Shadow Waters

by Baker Chris

  Kevin rose from his chair, stepped across the room, and embraced Hoheria, losing himself for a moment in her sweet-smelling softness. ‘How do you feel now?’ he said.

  For a moment she retreated back into herself, then a huge relief started to show on her features. ‘It’s gone. There’s nothing there.’ Her voice was almost disbelieving. ‘I think I finally digested it.’

  Paki’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘Hope it doesn’t give you a gutsache.’ He coughed. They could hear the hiss of an indrawn breath as he sat up. ‘I think I’d rather eat a bus. Good on you, girl. Getting rid of that little greebly is really something.’

  Kevin could see Eric’s little face peering over the bedclothes. ‘We’re all safe now, boy,’ he said. ‘Your auntie killed the monster.’

  Cheryl poured the tea and spooned honey into the cups. They sat up for the next two hours, drinking more tea, eating bowls of rabbit stew, and talking. Paki was especially pleased.

  ‘I’ve been so worried for you, girl,’ he said. ‘Not that the thing would kill you, but that you couldn’t live with the things it made you do.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Can you remember anything it made you do?’

  ‘I don’t remember attacking you and Kevin. I do remember killing that young man, though.’ She shuddered. ‘It was really freaky. I can even remember what it felt like.’ Tears welled. ‘I hope I never feel like that again.’ She looked around at everyone in the room. ‘The awful thing is, it felt so good. I loved it. And it wasn’t just killing him, it was soaking up all his feelings, the worse the better.’

  Paki gave her a long, careful look. ‘I don’t think you’ll have to go through anything like that again,’ he said. ‘They used to call it a learning curve, and it’s a steep one you’ve been on. But if you know things like that you’ll really be able to help people now.’ He stopped, as if a thought had suddenly struck him. ‘I suppose you’re becoming a modern-day tohunga. You know, how to deal with monsters and kēhua. Things that trouble people.’

  Hoheria looked like the idea disturbed her. ‘That’s not for me,’ she said. ‘I’m a young woman, for a start.’

  ‘You mightn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Anyway, everything else is turned on its head. Why not that?’

  In the morning Cheryl asked Hoheria if she wanted to go to the markets.

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ she said. ‘Look what happened last time.’ She turned to the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. ‘I wouldn’t mind a walk, though.’ She looked around, at Kevin. ‘Come with me, kare. Just down to the bridge.’

  It had rained in the night and wisps of steam were rising from the road in the early morning sun as Kevin and Hoheria stepped out. Long-abandoned cars littered the roadside, and broken power and telegraph wires tangled with hedges and untrimmed trees to block the footpaths. Hay paddock lawns and peeling paint on the frontages of the houses they passed seemed almost normal. Birds chirruped loudly and the occasional horse-drawn cart clopped by, loaded with produce and goods for the markets.

  ‘Mōrena!’ the driver would call. ‘Ata mārie!’ or, ‘top o’ the morning!’

  ‘It’s so good to have you back,’ said Kevin. ‘I couldn’t see how you’d beat that thing. I kept trying to think of a way out yet I couldn’t see anything but doom and gloom ahead. I hoped I hadn’t lost you.’

  Hoheria squeezed his hand. ‘As soon as I stopped myself from hurting you I knew I’d won,’ she said. The sun warmed their backs as they walked in the middle of the road, down a gentle grade towards the bridge and the wide Kahuika River.

  They were almost at the bridge when they heard a shout behind them.

  ‘Oi! Just a minute, you two!’ It was Jim, holding a rifle trained on Kevin and approaching rapidly. ‘You didn’t think you were going to get away with it,’ he said. ‘I told you I hadn’t finished.’ He lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot. It spanged off the cracked tar seal near Kevin’s feet. ‘Turn around and keep walking. Down to the river.’

  ‘He can’t hurt me, but he can shoot you,’ Hoheria said. ‘I think he knows it too.’ She half-turned. Jim, twenty metres behind, gestured with the rifle.

  ‘Just keep walking,’ he said. ‘Both of you.’ He aimed suggestively at Kevin. When they were halfway across the bridge, at the mid-point of the river, Jim called again. ‘That’s far enough.’ The pair stopped and turned.

  Jim looked at Hoheria. ‘You. Into the river, or I shoot your mate.’

  Kevin’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t expected this. He was just about to tell Hoheria not to do it when Jim fired a shot that smacked into the base of one of the concrete arches right next to Kevin’s head.

  ‘I mean it,’ Jim said. ‘Jump, or he dies.’

  Hoheria threw Kevin a stricken look and started climbing the railing. Far below her the grey-green waters swirled. ‘Don’t follow me,’ she said to Kevin. ‘I’m a good swimmer, anyway.’

  Kevin was just reaching for Hoheria to pull her down off the rail when Jim’s rifle cracked. The bullet hit Kevin in the thigh and he collapsed, clutching himself.

  ‘The next shot gets him in the head,’ Jim spat at Hoheria. ‘Go on, jump.’

  Hoheria threw him a look of pity, of great sorrow, then turned her gaze on Kevin, lying huddled in the roadway, clutching his leg. He looked so vulnerable, hurt and helpless. She started to move to him, but Jim gestured with the rifle. There was no choice.

  ‘Go home, to Kokopu Waters,’ she said to Kevin, and jumped.

  11

  Who’s Going to Drive You Home?

  Hoheria floated through the air. This was probably the end. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She felt detached, dreamy. She wasn’t curious, not even frightened. Perhaps she was asleep. Maybe she was watching a movie or reading a book. In the few seconds it took her to fall to the river she saw a hundred possibilities flashing like flickering pictures, like fleeting scenes in a fast-forward video. She saw herself swimming to the shore. She saw herself hitting the water, losing consciousness and drowning. Jim shot her when she surfaced. He shot Kevin when he dived in after her. Cheryl and Paki appeared at the end of the bridge, a frightened Eric clutching at Cheryl’s legs. They called to her as she fell, to Jim, and to Kevin as he lay in the road. Their words were distant and muffled. She couldn’t make them out.

  She saw seagulls flying up the river, their harsh cries rasping the air. Ducks swam at the river’s edge, paddling lazily against the current. Her grandfather spoke to her. ‘Say thanks for the kai, kōtiro.’

  She heard her grandmother too. ‘God gave us the kai. They don’t mind what you call them, either.’

  Sean strolled by, with his eyepatch and a raffish grin. He was saying something too. ‘You know what you’re doing, girl,’ she heard. He turned as he passed her. ‘By the way, don’t forget the fire.’ What fire? But the thought was comforting. She had an ally, something on her side. She was wondering what it was, when she hit the water.

  ‘Move, and I’ll put a bullet in your other leg,’ Jim snarled at Kevin. ‘Forget about saving her. She’s gone, and good fucking riddance!’ He moved to the rail and peered over, just as Hoheria landed. The sound of the splash! hit Kevin like a goods train. He tried to jump up, and collapsed.

  Jim heard his involuntary gasp and whirled. ‘I told you not to move!’ he said, and pointed the rifle.

  Kevin fell back, and lifted a hand. ‘Hold on, cuz. I’m not going anywhere.’ Jim lowered the rifle and looked back down at the river. It was just long enough for Kevin to pull the knife from his belt. When Jim turned back he saw the knife in Kevin’s hand, and his cocked arm, and raised the rifle. But it was too late. He pulled the trigger just as the blade took him in the throat, and the bullet ricocheted off the roadway right by Kevin’s head. Jim dropped the rifle and crumpled on the tar seal. Before he was even laid out Kevin had heaved himself up the rails and was scanning the river for Hoheria. Where was she? He pulled himself over the top rail and dived.

  He did
n’t even notice the shock of hitting the icy water. He dived deep, blind in the murk, oblivious to the pain in his leg as he kicked and groped for the river bottom. Nothing. The current carried him downstream. He became aware of hazy shapes in the grey-green light. Broken glass in the mud cut his hands. A waterlogged tree, torn from a bank somewhere and half buried in the muddy bottom, snagged his clothes. He had to rip himself free. But no Hoheria. Where was she? Desperate for breath, he kicked for the surface. When he was in the air, he looked upstream, over a hundred metres to the bridge. He took a deep breath and dived again. Perhaps Hoheria had tried to swim underwater to safety. He went as far as he could before he ran out of breath, and this time when he surfaced, the bridge seemed a mile away. A half-tonne boulder sat in the pit of his stomach. He took a deep breath, ignored the pain in his leg, and dived again.

  This time he almost drowned. Out of breath, he began swimming up, but the current swept him into the branches of another half-buried tree and by the time he struggled free he was almost blacking out. Again, he tore himself clear and clawed his way to the surface where he trod water and gulped in air. By now the bridge was lost from sight around a bend, but there was still no sight of Hoheria. Where was she? He dived again.

  When he surfaced he had barely enough strength to stay afloat. He lay on his back, spluttering when wavelets washed into his open mouth. As he drifted downriver a black despair overtook him. It was no use. He didn’t have the strength to keep diving. Hoheria was gone.

  It took Kevin half an hour and a couple of kilometres of river current to swim to the bank. Kicking feebly, favouring his injured leg and waggling his hands at his sides, he lay on his back, not seeing the clouds passing overhead, not caring if he lived or died. He wasn’t even aware he’d reached the bank till his head wedged between two clumps of wīwī and one of the pointy stalks poked him in the eye. He lay in the shallow water, too shattered to rise, getting colder and colder. He knew if he didn’t move soon, he’d pass out, but it was too much trouble. He’d just have a little sleep first.

  Kevin came to lying on the bank, next to a fire with a billy starting to boil. His wet clothes had been removed and a blanket covered him. Where was he? Who was he? He could feel the warmth of the flames, almost invisible in the morning sun. Slowly, it all came back. He wished it hadn’t. Hoheria was gone. He thought of the brown warmth of her, soft and sweet in the long grass, fragrant under fresh linen. How could he live without her? They’d travelled a long way. They’d built a life together. Every day Kevin had marvelled at everything they were doing, at all the new things he was learning. And now he was on his own. He’d lost Hoheria. He closed his eyes. Tears spilled out and ran down the side of his face.

  ‘So you’re with us at last.’

  The rough voice broke through his dismal dream. Kevin opened his eyes and looked to where an old man was throwing tea leaves into the boiling water. He took the billy off the flames and replaced the tea tin in the pocket of a battered old leather jerkin. Sunlight glinted on his bald head. A long, white beard was braided with baling twine and hung about with seashells and coloured stones that clattered when he moved. He couldn’t be real. But he couldn’t be a dream either. Couldn’t he? The old man carefully lowered himself to sit cross-legged beside the billy. He grunted and wheezed with the effort, and blew the idea of a dream right away when he farted.

  ‘Bugger this for a laugh,’ he said. He threw Kevin a shrewd look. ‘There’re easier ways to top yourself than diving in that river.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to top myself,’ Kevin said. ‘I was trying to save somebody.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind. I was too late, anyway.’

  The old man looked at him, piercing blue eyes under bushy grey eyebrows. He pulled two tin mugs out of a nearby sack and placed them carefully on the ground next to the billy.

  ‘I shouldn’t ask you who. None of my business anyway. Honey?’ He held up an old jam jar.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Kevin replied.

  The old man used a knife to dig honey out of the jar and wiped it off the blade on the inside of each cup. He poured the tea and handed a cup to Kevin, who sat up to take it.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to the old man. ‘Thanks for pulling me out of the river too. I think you saved my life.’

  ‘I did. You were frozen. You wouldn’t have lasted much longer in that water.’ He gave a puzzled look. ‘Why did I imagine I’d be rescuing a young woman?’ The old man sounded like he was fishing.

  ‘It was my lady, Hoheria,’ Kevin said. The old man nodded. ‘She’d been fighting the Ponaturi. This guy made her dive in the river. It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’d have bet it was something complicated, something like that. I’ve been feeling her close by for a few days now.’ To Kevin’s utter astonishment he fluttered his fingers and blue fire danced on the tips. ‘Come on,’ the old man said. ‘We’d better get you home. What happened to your leg?’

  ‘There’s no sign of Kevin or Hoheria,’ Cheryl said when she returned from looking for the pair. ‘And Jim’s lying there dead, with Kevin’s knife in his throat. What happened?’

  Paki looked worried. ‘If you can’t see them anywhere they must have gone in the river.’ He pulled himself to his feet, gasping with pain. ‘We’d better look for them, down the river bank.’

  Cheryl had to saddle their horses, which were grazing a paddock made up of half the back yards on their side of the street. She helped Paki mount, and rode her horse up by the steps so Eric could climb on behind.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked. ‘Are we going to find Auntie Hoheria? Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes, it has,’ Cheryl told him. ‘She’s in trouble somewhere. So’s your uncle Kevin.’ She urged the horse forward with a flick of the reins. Paki followed her out onto the street, then passing her, led the way to the track that ran alongside the river.

  A mile east of the bridge they found the remains of a fire, partially extinguished with the dregs of a billy of tea, but some of the coals still hot enough to burn. Paki spent a few minutes examining the surroundings of the fire and the nearby river bank.

  ‘Somebody’s been dragged up from the river,’ he said. ‘You can see where they were lying. There’s a bit of blood too. Smears on the grass. Maybe it was Hoheria or Kevin.’ He straightened, grimacing at his sore ribs, and looked at the track with a patch of crushed grass beside it. His tone grew excited. ‘These are cart tracks. Something was loaded on and the cart was turned around and driven back down the river.’

  ‘My name’s Wilf,’ said the old man after he’d helped Kevin indoors, supported him to a low couch, and made him comfortable with blankets and cushions. ‘You lie there for a minute, then we’d better get that bullet out of your leg.’

  ‘How’re you gonna do that?’

  ‘Never you mind. You won’t be awake to see it.’

  Kevin watched the old man as he moved about the room. He felt like he was in an Old Time dentist’s waiting room, except this room didn’t smell of disinfectant. It smelled of books, leather, beeswax, and Granny Smith apples. A dozen of them sat green and glossy in a large carved bowl on a low, rough-hewn table. The bowl was a two-legged birdlike creature, bent over with arms instead of wings holding a container on its back, inlaid pāua-shell eyes and a large curved wooden beak.

  Wilf saw Kevin looking. ‘That’s Kurangaituku,’ he said. ‘She’s meant to be dead, but she isn’t.’

  ‘I know. My friend Sean knows that too. She got his left eye three years ago.’

  ‘I’d love to hear that story one day, but now’s not the time for talking.’ Wilf carefully placed some needle-nosed pliers and a wicked-looking knife in a pot of bubbling water on the woodstove in a corner, and turned back to Kevin.

  ‘I’ll give you something to drink. It’ll make you very sleepy.’ He took a brown bottle from a leadlight-fronted cupboard near the stove, pulled the cork with a loud pop! and poured two centimetres into an old Marmite jar. ‘Her
e,’ he said, handing it to Kevin, ‘wrap your laughing gear around this.’

  Kevin took the glass gingerly and sniffed the drink. It fumed and stung his nose. He sipped cautiously. It tasted medicinal. He tipped the glass up and gulped the contents. It burned all the way down.

  ‘That’s the way,’ said Wilf, and just as he spoke horses’ hooves stamped and harness jangled outside. ‘Wonder who that is? I never get visitors. Excuse me a minute.’ He opened the door and stepped back as a large, island-shirted, top-knotted shape filled it.

  ‘Paki!’ called Kevin. ‘Hoheria’s gone!’

  ‘I take it you’re a friend,’ said Wilf. ‘If so, you’re just in time.’ Paki raised an eyebrow. ‘We have to get a bullet out of his leg. You can help hold him.’

  Cheryl came in the door, Eric alongside, after she’d tied the horses to a post by the steps. ‘Hold him?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  By this time Kevin was groggy with the drink, and Wilf completed the job when he felt around the back of Kevin’s neck and pressed twice, just like he was pushing a button. Kevin went limp, his eyes closed. Wilf cut Kevin’s jeans away, and Paki and Cheryl stationed themselves by each leg.

  Wilf washed his hands carefully, picked the implements gingerly out of the boiling water with long-handled tweezers and moved to Kevin. He felt carefully around the wound, then right around Kevin’s leg. He thought for a moment, then spoke to Paki and Cheryl.

  ‘The bullet’s nearly all the way through. Easier to go in from the back.’ The pair exchanged a look. Paki nodded. Cheryl looked squeamish.

  The operation took only a few seconds. Wilf made a quick incision with the knife, pushed the point of the pliers in, opened them up, gripped something, and pulled out a squashed bullet that he dropped with a plink! in a bowl on the table. Kevin didn’t stir.

  ‘We’ll leave him asleep. He’ll be sore as buggery when he wakes up. In the meantime maybe you can tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Paki began.