by Baker Chris
While Kevin picked up the billy, Sean kicked the fire out onto the scythed grass and stamped out the coals. Their oddly dressed visitor watched silently as they carried their gear around the back of the church. They found shelter under a manuka pole and corrugated iron lean-to. The fire rebuilt, they settled down to a cup of tea, resting against their saddles. Sean could see Kevin felt as guilty as he did about their inadvertent desecration of the church. The woman followed them and stepped up to Sean, her hand held out.
‘I’m Sister Annie Choling,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t really be making you welcome, but I can’t help it.’
Sean introduced himself and Kevin, and offered Sister Annie some tea from his cup. She sniffed, like she was used to better things, and declined, but then she invited them home with her to stay for the night.
‘As long as you both behave yourselves and don’t do anything peculiar.’
‘We’d be delighted,’ Sean said. ‘And we promise to behave.’
‘Don’t be surprised if people around here are funny about strangers,’ Sister Annie said. ‘We just had somebody pass through here who did the most horrible thing you could imagine.’
Sean looked at her, a sick feeling growing.
‘We didn’t even know he was here till we saw him leave and then somebody found what he’d done. He was tall and skinny with blonde hair and a tooth missing. Do you know him?’
‘Colin!’ both Sean and Kevin exclaimed at the same time.
‘What did he do?’ Kevin continued.
Sister Annie’s face was a mask. ‘There was a man here, a possum trapper, living by himself. They found him dead, hanging upside down, with bits cut off him. Your friend must have been staying there and nobody knew.’
‘He’s not our friend,’ Sean said. ‘He tried to kill us too.’ Perhaps Sister Annie should be more suspicious. Maybe she shouldn’t be inviting them home. He asked her why she trusted them, knowing that the eyepatch and the scars on his face gave him a villainous look.
‘You two are safe to be around,’ she said. ‘I can see your auras. But that man passed close to me when he left town.’ She shuddered. ‘Evil has a colour all of its own. I’ve seen it before, but never that strong.’
Sister Annie Choling shared a house with Harold next to the church, about a kilometre from town. The house was full of cats. It stunk and Sean could tell that it wasn’t just tomcat spray, cats had crapped under and behind things. Both Sean and Kevin wished they’d stayed in the lean-to. They wondered how they’d manage to eat anything amid such a stench.
To their relief the kitchen wasn’t too bad. Double doors, opening into the evening chill, let out the worst of the stink, and Harold’s meal of vegetable and walnut pie with a stone-ground wholemeal crust was a very pleasant surprise. They could hear Bojay and Kevin’s horse, Sofa, just over the fence. Hamu sat outside the door, deeply offended by his vegetarian dinner. He stared hungrily at the cats. Their casual saunter round the door instantly became a defensive, hissing and spitting, back arched, sideways scurry for cover when they realised a dog was loose on the premises.
Sister Annie excused herself after the meal, leaving the others to do the dishes by lamplight. Harold seemed nervous about playing host to two characters of such travel-worn and desperate appearance. He looked far from desperate. The sight of him made Sean think of lounge suites and ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ on the stereo. Harold was elderly and effeminate. He wore a neat toothbrush moustache and an immaculate green and silver tracksuit.
‘They’re all my cats,’ he said with pride.
After the Fever he’d gone through the township feeding the abandoned felines and over the winter he’d enticed them to his house. He realised they smelt a bit, and when Sean suggested that claustrophobia would force both he and Kevin to sleep outside he laughed.
‘Try the garden shed. The only smells you’ll get in there are earth and vegetables.’
Harold and Sister Annie had been looking after each other for the past year. She was schizophrenic, he said, and prone to unpredictable enthusiasms.
‘And you can imagine what it used to be like for me,’ he said. ‘Rocks on the roof, slogans on the wall, insults and threats across the street.’ Sean nodded in sympathy. No picnic being gay in a small rural town. Harold and Sister Annie instinctively saw safety in each other and Harold was grateful for the Fever.
‘I’ve got a life now,’ he said. ‘It’s harder in lots of ways but I’m not afraid any more.’
Sister Annie was the town’s vicar, guardian of its spiritual welfare. She looked after the church and every Sunday conducted a service concocted from Christian and Buddhist teachings and her own unique fantasies. Everyone came to listen to her sermons and prayers. People fed them, Harold said. They brought vegetables and other offerings to the church and to their home. For his part, he was a counsellor.
‘I’ve always been a good listener. And I know how it feels when everything turns against you.’
The whole town was in an uproar over Colin.
‘Lucky you met up with Sister Annie first,’ Harold said. ‘Most of the people here would have shot you, no questions asked. I probably would have.’ He straightened a rug on one of the armchairs. ‘You must admit, your looks raise a few questions.’ Sean lifted an eyebrow, forgetting that the gesture was hidden by the eyepatch. Kevin looked from Harold to Sean. He’d been silent up to that point.
‘Thanks for everything,’ he said to Harold. ‘We really appreciate your hospitality.’
Great, thought Sean. Ten out of ten for manners. Then Kevin spoke again.
‘Actually, those people in town are lucky. You too. We’d have wasted you if you’d tried to harm us. No shit.’ He looked like he meant business, and Sean watched Harold’s eyes widen.
‘No offence, young man,’ he said.
‘That’s okay,’ Kevin replied. ‘None taken.’
Bet he used to watch old Clint Eastwood westerns on the telly, Sean thought. He realised that he didn’t know Kevin all that well. Maybe his youthful partner was hiding some very useful surprises.
The three of them chatted about life on the road. Harold was curious about what the pair had eaten. All three laughed over the curried dog Sean had shared with Matapihi, but Sean could tell Harold was really revolted, his laughter polite rather than heartfelt. He talked of the markets, now a regular feature of the town’s life as people had gradually gathered at the centre of the district.
‘People are much nicer to each other now,’ he told Sean.
‘They’re not in such a rush and there’s room for people like me. People share more — food, everything.’
Sean was struck by the thought of what would they be eating for the next part of their journey? Where would the food be coming from?
‘Do you have any thoughts on where we could acquire food?’ Sean asked Harold.
‘You’ll have to trade for it at the markets, like everyone else,’ he said.
Trade. Of course. Sean started mentally reviewing their meagre possessions and he remembered the eel net.
‘Do people around here eat eels?’ he asked Harold.
Harold’s face twisted with revulsion. ‘Yes, they do,’ he said. ‘There’s a creek down the back here, if you’ve got any way of catching them.’
Kevin waited till they were setting the net in the icy water before he spoke.
‘If I have to eat another eel, I’ll spew,’ he said. It was too dark to see his face but his tone was grim.
‘You didn’t have to bite their heads off.’
‘I still had to eat the bloody things though. I’m not eating any more. Bad buzz.’
The net was full in the morning. Kevin left Sean to clean the two dozen eels while he and Hamu walked purposefully off.
‘Rabbits,’ said Kevin. ‘Time we had a change of diet.’
Sean had his first taste of what he laughingly described to Harold as genuine free trade. The open market was held in the main street under sun umbrellas and colo
urful canvas awnings. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. He traded the eels readily enough, but everyone looked suspiciously at him.
‘Fuck that,’ Kevin said when Sean told him. ‘Harold was right. We’d best be outta here.’ That night the cat stink seemed particularly vile and they decided to leave in the morning.
Kevin spoke for Sean too when he said to Sister Annie, ‘Nice little town, but we know when we’re not welcome.’
Their saddlebags stuffed with food, they said goodbye to Sister Annie and Harold, thanked them and wished them well.
The roaring Rangitikei gorge gradually gave way to the flat plains of Hunterville as they rode. They could see the railway being taken over by yarrow and other wildflowers. Tangles of convolvulus hoisted themselves on gorse and broom growing beside the tracks. Blue cliffs of papa rock had slipped in places and other travellers had made tracks over the tumbled masses, already overgrown with blackberry and old man’s beard. The vine was flowering in the late spring, climbing on the manuka and other small trees that had managed to get a foothold in the gradually dissolving debris.
Sean and Kevin spent the night beside a gentle stream. By the morning it was a raging, dirty brown torrent, thanks to heavy rain that began falling before daybreak. It soaked them and promised a miserable day. Neither had thought to stash any firewood. They spent all day under the hastily erected tarp, eating cold vegetables washed down with muddy water and last night’s cold tea.
‘Pity you didn’t set the hinaki,’ Kevin said. ‘It’d be miles out to sea by now.’
The next day wasn’t much brighter, but at least the showers were scattered rather than steady. They started riding early, hoping to find dry fuel and a hot meal somewhere along the way. Just north of Bulls, they passed an open hay shed with a heap of old fence posts and battens in one corner. They made themselves comfortable there. Bojay and Sofa dined on hay. Kevin laughed when Sean produced the final eel from the Taihape haul.
‘Told you,’ he said, ‘I’m not eating any more of those manky things.’ He turned to his saddlebag and, like a magician gave a bow and a flourish before pulling out a rabbit.
‘Maybe we can stew this,’ he said. ‘I shot it the other day.’
When nobody was looking Hamu ate the skin. It made him fart all night.
‘Good thing this is an open-sided barn,’ commented Kevin.
Bulls was a washout, literally. It was hosing down and there was no trace of the markets they’d been hoping for. They were soaked and miserable, and both envied Bojay and Sofa the stoicism that allowed the two horses to plod on in the teeth of wind and rain. Sean and Kevin spent the night under a bridge near the Palmerston North turn-off. A pile of driftwood had dried out on the bank, giving them a fire and a hot meal, and almost making up for the stony ground they had to sleep on.
It was fine and clear in the morning. The two horses worked their way through a large patch of red clover while the men gnawed on woody parsnips. But at least they were dry and the wind was back in the north, warm and fragrant with fresh wildflowers. Sean was conscious of the smells. They’d been there all his life but they were stronger than ever, no longer mixed with the stink of rot that had covered everything for the first months after the Fever. But there was something else. Familiar and unpleasant. What was it?
Kevin realised first.
‘Hey man, get a load of that,’ he said. Sean stopped and sniffed.
‘That’s cat,’ he said. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
It wasn’t everywhere. They got occasional whiffs, carried on gusts of wind. It wasn’t as strong as it had been in Harold’s house, either. But it had a more mature and pervasive quality, like the source was a good distance away, but close up it would be overpowering. Hamu was aware of it. He looked nervous.
His nose twitched in the breeze and something in his mix of breeds made him point with tail stiff and paw upraised.
‘What’s with Hamu?’ asked Kevin. ‘He got a thing about cats?’ Sean remembered one of the kids’ cats terrorising their jog, hissing and clawing every time the animal went near, ambushing it and retreating to safety beneath the couch.
‘Looks like it.’
That night they camped by a creek. Kevin shot a wild turkey at dusk as it settled in a tree. In the morning the wind was back in the north. The cat smell persisted. This time even the horses were nervous. Sean looked around. Something was wrong with the landscape. The smell blew across them again, Hamu pointed, and Sean realised, just as Kevin spoke.
‘Hey man, there’re no animals around here!’
‘You’re right. There’s nothing. Why not?’
Sean couldn’t figure it out and he was still puzzled when they camped for the night. Hamu was even more restless. He jumped at every little noise, snorting and growling. Bojay and Sofa weren’t happy either. They both objected to being tied and tried to break their halters, tossing their heads and stamping around.
On the second night they were all wary. They had seen no animals all day. As the moon rose Sean could have sworn he heard a noise straight from an old television nature programme.
‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, sitting bolt upright and startled by the fire. Kevin sat up too, wide awake.
‘Something roared,’ he said. ‘Nothing roars around here.’
None of them got much sleep after that. The horses trampled nervously about and twice more Sean and Kevin heard a distant roar.
‘Something’s going to happen,’ Kevin said the next day when they were riding past the empty paddocks and flattened fences.
‘Wish I knew what,’ Sean said and right on cue two lionesses exploded from a patch of broom near the road.
The beasts were huge and they moved like lightning. They made the dogs who’d attacked in the past look like playful puppies. Hamu gave a warning bark and Sean only just had time to draw his sawn-off. He shot the leading lioness as she left the ground in a leap that would have landed her right on Bojay’s neck. The blast didn’t kill her, but it stopped her and halted Hamu from a suicidal charge. The second lioness tried to stop, dirt and grass spurting where her claws dug into the ground. A shot in the ribcage drove her back a few feet and she settled on her haunches, panting and bleeding.
The attack was over in the time it had taken Sean to draw the sawn-off and pull the trigger twice. Kevin was open-mouthed and wide-eyed with disbelief when Sean turned to him. Sofa was trembling with abject terror.
Nobody moved. They struggled to breathe out. Their hearts pounded. What the hell is this? Sean thought. Lions near Levin? No way. Sean turned as the first lioness rose to her feet. Half her head was shattered but she still looked dangerous with her left eye gleaming and a canine tooth like a boning knife bared in a savage grimace. Hamu had changed his mind about attacking. Even with the lioness badly wounded it was clear she’d have opened him up from stem to stern with one clawed swipe. It took Sean two more shots to finish off the animal. Bojay and Sofa, their nerves shredded, flinched at each bang.
‘Where’d they come from?’ Kevin asked. ‘There aren’t supposed to be lions here.’ His face was white. Sean dismounted and stroked Bojay’s neck, making soothing noises in an effort to calm him.
‘They’re here though,’ he replied. And how many more were there? Was it safe to stop anywhere? His head spun. Then he saw Kevin suddenly stiffen and unsling his .308.
‘Oh, no,’ Kevin cursed. ‘I don’t believe this shit.’ A dozen dogs appeared from behind the broom bushes and trotted towards the dead lions. Sean hastily stuffed more shells in his sawn-off. Weren’t the lions enough?
Kevin lowered his rifle. ‘They don’t give a stuff about us.’
The dogs were slinking around the lions. The bravest among them attempted an exploratory nip. Within seconds they were disembowelling the two beasts, snapping and growling at each other as they pulled out loops of intestine. Sean looked at Kevin.
‘This is a very bad scene. Let’s get the hell out of here.’
As they trotted away wit
h frequent backward glances the dogs didn’t even look up.
A few kilometres down the road they saw a figure in the distance, riding towards them. As he drew closer he called a greeting and a few seconds later they were shaking hands. Cautiously. The man wore a safari jacket over motorcycle leathers, and an akubra hat with an imitation leopard-skin band. Sean couldn’t imagine where he fitted in.
‘I heard the shots,’ the guy said. ‘Lions, I guess.’
‘You guessed right. How come?’
‘It’s a long story. If you feel like coming home with me I’ll tell you.’
He was Maori, about Sean’s age. His padded leather trousers were chafed and scarred and he was hung about with weapons. Sean saw a rifle with a telescopic sight, and a sawn-off in saddle holsters. He had a large-bore rifle slung on his back, a .45 automatic in a shoulder holster worn outside his jacket and a bush knife in a thonged sheath hanging from his belt. His dog looked like Hamu, a mix of working breeds with a definite attitude. The guy spoke like an Aussie, short vowels and a nasal intonation. His speech sounded rural and when he began talking, his metaphors and expletives reminded Sean of conversations he’d had while on a trip out west in Queensland.
‘I’m hunting lions,’ he said. Kevin did an exaggerated double take.
‘No shit?’
‘Where are you guys from, anyway?’ the fellow asked. Sean took a deep breath and told him the unvarnished truth. They watched the guy soaking up the tale, especially its more magical aspects. Sean sensed that he liked a good story.
‘Sounds outrageous enough to be true,’ he said. ‘I’ll believe it if you’ll believe the lions.’
‘No trouble believing them,’ Kevin replied.
As he spoke they rode up to a grove of oak trees at the head of a long drive with a large sign, lettering faded but still legible. WAINUI LION PARK it said, with a picture of a roaring lion’s head. A schedule of charges followed and some wag had long ago added with Day-Glo aerosol POMS ON BICYCLES FREE.