by Sarah Lark
She had no illusions about her future. Coltrane would not leave her alive. He would kill her and claim this prospect for himself. And soon, droves of prospectors would pour over the land of the Ngai Tahu—precisely what the tribe had wanted to prevent. Lizzie would not only die, but die a traitor. The Maori would never know whether she had simply sold the rights to the place or given them away. And if one thing led to another, the war Kahu Heke had spoken of would begin here. All that because she made a mistake.
Coltrane pushed her dress up and thrust into her brutally. It was demeaning and painful, but she had survived worse. Her desperation gave her new courage. She would not withdraw into herself, sobbing; she had to defend herself.
Lizzie pretended she was following Coltrane’s movements, and as she did, she rubbed her hand bindings against the bark of the tree. They were not very tight. It had to be possible to undo them. Suddenly they loosened, precisely in the moment Coltrane fell against her, moaning.
Lizzie’s thoughts tripped over each other. She knew that even if she freed herself now, she could not knock this huge man out without a weapon. She looked for the gold pan, but it was in the stream. Her knife was down in her camp.
Coltrane slowly recovered and straightened himself. “That wasn’t bad at all, girl. We should do it again before . . . Well, we have plenty of time, don’t we, Liz?”
Lizzie tried to continue playing her role. She held her hands as if they were still bound. “I, I have loads of time, sir. I, if you don’t kill me, then, I can show you a few things. Why don’t we go to my tent?”
Coltrane smirked. He would not fall for just any game. Even with her hands bound, she was instinctively trying to smooth her skirt as he pulled her along.
“I think we’ll go a little farther into the woods instead. What do you think, Lizzie?”
Lizzie hardly dared breathe as she felt over the pocket in her dress. It was still there, and far better than her fist. The jade war club. The tohunga’s present, carved for the hands of a female warrior. She had put it in her pocket before ever leaving the cabin, thinking at the time that she only wanted to keep its power against her body until Michael joined her.
Lizzie stumbled beside Coltrane toward the waterfall. Did he want to climb down here, or was he trying to throw her down? It was unlikely that she would break her neck here. The pond below the waterfall was deep enough to swim in.
Lizzie’s hopes grew for a second, but then she realized that Coltrane was merely thirsty. He got down on one knee and ladled water out of the stream with his hand. He did not look at the bound woman beside him. After all, what could happen? Petite Lizzie could not even make him fall if she threw all her weight at him.
But Lizzie had the war club. And she felt its power through the fabric of her dress. What had the priestess said? It was meant to protect the tribe. The tribe and the land of the Ngai Tahu. And that was just what Lizzie would use it to do.
Slowly and carefully, so Coltrane would not notice, she drew her right hand out of the loosened binding, reached into her pocket, and felt the smooth, cool club. It was like an extension, an enhancement of her hand.
Coltrane raised his head and looked past the waterfall into the valley. As he did, he stiffened alertly as if he had spied something.
Michael? It did not matter. Lizzie had made her decision. She drew the club out, aimed at Coltrane’s temple, and struck.
Peter Burton had spied the rock stacks from a long way off, and then he came upon Lizzie’s horse beside her tent and her fire. The animal whinnied when it recognized Michael’s horse, but Peter hoped the waterfall drowned out any noise.
He saw two figures atop the waterfall: a man pulling a girl behind him. But the girl did not seem beaten; alert, rather, and tense. Then the man lowered himself to drink, and the woman . . .
Peter watched Lizzie’s right arm slowly rise up and strike. He knew this movement, had seen it several times when Maori girls danced a haka war dance. He had been a guest, with other priests, in a marae of the Ngai Tahu before he left Christchurch, and remembered the formal greeting very well; it also contained a sort of threat. They used it to welcome guests but also to make it clear, just in case, how well they could defend themselves should a visitor not prove worthy of hospitality. The men had wielded spears, the women small jade clubs. They swung them just as easily—almost elegantly—and doubtless aimed them as well as the woman he saw up above.
Peter held his breath. He did not hear the club’s strike, but he saw the man fall as if struck by an ax. Lizzie stood straight up, and he thought her heard her let out a cry. Did they not call that a karanga? The cry of a priestess summoning the gods? Peter could not quite believe that he was hearing it here, in this place, from the mouth of the courageous but gentle and earnest churchgoer Lizzie Portland.
And then Lizzie saw the gray horse and ran down the slope.
“Michael! Oh my God, Michael.”
Peter caught her.
“Reverend?” Lizzie’s voice sounded childlike and amazed, but then fear flared up in her eyes, and her face contorted. “Is Michael . . . did something happen? My God, that man, Coltrane, he made it sound like Chris is dead. But Michael too, no . . . The gods couldn’t want that.”
Peter supported Lizzie as she swayed and gently shook her head. “No, Lizzie, Michael Drury is not dead. He must be on his way here. Now, tell me what happened here. Why did you kill Coltrane?”
Lizzie only slowly understood what the reverend was trying to say. And what exactly had happened.
“I?” she whispered. “I . . . somehow it wasn’t me. Somehow it was all the women of the tribe. Of my tribe.”
Lizzie breathed in deeply. Only then did she find her way back to reality, envisioning what the reverend had seen. He had not witnessed the attack and the rape. He had only seen how she smashed a man’s skull from behind.
“Reverend, it was self-defense. He, he forced me . . .” She now felt the tears, finally, the tears she had not permitted herself to cry earlier. “You can’t tell anyone, Reverend. You can’t tell anyone about this place or this gold.”
When Michael arrived at the camp at the foot of the waterfall a good two hours later and almost crazy with concern, Lizzie was sitting at the fire with the reverend. They had covered Coltrane’s corpse with a tarp.
Lizzie rushed at her beloved. Until then, she had not truly believed he was alive, and it seemed he had felt the same about her. The two clung to each other while Lizzie told her story.
Peter Burton apologized for taking Michael’s horse. “I meant to help Lizzie,” he said, “but she defended herself without me.” He looked at Lizzie with respect.
Michael nodded. “She has always been a fighter of a lady,” he said tenderly. “Still, thank you, Reverend. You did fine with the horse. But what are we going to do now with that one over there?” He pointed to Coltrane’s corpse.
Peter Burton weighed their options. “Help me throw him on the horse,” he finally said with resignation. “We’ll take him tonight to the cliffs above Gabriel’s Gully and throw him down. Then people can interpret it as an accident—or a suicide as his judgment of himself. Winslow accused him, in front of several people, of having killed Chris Timlock. They won’t be falling over themselves to investigate his death. So they won’t bother Lizzie—and no one will learn of this place or this gold.”
All three of them were quiet when they finally descended the mountain. Michael led the horse with the dead man on it.
“Why are you helping us?” he asked the reverend.
Peter Burton shrugged and thought once more of the scene atop the waterfall: Lizzie’s dancer-like motion, her cry.
“I saw something strange,” he said quietly. “Something that could not really have been. Let’s say I’m following the will of the gods.”
The Will of the Gods
Tuapeka, Dunedin
1862–1863
Chapter 1
After her encounter with Ian Coltrane, Kathleen had driven
the road to Dunedin at breakneck speed. Only when the horses stumbled at a bend and the wagon swayed alarmingly did she collect herself long enough to reach her apartment in Dunedin safely.
When Claire came home from the shop, she found Kathleen throwing her clothing and other belongings in bags and suitcases.
“He’s here,” she sobbed hysterically when she saw Claire. “Ian is back. I have to go away. I have to get away from here.”
It took Claire hours to even halfway calm Kathleen and, more importantly, to keep her friend from departing precipitously. “Kathleen, of course I don’t doubt you saw him. But he’s up in Tuapeka. That’s twenty miles away. Even if he ever comes to Dunedin, he won’t wander into a boutique for women’s fashion. Not that he would even find you there; you hardly ever make an appearance. If he ever gets too close to me, he’ll have to contend with Jimmy Dunloe. What does the reverend have to say, anyway?”
Claire shook her head as Kathleen erratically recounted her flight. “Peter Burton must think you’re crazy,” she said. “You could at least have talked to him.”
Kathleen had stopped packing in the meantime. She sat hunched in a corner of the sofa. “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” she cried. “I don’t know if it’s right to stay here. What if he sees Sean? Or Heather? But if, if I don’t go away, then, then I don’t want to see anyone or speak to anyone. I’m invisible, Claire. I . . .”
“She’s completely terrified and hysterical,” Claire explained to Peter Burton.
Two days after the events with Ian in the mountains, he finally managed to free some time and ride to Dunedin. Claire served him tea and pastries in her shop. Kathleen had barricaded herself in the apartment.
“She doesn’t just fear for herself, but for you too, Reverend,” Claire continued. “She never wants to go back to the gold miner’s camp, and you’re not supposed to visit her or even be seen with her anywhere. She’s scared to death because the people in camp know her name.”
“But not many,” the reverend reassured her. “A couple of women, the doctor, a few people from the parish. And even then, many just call her Kathie. The likelihood that one of them will mention her to Ian Coltrane is minimal.”
“For Kathie, it’s still unbearable,” said Claire. “You should have seen her before Sean and Heather came back. She was scared to death that the children might run into Ian.”
Peter Burton nodded. “She was already overcome with fear in the camp. Yet he seems to be a rather good father, all things considered. His younger son worships him.”
“That boy is also . . .” Claire stopped. If anyone were going to tell the reverend about Kathleen’s family relations, then it would have to be her. “He’s more similar to Ian,” she concluded. “Give her time, Peter. She has to get over her shock first.”
Peter Burton rubbed his temples. “And here I thought we were finally getting close,” he said. “She was becoming more approachable, livelier.” He reached for a teacup, found it empty, and played distractedly with the spoon.
Claire poured him more tea and placed a pastry on his plate. “Here, eat or you’ll get as thin as Kathie. She’s lost nearly ten pounds since running into Ian. She’s taking it all so terribly.”
Peter bit obediently into the pastry. He, too, looked beleaguered. His eyes were ringed with red, he absolutely needed a razor, and his hair was desperate for a trim. Claire determined to send him straight to the barber, though she doubted that it would change anything about Kathleen’s behavior toward him.
“In any case, now you know why she was so shy and distant,” she said. “It has nothing to do with you, Peter. You shouldn’t think that. On the contrary, Kathleen loves you. I’m sure of it. But with this sword of Damocles hanging over her, how is she to see clearly?”
Kathleen remained completely isolated in her apartment. She drew a bit, but she did not even dare to visit the seamstresses or check on the progress of their work. If one of them had questions, she had to come to Kathleen—and would discover, to her amazement, that her boss had secured the door to the apartment with three locks.
While they were still on their school break, she hardly allowed either Sean or Heather to go outside. Sean, especially, she did not let out of sight. Heather barely remembered her father because he had traveled so much. She had been so young when they left, and she had changed so much in the last few years, that Kathleen couldn’t imagine Ian would recognize her at first sight.
She did look very much like Kathleen, though. In her panic, Kathleen insisted that her daughter wear hats with wide brims when she was on the street and put her hair up instead of wearing it down or braided. Heather watched the changes in her mother with astonishment.
Sean had nothing but compassion for his mother. He remembered his father and brother well, and he knew they might still pose a danger. But he also made his mother consider that she could not hide for the rest of her life.
“Don’t they have divorce in New Zealand, Ma? There has to be a way of getting rid of him without killing him, isn’t there?”
Surely Sean was only exaggerating, but his question plunged Kathleen into new fears. Could her son be planning murder in order to support her?
Her heart began to race when, two weeks after she saw Ian, the doorbell rang around nine in the morning. It seemed an unusual time since Sean and Heather were back in school, the shop was not yet open, and the seamstresses never arrived before ten.
Kathleen opened the door as far as the chain would allow. She peeked out and saw a police officer on the other side.
“Did, did my son . . . ?”
The young sergeant bowed politely.
“Good morning, madam. I’m sorry if I startled you. Surely you’re not used to the police . . .”
“Has something happened to my son?” screamed Kathleen.
The sergeant shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, madam. Mrs. Kathleen Coltrane?”
Kathleen finally opened the door. “Pardon me. I . . . I . . .”
“I’m Sergeant Jim Potter with the Dunedin Police, and I need to ask you to accompany me or another officer to Tuapeka today, or tomorrow at the latest.”
Kathleen reeled. Could Ian have gotten the police to take her back to him?
“It’s concerning the identification of a body,” Sergeant Potter continued.
Kathleen caught herself on the door frame. “The, the reverend? Peter, Peter Burton?”
Sergeant Potter shook his head. “No, no; it’s about a prospector. Please do sit down, Mrs. Coltrane. You look very agitated, and the news I have for you will only disturb you more. I could be . . . indeed, it is very likely that it concerns the death of your husband.”
Kathleen proceeded as if in a trance as she told Claire why the officer had come and asked her to tell Sean he could ride to Tuapeka if he wanted but that she preferred he stay in Dunedin with Heather. She changed her clothes, packed a few dark dresses into her travel bag, and gathered some money and papers she thought might be necessary in regard to her marriage and Colin. By the time she followed Sergeant Potter out, she was almost at ease.
Claire wished she could go with her friend. Kathleen’s sudden calm was just as alarming as her recent hysteria had been. Claire reminded herself that Peter Burton would be there. And the reverend was reliable. Before he allowed the police to contact Kathleen, he surely would have confirmed the dead man really was Ian Coltrane.
A few hours later, Kathleen stood in front of the Tuapeka butcher’s icehouse, where Ian’s body was stored. Naturally, his identity was known, but Peter Burton had insisted that Kathleen bear witness to the dead body. He was sure she would need to see Ian’s corpse to believe she was truly free.
“Are you ready, Mrs. Coltrane?” asked Sergeant Potter.
Kathleen nodded and followed the officer into the icebox. Ian’s coffin was among sides of beef and ham hocks. Kathleen shivered as she eyed the corpse closely. They told her he had fallen off a cliff, but she noticed there was only some scraped skin that see
med hardly to have bled. The only serious injury was to his temple. It didn’t look to Kathleen as if Ian had fallen to his death; it was more like someone had smashed his skull with an extremely hard object.
“He must have fallen,” said Sergeant Potter. “On a rock, perhaps. I’m sorry, Mrs. Coltrane, not a pretty sight. But is it . . . ?”
She nodded. “It’s Ian Patrick Coltrane,” she said calmly. “My wedded husband. And I, I would like to speak to the reverend now, before I, before I retrieve my son.”
Peter Burton shut his office door behind Kathleen after Sergeant Potter brought her in. The reverend reached out to take Kathleen in his arms, but she pulled away from him.
“Was it you?’ she asked quietly.
Peter Burton looked at her, uncomprehending. Then he understood. “No! How could you think that, Kathleen? I’m a man of God. I, heavens, I thought about it, of course, when I saw how afraid of him you were. But there would have been other ways of dealing with Ian.” He put his hand on hers, but she withdrew it from him.
“Then who was it?” asked Kathleen. “Don’t talk to me about cliffs, Peter. I’m an expert on beatings. Ian practiced his boxing on me for years. I know what it looks like when a fist strikes you on the temple. And I know that one usually doesn’t land on the temple when thrown to the ground. I doubt it would be different if a man slipped or fell. So, who was it, Peter?”
The reverend looked at the floor. “A young woman who lives with one of the prospectors—and ostensibly with the aid of a Maori warrior spirit. In any case, with a Maori war club, and she knew how to swing it. Your husband had attacked and raped her beforehand.”
Kathleen bit her lip.
“There’s more. A good friend of the woman’s had just died. It is an awful story, and it would not help anyone if everything became public. I can recount it to you, of course.”