The Thunderbolt Pony

by Stacy Gregg

  We’re back on State Highway One now as we head down to the coast. I haven’t seen a road crew since the Cyclops but I know they must have been here working because there are signs of mudslides being cleared to make the roads usable again, and at one point we cross a bridge that didn’t even exist before – a makeshift structure of wooden planks that has been built right alongside the original bridge, which is warped and twisted beyond repair. Gus’s hooves make a noisy clatter on the planked wood and he startles and spooks at his own hoof beats as they echo back at him. I laugh a little because he’s such an Arabian – so brave, but always on tiptoes, always expecting the wild lion who might leap out to eat him!

  I can’t see the sea any more at this point. The road is winding between sheer man-made cliffs cut into the clay, and I think about the mudslides that have already been cleared from the roads we’ve passed through. I can’t wait to get out the other side because I feel like one good aftershock would bring it all tumbling down around me.

  As I feel my heart racing at this thought, I think of my rituals and my backpack, buried deep in the house at the Hundalees, and I look down at Gus’s wither where the two braids used to be. I didn’t plait his mane this morning. I tell myself that I’m OK, and strangely, I know that I am. We are close now. I can smell the sea. We are getting nearer to Kaikoura.

  ***

  The road crew man holding the stop sign watches me approach and I can see he’s wondering what I’m doing out here with my horse and my dog. He’s wearing a fluorescent jacket and beneath his broad-brimmed hat, he’s poked his T-shirt up at the back to shield his neck from the sun.

  “Where’d you come from?” He frowns at me.

  “Over the hill back there.” I act casual.

  “You can’t get through here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Road’s blocked. There’s a slip.”

  I can’t see behind his sunglasses so I don’t know what he’s thinking. Is he going to send me back?

  Then he lowers the sign and points down the road. “You see that dirt track? You take that. It’ll lead you down to the beach. Get through that way.”

  He steps aside with his sign and then gestures for me to walk between the road cones and I continue on my way, down the dirt track to the sea.

  I know this beach because we’ve been here almost every summer since I was born. There’s a holiday camp further along at Peketa, where you can pitch tents or rent a cabin, but we’ve always liked it better here in Oaro, where there are almost no people ever. Except now the beach at Oaro is different, and I can’t figure out why at first, but then I realise it’s because the sea is so very far away from where it used to be and there are these giant stone pillars that I’ve never seen before rising up in front of me on the beach. They’re covered in paua, which are really big shellfish like mussels, only giant with shiny rainbow-coloured shells. They cling like jewels to the rocks.

  I’ve never seen paua like this before. They normally live deep under the sea and you have to dive to get them. How did they get on to these tall rocks all the way up the beach?

  Then I realise – the paua haven’t moved at all. They’re exactly where they’ve always been. It’s the seabed that’s moved! The earthquake has thrust up the entire reef so that it’s no longer underwater.

  The rocks further down the beach are covered with more paua, and a dozen people are climbing up high and gathering the shellfish into hessian sacks. Paua are really expensive! Sometimes Mum lets me have one fritter at the takeaway in Cheviot. I can’t believe they’re stealing them, because it’s totally illegal to poach them off the rocks!

  There’s something weird about the way they’re gathering them. Usually you’d just prise the shells off with a fish knife. These people, though, they’re treating them like delicate bone china.

  “Be careful!” a man in a woollen beanie with a big beard calls out across the pillars. “Whatever you do, don’t damage the underside beneath the shell!”

  He climbs down the rocks with a full sack of paua and wades out into the sea so that he’s standing waist-deep in the waves. I can’t figure out what he’s doing, but then suddenly I see a diver break the surface right in front of him. It’s a woman in full scuba gear. Still wearing her dive mask, she takes the sack of paua from him and gives him a thumbs-up signal before she submerges again beneath the waves.

  Then another diver surfaces and more sacks are handed over. These people aren’t taking the paua, they’re relocating them, moving them back into the deep water beyond the new tide mark the earthquake has created.

  In the heat of the midday sun I can smell the scent of the shellfish beginning to bake, their shells exposed to the air on the salty reef. The clock is ticking for them as much as it is for me. They have to get the paua back into deep water soon or they’ll die.

  Jock is on the rocks with them now, making friends, running around and introducing himself to everyone with his tail wagging. Hello, hello! I’m Jock …

  I’m watching the divers and then the next minute I turn and look for Jock again and I realise he’s gone!

  I look down the bay and there he is – way, way off in the distance. A black and white speck bolting along the line where the waves meet the shore. What is he doing?

  “Jock!”

  I call him but he’s too far away to even hear my voice. And so I cluck Gus into a canter and I set off after him.

  He’s moving fast ahead of us, and I sense by his speed that he’s on the scent of prey. He’s running the same way he does when he’s put up a rabbit. There are no rabbits on the beach, though, so maybe it’s the gaggle of seagulls on the shoreline that’s drawn him?

  And then I get a sickening knot in my belly, because I can see it’s not the gulls that are the target. There’s a rocky promontory sticking out from the beach into the sea where the cove curves up ahead, and sitting on the rocks at the very tip of that reef, basking in the sun, is a sea lion.

  Not a little lion pup, but a massive, fully grown adult. He’s huge. At least twice the size of Jock. He faces out to sea, lazing on his belly, oblivious to my dog who is bearing down on him at top speed.

  The sea lion turns and I see his face, the enormous, soft, doe-brown eyes and whiskery muzzle. He looks angelic, but I know better. I’ve seen a sea lion at Marine World rip a fish apart with his rows of long, razor-sharp teeth.

  “Jock!” I yell into the wind after him. “No!”

  He doesn’t hear me. As he reaches the reef he slows down to find his way across the sharp rocks on his tender paws, and I pull Gus up so that I can put my fingers in my mouth and whistle to him. Surely he heard that?

  Jock doesn’t even turn to acknowledge me! I can’t decide if it’s because the sea wind is drowning out my whistle, or whether the bloodlust in him is now so strong he’s ignoring me.

  When I reach the rocks, I fling myself down from Gus’s back and run. The soles of my jodhpur boots make me slip and lose my footing. I keep my eyes on my feet, panting and scrambling, and when I look up again I see that I’m too late. Jock has reached the sea lion.

  The sea lion stands like a statue on the rocks, the white froth of the surf splashing up and over him. At the sight of the barking Border collie he recoils and raises himself to his full height as he faces him.They are like two prizefighters, assessing their first move. And then, Jock lunges.

  He throws himself forward with his jaws open and for a moment I think the sea lion is going to retreat and fling himself into the sea. Instead, he rears up and comes straight back at Jock, and grasps him in his jaws and throws my dog like a ragdoll through the air. Jock gives a startled yelp as he goes flying, and then begins baying in pain as he crashes down hard against the rocks. The sea lion is moving in for the kill. He’s remarkably fast on his flippers, lumbering towards my cowering dog. Jock knows he’s outmatched, and he’s crying like I’ve never heard him do before, yelping with pain and fear. The sea lion closes in on him and uses his jaws again, holding Jock with
his flippers this time as the teeth like long needles sink into the black and white fur of his ruff.

  “Get off him! Let him go!” As I run I’m thinking about what I can arm myself with, but there’s nothing out here! Not even a piece of driftwood or a stone to use as a weapon.

  Jock’s terrified yelps have become one long anguished wail of pain as the sea lion pins him and rips at him with his teeth. I’m sobbing as I run to him, my lungs bursting.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a streak of dark seal-coloured fur. I hear this crazed battle shriek, high-pitched as a banshee, and in a flash Moxy comes into view. She speeds across the rocks, whisks straight by me, and without an instant of hesitation she flings herself on to the back of the attacking sea lion.

  The sea beast gives an almighty roar as my cat attaches herself to his back, with all four paws digging in claws. She looks like she’s riding a bucking bronco, the way she’s perched on that sea lion’s back. I don’t know if she’s hurting him, but she’s sure infuriating him! He lets go of Jock immediately and begins trying to shake her loose. He lumbers and twists to rid himself of Moxy, but she’s attached like a vampire cat, fangs driven deep.

  The sea lion turns as he raises himself up on his hindquarters and then, with a monstrous bellow, he retreats! He bounds back across the rocks, heading for the end of the reef, and I keep expecting Moxy to leap off and let go but she stays with him! She clings on tight all the way to the end of the reef until she’s certain the sea lion is going to leap, and then, just at the moment when the massive beast launches himself full tilt into the ocean, she flies through the air. I watch the sea lion’s massive wake rise up as he hits the water, covering her. Moxy gives a brisk shake to get the water off her back, her ears flat, and then with a yowl of victory she trots back across the reef to the point on the rocks where Jock is lying, panting and sore.

  By the time I get to them, Moxy has roused Jock and has him back on his feet again, and we pick our way back across the rocks to Gus. Moxy touches noses with Jock, gives the wound a perfunctory sniff, and then, without any further ado, leaps up and takes her place on Gus’s rump once more and begins to groom herself, as if she has never been away. Jock, limping a little, blood soaking the fur of his ruff and his left shoulder, takes up his position at Gus’s heels. The four of us, wounded but reunited.

  I look at the rocks where the sea lion leapt back into the water, and that’s when I see the black speck on the horizon. My heart leaps because the speck is moving and it has to be a ship. It’s the HMS Canterbury heading for South Bay.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Gates to Tartarus

  How did Moxy find us again? I have no idea. I look back at her on Gus’s rump, curled up in a ball asleep, utterly exhausted. Her tiny paws are ragged and bleeding from the great distances she’s travelled since we saw her last. If only she could tell me her stories!

  Without words, I have to hunt out the secret language of her adventures since we lost her in the river. There’s a sliver of a graze across the top of her haunches, and a livid mark in her silver seal-pelt, and I know that must be the wound inflicted by Helen’s arrow. It’s as if the tip tried to pierce her, but Moxy, having been dipped in the river Siberia, was invulnerable.

  There’s a toothy bite mark on her left shoulder. A stoat, maybe? What else would be big enough or foolish enough to take her on? Even if she could, would Moxy tell me? She’s always been a little mysterious. I guess I’ll never know what she did in those days after we lost her.

  She’s worryingly thin. Moxy was never a fat cat, but now I can see all of her bones, can count the ribs protruding.

  She’s so deep in slumber that as we rock along over the goat track that takes us from one cove to the next, she’s like a limp doll, dead to the world, and I worry she is actually going to fall off. As we round an outcrop right near the sea, I look back over my shoulder and see her slipping all the way to one side of Gus’s rump. It’s only good fortune that Gus straightens up just in time and changes direction on the track, and then as soon as he begins to lurch the other way Moxy slides again in that direction and nearly tumbles off the other side!

  It’s too much to watch and I know I’m being over-protective but what if she slips off and plummets into the sea below us? I can’t lose her again.

  I bring Gus to a halt and gently pick her up off his rump. Moxy rouses from her slumber and gives a yowl of displeasure at being lifted away from Gus. I unzip my sweatshirt and stuff her inside so that she’s pressed up against my chest like one of those babies in a papoose being carried by their mother, and once she’s inside the sweatshirt she starts purring. She likes being close, her fur against my skin. As she drifts back to sleep, she reaches up with her little face and gives me one of her love-bites, nipping me gently with her jaws, clamping delicately, affectionately on to my chin. I know she’s saying in her own way that she’s missed me and she’s glad to be back.

  Gus is tired. I can feel the languor of his strides. We have maybe an hour to go before we reach Kaikoura and right now the HMS Canterbury is moving steadily onwards to South Bay.

  I’m trying to stay calm, to tell myself that the boat will take a while to reach its destination and drop anchor, and then the people have to be loaded on board, so I don’t need to panic. Yes, it will be close if we stay at this pace, but if I push my companions too hard, we won’t make it at all. Jock’s favouring his left leg. I’ve washed the wound as best I can, using salt water straight out of the bay, but already it’s swollen up and I’m worried that it might be getting infected. The gash keeps seeping so that the white fur on his shoulder is tinted bright red with blood.

  Jock limps on at Gus’s heels, and when we ride the goat track where the path becomes too narrow he drops back and trails behind us. We squeeze between bushes of cutty grass and then we come round the sea cliff so at last we can see the black sands of Peketa. The very last beach that we must cross before we arrive at our destination.

  Gus makes grunty noises, sing-song like he’s whistling a tune as we go downhill to reach the black sand. I lean right back, almost lying flat on Gus’s rump so that he can balance himself. It’s a steep trail down the clay cliffs – and then at last we’ve reached the beach. The tide is halfway out, the sand still wet and firm beneath us. Black and white stilts with red legs stalk up and down the beach in front of us as we walk by, looking surly, as if our presence is bothering them. Maybe it’s nesting season and we’re in their territory, or maybe they just like to be grumpy. They look like angry old men with their shoulders hunched and their eyes beady on us as they stomp back and forth and refuse to get out of our way.

  The bay is a clean stretch of black sand ahead of us. To the inland side, the beach becomes boulders, impossible to ride on, leading up to the hills above. To the right-hand side, the sea is at half-tide, lapping against the sand. Ahead of us, I can see the gap between the trees at the end of the beach. We’re almost there now. That next bay beyond is South Bay where the HMS Canterbury, no longer on the horizon, must already be dropping its anchor.

  We’re halfway down the beach when my early warning system goes into full alert. Jock gives a gruff bark that becomes a disturbing, guttural growl. I know the sound so well now – it’s the one he makes when an aftershock is coming. This is different from the other times, though – the bark is deeper, the growl has more menace to it. He’s like a werewolf, transmogrifying in the light of a full moon. The growl becomes a howl, violent and baleful, and then Moxy joins in too and she is yowling, and Gus stiffens underneath me and he raises his head up and his ears flatten. When I hear the boom this time it’s so loud! It’s like a sonic blast in the hills above, and then, racing after it, the freight train comes roaring through beneath us.

  I remember that when the seven-point-eight quake struck, one of the most terrifying things about it was that I couldn’t see anything. I was totally blind to the onslaught of the earth’s power. I had no eyes to comprehend the world around me and
everything was noise and motion in blackness as the house bucked like a rollercoaster beneath me, the deafening sound of the ground roaring below.

  This time I can see the devastation as it happens. The ground is being ripped apart, the sweep of coast ahead of me cracking like an eggshell, giant fissures opening in the black sand. Chasms wide enough to swallow a horse, deep enough to take us all to Hades.

  Willard Fox help me! I have no protections! The backpack is gone and there are no braids in Gus’s mane. And now the earth is going to swallow us all!

  I start to scream, but my cries are drowned out by the roar of the train. There’s this biting pain, as if a vice is gripping my chest and it won’t let go. I think maybe I’m having a heart attack until I realise it’s Moxy, who’s woken up to find the earth shaking apart and in her panic has extended the talons on all four of her paws and limpeted herself on to me.

  As the pain grips my chest, I feel things change underneath me and Gus does too. He splays his four legs to keep balance, but the earthquake is shaking him in every direction. Suddenly, the earth itself gives a violent, rolling buck and Gus reacts with a crazed whinny and goes up on his hind legs! As he rears, I stay with him and grip desperately with my hands to the saddle pommel.

  Gus rears so high up that for a moment I think we’re going to be tipped over backwards and he’ll come down on top of me. Then the earthquake slams him on to all fours again and as I come back down with him I feel my stomach smash into Gus’s neck. I’m winded by the blow, gasping for air.