by Sarah Lark
Lizzie sighed. “From the pakeha perspective, you can’t have enough gold,” she said. “But it really is just the three of us—in truth only two, Michael and I. Our third, Chris, is much too weak to dig here in the mountains. There’s only so much gold we could take.”
“So you say,” the chieftain’s sister retorted sternly, “but can you speak for the man? Is he your husband?”
Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. Again, this was a question for which there was no simple answer.
“He’s not mine,” she finally said cautiously. “I’m not married to him. Although I have, in a way, lain with him in the meeting house. On a ship, I mean. There were many people there who witnessed that we were together. But later . . . Oh, it’s hard to explain.”
These last words spoke for all her sorrow. She could not express in English or in Maori what bothered her, but the old tohunga looked at her sympathetically. Lizzie had the feeling the woman’s gaze saw straight to her heart.
“Your spirits are close to each other,” she said briefly. “But as you say, it’s not easy. Still”—the tohunga turned to her tribe—“he will not betray her. It would turn her against him, and he knows that. He must know that. Nor will the woman betray us. She will swear to us. By the gods whose help she needs.”
“She does not even believe in our gods,” said the chieftain’s sister.
The tohunga shrugged her shoulders. “But the gods believe in her. She’s bound to us.”
“I can swear by my god,” said Lizzie, “or by this one here.” From below her neckline, she drew out her hei-tiki, the small jade pendant Ruiha had given her. “Whenever you want.”
The tohunga nodded casually. The tribe discussed the matter energetically, speaking much too quickly for Lizzie’s language abilities. However, she thought she understood that most of the women supported her. A few men had objections. The old tohunga listened to everything calmly. Then the judgment was made.
“My granddaughter will show you the stream tomorrow,” she said before standing.
The chief nodded reluctantly and then turned formally to Lizzie. “You brought us presents. Custom—tikanga—dictates that we give you something too.”
The tohunga shook her head. “Tikanga,” she said slowly, “dictates that we give her something valuable. The gold is not precious. Wait.” She stepped into one of the houses, which were no more elaborate or sturdy than the gold miners’ huts. When she emerged, she carried a war club of pounamu jade and placed it in Lizzie’s hand. “With that, my ancestor defended the land. I pass it on to you now.”
The club was decorated with beautiful, elaborate ornaments. It was valuable—and not just to the Maori. Lizzie, a bit overwhelmed by the gift, thanked her.
The tohunga’s present dissolved the brief tension between the tribe and its visitor. Now dinner was ready, and the women served it. Lizzie had brought whiskey with her, which the Maori drank gladly. Soon, the bottle was making the rounds, songs were being sung, and the tohunga began in whaikorero, beautiful speech, to tell the strange, endless stories of Aotearoa’s past. Lizzie never fully understood them, though she enjoyed their sound.
Lizzie slept with the others in the meeting house, which she considered an honor, and prepared flatbread with the women in the morning. Then the tohunga’s granddaughter, a short, serious girl named Aputa, led her to a nearby waterfall that landed in a pond, from which the water flowed out in a lively stream.
“The water carries the yellow stones out of the mountains,” the little girl explained in fluent English as she climbed up the slope to reach the stream that fed the waterfall. “You can catch them in pans, like the men in camp. But you can also dig. Here.”
She pointed to a shallow spot on the side of the stream and reached for a large rock. Then she murmured something, likely an apology to the stream’s spirits whose peace she was disturbing, and pushed the gravel and sand aside. It was simple; Lizzie supposed they had dug there often. The obvious wealth of the tribe likely resulted from this very source.
“Do you have a bowl?” asked the girl.
Lizzie shook her head. At that, Aputa pulled out an old pewter plate she had stowed in the folds of her dress. She wore a simple pakeha dress, unadorned but warmer than the traditional Maori clothing. She had tied up its skirt before wading into the stream.
Now she held the plate in the water and scooped some earth into it. She shook the container briefly and poured out water and sand. Lizzie could hardly believe her eyes when she looked at the plate.
“Just take it,” the girl encouraged her. “Do you want to try?”
In less than an hour, the two of them panned roughly two ounces of gold from the stream—more than the usual monthly earnings for the gold miners on the Tuapeka River.
“It shines prettily,” Aputa said, pleased, when Lizzie placed their yield in a bag. “What do you do with it?”
Lizzie smiled at her. “Various things,” she answered. “But from this gold here, we’ll have a pendant made for you. Then it’ll bring you luck like my hei-tiki has for me.”
Lizzie’s departure from the tribe took almost as formal a form as her arrival. She promised to return soon and to bring Michael as well.
“You can sleep with him in the meeting house,” said Aputa, giggling. “Then he’ll really be your husband.”
The strange relationship between Lizzie and Michael seemed to have become everyone’s favorite subject. Lizzie sighed. That, at least, was something that the Maori and pakeha had in common.
Lizzie returned to the gold source before directing her horse home. She had memorized the location, which was not difficult—the place in question was an exceptionally beautiful piece of land. The waterfall and the pond were surrounded on the shore by five pointed rocks that rose high toward the sky. It was an unusual formation. According to Aputa, demigods had once thrown their spears there in a competition. Only one hit the target, creating the pond beneath the waterfall. The missed throws of the others could be seen in the form of the rock stacks.
By the time she was done, Lizzie estimated she’d panned seven ounces of gold—as much as Gabriel Read had brought to Dunedin after his first time in the gold mines on the Tuapeka River. She intoxicated herself by imagining the joy and surprise of the men when she returned to their cabin. With the money from the gold, Chris could send for his wife, and by the time Ann Timlock arrived, they would surely have enough money for a business together. Lizzie had in mind hardware or groceries, perhaps even construction materials or dyes, in Dunedin or somewhere where the climate was better. Chris would probably have preferred a farm to a shop, but Lizzie didn’t believe he was strong enough, and Ann surely was not coming from Wales to work herself to death on a farm in New Zealand. Lizzie hoped she was a halfway good businesswoman, and, especially, that she could be a friend.
After Lizzie restored the streambed to the way she had found it, she said a sincere prayer to the spirits of the stream. Perhaps that was not pleasing to God, but Lizzie felt the Maori gods had done more for her in the last few days than the Trinity had in the past thirty years.
Chapter 8
Michael Drury met Ian Coltrane in Tuapeka at the branch location of Dunloe Bank.
Lizzie was still visiting her Maori friends, and while Chris really wasn’t well enough to be left alone, he was feeling better. He had encouraged Michael to ride to Tuapeka to pick up some supplies and to redeem their meager gold finds for money. As Michael walked into the bank, he noticed a blond youth was holding a mule team in front of the building. Somehow the boy seemed familiar. Perhaps he reminded Michael of children’s faces in Ireland. Kathleen’s siblings? Or his own? The boy smirked when he caught Michael looking at him.
Michael turned his gaze away, entered the bank, and suddenly found himself across from Ian Coltrane. The horse trader had grown bloated and red-faced, but Michael recognized him immediately—there was something about his bearing, something predatory in his facial expression, perhaps the obvious similarity to hi
s father too. Ian Coltrane was unmistakable.
Nor was there any hesitation on Ian’s part, the less so because Michael had hardly changed. Ian looked at him, taken aback, but then a smug smile spread across his face, similar to the smirk on the boy just outside the bank. Michael’s heart constricted.
“Coltrane?” he asked flatly.
Ian grinned widely. “Well, look here: Michael Drury. Didn’t they haul you in chains to the other end of the world?”
Michael tried to contain himself. “This is the other end of the world,” he said with effort. “And as for chains, you can throw them off. But you . . . Father O’Brien told me you, you and Kathleen, you were overseas. I had thought New York.”
Ian Coltrane’s laugh boomed. “Oh? Well, you thought wrong about New York.”
Michael clenched his fists to keep himself from punching Ian in the face. He needed to fight back his jealousy so he could speak reasonably with Ian. Oh God, Kathleen could be in Tuapeka. Michael flashed hot and cold, his heart racing.
As calmly as possible, he gestured toward the front of the building. “Is that my son out there?” he asked.
Ian shook his head, the provoking smirk still on his face.
“Oh no, Mr. Drury, that one’s mine. And I know that for sure. I didn’t let dear Mary Kathleen out of sight after she was empty again and ripe for me.”
Michael bit his lip and struggled again against the anger welling within him. What way was this for a man to speak of his wife? To speak of Mary Kathleen? And yet Michael felt almost relieved. He had not liked something about the boy out front, even if he unmistakably bore Kathleen’s features.
“And where is she now?” Michael blurted out. “And where is my, where is the other . . .”
Ian became serious and a shadow crossed his face, which shocked Michael and filled him with dread.
Indeed, Ian was thinking feverishly. Should he admit his disgrace? Confess that Kathleen had left him, perhaps even to look for this rat she had always loved? And perhaps she had even come close: that reverend was riding her mule. Had he really bought it in Christchurch? Ian inhaled sharply.
“Kathleen is dead,” he said, almost casually. “She died giving birth to Colin.” He indicated the boy outside. “Before that, your bastard almost killed her. She wasn’t made for delivering babies. Too weak, too delicate. That first boy was delivered dead. Yours isn’t good blood, Drury. Mine’s a model lad, however.” Ian laughed again. “No hard feelings, Drury.” He turned and walked out the door.
Michael stood there as if turned to stone. Kathleen was dead. Kathleen and his son. All those dreams, all those years. But that did not explain why Father O’Brien had written what he did—about the three children and Kathleen’s good life. Surely the priest had not wanted to lie to him. He must have misunderstood something and then lost contact with the Coltranes. Kathleen was dead. Michael felt sick. He left the bank slowly. He did not want to encounter Ian and his son under any circumstances. Kathleen’s son, Ian’s son—but his own child was dead.
Michael’s thoughts turned in a circle. He stared straight ahead as he rode through Tuapeka. He couldn’t even answer the greetings acquaintances called to him.
Kathleen was dead, Kathleen was dead. It was too much to believe.
Michael exhaled as he left Tuapeka behind and rode upriver. But he did not want to see Chris now either. He got down from his horse and sat on one of the rocks on the riverbank. He let his thoughts drift back to the little beach on the Vartry River, the willow whose branches kissed the water. Michael took leave of his beloved, his child, and his dream.
Several days later, Lizzie returned.
“What kinds of faces are those to make?” she asked when she saw the men sitting, glum and quiet, by the fire in the cabin.
Chris was whittling a wooden spoon. Before Michael had gone to Tuapeka, Chris had been working on a rocking horse. He occasionally sold toys in Tuapeka, where there were now parents who could afford a little luxury for their children. In the last few days, however, Michael had brusquely asked Chris to put away the rocking horse whenever he entered the house. He could not stand to look at toys, let alone think of children.
Chris understood. The little horse reminded him of a similar one he had whittled in Wales for his children. Both men gave in to their sorrow over lost time, although Michael could at least attempt to distract himself. He worked from morning until dusk, exerting himself to wring at least a little gold from the stream near their house. That day, he had been outside until midday, but it was raining so hard that, at some point, he gave up. Now he was trying to warm himself by the fire.
Lizzie’s presence seemed to brighten the cabin. She beamed as she carefully drew a pouch and a jade object from the pocket of her soaked-through coat and placed them on the table. Only then did she throw off her coat and step close to the fire to warm up.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got the whiskey out?” she asked, breaking the somber silence. So far, the men had not been able to manage more than a curt greeting.
“Really, what we need is champagne . . . What’s gotten into you two? Michael, Chris? Aren’t you happy I’m back? Did something happen? Well, no matter; you’ll be astonished in a moment.” Lizzie took the pouch from the table and crouched between the men.
“Take a deep breath, you two,” she announced happily. “Wait, one moment; close your eyes.”
“Lizzie, enough with the games.” Michael’s voice sounded pained. Lizzie’s concern grew. But this was her moment. The men would just have to cheer up. “Fine, then you’ll just risk being blinded.”
She gently took Michael’s hand and sprinkled some gold dust into it. Then she did the same with Chris.
Immediately Chris’s eyes grew wide. He couldn’t believe what he saw. “But, but, Lizzie, that’s gold.”
Lizzie laughed. “It sure is. About nine ounces. But about two ounces of it don’t belong to us. I’ll explain later. More importantly, I panned it in just one day. Without breaking a sweat. Or getting up early. The spot is not that far. We just need to go west, then upstream to the waterfall. Really, it’s a triangle with our cabin, the Maori village, and the gold. By my estimates we could take about a hundred ounces without destroying anything. But it has to stay a secret. That’s what I promised the Ngai Tahu.”
Michael stared without really seeing the gold in his hand. He was rich. Now he was finally rich. But also alone. Or free? He felt Lizzie’s gaze rest upon him. Finally, he overcame himself and looked her in the eye. Lizzie was lovely with the good fortune she was so willing to share with others.
“This gold, though, is for you first, Chris,” she said. “You can exchange it tomorrow and send the money to Ann. It should be enough for her passage. By the time she gets here, we should have more, much more. Michael, we’ll have our farm. With maids and manor and whatever else we want.”
Michael warmed himself on her smile, and he suddenly noticed his sorrow beginning to fall away. Kathleen and the child were the past. But Lizzie was there. Generous, full of life, and determined to make him happy. Up to then, he had given her back much too little. He had been trapped in an unrealistic dream.
Michael carefully slid the gold back into its pouch. Then he stood up and took Lizzie by the arms. For the first time, she did not resist, as if she also sensed that something had changed.
“Chris,” Michael said, checking over his friend. Aye, he looked to be in good enough shape; he could manage the trip to town. “Perhaps, perhaps you ought to ride straight to town to redeem the gold? You could bring some champagne for Lizzie and . . .”
Chris looked from Michael to Lizzie and smiled. He, too, seemed to think himself capable of the ride. “Surely it’s not good to keep so much gold in the house,” he said. “Especially since neither of us could hit a barn door at ten paces with the rifle. It’s stopped raining, anyway.”
Chris put on his warmest clothes, took the pouch from the table, and carefully put it in his pocket.
“
Maybe I’ll have another drink in town too,” he said with a smile and a wink.
Lizzie and Michael nodded. “And take two ounces to the goldsmith,” said Lizzie. “Have him make a pretty pendant from it. Perhaps a moon and stars. Something a Maori girl would like.”
Once Chris had left the cabin, Michael kissed Lizzie, and he did it with tenderness and abandon. For the first time, she felt he was really concentrating on her. It had nothing to do with lust or a replacement for Mary Kathleen. Michael was kissing Lizzie Owens alone. Even as he pulled her close, everything was different than on the ship. Lizzie surrendered for a few heartbeats to her happiness, but then doubts nagged at her again. What had happened? Had she changed or had he? Was it because the gods believed in her? Or was it . . .
“Michael,” she said quietly, pulling back from his embrace. “What, what’s happened? Something’s different. Listen, is it, is it the gold?”
Michael shook his head firmly. “No. No, it has nothing to do with the gold. I’ve made a decision. Much too late, I’m afraid. I should have asked you a long time ago.”
“Asked me what?” inquired Lizzie.
Michael breathed deep. But then, it was simple; it was all so simple. “If you want to marry me,” he said quietly. “I, I love you, Lizzie. Have a long time.”
Lizzie looked at him, pensively. “You’ve had a funny way of showing it until now,” she said. “First I was just a whore to you, then a replacement for your lost bride in Ireland, and all of a sudden, it strikes you that I’m not just a person but also the woman you love. And all this, by coincidence, at precisely the moment I come back with seven ounces of gold. You have to understand why that makes me suspicious.”
Michael sighed. “It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the gold,” he said. “I swear it.”