by Lee Murray
And Taine.
She scrubbed at her face. This was silly. She hardly knew him, only met him a few days ago.
Whump!
A clump of mānukā brush landed beside her. Startled, Jules looked up.
“Hey, down there,” Taine said, grinning, his face poking through the hole. “We thought you guys might like to warm up.”
Taine and Trigger rigged up a vine, and belayed into the cave to join them. After a bout of back slapping and hand-shaking, the soldiers set to doing their boy-scout thing and, before long, they had a fire roaring. What little gear they had had come through the tunnel, a lot of it wet through. Everyone huddled close to the fire to dry off, Jug included.
Trigger told them all the story of how he’d almost died in the tunnel, and how he’d almost died again when he and the sergeant had washed up in the streambed outside, and how he’d almost died a third time when he’d woken and found McKenna leaned over him, all puckered up and about to give him a bloody kiss! Sitting on the other side of the fire, Taine winked and Jules smiled back, suddenly feeling warmer.
Eventually though, the bonhomie exhausted, Lefty asked, “So, now what?”
“We need to go after it,” Hamish said quietly. Everyone looked at him. “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? We’re in a siege situation here. We’re stuck in the castle, while Sampson catapults us with everything he’s got. Some of us need to attack the enemy face-on, so the rest of us can escape out the back with Jug.” His eyes darted to the medic, who was asleep on the sand.
“Go after it?” Taine asked carefully.
“Capture it, kill it, whatever.”
“We should capture it,” Richard said.
Trigger got up and walked away from the fire. He stood by the stream watching the current.
Taine wiped his face with his hands to cover his anger. Bloody Foster! The same stupid idea that got two men killed and a third one currently on the sand half-conscious from the pain, and Foster brings it up again.
Still, they needed ideas, and while Foster was a jerk, the guy was smart. Taine let his hands fall away from his face. He gave Foster a hard look. “Okay, I’m not saying I like the idea of capturing it—”
Trigger turned, his eyes stony in spite of the firelight.
Taine continued. “...but anything that can occupy the Sphenodon long enough to get the party to safety is worth considering.”
“I vote we kill it,” Trigger croaked.
“Kill it, capture it. I’m open to suggestions,” Taine said.
“Christian and I…” Richard said, his face reddening, “...planned to drop a net on it, the way the Māori used to snare birds.”
“Look how well that turned out,” Eriksen said.
Richard sniffed. “We were trying to save it.”
“The old Māori hunting method is an interesting one, though,” said Taine, closing down the bickering. “Because earlier, Ju… Dr Asher and I thought there might be some clues in the Māori legends about taniwha.”
Read piped up. “I know a story about a chief and a taniwha.”
“Yeah, and I know a story about a flying fish,” Miller said.
“How’s a story supposed to help?” said Trigger, returning to the fireside.
“It’s helpful if real Sphenodons inspired the legends in the first place,” Jules said.
Nathan nodded. “It’s possible.”
Eriksen butted in. “I know one. It’s from where my dad was brought up. They had a taniwha there called Ohinemuri. This taniwha fell in love with a chief’s daughter. While the girl’s father was at war with his neighbours, Ohinemuri snatched her up. Kept her in his cave-lair. But her old man had the last word, snatched her back.”
“Hmm, that one might not actually be about a taniwha,” Nathan said. “Sometimes a powerful Māori chief would be called a taniwha. It was symbolic.”
Eriksen shrugged. “In Waihi, they said Ohinemuri was a taniwha.”
Lefty piped up, “Of course, they did. The daughter of their chief was stolen from under their noses.”
“Tell us your story, Read,” Taine said.
“Well, there was this chief called Tara who lived on the plains at Heretaunga, near Hastings,” Read said. “Tara’s people were being killed by a taniwha – the taniwha had a name too, but I forget what it was – anyhow, Tara couldn’t let it continue, so he made a giant eel pot—”
“A hīnaki,” said Nathan.
“… a… hīnaki,’ Read said, “which he baited with two hundred live dogs and set in the middle of a lake. When the taniwha entered the trap, Tara dragged it ashore and killed it.”
“Dragged it ashore, huh. How did he do that?” Lefty asked. “Sampson’s got to weigh the same as a logging truck.”
Read shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“My kuia used to tell me a story like Read’s,” Nathan said. “But in her story instead of using dogs for bait, the people used eels. And they killed it using spears, stabbing it in the belly. When they opened up its stomach, they found hundreds of people inside.”
Everyone went quiet.
“Killed it with spears, huh?” Eriksen said after a moment. “Well, they can’t be any worse than a Steyr. Piece of piss.”
“You guys are off your heads. They’re just stories,” Trigger said.
* * *
Taine pulled Trigger aside. “I think our taniwha is attracted to Jules.”
“What?”
“He’s interested in her.”
Trigger laughed, his sides shaking. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“No listen...”
But Trigger was still laughing. “You gotta get a handle on your jealousy...”
“Jealousy? I’m not jealous.”
“Really?” Trigger clasped his hands to his chest.
Taine’s face grew hot. “That’s ridiculous. It’s my job to look after her.”
Raising bushy eyebrows, Trigger puckered his lips and made kissy noises.
“I’m not… I don’t…it’s not…” Taine stammered. Who was he trying to kid? Jules only had to look at him and Taine could hardly breathe. He sighed.
“Okay, so I like her. Are you done?”
Trigger wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yeah.”
“I’m serious about the taniwha liking Jules, though. You remember when we were talking, Eriksen told a story about a taniwha who stole a woman? To take her back to his lair and mate with her?”
Trigger shook his head. “They’re stories, Taine. You heard Nathan; it’s a symbol. If a story says a taniwha took a woman as a spoil of war, it meant the chief.”
“But what if they weren’t just stories?”
“I’m not getting you.”
“What if Sampson can detect the difference between men and women? I don’t know, pick up a woman’s scent or something.”
Trigger shrugged.
“Listen, he has a thing about Jules. I saw it. He could have killed her in the cave before, but he didn’t. He was interested in her.”
“Maybe he decided she needed fattening up first,” Trigger said grimly.
Taine frowned. “The briefing Arnold gave me mentioned a woman hiker. When the first section found her she’d only been dead for a couple of days. Somehow she’d managed to stay alive after being separated from her group.”
“That doesn’t mean Sampson took her. She could’ve been hiding.”
“But what if he did take her? I need to go back to where we first saw Sampson. I have to leave the cave. I’ve got to check something.”
“Okay,” Trigger said, all traces of laughter now gone.
“I’m not asking you to come.”
“Coming anyway, so save your breath.”
* * *
Te Urewera Forest, Second Campsite
“Louise ran from this point here,” Taine said, when he and Trigger arrived back at the site of Winters’ death. “Jug and Lefty reckoned they could hear her running away in this direction.” He
opened his arms like a preacher, pointing both hands at the trees.
“We already searched that sector. We didn’t find anything,” Trigger replied.
“Humour me.”
“It’ll take hours.”
“We’ll give it one hour. If we don’t find anything, we’ll give up, head back.”
In the end, they didn’t need that long. On the tree trunk near a steep ravine, they found a clay hand print. Barely a smudge in the bark, at eye level, it was visible enough.
Trigger cursed. “How the fuck did we miss that?”
Taine could’ve kicked himself. This was his fault. He’d assumed Louise Hemphill had been injured and had told the others to search underfoot.
“At least we know she was here,” Trigger said. “If Sampson got her and carried her off like you said, maybe we can track him, find out where he took her.”
Taine shook his head. “It was raining, plus we trampled all over this area looking for her. Any tracks will be ruined by now.”
“I should’ve put up crime scene tape. Stopped the boys making a mess of the evidence.”
“It was only a theory.”
“You’ve got to feel sorry for her though,” said Trigger morosely. “Face-to-face with that stinking, drooling beast. What if she was conscious when it carried her off? I can’t think of anything worse.”
Taine could think of something worse: being the soldier who failed to keep her safe.
“We should be getting back to the others.”
But Trigger’s words echoed in Taine’s ears. I can’t think of anything worse.
Abruptly, Taine turned on his heel, stepped close to the cliff. Hooking his arm around the tree trunk, he leaned out over the edge.
“Trigger, we need to get to the bottom of this ravine. What if Louise Hemphill couldn’t think of anything worse either? What if she made a choice and jumped?”
Trigger raised his eyebrows, but he followed Taine along the cliff top. They had to go quite a way before they found a spot with enough roots and rocks to use as handholds. They scrambled to the foot of the cliff.
“You sure this is it?” Trigger asked when they arrived in the ravine directly beneath the handprint tree.
Taine nodded. “I used that landslip on the other side as a landmark. See those boulders near the top? They’re about to tumble into the ravine.”
“Well, it was a waste of time, anyway,” Trigger said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Not right here, but let’s look around a bit,” said Taine. “It’s possible—” He stooped to pick up an object amongst the stones, turning it over and examining in his hands.
The cracked sole of a tramping boot.
They found Louise Hemphill just metres away, her body crammed into a narrow crack in the wall, as if she’d hoped to fuse with the landscape.
She’d still been alive after she jumped.
Trigger and Taine hauled the body out. Wedged in tight, it tumbled out in a rush, coming to rest in an awkward heap.
Trigger took a step back. “Jesus.”
The woman’s face was blue with bruising, one eye so swollen it was merely a slit. She had a deep cut in one hand, several of her nails were missing, and the perverse angle of one of her legs pointed to a break just below the knee. Her hair, ordinarily smooth and tidy in its ponytail, had fallen out of its elastic band, the strands a tangled mass. Her clothes were torn in a million places, as if she’d come off second best in a hit and run with a road sweeper.
Taine’s jaw clenched. “Sampson found her. He’s been playing with her.”
Shielding his eyes, Trigger looked up at top of the cliff. “She could’ve got these injuries from the fall. That’s a thirty metre drop. And she was terrified, remember. Maybe, after falling, she squeezed herself in this gap to hide.”
Taine needed to know for sure. Crouching close, he peeled back the sleeve of Louise’s merino top. Her arm was black with contusions.
“People bruise for a short time after death,” Taine said. “But not this much.” He lowered what remained of the tattered garment then rolled up the leg of her trousers on the uninjured side, respectfully, as if she were alive and about to show him nothing more innocuous than an unfortunate bee-sting.
Over Taine’s shoulder, the big soldier gasped.
Running diagonally across Louise’s leg was a deep line of ragged bite marks caused by a double row of wedged teeth.
* * *
They returned Louise’s body to the cleft in the wall until it could be retrieved, then ran back along the bottom of the gully to where they could climb out of the ravine.
“We could use this information,” Taine told Trigger when they’d almost reached the top.
Trigger put out his hand. “How?”
Taine grasped it firmly and Trigger hauled him over the lip. “‘For Sampson, women are like a lure. What if we were to take advantage of that to trap and kill him? It’s what the Māori did.”
“Those are just stories.”
“Stories exist for a reason.”
“Yeah, for reading to kids at bedtime!”
“Sometimes they’re about passing on information. It’s how we knew about Louise.”
Trigger grunted. “It was a lucky guess.”
“Based on a story.”
“You can’t, man. You just can’t. Dangling her on a line for that monster? Jules isn’t a dog or an eel. It’s even worse than Foster’s idea of using Winters’ corpse.”
“I’d use the dog instead,” Taine said, sardonically, “but Sampson ate it. So far, that thing is winning every round.”
“This isn’t a joke, Taine. I thought you liked Jules.”
“I do like her!”
“Then, don’t do it!”
“But don’t you see? I don’t think he’ll kill her. I think he’ll keep her alive, like he did with Louise.”
Trigger grabbed Taine’s smock in his fist, pulling Taine around to face him. “Tell. Me. You’re. Not. Serious.”
Taine broke free from Trigger’s grasp, pushing him away. “I don’t want to place her in harm’s way. The last thing I want is for Jules to be hurt, but it’s the only way. I’m convinced Sampson will want to toy with her first, like a kitten with a pom-pom. And while he’s playing, we’ll kill him.”
“You don’t think I want to kill that thing for what it did to Coolie? I’d like to stuff the bastard with C4 and bake it in the oven, but what you’re suggesting is just too dangerous.”
“Well, you tell me what to do then, Trigger. How are we going to keep these people alive? I don’t see you coming up with any great ideas.”
“We stay in the cave. Make a signal fire. Eventually, Arnold will have to send another section.”
Didn’t Trigger suggest this once before?
“With the end result: in a week more soldiers will be dead. Arnold won’t risk it anyway, not when two other sections have already failed.”
Trigger’s eyes were flinty. “James Arnold won’t abandon us.”
Taine sighed. “The major will do what he can, but this is an off-record mission. We need to face facts. Arnold might be forced to sacrifice us, for plausible deniability.”
“Taine, you can’t do this.”
“What if Jules agrees to do it?”
Trigger clamped his lips shut.
Taine didn’t like it either, but Sampson wasn’t leaving them a whole lot of options.
“That thing is playing with us,” Taine said aloud. “It’s like Read’s kitten. Sooner or later, it’s gonna bite off our heads.”
* * *
Te Urewera Forest, Second Cavern
Taine said he had something to ask her. They walked to the beach and sat on the sand. Jules sifted the grains through her fingers while he explained.
“You want me to be the bait in a trap?” she said.
“You can say no, Jules. I’m not forcing you. I know Foster thinks we should try and save it, but if Sampson isn’t stopped—”
She p
laced two fingers across his lips, stopping him from saying any more. “I know.”
Picking up a stick, she poked at the ground with it. “Supposing I said yes, how do you plan to do it?”
“We’ll use Foster’s net. There’s a cliff where we found Louise…”
Jules sucked in her breath. A cliff…
She can’t. No, she can’t.
But an image of Louise came to her, the way she was when they’d put the tent together that first night. Laughing and joking. Alive. Not anymore. Taine and Trigger thought Sampson toyed with her, perhaps for hours. If Jules didn’t do this, the Sphenodon would go on to torture someone else. Someone just like Louise. Jules swallowed. She didn’t have a choice.
“Taine, you remember how Richard arrived at the last minute to join this expedition?”
He nodded.
“I know he told everyone he came because he discovered he had some leave owing, but that’s not the real reason. It’s because I hadn’t been out in the field for ages.”
“Your file said two years.”
“You knew?”
“Just that much.”
“Oh.” Jules bit her lip. Of course, he would know. “It didn’t say why?”
“No. Do you want to tell me?”
She tugged her hands through her hair, smoothing it to her nape, collecting her thoughts. “It used to be I couldn’t wait to get in the field. I loved getting my hands dirty, you know? We got to do some cool things, counting tusked wētā populations, possum control… that sort of thing.” She paused, Taine silent, listening. “The thing is, I hadn’t been in the forest because I was scared.”
“Something happened?” he finally asked.
Now it was Jules turn to nod. “I was on Te Puka Hereka island,” she said, “studying the mōhua-yellowhead population. The whole time we were there, it’d been awful weather; constant rain, drizzle. Typical Fiordland. We were about to wrap things up, so several of us braved the rain to do a final check of the birds’ nest holes for new clutches…” Jules eyes welled with tears. She scrubbed at them with the heels of her palms.