by Doug Ashby
*
Nobody other than William Ferdinand Schmidt knew what happened that night forty years ago. Apparently, Bill had been drinking heavily with some acquaintances in the local pub when he suddenly decided to leave. Without a word to anyone he had disappeared out the door and drove home. Some said they heard him mutter, “I’m going to get that bastard!” but a lot of drinking had gone on that night and memories were pretty fuzzy.
Bill’s wife was away for the weekend, staying with relatives, when Bill grabbed his old .303 and drove up to the end of the road. He parked the car well off to one side, although on a night like this one with the wind and the rain, he knew no one would likely be venturing up to the end of the small rural dead-end road. Carrying a lantern, he entered the bush, following the only track that would take him to the far reaches of the valley. With just his rifle and lantern it took him barely thirty minutes to reach the hut that Tamehana called home. Cautiously he approached the dwelling. The place was closed up but he could see dim light shining through the many chinks and gaps in the timber wall and roughly fitting door. Bill positioned himself less than five metres away from the entrance. He was feeling nervous, and turning his back to the driving rain, he hunched over to quickly roll a cigarette, light it and take a deep drag. After a few more drags he tossed it onto the ground.
With his rifle loaded and at his shoulder, he shouted, “Tamehana, come out you bastard!”
There was silence and then some shuffling for a few seconds before the door suddenly swung open. The almost blinding rain shone like diamonds, lit through by Tamehana’s candles and Bill’s lantern.
Bill stood with his rifle poised and ready to fire. At the moment when the two men faced each other, there was instant recognition of what was about to happen. Nothing was said.
Bill pulled the trigger. The boom of the Lee-Enfield was lost in the dark of the night, in the wind and the rain and the distance up the valley. There were only two people there to witness this horrendous act and one was mortally wounded. The bullet passed through Tamehana’s chest. It missed his heart but nicked the aorta, which started the fatal internal bleeding. He collapsed backwards from the impact. He was still conscious when he hit the floor and managed to drag himself further inside his hut. Instinctively he kicked the door closed and then lay there, his mind racing against death, feeling the strength draining from his body.
Tamehana reached inside his top pocket for his penknife, then dragged himself towards his hearth looking desperately for something he could mark before he lost consciousness. He reached the hearth stones. In desperation he tried to lift himself up but crashed down again, barely able to move. In a final anguished effort, he reached out for one of the stones. Somehow he managed to tilt it enough to get at the underside. Using his penknife he scratched his pictograph; a shorthand message of what took place that night. As he engraved his initials TT on the stone his life ebbed and the stone slipped from his grip.
Bill, after firing the shot, froze for a few seconds. He saw his victim fall back into the room but the door had been slammed shut and he thought his job was not yet completed. He rushed to the door only to find it blocked by Tamehana’s prostrate body. With his shoulder, he rammed the door, attempting to force it open. It was during this short reprieve that Tamehana managed to write his short script. Finally, Bill broke into the room and found Tamehana lying in a pool of blood, face down on the floor with his penknife in his hand.
Bill grabbed the small figure by the ankles and dragged him outside where he heaved the lifeless body onto his shoulders and staggered off into the bush. In a state of panic, Bill walked through the pounding rain as far as he could away from the scene before he had to drop his victim into the undergrowth, where with sticks and bare hands he scratched out a shallow grave. He rolled the body into the depression and frantically covered it with the little dirt he’d scraped out and dead leaves and branches. Finally, he covered the site with dead fern fronds before returning to the hut to collect his rifle.
In a rush to get away from the scene, Bill stumbled and crashed his way down the valley. He used the stream bed as a track to hide his foot prints but the rough, uneven surface meant he fell often.
During one of these falls his cigarette case dislodged itself from his coat pocket and was left half submerged on the stream bed. Bill was unaware of its loss until later that night when he wanted a cigarette and he hunted around for the case. After the initial panic attack of realising he’d likely left a vital clue at the scene, he decided that, if questioned by the police, he would claim it was stolen along with his rifle. There was no way he was going to return to the scene of the crime. His rifle he discarded in a deep swamp at the back of his farm, well out into the deep mud, in a place that was almost inaccessible and unlikely to be searched.
As the weeks passed, Bill’s confidence that nothing could ever be pinned on him grew and he went about his daily activities knowing he had got away with murder. What he didn’t foresee was that his own feeling of guilt would erode his peace of mind forever and haunt him till the day he died.