Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  “Omaka Te Pura,” Linda said wearily.

  A day had passed since the Hauhau attack. Linda had learned that there’d been somewhere between three hundred and five hundred Hauhau warriors forced to retreat by the military settlers and another hundred soldiers sent as reinforcements from Patea. For the time being, Linda and Aroha were being accommodated at the army camp. Vera had gone back to her family, and Fitz was awaiting trial. The charges were simple: cowardice in the face of enemy attack. Half his company had witnessed him crawling out of the shed. Private Fitzpatrick had hidden while his wife had fought off the enemies. The expected consequence was a dishonorable discharge from military service, and of course, Fitz would lose his land.

  Omaka had been arrested as well. Major McDonnell and his personnel had decided to keep the old woman in custody until they figured out what to do about her. Linda attempted to explain the situation again.

  “Omaka is a priestess,” she said. “And if the commanders are clever, they won’t reassign our land but allow Omaka to live on it and conjure her spirits. In payment, she could offer her services as a midwife. There are five pregnant settlers’ wives now, and more every day.” Several of the military settlers had gotten married during the last few months. “Omaka knows more about medicine than anyone in this area, including your surgeon major.”

  Captain Langdon laughed bitterly. The surgeon major was known to be fond of drinking, and was widely regarded as a quack.

  “I’m afraid that’s not my decision to make,” he said. “And as I said, Miss Carrigan has a vastly different opinion. According to her, your priestess is a witch who hates white settlers and has connections with the Hauhau. Miss Carrigan claims she was spying on us, and that she’s responsible, in part, for the attack last night. Your husband confirmed Miss Carrigan’s statement. We don’t set much store by his word anymore, of course, but it deserves mentioning. He explained that he was very worried about your relationship with the old woman, and had wanted to report her for quite some time. Your feelings were all that was keeping him from doing it.”

  Linda sucked in her breath sharply. “Captain, were you under the impression that I could have stopped my husband from doing anything?” she asked sarcastically.

  Langdon lowered his gaze, embarrassed. “As I said, we don’t set much store by Private, um, Mr. Fitzpatrick’s words. Still, you just confirmed that the old woman is a priestess. So, a connection with Te Ua Haumene is certainly possible.”

  Linda rubbed her forehead, barely suppressing a groan. “Captain Langdon, don’t you know anything about the people you’re fighting? Omaka being a priestess is the very reason she rejects Hauhau doctrine. Believe me, she considers Te Ua Haumene no less of a heretic than your regiment’s priest does, no matter how differently they’d explain it. I can’t allow you to hurt her. She saved me and my child—from Vera Carrigan, although nobody seems to believe me. And now, please, would you be so kind as to tell me what else that girl told you? I’d like to know what to expect. Concerning my husband’s trial too.”

  Captain Langdon gave Linda a serious look. “She said she took the baby with her—her own idea, apparently, to protect her. And that Mr. Fitzpatrick followed her in because you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, absolutely refused to let her take care of the child. Her exact words were: ‘At some point, Linda became delusional and thought I was going to hurt the baby.’”

  Linda dug her nails into Aroha’s blanket, imagining that she was digging them into Vera’s face. “You don’t believe her, do you?”

  The captain shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. There’s no excuse for Private Fitzpatrick’s cowardice in the face of the enemy. The correct behavior for him would have been to send you and the child and Miss Carrigan, and maybe even Omaka, to the hiding place, and to man his post with the gun himself. Everything else—your version and Vera’s—is compromising for him.”

  Linda bit her lip. “It matters to me if you believe me or not,” she said angrily. “I’m sick and tired of seeing the girl get away with her lies.”

  Captain Langdon smiled. “Well, if you set so much store by my opinion, I believe you. I saw what you’re capable of yesterday. If Vera had taken the child from you, you would have followed her yourself to get her back. And in that case, I think it’s possible we might have had not one but two severed heads on our hands.”

  Private Fairbanks had been the only casualty among the pakeha troops. He, too, might have survived had he done his duty and followed the trumpet signal to arms. Instead, he had been with Vera. Supposedly, she’d come over to show him her horse.

  “Do you really think that’s what she was showing him?” Linda asked.

  The captain shrugged again. “Private Fairbanks’s decapitation doubtlessly took place outside. Miss Carrigan’s statement and the blood are consistent in this case. Vera Carrigan must have been sitting on her horse already when the attack occurred. Otherwise, she couldn’t have fled.”

  “So she was just leaving,” Linda said. “Granted, it was dark, and there was shooting. She wanted to go home. Whatever she did before—”

  “We’ll never know,” Langdon said. “Unless she keeps up her business.”

  Linda shook her head. “I doubt she will. Or at least not here. Maybe you’ll be lucky, Captain, and Vera will leave Patea. I suppose you’ll chase away my husband, and he’ll take her with him.”

  “Where will you be going now?” Captain Langdon asked.

  Linda was loading her wagon with the few belongings she’d brought to the army camp. Fitz’s trial had taken place the day before, and now, she was getting ready to leave.

  As expected, Joe Fitzpatrick had been given a dishonorable discharge, and he’d been advised to depart from Patea as soon as possible. Linda had no idea if he’d taken the advice, or if Vera had gone with him. During the trial, the girl had testified on his behalf, while Linda had decided to remain silent. In spite of everything, she couldn’t hate Fitz. He was her child’s father, and even though her mind told her that he was an adult and responsible for his own actions, her heart still saw him as Vera’s victim. The girl had wrapped him around her little finger, just as she had done with Private Fairbanks and all those other men she’d supposedly been working for. All of them must have seen something special in Vera, and to Fitz, a childish man and a gambler, she’d been irresistible. Linda could and would not tolerate it any longer, but she held no grudge against him. Her only desire for revenge was against Vera, and her testimony wouldn’t have done the girl any damage.

  Linda’s refusal to speak against Fitz hadn’t helped him much, however. Captain Langdon had described in detail before the court how he’d found Linda and Omaka with the dead Maori warriors, and how pathetically Vera and Fitz had come crawling out of their hole.

  “The only merit of Private Fitzpatrick’s ‘retreat’ was having carried his daughter to safety,” the captain had finally finished in a scornful tone. “His daughter who, I might add, wasn’t in danger at all—or not from the moment her mother had a rifle in her hands, anyway. Mrs. Fitzpatrick acted commendably, proving herself prudent, courageous, and brave—a true pioneer. We all deeply regret losing her, but there’s no way around it. A cowardly liar such as Private Fitzpatrick isn’t suitable for any army.”

  The court, which was chaired by Major McDonnell, had agreed. And Fitz only escaped the gallows by sheer dumb luck. Had the company actually been at war and not simply prepared to defend the camp from marauding mobs, he could have been executed for cowardice.

  Fitz had listened mutely and then sat stoically through the ritual by which his rank and uniform were revoked. It wasn’t a big loss, since he’d still been of the lowest rank, without any medals or decorations. The worst part was that Fitz hadn’t completed his three years of military service, which meant his land would be returned to the Crown. Linda and her daughter had to leave.

  “Well, first I’ll go back to the house to collect the rest of my things,” she said, answering the captain’s quest
ion. “If Fitz didn’t take them all. I wouldn’t put it past him.” She touched her mother’s necklace. That, at least, was safe. “Afterward, I’m going to Russell. I have family there.”

  Seeing Ida and Karl again would be the only good thing about this new turn in her life.

  The captain shook his head. “You can’t go to Russell. Not the direct way, at least. You’d have to cross all of Waikato, and I’m afraid there are still hundreds of Hauhau out there. You don’t really want to take such a risk, do you?”

  “No,” Linda said sadly. “I’m aware that the only safe way is through Wellington; I can take a ship to Russell from there. My relatives will send me money if I can reach them by telegraph, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll sell the wagon.”

  Linda pretended that she was brushing her hair out of her face, but in truth, she was wiping away a tear. She hated having to be on the road again. And all alone, this time.

  “Can I take Omaka with me?”

  A decision had now been made about Omaka as well. With regard to the Hauhau attack, the priestess was found to be innocent. However, the army command insisted she leave the settlement immediately and return to her tribe. Of course, she didn’t even know where exactly her people had been sent to. The old woman had simply asked Linda to bring her back to her tree.

  The captain grimaced. “You can, but—” He seemed relieved when somebody called for him. “Coming, Private Bannister!” Langdon bid Linda farewell with the customary tip of his hat. “Fare you well, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. As I said in court, it pains me to lose you. I wish you the best on your journey. All the best!”

  “Why do men find Vera so attractive?”

  Omaka was there, rocking Aroha and humming absentmindedly, but Linda was really talking to herself. Her conversation with Captain Langdon had stirred her frustrations, and now that the wagon was rolling along the river, Mount Taranaki winking down at them for the last time, everything came bursting out of her.

  “She isn’t beautiful or smart—well, she’s clever at manipulating people, but she’s got no education at all. I can’t imagine what she and Fitz would talk about. And of course she’s young, hardly more than a child. What does he see in her? She might be experienced. I don’t know much about physical love, Fitz was my first, but I—I can’t imagine him preferring a whore over me . . .”

  Linda felt disheartened. She knew exactly what Carol would have told her now: “You still love him.”

  “It’s not that I still love him,” she said in reply to the silent reproach. Omaka gave her a gentle, sidelong look. “I just want to understand. I want to know what he sees in her, what they see in each other, what they mean to each other . . . What did I do wrong?”

  “With each other, they can be who they truly are.”

  Linda was so engrossed in her monologue that Omaka’s answer startled her.

  “Does that mean—does that mean he can’t be himself with me, karani?” she asked. “Do you think I didn’t love him enough, or didn’t accept him for who he was, or—”

  Omaka shook her head. “You do not know him, mokopuna. He never showed you. He is like the tuatara lizard. By night, he shows a different face than he does by day, different in the sun than in the dark, showing only what you wish to see. And he knew what you wished to see—they always know. They see with their third eye.”

  Linda frowned. Tuataras changed their color depending on the time of year and their age, and one of their most remarkable features was the third eye in the middle of their forehead.

  “What do you mean, ‘they’?” she asked impatiently.

  Omaka sighed. “Whiro’s messengers, mokopuna. The beings that show us how cold death is. They always walk alone, for they know no love, no fear, no future, and no pain.”

  Whiro was the Maori god of death, and tuataras were said to be his messengers.

  “But Fitz is kindhearted,” Linda objected. “He’s sociable to a fault, and he married me. He didn’t want to be alone!”

  Omaka’s words had sent a shiver down her spine.

  “They do whatever suits them best, and perhaps they are also searching for connection. Perhaps they would like to be a part of a tribe, or would even like to feel warmth. But they are not made for these things. I told you before, they are not like you or me. You may pity them, mokopuna, but stay away from them.”

  Linda rubbed her eyes. She thought about Fitz and how easily he made friends—and how readily he would use, betray, steal from, and deceive them moments later. How fearless he was, how indifferent in the face of his future. She had confused it with optimism, and it had given her hope time and again. But seen through Omaka’s eyes, it was nothing but carelessness and selfishness. Those who didn’t know blame or fear didn’t worry about their safety. All he did was live in the moment. And as for her, maybe he’d truly been looking for something in her. Something he’d found in Vera.

  “Fitz is not like Vera,” she said defiantly.

  Omaka shrugged. “And you are not like me. And yet, we are of a kind. They are of a kind. Stay away from them, mokopuna. You have been lucky so far; the spirits have protected you—all the karakia I have sung, your mana, your maunga. You proved strong enough, though he weakened you.”

  “He didn’t weaken me!” Linda cried. “To the contrary, I—”

  Then she fell silent. Hadn’t she just been trying to blame herself for her failed marriage? How many times these past few months had she asked herself what she was doing wrong? How often had she been silent when she should have spoken up? How often had she lied for Fitz, to herself and others? Omaka was right. She’d doubted her own mana, and in the process, she’d allowed him to weaken it.

  Omaka and Linda were silent until they reached the land that had briefly been called Fitzpatrick Station. Linda sighed. She’d miss the river, the hills, her garden, the painstakingly cleared fields, and even the log cabin, although it had never really felt like her own.

  Omaka turned to Linda to exchange hongi in farewell. She was going to return to her camp while Linda packed her things to travel south. Then, however, both women froze. Smoke was rising from the hills behind the house.

  “It’s coming from your camp, Omaka!”

  The priestess’s face had turned into a mask of fear and pain.

  “Could that be Hauhau?” Linda asked.

  She reached for her hunting rifle, which was stored under the seat of her covered wagon. She owed the rifle to a lucky coincidence. When Captain Langdon wanted to bring her back to the army camp after the attack, she’d grabbed the item of clothing closest at hand to wrap Aroha. It had been Fitz’s old leather jacket, and in one of its pockets, she’d found the winnings from his last card game. The money wouldn’t have been enough for a ship’s passage, but it covered traveling provisions and a rifle.

  Omaka had already begun to move, and swiftly. Linda followed as quickly as she could, Aroha swaddled in a blanket on her back and the rifle in her hands.

  From the top of the next hill, they could see the tree, the men, and the fire. About ten military settlers were hacking at the kauri tree with axes. The trunk was too thick to fell, but they kept chopping chunks off and tossing them into a blazing fire. It was sacrilege from a Maori point of view, and foolish wastefulness in the eyes of the pakeha. Kauri wood was very valuable; one could have made a small fortune with the sale of this tree trunk. Omaka let out a strangled sound, as if she’d lost the ability to speak.

  Linda stared at the men. They were all neighbors, friends of Fitz’s or Vera’s, and nobody seemed to be in charge. The tree’s destruction definitely hadn’t been ordered by the army commanders, or a construction unit with saws would have been sent out, proceeding carefully. Instead, these men seemed exuberant and drunk. And they were being egged on.

  Perched on the stone Omaka had often used sat Vera. She was laughing, shouting to the men, praising them and jeering. When she saw Linda and Omaka standing on the hill, she waved up at them triumphantly.

  Omaka stared, aghast
, at the scene of destruction before her. Silent tears ran down her cheeks. Linda reached for her rifle. Her first impulse was to take aim and shoot. She wouldn’t have missed Vera.

  “It was my maunga,” Omaka said softly. “Now that they have killed it, I will die too.” She reached for the war club hanging from her belt. “I will die in battle, for my people.”

  Her words brought Linda back. “No!” she said decisively. “No, no, karani. She must not get what she wants! You will not let her turn you into the enemy she makes you out to be. If you go running down there with a battle cry on your lips and your club in your hands, they will shoot you and celebrate her. She always said that you were a traitor. Do not let her have this victory!”

  The older woman’s eyes were suddenly as cold as Vera’s. “You may shoot her.”

  Linda nodded grimly. “I want to, but then I would die. There are witnesses down there. I would be hanged. Fitz could get my daughter and turn her into another Vera. No, I won’t give them that either. We are stronger than they are, karani! We have mana—”

  “I have no more power, mokopuna,” Omaka whispered. “My power came through Tane, and with him, they are destroying my soul.”

  Linda shook her head, pointing at the fire. “They are not destroying him, karani. They cannot destroy spirits. Don’t you see him? He is flying to the sky to join Rangi—to the place where you anchored Aroha’s soul. Your maunga is up there in the clouds now too, in the wind, karani. You are free to go wherever you please. Come with me, karani—with us.”

  Omaka looked at her. It seemed to cost her a lot of energy to tear her gaze from the dying tree. Then her eyes swept over the fire, and finally, Vera.

  “Go, mokopuna,” she said.

  Linda grabbed her hand in desperation. “Please, karani, do not send me away. Don’t let yourself be killed; don’t let them win!”

  “You are strong, mokopuna, but not strong enough for the spirits I will call now. If you are right, if Rangi, Papa, and Tane give me power, I will make the earth shake now.”