by Baker Chris
Spring was a busy time for everyone, mainly digging and planting, and cleaning up after the southerly storms of winter; and Hoheria quickly discovered the food value of possums as every night they trapped and killed visitors to the garden. Hoheria suggested ‘possum-proofing’ the place, but Roger had disagreed.
‘Saves us a lot of work if we can attract them here,’ he said.
He used to stretch and cure the pelts, and by the time Kevin and Hoheria were ready to leave in the early summer he had several dozen.
‘They’ll make good jackets,’ he said. ‘Hats too.’ They all laughed at the mental image of a fur-clad family visiting the Geraldine markets.
But they weren’t laughing the day Kevin and Hoheria left. Everyone was feeling the same things – fragile, vulnerable, uncertain.
‘We can’t thank you enough,’ Kevin said. ‘I’d never have made it if it wasn’t for you guys.’
‘That’s the best way I know to look after someone,’ Roger replied. ‘Give them somebody to look after.’ He smiled at Hoheria. ‘We should be thanking you, especially for helping us through the past few months.’
Hoheria hugged Marianne and Roger. ‘I need to thank you two,’ she said. ‘You brought me back to some very happy times. You helped heal both of us.’ She did laugh then, through the tears. ‘And make it easy on yourselves. Listen to the Maeroero.’
Kevin thought back to his mother’s favourite saying, about advice: ‘The only thing worse than advice is good advice.’
They turned left at the bottom of the drive.
‘We’re not following in Sean’s footsteps,’ Hoheria said. ‘I’ve got a feeling the coast road will still be easier.’ Kevin didn’t argue. He was pleased to be moving again, and he agreed with Hoheria, being firmly of the opinion that Sean had often chosen the more difficult travel option, repeatedly causing unnecessary problems for the pair during their journey south.
‘I’m sure it will be,’ he said. ‘Anyway, this is your turf. You’re driving the bus.’
Kevin was heavily armed, his .308 slung across his back, a sawnoff shotgun snug in a saddle holster. In his belt he carried his knife and a machete. He hadn’t recovered all his strength, but he was ready for trouble, even expecting it. Hoheria was travelling light. She had food in a shoulder bag, wore a light wool poncho, and carried a tomahawk in her belt. During the winter she’d discovered she preferred riding bareback. She even found it easier to use a halter rather than a full bridle on Waha, her stocky little pony. She laughed at Kevin’s equipment, at his array of weaponry.
‘Who do you think you are?’ she said. ‘Genghis Khan?’
Kevin had laughed. ‘They call me Fights like an Army. You can be Runs like the Wind.’
They had an uneventful few days’ ride down to the Waitaki River. The rolling hills of North Otago were visible over the rushing water, reminding Kevin, like nearly everything did, of Hoheria’s hips and breasts as she lay on her side, her soft eyes full of exotic secrets. He wrenched himself back into the moment and saw that the river was wide and swollen with late spring rains, but the bridge was clear and open. ‘This river divides Canterbury and Otago,’ Hoheria told Kevin. She was just explaining how people used to ford the river, when the peace was shattered by a rifle shot and a shouted instruction to stop right where they were.
‘This way!’ exclaimed Kevin as without hesitating they both wheeled and galloped down a willow-lined clay road on the northern bank of the river. They ducked as bullets flickered through the leaves overhead.
‘Quick,’ said Hoheria. ‘Into the river. We stay on this road we’ll be trapped.’ Kevin looked askance at the swirling water. He just had time to say ‘No way!’ when a shot grazed his arm and smacked into the back of Sofa’s head. The horse went down, tumbling off the bank, and Kevin kicked free of the stirrups just as they hit the water.
Hoheria heard Kevin’s cry. She rode Waha straight into the current and was swept away downstream, right behind Kevin. His head popped out of the water, looking around frantically, but the swirling current kept pulling him under. Waha was dog-paddling, and Hoheria urged the horse forward just as Kevin caught hold of the trunk of a small tree uprooted from a bank somewhere upstream.
‘I’m okay!’ he called, as she paddled closer and the pair were carried downstream. Hoheria caught up just as the ambushers on the bank started shooting at them. Bullets zipped and buzzed around them but the tree branches spoiled the ambushers’ aim.
Incredibly, Hoheria laughed. ‘Hey, Fights like an Army,’ she yelled, ‘I’m Swims like a Fish.’
In a few seconds they were out of range. Kevin looked at Hoheria. She was unhurt. All around them the rushing brown water formed small whirlpools. Sticks and other debris spun in the flood. There was no sign of Sofa.
‘Grab Waha’s mane!’ Hoheria called. ‘Swim for the other bank!’ The river was impossibly wide, the bank miles away.
‘Come on!’ she shouted. ‘No time to lose.’
They were still in the river’s grip when they left the willows. Lupins lined the bank and the roar of surf filled the air. But Waha’s feet found the sandy bottom before they were washed out to sea and, with Hoheria astride her horse and Kevin still with a desperate grip on the horse’s mane, they heaved themselves out of the water and onto hard sand.
Kevin lay on the beach, exhausted, but he didn’t get much time to rest. Hoheria grabbed the front of his swanny and pulled him to his feet. ‘Up behind me!’ she said. ‘They must be nearly here!’
The ambushers, he suddenly realised. They weren’t safe yet. He pulled himself onto Waha’s back, behind Hoheria, and clung on desperately. She urged the horse up the beach and into the marram grass and lupins. Right at the high point of the sandhills, miles of beach behind them and a small collection of houses in front, she stopped.
‘This’ll do,’ she said, and as they both dismounted she pulled the horse flat so they were lying concealed by the lupins as three riders came into view, galloping down the road alongside the river. Kevin reached for the .308 slung over his back. Gone. The riders pulled up outside a little creosoted cottage and a woman came out. Hoheria and Kevin watched as she gestured down the road running southward parallel with the beach. The riders immediately wheeled and galloped off, leaving the woman on her own.
As soon as they were out of sight, she started scanning the sandhills, shading her eyes from the noonday sun. They heard her call something, but the words were lost in the roar of the surf and the river meeting the sea.
Hoheria looked across Waha’s prone body.
‘Feel like taking a chance?’ she said.
Kevin nodded. Sofa was gone. He’d lost his weapons. What the hell else could happen? Hoheria stood up, followed closely by Kevin and Waha. They made their way down to where the woman was standing. She was in her mid-thirties, her clothing torn and her face bruised.
‘I’m Cheryl,’ she said. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here before those wankers get back.’
She had a horse saddled at the rear of the cottage and inside two minutes the three of them were riding as fast as they could towards the main highway. Half a mile down the road they turned right and followed the river upstream before turning left into the North Otago hills. Cheryl slowed as they rode through a cutting with gorse and broom on the roadside and oaks towering overhead.
‘We should be safe now,’ she said. ‘I know this country. They don’t. They’ll be very wary in it. They might be dickheads, but they’re not completely stupid.’ She laughed, bitterly. ‘I’m the stupid one, for staying so long.’
Slowed down to a walk, the summer insect sounds loud about them, they were able to talk. ‘Where are you two going?’ asked Cheryl. She’d heard the shots, hoped nobody was killed.
‘They killed my horse,’ growled Kevin. ‘They’ll be lucky if I never see them again.’
‘At least you’re still alive,’ said Cheryl. ‘They’ve been ambushing people for weeks now.’ She saw Hoheria looking at her face. ‘Th
ey’ve been knocking me around too. I’ve just been waiting for a chance to get away. Things have been bad enough without crap like that.’
‘We’re following a friend,’ Kevin said. ‘He had six months’ start on us and we don’t even know where he’s gone.’ He looked at Hoheria. She nodded. ‘We can stick together if you want.’
Cheryl’s gaze passed from Kevin to Hoheria. ‘I want,’ she said. ‘I’ve been on my own for too long now. And I don’t care too much where you’re going, as long as it’s away from here.’
Later that day, camped by an overgrown tree-lined artificial lake with a big old stone house visible on a nearby hill, she told them her story. She’d been riding south from Timaru looking for a good place to live, better at least than where she’d been staying. She’d been treated badly there, but not as badly as by the three men who’d been riding to the Waitaki River for the summer salmon fishing and had run into her just north of the river. They’d forced her to go with them, using and abusing her and keeping her a prisoner. She’d finally made up her mind to escape, hoping the shots she heard meant her captors were fully occupied and that she’d have time to get away.
She stopped then, suddenly aware of the tears running down Hoheria’s face. ‘Sorry,’ Cheryl said. ‘Didn’t mean to upset you.’
Hoheria wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She looked at Cheryl. ‘When does it all end?’ she said. ‘I thought we’d left all this bad shit behind.’
Cheryl thought for a minute. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, girl. Since I was a little kid I’ve never been able to get out of the way of it. It just keeps coming. And I think it’s the same for most women, especially these days.’ She stopped then, and took another, harder, look at Hoheria. ‘But I guess I’m not telling you anything. I can see you’ve had your share of hard times.’
Kevin looked in some bewilderment at Hoheria. Where was the hard woman he was used to? How come she’d changed? He was just beginning to wrestle with the thought that perhaps there was more to women than he’d realised, that they were profoundly different to men, when a rifle shot smacked into the billy hanging in the middle of the fire and a voice called, ‘Don’t move!’
As one they turned their heads to see two men standing with rifles. One of them gestured to Cheryl who stood up, a tin mug of tea in her hand.
‘You didn’t think you’d get away from us?’ the man said. Kevin could see the look of shock on Cheryl’s face changing to resignation. Then she surprised him and Hoheria utterly when she stepped towards the man with her expression changing yet again to a welcoming smile.
‘I didn’t think you cared,’ she said. She was only two steps away from the fellow. Kevin was just reaching for the knife in his belt when Cheryl flung her tea in the man’s face. The other fellow swung his rifle around, but Hoheria’s tomahawk was suddenly sprouting from his forehead, and he dropped it as he fell forward, just missing the fire. Cheryl kicked the first man, right between the legs, and by the time Kevin had his knife out she was astride the man on the ground, a rock in her hand ready to brain him.
‘I’m not going to kill you, you prick,’ she said. ‘Even if it’s no more than you deserve. But try it again and you’re dead.’ She dropped the rock and stood up, holding the man’s rifle. ‘You’d better fuck off, and leave your mate’s horse behind too. He won’t be needing it.’ Slowly, disbelieving, the man got to his feet and started backing away.
‘Hands on your head,’ Kevin heard Hoheria say. ‘Just keep moving. And by the way, where’s the third man?’
‘Lame horse,’ the man said. ‘He’s miles back.’
‘He’d better be.’
Kevin mounted the extra horse and inside three hours the trio was riding down the coast road south of Oamaru, no sign of any pursuit and the late afternoon sun golden warm as they passed overgrown paddocks and trampled fences. Commercial veggie gardens sprouted weeds. Wild-looking cattle grazed on self-sown vegetables. That night the three friends camped by a stream running beside a big old stone house set amid gardens run to seed and riotous with colour. Dark green pine forest covered the hills around them and everything glowed in the rich sunset.
‘I didn’t know you could handle a tomahawk like that,’ Kevin said to Hoheria as they sipped clover tea in the fading light, the bullet hole in the billy plugged with a piece of green wood. She looked at Kevin almost like he was a stranger.
‘I’ve been practising all winter,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s ever going to mess with me again.’ She put her tin mug down on the grass and was lost in thought for a long moment. Then she spoke again.
‘You’ve been important to me in ways I don’t think you understand yet, and I hope you’ll keep being important.’ There was another long silence while Hoheria thought of what she wanted to say. ‘I need you to love, and to love me. You’re easy to love too. You’re full of surprises, and they’re all nice ones. I want to trust you, and I think I can, but I’m not really sure of anything any more.’
Kevin put his hand on hers, beside her cup, then touched his forehead to hers.
‘You can trust me,’ he said. ‘I know I’m younger than you, and I don’t know much either. But I know what I want. I want to be with you. Nobody else, just you.’ He drew back and let her search his face. ‘Sometimes you scare me, you’re so good at things. You always know exactly what to do. And if that’s all I knew about you, I’d be outta here. But today reminded me there’s a lot more to you than that. You saved my life and not just today, and I love you for that. I love you too because I finally saw that you keep going even when you’re as scared as me.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and did his best to look serious. ‘But mostly I love you because you’re so foxy!’ He kissed her then, and she kissed him back, a long and passionate embrace. Neither of them noticed Cheryl weeping silently.
‘I’m jealous of you two,’ she said later. ‘You feel so normal. Nothing else has been, not since the Fever.’ Hoheria turned her head to look at the woman sitting on the other side of the fire. Jealous. Normal. She rolled the words around in her head as she leaned back in Kevin’s arms. Surprisingly they made her feel better than she had for ages. Somehow they told her that a new life had finally begun.
3
Sunbeams
Kevin, Hoheria and Cheryl rode into Ōtepoti one Sunday morning. They’d spent the previous night at Waitati, breakfasting on cockles from the low-tide oystercatcher mudflats of Blueskin Bay before crossing the northern hills. The highway was a rubble-strewn track and they stood in a sea of yellow-flowered ragwort as they gazed down on the city.
They’d found out what day it was when they passed a cathedral, dark grey stone thrusting heavenward, ornate spires and buttresses managing somehow to look as severe as the small-windowed houses falling into disrepair they noted as they clopped past.
‘Free lunch for those attending this Sunday’s service’, announced a sign outside the church.
‘Bullshit,’ said Kevin. ‘Nothing’s for free.’
People were gathered outside the church, some of them entering the open double doors in the front. A middle-aged couple, scrubbed and darned like they’d made an effort, stood near the road.
‘What’s happening?’ Kevin asked the couple. ‘And what’s for lunch?’
‘You could have put that a little more delicately,’ said Hoheria after the service. Everyone was gathered in the church hall, chatting and gossiping and tucking into servings of fish-head stew and chunks of wholemeal bread.
‘I’ve heard of loaves and fishes, but this is ridiculous,’ Hoheria said.
Kevin was pulling a head apart with his fingers and carefully sucking the flesh from each bone. He looked up at Hoheria. ‘What did you guys expect, a Big Mac and Fries?’
Kevin hadn’t been impressed by the service. The preacher was a man in his early forties, long-haired, bearded, wearing a colourful caftan and prancing and gesticulating as he gave what must have been a familiar sermon based on the Book of Revelation. Kevin listened to the diatribe a
bout retribution and how they were all sinners, given another chance to get things right.
‘None of this shit is my fault,’ he whispered to Hoheria. ‘The lunch had better be worth it.’ He couldn’t tell what Hoheria was thinking. She sat unblinking through the service, lit by coloured sunlight through stained glass behind the preacher. Where would they find Sean? Kevin had only that thought in mind as the preacher ranted about disease and pestilence – mutated calicivirus – borne not by apocalyptic horsemen but by well-meaning farmers and the humble rabbit.
Cheryl was rapt. She sat wide-eyed, unable to remove her gaze from the preacher. During the lunch after the service she approached him shyly and introduced herself. Hoheria held Cheryl’s plate of food and watched as she went up to the preacher, finally finding him not surrounded by parishioners. He was sucking fish eyes, swiftly and surreptitiously, covering the occasional slurping noise with a discreet cough.
‘I’m Cheryl,’ she said. Hoheria noticed the preacher about to be offhand with her and then putting his plate down and shaking her proffered hand as he realised he was confronted by an attractive woman glowing with religious fervour.
‘I’m Reverend Wilks,’ he said. ‘Ralph.’ Hoheria could hear the honeyed tones from where she and Kevin were standing twenty feet away. She could feel the outpouring of charm too, a subtle opening of his eyes and his arms, the implicit invitation to come on in. Suddenly she was afraid for Cheryl.
‘We’re all lost souls these days,’ he was saying. ‘We need each other like never before. And what is it you’re looking for, sister?’
‘I want safety,’ Cheryl said. ‘I want a place to live. I want a reason to keep living.’ Reverend Wilks looked at her. Hoheria remembered seeing his expression on middle-aged men checking out women in the supermarket. A bit old, it said, but still a few miles on the clock.