by Baker Chris
Kekerengu was snuggled into the coast, a calm blue sea sparkling in the sun and seals at home on the rocks. People were living in the old tearooms. They made Sean and Kevin very welcome, even if they were wary of their first visitors from what they clearly regarded as ‘foreign parts’.
‘People don’t travel any more,’ an old woman told them while they cracked and sucked lobster legs and ate the wholemeal bread while it was still fresh. ‘They’re probably busy trying to survive where they are.’ She and her husband had retired in a comfortable home a little way down the coast.
Now her cooking and gardening skills were a mainstay of her community. They weren’t just a means of embellishing her leisure after a lifetime as a librarian in Blenheim, raising four children and serving on local committees.
‘I wouldn’t have eaten like this. I’d have turned my nose right up. I probably wouldn’t have talked to you two either. Moving to the coast was the best thing Alf and I could have done and, dreadful as it sounds, the Fever was the next best thing that happened.’
Sean thought of all the people he’d met with lives opened up and new opportunities abounding, from Ralph, the former investment consultant at Ngahere, to Sister Annie Choling. But he still had to pull himself up from saying, Who are you trying to kid? Kevin looked shocked. Few of the teenager’s experiences could have been worse than his old life. He could see that the old woman was trying to put a brave face on things. From somewhere deep in his store of smart remarks and inappropriate comments, he dragged up something he hoped would fit the occasion.
‘I’ll take koura over melting moments any day,’ he laughed. ‘But I’ve always been a bit of a gastronome.’ She laughed, dutifully, Sean thought. He detected a tear too, and even though she pretended that she had an itchy eye, she was too late to stop it overflowing and running down her cheek.
Margaret was probably in her late sixties. The younger members of the community — three children, several adolescents and a group of men and women in their thirties and forties — all deferred to her, making sure she was comfortable with enough to eat. When everyone sat down to a meal that night they were all interested in what was happening elsewhere.
‘Don’t get me wrong about the Fever,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve lost my children and their families and no doubt you’ve lost family too.’
She patted Sean’s hand and looked lovingly at Kevin. ‘If what I went through is any indication, a lot more people must have survived the Fever than managed to live with what came after. In a way I’m glad my husband died. All the death and the change would have been too much for him. It would have been too much for a lot of people, but so was modern living.’ She put her cup of borage tea down, and looked for a minute like she was carrying a heavy and painful load. ‘That’s what I mean. We just couldn’t keep going like we were and something had to happen, something really drastic.’ Sean thought of the Maeroero — ‘Kati ra, kati ra!’
‘I’m sorry for all your loss, Auntie,’ he said. ‘And I agree with you too, about people not coping, before or after.’ What could he say that made sense? ‘Kids were killing themselves in the Old Times. Their parents did too, after the Fever, when everything changed and they lost all the things they thought were important.’ He’d have to be careful here. He didn’t want to end up sounding like some nutter. He thought for a moment. ‘If you’ll pardon me saying so, being a woman you’ll have a fair idea of what’s important. As for me, I’m still finding out, but I never did believe anything worth having came out of a Cashflow machine.’
Margaret laughed and lifted her cup in a toast. ‘I think what you’re saying is that you don’t want anything to interfere with this delicious lobster, and I’m right with you there.’ She looked to Sean like she wasn’t fooling. The new world she was living in might have its disadvantages — he guessed she’d probably had a lot of trouble with people looking wrinkled and unironed — but she was coping, and clearly getting some satisfaction out of finding her skills valued and appreciated.
One of the young men, who’d been sitting at the other end of the table, came up then and spoke in Margaret’s ear, before taking his seat again. She gave Sean and Kevin a long hard look, and spoke a little hesitantly.
‘You two look like you’re capable of it, but I don’t know whether you will or not.’
They were being lined up for something. Sean took a sip of tea, pretended nonchalance. Margaret spoke again.
‘We go to the markets at Kaikoura every three or four weeks, usually with the folk from the marae just down the road. Three times since last winter we’ve been held up and robbed by people living at the Clarence River mouth.’
She took in Sean’s blank look.
‘It’s about halfway. They stole our money and goods coming and going. We need to give them a fright, make sure they stop bothering us. Could you help us?’
Sean had a flash of exploding heads and burning buildings. He felt ridiculous too, like the hero of some spaghetti western. He explained about losing his ammunition and having no ammunition for Kevin’s .308. He’d stripped and cleaned his sawn-off but it didn’t feel particularly safe to threaten people with an empty weapon.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Margaret said. ‘We’ve got ammunition here. We’ll pay you too. Twenty dollars each to ride with us to Kaikoura and back.’
What could they say? The offer took Sean by surprise. It was probably time to have a good look at his negotiable skills. He envisaged his appearance — patched eye, dreadlocked, bearded and travel-stained. No doubt he looked like a few miles of bad road. He could see he’d make a plausible heavy. But as a career, even as a pastime, the idea didn’t appeal. Still, the money and ammunition would be handy and he couldn’t think of another way to acquire either. Trading eels on a stretch of coast teeming with fish and lobster? As long as they didn’t have to hurt anyone.
‘Okay,’ Sean agreed, after a quick eye signal from Kevin. ‘Just a fright? You’re sure of that?’
‘I hope so,’ said Margaret. ‘None of us want to see anyone hurt.’
A day later they set out, lobster in barrels on the back of a cart drawn by two horses. Two young women sat on the cart with bundles of fresh herbs and bags of glasshouse-grown produce, like chillies and tomatoes. Two men, one with a rifle and one with a crossbow, rode alongside. They didn’t look at all intimidating, and nor did the contingent from the marae down the road. Except for an old man who winked at Sean when Margaret explained what was happening, they were all young people, carting dried fish and vegetables. Sean was starting to develop a really bad feeling about the trip. An hour out he was wishing they hadn’t taken it on. The old man knew. He became very serious when Sean spoke with him.
‘This won’t end well,’ he said. ‘But it’s been a long time coming and you look like you’re up to it. None of our whanau is, and not the people from the tearooms either.’
He told Sean to expect three men in their thirties and forties, who used the threat of violence to get their way even if they hadn’t hurt anyone yet. The old man, Poutu te Rangi, described them as bullies and cowards. He showed Sean a .22 rifle shaped into a handgun concealed inside his plaid jacket.
‘I’ve still got a couple of teeth left,’ he said.
They passed a huddled collection of cribs, or baches as Sean and Kevin used to call them before they moved south, spread out around the Clarence River mouth. Nobody was about, but Sean could feel eyes on them, and he and the old man sat up most of the night when they camped in a grove of ngaio trees just outside the town.
‘Somebody has to do this,’ Poutu explained. ‘There’s no right or wrong in it, just getting on with things.’
Poutu — never mind the ‘Uncle’ — knew as well as Sean that giving people a fright might well involve killing somebody, and there wasn’t a lot you could say about it.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s not so important.’ Oh yeah, thought Sean. What is?
‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ the old man said.<
br />
We? Who’s we?
‘It’s the Maeroero,’ he continued. ‘Somebody has to put things right with them.’
Put things right? How?
‘Talk with them. Find out what they want.’ Poutu looked worried.
‘We don’t really know what you have to do. Maybe you know already, maybe you don’t. But we all depend on you.’
Hope you’re not too disappointed, Sean thought.
The Kaikoura markets were full of people, laughing, gossiping, jostling, wheeling barrows of fruit and vegetables and greeting old friends. The Kekerengu folk sold and traded all their goods and by mid-afternoon they were ready to leave. They camped out again that night and by midday on the following day they were approaching the river mouth. Everyone was worried, looking nervously about.
Four men on horseback were strung out across the road around a corner. They had shaven heads and black gear. Rifles were levelled. Sean saw a couple of swastika tattoos.
The two carts were side by side. Sean was riding out in front, his sawn-off drawn and cocked and resting across the saddle. One of the men called out.
‘Just drop your goods and money over the side and ride on!’ He addressed Sean directly. ‘And don’t you even think about it. We’ll waste you!’ He looked surprised to see Sean, and a little nervous. He didn’t even notice Kevin, who’d been beside the cart, chatting with one of the young girls from the tearooms.
Sean shrugged. Behind him he heard bags of coin tossed to the road and goods joining them.
‘That’s the story,’ said the man who’d spoken. ‘Nice and ...’ He didn’t get a chance to finish. Poutu’s .22 shot took him right between the eyes. The others whirled around to what had looked like a bundle of rags in the back of the cart. One of them managed to fire a round, but Sean’s shotgun blast hit him in the chest the same time as the shot from Kevin’s .308. It blew him out of the saddle and stopped everyone.
‘Drop your weapons or you’re both dead,’ Sean said to the remaining two. ‘Fuckin’ oath!’ he heard from Kevin. The stalemate lasted all of three seconds, before two rifles clattered in the road.
‘Now put everything back on the carts and fuck off. And no more trouble, not ever.’
The two men, one of them probably only eighteen, looked incredulous for a second. They dismounted and replaced all the bags. Then, wheeling their horses, they galloped down the road and onto the shingle beach. As soon as they were gone everyone leapt to the cart where Poutu had been riding and lifted the blanket. The old man had blood all over his face from where the shot had creased his scalp. Sean thought he was dead at first and one of the young women from the marae started to wail. But Poutu opened his eyes.
‘Stop that racket, girl,’ he said. ‘You’ll give me a headache.’ He looked around then and eventually focused on Sean. He felt the wound on his head.
‘I didn’t see that one coming,’ he said. ‘Did you get them?’
A few kilometres up the road, Kevin rode forward and joined Sean.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I was expecting to see Colin. I just know we’ll run into him somewhere.’
Sean looked at Kevin. ‘He’s not our only worry.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re not going to believe these little guys.’
‘What little guys?’
14
SEAN AND KEVIN FELT READY to face the future. Packed in their saddlebags were shotgun shells, a handful of .308 cartridges and forty dollars worth of one and two dollar coins. They were stocked up with herbs and spices, flour, vegetables and dried fish. But mainly they’d developed a lot of confidence in their ability to handle trouble, even if the spectre of a gap-toothed and enraged Colin still lurked at the back of their minds.
Sean had decided to keep quiet about the Maeroero but Kevin asked him straight out.
‘What little guys?’ he said. ‘What did you mean Colin isn’t our only worry?’
Oh dear, thought Sean. How on earth could he explain the Maeroero? He tried anyway.
‘They’re reject fairies,’ he said. ‘They caused the Fever.’ Kevin gave him a long look.
‘It’s all that dope you smoked with Zed,’ he said. ‘You’re losing it, man.’ He shook his head and changed the subject.
On their own the Kaikoura coast felt quite different. Sean made Kevin laugh when he called out to the seals and the gulls that squabbled on the rocks as they rode by. They even waved to some people at the mouth of the Clarence River. The people waved back, too. Maybe they didn’t recognise either Sean or Kevin, or perhaps they did.
‘How many people do you know wearing an eyepatch?’ Kevin pointed out.
They stopped at their old campsite outside Kaikoura and enjoyed fresh fish and veggies fried with chillies. They leaned back against the trunk of a ngaio tree, drinking tea with wild honey like old campaigners. But let’s not get carried away, Sean said to himself.
Next day they rode through Kaikoura. The locals greeted them with waves and cries. They’d set up their stalls under the shop awnings, and they watched as Sean and Kevin continued south into the dense bush that shaded a steep and winding road.
Their path reminded Sean of the old gravel roads of the Tai Tokerau backblocks. But in that region, in Winston Peters’ Ngati Wai country, north of Kaitaia, around Whangaroa Harbour, in places like Hokianga and Herekino, people had lived everywhere. Families made themselves comfortable in anything with a roof, driven from the cities by high rents and no jobs.
Here there was nobody. They rode for two days before they even saw a dwelling and they didn’t bother investigating. Derelict homes were unmistakable. The paddocks on the hills around this house sported broken fences, with occasional pigs and cattle foraging among the young gorse and broom. Everything was dry and as they came down onto the north Canterbury flats, after three days, they could see the place was suffering a severe drought. What pasture remained was burnt by the sun and a hot wind blew from the nor’west. They crossed two big rivers that were reduced to a trickle, and smaller streams that were dried up completely. After the travellers had two thirsty days, they learned to use whatever water they found, though Kevin drew the line at the scummy bottoms of near-dry cattle troughs. Sean even dug down two feet, in the sun-baked gravel of a stream bed, for some brackish water that he scooped into his hat for the animals. The water did absolutely nothing for the potatoes they boiled in it.
‘Forget the tea,’ Kevin said. ‘It’ll taste like crap.’ They drank the veggie water instead. It made Sean very nostalgic about curried dog.
Just north of Christchurch things became a little greener. They found small streams with dark pools shaded by willows, where they all drank their fill. They were even able to wash. Eels, trapped by the drought, examined them from the shallows. Sometimes it was easier to travel at night, cooler and well lit, with a rising moon in the cloudless sky and the hot wind reduced to a whisper. They weren’t moving fast.
Sean’s first dream came when he and Kevin were dozing in the leafy shade of a willow on a hot afternoon. Bojay and Sofa were making a meal of the leaves overhead, and Hamu twitched and yelped as he chased rabbits in his sleep.
Sean felt at home in the dream. It was only a fragment. After he woke it took him a long time to separate where he’d been from the place where he was.
He’d been standing on the foreshore of an inlet. Houses peeked through trees behind him. Ducks and chooks fossicked along the high-tide mark and in the shallows before him. He wasn’t wondering where he was. He didn’t even realise when he’d woken. He lay in the dappled sunlight on the stream bank, his head on his rolled-up saddle-blanket. The scene was just as vivid when he replayed it with his eyes wide open. Dragonflies darted and hovered over the cool water. A cloud of midges gathered. A fantail herded and ate small insects.
They stayed by the stream that night, dining on rabbit cooked with a herbal mixture devised by a young woman at Kekerengu. The meal was delicious, the ground soft and warm, and the alarm
birds — spurwing plovers, they later discovered — woke them at first light with their urgent cries high overhead. They took their time with a breakfast of reheated leftovers, while Bojay and Sofa continued devouring the foliage that was even now changing colour and starting to fall.
On the outskirts of Christchurch two people rode towards them. They were both in their early twenties, a young Pakeha man and a Maori woman. The man had suffered a serious beating. He had teeth knocked out. Fresh swelling around both eyes was purple and bloody. His nose looked broken, his clothes were bloodstained and torn. One arm hung useless at his side.
She seemed in better shape, but her face carried some mean-looking bruises and her eyes had a haunted quality.
The fellow managed a ‘Gidday.’ She didn’t say anything.
Sean and Kevin got as far as a brief ‘Kia ora’ before the battered state of the pair blew any formalities away.
‘You guys are in a bad way,’ Sean said. ‘You looking for help?’
‘We’re getting away.’ The woman spoke for the first time. ‘Out of the city.’
He needed cleaning up. Sean had no idea what she needed, apart from safety. Returning to the city was out of the question. He looked at Kevin, who nodded.
‘Come on then,’ Sean said. ‘I take it you’ve got no objections to riding west.’
It wasn’t a hard decision. Sean and Kevin suspected Colin was somewhere in the city, at home with the skinz who had long made the place their stronghold. Turning west and taking the inland road was a relief, even though Sean had been looking forward to seeing what had become of the trees and flowers he remembered from calendars. But they could see that bad trouble lurked somewhere in the city. So west it was, and they wasted no time in putting several kilometres between themselves and the city.