by Ella West
Sam can hardly sit still beside me.
After about half an hour Jack wraps it up, tips his hat to us, and everyone applauds. I think I go temporarily deaf from Sam’s clapping. He walks down the stage steps and back to where the junior classes are sitting, lost in the crowd as we all get up. I sidle down the forms to the hall doors, hoping to escape, but Sam is blocking my path, trying to see where Jack has gone, waving frantically. And then he’s right in front of me, shaking a few of the guys’ hands on the way, saying the odd word here and there, but undeniably walking straight towards us.
‘Jack, Jack, over here,’ Sam calls out to him. Not that she has to.
He sidesteps the last person between us and Sam reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. The brim of the black cowboy hat, as black as Tassie’s coat when it’s gleaming with sweat, hides from me whatever his expression is as he kisses her back.
‘Annie, I would like you to meet Jack Robertson,’ she says formally, turning to me.
Jack smiles at me from under the hat. ‘Nice to meet you, Annie.’
‘Annie’s one of my friends I was telling you about. She plays basketball with me.’
‘Does she?’
‘Oh, and she has a horse. You two have something in common.’
‘Maybe the three of us could go out together sometime? Maybe have a meal?’
‘I’ve got a lot of schoolwork,’ I manage to get out.
‘She’s really busy,’ Sam backs me up. ‘And her parents don’t really let her go out a lot.’
‘Okay, maybe sometime, though,’ Jack says.
‘Can I take a picture of you and me, Jack?’ Sam says, pulling out her phone.
‘Of course.’
Sam holds her phone at arm’s length and gets real close to Jack, smiles sweetly and takes the selfie.
‘Thank you so much,’ she tells him.
‘My pleasure. It was great to bump into you again, but I’d better be going. And it was nice to meet you finally, Annie.’ And then he leans over and kisses me on the cheek, his breath on my ear and I have to close my eyes.
‘That’s what cowboys do. They don’t shake hands, they kiss you on the cheek,’ Sam tells me as we watch him walk away. ‘Isn’t he amazing? Just think, he could be coming to study at this school!’
On the way to class, with Sam still talking about Jack, I get a text. I’ve never seen you with dry hair. I put the phone back in my pocket.
If I’m having trouble concentrating on schoolwork after that, Sam has it even worse. The rest of the day is a struggle. Classes, rain, Sam. In the end I start avoiding her. I can’t handle watching her staring into the distance sighing all the time. She even asked me at lunchtime if I could possibly teach her to ride Blue. I told her that the famous international saddle bronc rider Jack Robertson would not really be interested in a girl who rode an ex-pacer. He would only be pretending.
‘Perhaps I could tell him that Blue is a special horse or something?’
‘I think he would know,’ I say.
‘Still.’
On the beach near Deadmans, Jack is still laughing about it.
‘You’re cruel,’ I tell him as we start down the beach at a walk.
‘I’m not being cruel. You’ve seen my Facebook page. There are hundreds of girls on it just like her.’
‘I’d say more like thousands. Actually you have two thousand and something friends on Facebook.’
‘They’re not all girls, and anyway, they just think a rodeo rider is someone special. They don’t know me, they don’t know anything about me – what I think, what I want – but they’re all falling in love with me just because I wear a cowboy hat.’
‘Yet you still wear the hat.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘So you do like the attention, don’t you?’
‘What’s not to like?’ He smiles at me again, and I know he’s joking this time. ‘Look,’ he says, suddenly serious, ‘if I really liked it, all those girls, would I be riding on a beach with you in the rain?’
I turn my head away, wanting to keep my thoughts to myself. But he’s waiting for an answer. I kick Blue into a canter instead.
We race along the beach, the rain becoming heavier, the surf right at the horses’ feet. It’s as if the whole world is made of water. Waves, rain, sweat – they’re all one. And tears.
Jack catches up with me.
‘What I really won’t like,’ he yells out to me above the noise of the rain and the hooves on the sand, ‘is when we can’t do this anymore.’
I stop Blue and Jack pulls up Tassie. We face each other.
‘Dad’s back from Christchurch,’ he says. ‘They’re setting up roadblocks in the Buller Gorge and on the Coast Road. They’re going to search every car that’s coming or leaving Westport.’
‘Looking for the rest of the Powergel?’
‘Yes, and the people connected. It’s nothing to do with drugs, like they first thought. It’s bank robberies. They stole the Powergel to use in bank robberies. They know who they are, Annie. They’re going to start searching houses, flush them out, make them run.’
‘But what if they’re just Westport people? People who have lost their jobs in the mines? People I know?’
‘They’re still murderers. That body on the beach – they’re pretty sure that was your guy in the raincoat, the one you saw floating down the river.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t a murder. Maybe it was an accident?’
‘The guy’s head was bashed in, Annie. It was murder.’
‘Then why dump the body like that? Why didn’t they hide it so no one would ever find it?’
‘I don’t know, maybe they got scared. Panicked. Rushed it. Then that guy blew up his house.’
‘The police had his house surrounded.’
‘Whatever, Annie. It doesn’t matter. In a couple of days all this is going to be over and I’ll be leaving.’
Harry and Di are coming for dinner. It’s a Monday night, but for dairy farmers every day is the same – the cows don’t stop needing to be milked just because it’s the weekend. And Dad has tomorrow off, so a Monday was decided upon. Mum has cooked lasagne with pasta she made herself (she got the pasta press thing through Fly Buys last year) using Di’s eggs. I know it’s going to be good, and it is.
We sit at the table, not eating tea on our laps in the living room as usual, and the TV is off. Tonight, talking to friends is more important than watching the news. And there’s garlic bread too. Even better.
I’ve come in wet and smelling of horse, so explanations are needed. Blue needs exercising, even in the rain, Mum says to Di. I smile in agreement, grabbing a towel. If only she knew. I can still feel Jack’s mouth pressed onto mine. Dad and Harry are talking about whether the rivers are going to flood and then they move on to the milk price and oil and petrol prices and the mine layoffs and China and coal. They all seem to be mixed up together, or I’m just totally confused about the whole thing. China has stopped buying oil and coal so prices are falling, which means the countries that used to make lots of money out of oil and coal (pretty well every country in the world, it seems) can’t afford to buy milk. Our milk. Or our coal. Just as well we don’t produce much oil as a country. Three strikes and you’re out.
Di passes me the broccoli as the conversation moves to Dad’s job, or maybe lack of a job.
‘What will you do?’ Di asks.
‘He hasn’t been laid off yet,’ Mum says. ‘Let’s wait for that to happen first. We’ll find out tomorrow at the meeting.’ And she smiles across the table at me and everyone shuts up. They understand. No talking about moving away in front of the kid. Honestly, I’m quite happy about that. I don’t want to talk about it either.
Mum and Di discuss what colour to paint the hallway (off-white or cream or maybe pale blue?) and Dad starts talking with Harry about what happened when he was coming through the Buller River Gorge this afternoon on the train. He was watching the road on the other side and just at Hawks Crag p
olice were stopping cars. He says it didn’t look like a usual licence, warrant, rego check. They were getting people out, making them stand on the side of the road in the rain while they searched the whole car. They had dogs. It was holding up the traffic.
‘Why would they be doing that?’ Di asks, no longer talking paint colours with Mum.
‘I don’t know. Someone said when I got back they were looking for the missing Powergel. That the dogs could sniff out explosives.’
‘They think someone is crazy enough to put it in a car and drive out of Westport?’ Harry says. ‘After what happened in Christchurch with that bank robbery?’
‘There’s only the two ways out, either through the gorge or down the Coast Road.’
‘They’re probably doing the same thing down there,’ Mum says.
I sweep the last of the pasta off my plate with my fork as I listen.
‘It’s just crazy,’ Harry says.
‘If they are searching people’s cars, they might start searching people’s homes next,’ Di says slowly.
Something about the way she says it makes me turn and look at her. Worry is on her face. This isn’t a conversation about town gossip that is kind of amusing but nothing to do with us, that my parents and Harry and Di would laugh about together. This is different. I glance across the table at Dad, but he has his head down, concentrating on mopping up the sauce with the garlic bread. Mum has got up and gone into the kitchen to check on the apple pie, which Di has brought and is keeping warm in the oven. So there’s just me and Harry and Di and Dad, and Harry and Di are looking at each other in this weird way and Dad is not noticing, still concentrating on his garlic bread.
‘I’ll take the plates,’ I say, getting up quickly, picking up my own.
‘Thanks, pet,’ Dad says, handing his across. I grab Harry’s and Di’s and scoot into the kitchen. Mum is fussing about whether the pie is warm enough.
‘Was the lasagne okay?’ she asks.
‘It was great.’
‘So what’s everyone talking about out there now?’
‘Nothing much.’ I’m rinsing the plates and stacking them in the dishwasher.
‘I think this is going to be a few more minutes,’ she says, still looking at the apple pie through the oven window. Which means she’s going to stay standing in the kitchen and I’ll have to go and sit down at the table again.
‘I might just check an email then. My English teacher said something about sending us stuff and it hasn’t come through yet.’ Small, tiny, necessary lie to get me out of having to go back in there.
‘Okay. Five minutes, no more?’
I head out of the kitchen and into the hallway, but Harry is already there. He has his back to me, his phone to his ear.
‘Just go. Take whatever you need, don’t worry about it. Just go,’ he’s saying, his voice urgent, hurried.
I back out quickly, end up in the bathroom, shut the door quietly. Hopefully he hasn’t seen or heard me. Footsteps going past. He must have gone into the dining room again. So who was he talking to just now on the phone, and why are he and Di so worried about the police searching homes, maybe their home?
The apple pie is amazing (and at the perfect temperature to make the ice cream ooze off it as it melts) and with Mum at the table again the conversation has returned to paint colours and funny things that have happened in the office at St Canice’s School and when it will stop raining.
‘I’ve given up. I’m using the dryer,’ Mum says. ‘We were running out of clothes.’
‘Can’t have a rainforest without rain,’ Harry says and, plates pushed aside, everyone gets up and heads to the living room.
‘Annie, could you put the jug on for cups of tea?’ Mum asks.
‘Sure.’ I grab plates to take out with me.
Jug on, dishwasher now so full I can’t fit anything more in it, I look out of the window. It’s grown dark and I haven’t given Blue any hay. How did I forget to do that? I know how I forgot: Jack’s kisses. This is getting bad. At least he’ll be leaving soon with his dad and things can get back to normal. Even if the investigation does drag on, Stella must be due back from the States soon and then it will be all over. No more rides along the beach for Tassie.
I grab my raincoat by the back door and head out into the dark with a torch. Although I don’t really need it. There’s enough light around and I know where I’m going. I push open the feed shed door and grab a slab of hay.
‘Hey, Blue,’ I call out.
The sound of hooves in the dark. Neighing. I’ve turned off the torch, but he knows I’m there. He can smell the hay.
I toss it over the fence, feel his head press into my hand as he bends down.
‘Sorry I forgot,’ I tell him. He doesn’t seem to care. He’s munching steadily.
Something distracts me, a light, by Harry and Di’s farm. The light is moving. As I watch, it crosses over to where the track leads up to Mount Rochfort. But why? Who was at the farm and is now heading up the mountain in the dark and the rain? There are no houses up there, just a lake and a small hydro scheme. The gates at the bottom of the road are always locked, but those aren’t car headlights. Too small. Someone is heading up there with a torch.
Mum picks me up from school the next day as usual, but for once I don’t get interrogated. There’s no so how was your day or what did you learn today or have you got much study to do tonight or anything. Instead we drive in silence in the rain. Jack is texting me: Beach?
‘Dad and I are going to a meeting after we get home,’ Mum says.
‘Okay,’ I say, still holding my phone.
‘About his job. They’re going to announce the redundancies, who’s getting laid off. I’m going with him. All the wives are. We could be late home.’
I nod and start texting on my phone.
And then we drive in silence, through town, across the Orowaiti Bridge.
‘Everything is flooding,’ Mum says.
I look out at the river. It’s high, higher than I think I’ve ever seen it.
‘The overflow will be working, the Buller pushing into the Orowaiti,’ Mum says.
‘Will the town flood?’ I ask.
‘The park by the Buller Bridge, that’s under, but that always happens. This river here stops the town flooding.’
She turns off at the cemetery, along Utopia Road and then we’re home. Mum hurries inside after she pulls into the carport. Jack has texted me back: See you soon.
After I’ve got changed out of my school uniform, seen my parents off, I wait for him in the carport, sheltered from the rain. I’ve already thrown Blue a slab of hay, just in case we’re late back. Blue wasn’t impressed – he wanted to go riding – but he still ate the hay as always. I can still hear him munching, even from here.
I step out from the carport when I see Jack’s vehicle coming down the driveway. He’s peering through the windscreen, looking at the house, at everything. If I was him I would be too. When he sees me he stops and gives me a wave, then reaches to push open the passenger door.
‘Hi,’ he says as I climb in, chucking my raincoat on the backseat.
‘Hi.’
‘Where are your parents?’
‘Out at a meeting. They won’t be back for a couple of hours.’
‘So where are we going? You know the rivers are flooding?’ He’s turning the four-wheel drive around, heading out onto the road.
‘Turn left,’ I tell him, and he looks at me, wondering.
‘We’re not going back into town?’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’
I can tell he’s disappointed, but he turns onto the road, heads left, windscreen-wipers going. He probably should have his lights on too, but I don’t say anything. And he’s wearing his leather boots and jeans with one of those large belt buckles. I just hope those boots are comfortable to walk in.
He’s not asking about Pete’s house either, not even looking back at what remains of it, or saying anything about the police
tape still left there.
‘You’ve been past here before, haven’t you?’ I ask him, realising.
‘Do you think I wouldn’t have been?’
I turn away, look out the window, don’t know what to say. But then I have to talk, get him to turn off the Fairdown Straight onto Powerhouse Road. He slows for the railway crossing at the start of the road, looks both ways. It’s uncontrolled, so no lights, no bells, no arm that comes down to stop the traffic. Over the tracks we wind up the narrow road past houses and life-stylers and farms. There are tall blue gums on one side of the road and near the end is a wooden-decked, single-lane bridge, the creek a raging torrent underneath it.
‘Is this Deadmans?’ Jack asks.
‘It’s Christmas Creek. It flows into Deadmans. We’ve got to stop here.’
He pulls over, off the side of the road before the bridge. Just before the set of locked gates.
‘So what are we here for?’
‘I thought we could go for a walk. You said you wanted to do something different, so how about a walk?’
‘Where?’
‘Up Mount Rochfort. There’s a lake halfway up.’
‘When I said I wanted to do something different together, I meant something out of the rain.’
‘It won’t be raining so much in the bush.’
‘You’re not convincing me.’
But he turns off the four-wheel drive and follows me anyway.
To start with, the path is not the easiest to find. We battle through manuka and then there it is, next to the flooding creek. There are tree ferns and taller trees, rimu and beech, and the track is mostly gravel, so not too muddy. I keep going, keep my head down, my hood pulled over my head, not saying much to Jack, hoping he will keep following. After about ten minutes I glance back and he’s still there, looking around, looking at everything. It even seems like he might be enjoying it.