Cry of the Taniwha

by Des Hunt

  He sat on the ground, trying to come to grips with the situation. Now he was worse off than before. He had no treasure to give to Skulla, and no way of ever finding any.

  As he was thinking this, the heron glided into the clearing to land just a few metres away. It didn’t even look at him. Instead, it had its sights fixed on an insect. Ever so slowly it crept forward, always moving, but not so much that it would catch your eye. It continued until it was within striking distance, where it stopped and took aim. There was a blur of movement, followed by the raucous buzz of a cicada. For a while the heron allowed the cicada to call, before closing its beak, muffling the sound until it stopped. Next he raised his neck into the air, opened his mouth, and two chomps later the cicada was gone.

  Only then did he turn to look at Matt. ‘Craarrk!’ he belched, loudly.

  Matt laughed, happy to have some relief from his misery. ‘Did you enjoy that, Tani?’

  ‘Craarrk!’ replied the heron. Then he took off and climbed back up to his perch in the tree, where he hopped along the branch towards the nest. The head of his mate appeared, and for a while they rubbed beaks, before Tani moved back to his perch to resume his guard duties.

  Matt was touched by the show of affection. For some reason, it made him think of Eve, and suddenly he knew what he should do: ring Eve and tell her what had happened. She might not solve his problem, but sharing his concerns would be a good start.

  His call was answered almost immediately.

  ‘Hi, Matt,’ whispered Eve. ‘Just a minute.’ There was the sound of movement for a while before she spoke again. ‘That’s better,’ she said more loudly. ‘I’m at the library. Everyone stared at me angrily when the phone went, so I’ve shifted to the stairs. You’ll never guess what I’ve found. It’s a paper called The Auckland Bulletin. It only came out weekly, but it had all this gossip from way back, and Mary Basham’s in there. Apparently she was a collector of stuff, and she organized an afternoon tea for all these rich women to come and find out about her wonderful collection. This was on—’

  Matt smiled. This girl was certainly enthusiastic about her work.

  ‘Here it is,’ continued Eve. ‘That was on the twenty-eighth of May, 1886. It mentions her husband, Edward, but says he was not at the afternoon tea. But there was a man there. A…’—more shuffling of papers—‘…a Jack Boult. The reporter plainly didn’t like this man, for he is described as “a small, smirking man, who did nothing but stare with shifty eyes”. But listen to this: Mrs Basham is reported to have been wearing a monstrous diamond pendant, which nobody could take their eyes off, especially Mr Boult.

  ‘Then in the following week’s edition’—more rustling of paper—‘under the travel news it is reported that Mr and Mrs Edward Basham travelled by coach to Ohinemutu, which is right here in Rotorua. But guess who their travelling companion was? It was the shifty-eyed Jack Boult! What do you think of that?’ This time she took a break, waiting for Matt’s response.

  ‘Hi, Eve,’ he said, chuckling. ‘It’s good to hear that you’re enjoying yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I am. But what do you think of this Jack Boult? Do you think he could be the skeleton?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I reckon it’s him, because…’—a pause as more papers were shifted—‘because Mr and Mrs Edward Basham returned to Auckland on the eleventh of June, but Jack Boult was not with them. I reckon that’s because he was dead. He followed them to Ohinemutu, robbed them, got caught by the police, and then escaped. But after that he got killed by the eruption.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Matt. ‘Did you see the paper this morning?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, there’s a front-page piece on the body. The reporter gives that same theory, but doesn’t name the robber.’

  ‘Was the reporter a woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it must be right. Us women have a nose for this sort of thing. Jack Boult was the robber, and Jack Boult is the skeleton. Now that we’ve sorted that out, what have you got to tell me? Have you found any other stuff?’

  ‘Yes, but…’ He took a deep breath before bringing her up to date with what had happened.

  Eve was as good a listener as she was a talker. She let Matt tell his story without interruption. Only when he asked did she offer her opinion.

  ‘You’ve got to tell the police,’ she said with feeling. ‘Otherwise that gang will really hurt you. Those gangs are really horrible people.’

  ‘But won’t I be in more trouble if I go to the police?’ he replied.

  ‘No! They’ll protect you.’

  Matt thought about that. He wasn’t sure how much protection the police would give, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. But I’ll tell Hone first, see what he thinks.’

  ‘He’ll say the same thing. If you don’t speak up, how will people know you’re in trouble?’

  Soon after that, they said their goodbyes.

  Matt continued sitting after they’d disconnected, sorting out his ideas. When he finally went to get up, he noticed that the ground beneath his backside was warm. He felt around with his hand, and found that in some places the surface was quite hot. He looked over to the steam rising from the nearby thermal field. There had to be some underground connection between there and here. That would explain why the clearing existed: the ground was too hot for plants to grow. He left, wondering whether the mud-pool clearing had looked much the same before the explosion. For the first time, he felt a little frightened of the place.

  Chapter 15

  Eve was right. Hone did say the same thing, and with a lot more force. He was angry. Angry at the gang; angry at Jackson for getting involved; angry at Matt for not speaking up sooner; and angry at himself for initiating the friendship that had led to the contact with the gang.

  ‘You can’t let them control you like this, Matt,’ he said. ‘They’ll take over your life, and soon you’ll be as bad as they are.’

  Matt nodded. ‘They’ve already taken over Jackson,’ he said miserably.

  ‘Not if I have any say in it, they haven’t,’ replied Hone, forcefully. Then, more quietly, he added, ‘That Skulla has got a lot to answer for.’

  Lots more was said along this theme before the patrol car pulled into the drive. It was Burty and Lew, looking much more serious than they had on each of their other visits. However, that didn’t stop Burty mounting an attack on Nan’s restocked cake tins.

  Lew took Matt through his statement, recording the information in his notebook. When they’d finished, he looked at Matt and asked, ‘Did they hit you at any stage?’

  ‘No! But I know they’ve attacked Jackson.’ Matt then described what he’d seen on the first morning.

  ‘That’s typical of the gangs,’ said Lew. ‘They start with intimidation and then offer gang membership for doing a job. Once the first job is done, they’ve got them.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to stop Jackson doing this job,’ said Hone.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Lew. ‘We’ll have a chat to Jackson, but that’s unlikely to change things. The important thing is to keep an eye on Skulla and his mates. If we can make it hot enough for them, then Jackson should be OK.’

  ‘What about the theft of Matt’s metal detector?’ asked Hone.

  ‘You’d better give us a description of this guy,’ Lew replied.

  Matt gave him the details, which were duly written down.

  ‘Sounds real gawky to me,’ said Burty, picking at his teeth.

  ‘He is,’ said Matt.

  ‘Then we’ll keep a lookout for gawks. We can’t have you losing your machine when there’s still treasure to be found.’

  ‘What about that metal box you mentioned?’ asked Lew.

  Matt went and got the strongbox minus the candleholder. As they studied the locket and notebook, he explained how he’d taken the rocks and water to Ian McMillan.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Lew. ‘You did the right thing there. Tell you
what: you hold on to all of this and take it to the museum within the next couple of days. I’m sure the curator would want to talk to you about it all.’

  Matt agreed.

  ‘All right,’ said Lew getting to his feet. ‘We’ll go pick up Jackson and have a talk with him.’

  ‘He’s real scared,’ said Matt. ‘He thinks they’ll kill him if he doesn’t do the job.’

  Lew nodded. ‘We’ll keep that in mind.’

  Burty asked, ‘Are you scared, too?’

  Matt nodded.

  ‘Don’t be. We’ll be watching them. If they do anything wrong then we’ll lock them up, and with their records they’re likely to stay there for a long time.’

  Hone took the next day off work, and the first thing he did was to go over to Jackson’s and ‘invite’ him over for breakfast.

  It was soon clear to Matt that the boy hadn’t come willingly. His head was down, with his mouth twisted in a sneer. When he saw Matt, he made a rude sign with his fingers. ‘You snitched to the feds!’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ said Hone. ‘I did. Now, sit down. There’re some things we need to talk about.’

  Jackson sat, but side-on to the table with his head facing away.

  ‘OK,’ continued Hone. ‘First, I’ll have my say, then each of you can give your point of view. If you’ve got something to say, then say it. Do you understand that? Matt?’ Matt nodded. ‘Jackson?’ Jackson’s head moved fractionally in what might’ve been a nod.

  Hone then explained why he’d called the police, his views on honesty, and what he thought about people who resorted to violence. There was no anger in his voice, yet there was no doubting that he held those views strongly. ‘I know both of you are scared of what the WXK gang will do to you. I can’t stop you being scared, but I can give you some pointers on how to deal with it. You two need to stick together. Now’s not the time to start fighting each other. Stick together and you’ll be stronger.’

  He turned to Matt. ‘Make sure you’ve got your phone with you at all times, and don’t be afraid to dial one-one-one if something goes wrong. And Jackson, keep away from the other gang members, and away from where they hang out. If there’re any problems, tell me or Matt. I think that’s the most important message I can give you: tell people. The more of us who know what’s happening, the more of us there are to help. And, lastly, I’m going to get a couple of bikes so that you’re more mobile. It means you can go to more places, but also they’ll help you get away if there’s any trouble.’

  After that, Matt told Jackson about The Gawk stealing the detector and sovereigns, and why he had told Hone. By the time he’d finished, Jackson was sitting at the table normally, with his head up, nodding as he listened.

  However, when it came to his turn, he had little to say. He just mumbled an apology to Matt and said that he didn’t blame him for telling Hone.

  ‘Have you had any contact from Skulla?’ asked Hone.

  Jackson shook his head. ‘Nah! They might’ve cancelled the job.’

  ‘Good! Then you should be all right.’

  Matt nodded, but Jackson was clearly unconvinced.

  ‘Right then,’ said Hone with forced cheerfulness. ‘Let’s have breakfast—and then I’ll take you on an expedition into the dim, dark ages of my past. Who knows what we might find there.’

  The journey into Hone’s past was along the road south towards Taupo. When he was young, he’d lived near the Wai-o-tapu thermal area.

  ‘My mum was a guide for many years. That was back when they were planting all the forests. There was a prison nearby and the prisoners had to plant the trees. At times, they would hang around the tearooms at Wai-o-tapu. The person who ran the place had a pet dog called Wai and a magpie called Tapu. The prisoners taught the magpie to swear. After that, whenever tourists arrived, Tapu would greet them with a string of swear words worse than anything they’d ever heard before. Yet they didn’t seem to mind. If a human had said the same words, they would’ve been terribly upset. But when an animal said them, it was funny.’

  ‘Is the prison still there?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘No, it closed many years ago. It was an open prison: it didn’t have fences or anything like that—it worked on a sort of honesty system.’

  ‘Honest prisoners,’ said Matt, incredulously.

  ‘Yeah! They existed. I think they still do. Some people get caught up in wrong things and don’t know what to do. Probably the prison here was full of people like that.’

  Shortly afterwards, they turned onto a side road, which after a few kilometres led to the tourist area. For the next couple of hours they explored the thermal wonderland. Hone was a good guide, telling them stories about how things had changed since he was a kid. He took them to the Lady Knox Geyser, which played when soap powder was poured down the vent—something that the prisoners had discovered many years before.

  Later, they took a different route back to the main road. Hone stopped alongside a block of land dotted with some large cedar trees. ‘This is where we used to live,’ he said. ‘C’mon and I’ll show you.’

  All that was left of the house were a couple of concrete slabs and some steps. ‘We didn’t have electricity or anything like that. The stove used wood, and when we needed light we used candles.’

  He led them down a slope to a steaming stream. ‘This was our bathroom. We never ran out of hot water. Put your hand in and feel it.’

  Matt did and found that it was pleasantly warm, although he didn’t think he’d want to swim in it. The water was dark grey with a faint smell of sulphur.

  ‘You had to keep a good lookout though,’ said Hone with a smile. ‘Or the water rats would bite your private bits.’

  ‘Water rats!’ said Jackson and Matt together.

  ‘Yeah. Rats love the warm streams around here, especially in winter.’ He picked up a stick. ‘Maybe there’s still some around.’ He carefully worked his way around to where the bank was bare. The face of it was riddled with holes. He slapped the stick on the top of the bank. Immediately three rats appeared, diving out of the holes and straight into the water.

  Matt was amazed at how fast they could move. Within seconds they’d made it to the other bank where they disappeared into the weeds. ‘I wouldn’t swim in there,’ he said.

  Hone smiled at him. ‘You would if there was no other place. The alternative was to stay dirty and get covered in sores.’

  As Hone climbed back he suddenly stopped, put his hand to his chest and grimaced with pain.

  ‘You all right, Hone?’ asked Jackson.

  Slowly, Hone stood upright, rubbing his chest. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘You sure?’ said Matt, helping him up the bank.

  In answer, Hone let out a long, loud belch. ‘Ah! That’s better.’ He smiled in relief. ‘It was only indigestion.’

  Jackson looked at him with concern. ‘I thought you were having a heart attack.’

  ‘If I was, would you know what to do?’

  Jackson shook his head. ‘Don’t you have to do that blowing in the mouth thing?’

  ‘CPR,’ said Matt. ‘I can do it.’ Then he chuckled. ‘Well, at least I can do it on a dummy. We learnt it at school.’

  ‘Good!’ said Hone. ‘Sounds like a sensible school. Some of us old fellas might need somebody like you around.’

  ‘You’re not really old,’ said Jackson.

  Hone laughed. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I feel ancient when I come back here. It seems such a long time since I was running around as a kid.’ His eyes lost focus for a moment as he remembered. Then he gave a little shake of the head. ‘C’mon. There’s something we must do before we go.’

  He led them to a grass patch which, judging by the old apple trees, was once an orchard. ‘When we were young we used to find four-leaved clovers in here. They’re meant to bring good luck. So let’s see who’s the first to find one.’

  Soon they were all on their hands and knees, searching for the lucky charms. Jackson found the first on
e, and then another, and another. He had four before Matt found his first. By the end, Jackson had eight and Matt and Hone had three each. If they truly did bring good luck, then the future for each of them looked very bright—especially for Jackson.

  Unfortunately, the joy of the day was spoiled when they arrived back in Rotorua. As the car turned into the road where they lived, Jackson suddenly flattened himself down on the back seat. Three youths were swaggering along the footpath. Matt recognized one of them as a member of the WXK. None of them looked at the car as it passed, but he found his gut tightening and his pulse quickening. He opened his hand to look at the wilting four-leaved clovers, and wondered if perhaps they’d already lost their power.

  Chapter 16

  Jackson stayed for dinner, and afterwards he and Hone went off to get some bikes. They were also going to pick up a game console for the night. It was all part of Hone’s strategy of keeping Jackson out of circulation and away from the gang.

  While they were away, Matt went to the hotel hoping to meet Eve. He was pleased to find her sitting at the computer. His pulse rate went up a couple of beats at her big welcoming smile.

  ‘Hi, Matt. I was just sending you an email. Now I don’t have to.’

  She picked up her papers and they moved to a quiet place at the back of a lounge.

  ‘How’d it go with the police?’

  Matt gave her a rundown of the interview and the day out with Hone.

  ‘I’m still scared for you,’ she said, stretching out and briefly touching his arm. ‘Those animals might take it out on you now.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said with more confidence than he felt. ‘Hone’s got a plan to make sure we’re safe.’ He went on and told her about the arrangements to make them more mobile.

  ‘So now you’ll be able to explore further?’

  ‘If we want.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll want,’ Eve said, excitedly. ‘Wait until you hear what I’ve uncovered.’

  For the next quarter of an hour, she bombarded him with the results of her research, most of it gathered from the pages of The Auckland Bulletin.