an idea where he’s at?”

  “Fat, dark-haired fellow?” asked the barkeeper. “He was here before. Wanted to set up right next to here. But I got there in time. Now he’s next to Janey’s whorehouse. Janey can’t say no, you know.”

  “Next to a brothel?” the reverend wondered aloud. “I heard he had a boy with him.”

  “Apparently not a soft one.” The barkeeper grinned, and the men laughed. “Want a whiskey, Reverend?”

  Peter was too curious for a drink, and Janey’s Dollhouse was right around the corner. The man and his boy were carrying things from their wagon to their newly pitched tent. Their mules grazed, hitched to long halters over which Janey’s drunk patrons would doubtlessly trip in later hour
s.

  Peter contemplated how he should begin the conversation, but the man became aware of him on his own. With alert and hard eyes, he looked over at Peter’s mule, first routinely, then obviously interested.

  “Nice mule you got there,” said the man. “Where’d you get it?”

  Peter Burton was taken aback. If the man was a horse trader, he had to know where people bought mules. He decided to be wary.

  “Bought it somewhere near Christchurch,” he said. “But I’m thinking about getting rid of it. It drags a leg sometimes.”

  The big man grinned. “Saw that right away. Aye, someone swindled you, Mr.”—he noticed the priest’s collar and bowed—“oh, Father . . .”

  “Reverend,” Peter corrected him. “Reverend Peter Burton.”

  The man laughed. “Well, would you look at that? One expects Sodom and Gomorrah, and what do you know, my first business here is with the church. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reverend. And it’ll be my honor to sell you the best mule you’ll find between Invercargill and Auckland.” He held his hand out to Peter. “If I might introduce myself: Ian Coltrane.”

  Kathleen’s flight from her marriage had struck Ian hard—though he had not particularly missed his wife; it was more the work she did. His business required someone at the farm to care for the animals he wasn’t leading across the country. Though Colin would doubtlessly have done anything for his father, he was a child. Even Ian had known that he could not leave a barely nine-year-old boy in charge of the farm, or home alone, for that matter. Thus, Colin had gotten his greatest wish: Ian no longer sent him to school but instead took him on his sales trips.

  At first, Ian had tried to keep the journeys short, but his years of swindling had come back to bite him: in Christchurch and its surroundings, his reputation was ruined. People would rather travel a long way just to purchase animals elsewhere. Ian had tried finding a partner who would work the farm while he traveled. However, even in this, only dubious men had agreed to work with him. The first herded off a flock of sheep and sold them for his own profit while Ian was away. The second was dead drunk whenever Ian returned. The third caused trouble when Ian tried to cheat him on his share of a horse sale. With the fourth, things limped along for a while, but the man left as soon as gold was found in Otago.

  So Ian was forced to limit his travels again—although he really should have been expanding them, since it wasn’t long before even the smallest farmer in Canterbury had no need for Ian’s faulty stock. The gold miners’ demand for provisions earned the farmers enough to enhance their own flocks and improve their quality with sheep acquired from the bigger livestock breeders. Many sheep barons bred horses for their own pleasure or mules for work. With these, too, they helped their smaller neighbors out, for a price.

  “Why don’t you just work your farm?” asked Ron Meyers, the new owner of the Edmundses’ farm and Ian’s drinking buddy, when Ian had complained to him. “Mine runs like a dream.”

  Meyers raised cattle.

  “Why don’t we go look for gold?” Colin asked his father.

  Ian had weighed his options and decided on the latter.

  He had sold the horses and then the farm to Ron Meyers, who made him a rather good offer. After that, he had set off on the way to the gold mines with Colin and a team of two mules.

  Ian Coltrane.

  Peter Burton breathed deep. That was Kathleen’s secret; no wonder she had been so horrified. Had she really believed her husband dead? That seemed unlikely. Her behavior over the years hinted that she had fled him, and Peter had often suspected her husband was still alive. And the boy? The reverend eyed him inconspicuously. Really, the similarities should have stood out at once: the boy was Kathleen’s son, without a doubt. He looked more like her than her dear Sean.

  “And my son, Colin,” Ian introduced him. “Colin, show the reverend the gray mare. He’s thinking of trading his old mule.”

  Colin looked at Peter’s mount. The reverend noticed that the boy had Kathleen’s features, but the expression with which he looked over the mule was his father’s. Like his father, he seemed to recognize the animal; Kathleen must have had it when she escaped from the marriage. From the years that had passed since he’d first met Kathleen, Peter judged that the boy couldn’t have been more than nine when his mother had fled. He wondered if Colin would blurt something out, but the boy said nothing.

  “Should I ride the gray mule over?” Ian asked.

  Peter decided to break off the proceedings.

  “No, thank you. Not today, Mr. Coltrane. It’s already getting dark. I can hardly see a thing. Hardly the right time to trade for a mule.”

  Ian Coltrane furrowed his brow. “Reverend, now you’re insulting me. As if I would cheat you, you or the church, by day or by night. What I’m offering you, you could buy blind, Reverend. This gray one is a beauty. And not a day over eight. That’s right. Yours, on the other hand, I’d say she’s twenty.”

  Peter nodded. “And she’s served faithfully just as long,” he said, taking up the smug tone with which Ian had spoken to him. “Now that I think about it, it would be exceedingly ungracious of me to simply sell her in trade. No. This animal should grow old honorably in the service of the church. Many thanks, Mr. Coltrane. I hope to see you in church soon. Oh yes, and you in the school, Colin. We begin at eight. I’ll be expecting you.”

  Colin pouted. Apparently, he didn’t intend to do much more for his education.

  Peter decided to play a trick of his own. He smiled encouragingly from the son to the father.

  “You could also bring that gray mule around tomorrow when you come, Colin. Maybe I’ll take a look at it in the light.”

  At least the next morning, Ian Coltrane would send his son to school.

  Chapter 7

  Lizzie could not give a complete pepeha because for the Maori, a proper personal introductory speech contained the recounting of one’s ancestors, and Lizzie simply lacked that knowledge. She did her best though, giving her name and her origins in England and describing London as concretely as possible, as well as her meanderings through Van Diemen’s Land, formerly Tasmania. She mentioned the ship on which she had come to Aotearoa and her travels on the North Island. In so doing, she gave James Busby’s name, but it meant nothing to the Ngai Tahu. Lizzie knew that none of their chieftains had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, but most of the tribes had at least heard of it by then. That did not apply to her new friends, whose tribe was small and lived mostly in seclusion.

  Lizzie had hiked two days into the mountains. She would never have tracked down the Maori on her own, but on the second day, two young hunters joined her while she caught fish with a weir according to Maori custom. The pakeha woman who knew traditional fishing methods interested the youths, and when she answered their questions in Maori, they brought her to the village. There she was given a complete powhiri greeting ceremony, and the Maori were exceedingly impressed when she answered formally with her pepeha. Her presents, too, were happily received—although Lizzie quickly realized there was no urgent need for the things she had brought.

  It was astounding, but in this out-of-the-way village, there was nearly everything the Maori desired from the pakeha: the women used cast-iron pots and wrapped their children in warm wool blankets. The tribe possessed a flock of high-quality sheep, and its fields were ready for planting, a team of draft oxen having helped. Many of the people wore Western clothing, not just the chieftain and his family. Apparently, anyone here could have pakeha dresses or pants. The tribe was rich by Maori measures. This confirmed Lizzie’s suspicion that the natives knew exactly where the gold that the pakeha wanted was. Yet they protected this knowledge, which Lizzie thought sensible. So she formulated her questions on the topic carefully as she helped the chieftain’s sister and the other women to prepare the meal.

  “My friends and I live near the new gold miners’ camp on the Tuapeka River. But we were considering spreading our search for gold into your area. I’ve come here
to ask if we are welcome.”

  “How many friends do you have?” the chieftain’s sister asked. “Two thousand? Three thousand? And do you intend to leave our land like the riverbed they call Gabriel’s Gully?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “I have two friends,” she said. “And one of them is sick. He can no longer work but has a wife and two children in Wales—that is next to England, where many pakeha come from. If he finds no gold, his family will starve.”

  “The woman can come here and care for her husband,” said one of the younger women. “She could work the land.”

  “They would have to buy the land first,” said Lizzie. “And there it becomes difficult. Does the tribe sell land?”

  The women laughed. “If we tried, there would be war,” the chieftain’s sister said drily. “The pakeha would say the land here doesn’t belong to us. We’re a tribe that wanders, sometimes here, sometimes there.”

  “But you do have a region in which you wander?” Lizzie asked, confused.

  The woman snorted. “It contained Gabriel’s Gully. And the land on which the Tuapeka River camp was built. If we wanted to hold it, our warriors would have to defend it. We have twenty warriors. Should they take the field with their twenty weapons against the five thousand rifles in your pakeha camp?”

  Lizzie sighed. “It’s not right.”

  The Maori woman nodded. “But you and your two friends, you three are welcome,” she said generously. “Our men have watched you. You know how to make a fire and catch fish. You leave the land as you found it. If your friends promise to do that, too, we’ll live in peace with each other. You need not dig up all the land.”

  Lizzie nervously licked her lips before she made another attempt.

  “It, it would all be easier if we knew where we should dig.”

  The women laughed again.

  “You’re clever, pakeha wahine,” said an old woman who had joined the conversation. During the powhiri, she had let out the karanga, a cry meant to establish the spiritual connection between tribe and visitor. Doubtless she was the tribe’s tohunga. “You want us to lead you to the gold stuff so valuable to you. But what guarantee do we have that you won’t take more than you need?”