The few remaining merchants hurriedly gathered around the sorting tables as the rope was carefully laid out for inspection. The chief’s representative gave the customary sales pitch, extolling the virtues of his tribe’s product above that of all other tribes. No mention was made of their late arrival. It was not for a chief to offer excuses to common pakehas.
Then Coffin saw a familiar figure climbing hurriedly toward the clearing. He smiled to himself. While loading the last of his earlier purchases, Hull had heard about the unexpected late arrival. Now he was arguing vociferously with his assistants, who attempted to restrain him. Looking up the hill, he noticed Coffin watching and glared back wordlessly. Coffin nodded politely.
The remaining merchants bid enthusiastically as they inspected the fine quality rope. All were quickly eliminated save two: Coffin and Hull. Coffin didn’t know if his arch-rival really wanted the rope or simply desired to keep it out of his competitor’s hands. It didn’t matter because Hull finally had to drop out of the bidding, having depleted his money with his earlier purchases. A delighted Coffin found himself sole owner of Te Ohine’s produce, though he did not actually relax until the raging, cursing Hull had left.
His IOU was accepted, as he knew it would be. The chief consigned the paper to Rui, his beautiful fourth wife. She would see to it that the paper was exchanged for gold. That done, the chief concluded the bargain with a firm handshake.
“A good day’s business, Te Ohine,” Coffin told him.
“A good night’s business, Makawe Rino. Come and smoke tobacco with me.”
The chief wore an incongruous combination of sailor’s dungarees and Maori feather robe. His great belly hung over the waistband of the pants. Tattooed whorls and spirals decorated his face from forehead to neck. Alien designs they were, though perhaps no more so than the bizarre inscriptions on the arms of seamen from Liverpool and New Bedford. “Is life good for you, Iron Hair?” the chief inquired pleasantly as he demonstrated his command of the pakeha language.
Coffin nodded. “Life is good. As is your English.”
Te Ohine grunted appreciatively. He’d studied the pakeha language not out of any desire to please the traders but because it was good for business.
“I am much pleased to take your gold.” An evening breeze ruffled the feather cape.
“I am much pleased to see you take it.”
A woman produced pipes and tobacco. Fine American tobacco it was, too, Coffin noted. The Maoris knew how to enjoy life and did not hesitate to acquire pleasurable things from the pakehas.
“I am glad to see you here tonight, Makawe Rino. Business with you is always good.”
“I enjoy our talking, Te Ohine, and your rope is always worth waiting for.”
“I bring only the best quality. That is the best way to do business. Is it not so?”
“Very much so.”
“I have heard you have just returned from Te Waipounamu.”
That gave Coffin a start. “How could you know that? The Resolute’s only just docked.”
“We hear much the pakeha thinks we do not.” He smiled again. “It is always a wise thing to know what visitors to one’s land are doing.”
“Very wise,” Coffin agreed.
They settled down to enjoy the evening cool, puffing contentedly on their respective pipes. Only when it grew late did Coffin mention the matter most important to him and his friends.
“Yesterday I was visited by all the important pakehas of Kororareka. They came to my whare to talk. They are worried about many things. One thing they worry about is war.”
“I could never participate in that.”
“I know you would not, but there are other chiefs who would welcome the chance to fight. It is a big problem for us. Among other things, some of our own people cause us more grief than any Maori.”
“That I can believe.” Te Ohine nodded somberly through a veil of lantern-lit smoke. “The men who travel in the great boats and kill the big fish are falling-down drunk much of the time. The pakeha complain the Maori cannot hold his liquor, yet the pakeha sailors do no better.”
“Not all of us are like the sailors. For many of us this has become our home. What we want are assurances from the Maori that we will be able to travel between our homes just as the Maori does.”
“Do not talk in circles, Iron Hair. What is it you wish?”
“To be able to buy land elsewhere for such homes. For this we must have wide agreement with the ariki, as the Maori hold all land in common between the tribes.”
“This is so.”
“When we buy land from a tribe we must have assurances the business will be respected by all tribes, not just the one doing the selling. Te Ohine, we must make a treaty guaranteeing the peace between Maori and pakeha, so that we may live among you in peace and security.”
“Iron Hair, you know that I have power only over my own people. No one chief can command more than that.”
“I know. That is why the treaty we make must be comprehensive. It will do no good to sign separate treaties with one, two, or even a dozen chiefs if the thirteenth will someday decide to destroy us. We must have a meeting to discuss this important thing.”
“Difficult to arrange.” The chief scratched a cheek. “Very difficult, my friend. Many of the chiefs who would willingly agree to peace with the pakeha will never do so with other chiefs. If they met in one place together they would spend all their time splitting heads instead of talking.”
“I know of your feuds and rivalries. There’s no reason why they can’t be put aside for one afternoon. The peace could be assured by the pakeha representatives since they have no feud with any tribe.”
“Still it will be hard, gathering so many ariki in one place at the same time. But I will talk to the rangitira and see if such a thing might be done.”
“That’s all I ask. I think such a treaty would be good for Maori and pakeha alike.”
“I am a peace-loving man myself,” Te Ohine declared. “I have killed in battle less than a dozen men with my own hand, and I have never begun a war.”
No, but I bet you’ve finished plenty of them, you sneaky old devil, Coffin thought, though by Maori standards Te Ohine was a veritable pacifist.
“Tell me, friend Coffin; I have never been to Te Waipounamu, the place you call South Island. I am told it is different in many ways from our land. Speak to me of what you have seen.”
Coffin found a place to sit. Then he regaled the chief with the details of the Resolute’s last voyage, omitting nothing he thought might interest the chief, even including the price the ship’s cargo had fetched on the dockside market in the event Te Ohine hadn’t already heard.
Eventually they parted. Working by lantern light the drovers Coffin had hired on the spot loaded his merchandise. He told them where to deliver the rope, then mounted his borrowed mare and galloped back toward town. In the light of the full moon the trail stood out like a silver thread dropped between the trees.
His mood sank as he neared home and the day’s other business returned to haunt him. By the time he’d entered Kororareka’s outskirts his thoughts were fouled with remorse and a personal fury that refused to subside. He stalked into the house wearing a storm on his face.
A voice came from the sitting room. It solidified rather than quelled the troubles which had stolen over his heretofore contented life.
“Robert? Is that you?”
She was sitting on the couch, sewing. How terribly domestic, he thought. Seeing the expression on his face she rose anxiously.
“I was worried, Robert. It’s so late, and Samuel didn’t know or wouldn’t tell me where you’d got off to, and I.…”
“Upstairs,” he mumbled.
Her own expression twisted. “Robert?”
“Get upstairs, I said.”
She forced herself to smile. “Of course, Robert. If that’s what you—oh!”
He’d walked over to her and lifted her like a chair. “Robert, you’re hurtin
g me!” Up the stairs he carried her, not even feeling her weight, his thoughts aboil.
The intensity of his passion frightened her, then consumed them both, until she fell into an exhausted sleep alongside him. This was just as well. The look he wore would not have reassured her. It was true his desire was sated, but something else was not. Something that stirred and roiled within him and would not let him be.
Guilt. Guilt because he’d made love to his wife, who loved him deeply enough to sacrifice comfort and friends to sail halfway around the world to begin anew with a husband she hadn’t seen in three years. Guilt because in making love to her he’d really been making love to two women at once.
Adulterer! An inner voice screamed at him. Adulterer in mind if not in body.
Sweating, Coffin turned over and closed his eyes. It did no good.
That night the first of the dreams began. He was flying over an endless green landscape, omnipotent, all-powerful, lord of all he could see. Then the land exploded beneath him, turned to fire and brimstone, sucking him down and threatening to devour him. Two women stepped out of the fire: Mary and Holly. Each could save him. But Holly was an empty shell, a ghost, with no strength and no power. Mary Kinnegad just laughed at him, laughed and laughed until he struck at her. His fingers tangled in her red hair and he pulled her close, her mouth merging with his.
Then he saw that the fire was in her hair and the hell in her eyes, her hate as hot as burning pitch. With a cry he shoved her away, but her hair caught at him like the tentacles of a squid and clung tight. She pulled him close, with hands, with hair, with eyes, burning. He felt himself burning.
Off to one side stood a third figure. He recognized Tuhoto. The old wizard was staring at him, neither condemning nor approving. Just staring. Coffin tried to look away, but wherever he turned there were the old man’s eyes. Just the eyes, detached from the body, hovering in emptiness. Accusing eyes.
When he awoke in the middle of the night he was inhaling so hard he thought his lungs would burst. He sat straight up in bed until his breathing eased, then looked down at Holly. She still slept, oblivious to his nightmare, the sheets rippling against her body. He stared a long time before lying down again. This time he slept.
11
Visitors to his home never mentioned Coffin’s former mistress. His friends were too discreet and their own wives too far removed from the brutal gossip of The Beach to know of the life he’d abandoned the day of Holly Coffin’s arrival. Those who might have been inclined to looseness of tongue had the vision of Coffin’s sword to help them keep silent.
An innocence was preserved that allowed Holly and Christopher Coffin to settle into the routine of what passed for civilized life in Kororareka. For his part, Coffin ignored the occasional burning that dug at his innards and kept resolutely away from the little house down by the grog shops. He later learned that after throwing him out, Mary had taken up almost immediately with the sailor who’d challenged Coffin: Shaun Connaught.
It was just as well. Maybe Connaught could handle her. Perhaps she would see reason and at least seek some rapprochement with the man who’d shared so much of her life. But no letters arrived at Coffin House, no messengers brought requests for a quiet meeting.
Damn her, then. But he sorrowed for their children.
As days became weeks and then months Mary Kinnegad faded from his thoughts. Business and a new family occupied his time. Only at night, in the private, unsettled depths of his dreams did she return to plague him. Asleep, he was defenseless against her. He thanked God he was not one to cry out in his bed.
He was inspecting a newly arrived consignment of nails when the boy came into Coffin House. The youngster eyed him thoughtfully before venturing, “You are Robert Coffin, sir?”
“What is it, boy?” Coffin looked up from his work. From nearby, Elias Goldman turned away from the ledger he was setting in order.
“I’ve been sent by John Halworthy, sir.” Inwardly Coffin felt conflicting emotions. No reconciliation with Irish Mary this, but no complications either. He wasn’t sure whether he was more relieved or disappointed. “He says to tell you the great meeting is set. The Maori have agreed to discuss a treaty.” For the first time Coffin noticed how tired the boy was and how hard he was breathing. He’d run a long way.
“That’s what I was sent to tell you. That, and that your presence will be required.”
“Wonderful news. Where is the meeting to take place, and when?”
“I don’t know that, sir. Mr. Halworthy didn’t say.”
“Never mind. I’ll find out. Where are we to gather first?”
“Tomorrow morning at the house of Titus Ablemare. I understand there’s to be a formal parade to the treaty site. I was also told to tell you that Governor FitzRoy is already drawing up a treaty.”
That didn’t please Coffin. FitzRoy was well-intentioned, but pompous. Still, nothing mattered but the treaty’s contents. If this was true, then a historic moment in the colony’s history was approaching.
The boy goggled at the silver piece Coffin pressed in his palm, then whirled and bolted for the door before the merchant could change his mind. Coffin grinned after him before turning to the back room.
“Elias!”
“Yes sir, I heard. Great news.”
“If it works out. You’ll have to handle things while I’m away.”
“Of course, sir. I wish I could go with you.”
“You may be glad you didn’t if the Maoris take a dislike to FitzRoy’s wording.” He didn’t add the other reason. He didn’t have to. Both men knew there were those among Halworthy’s colleagues who would frown on Goldman’s presence at such an important gathering, would feel it somehow demeaned them. They didn’t speak about it.
Besides, someone did have to stay to attend to business.
“I’ve never seen you look so dashing, Robert. Not even when you were courting me in London.”
Holly studied him thoughtfully as he struggled with the dress shirt. Still, he had no intention of being outshone at the signing—certainly not by Tobias Hull. The Maoris attached considerable importance to personal appearance.
Samuel had the buggy ready and waiting for him. Holly waved from the porch as he chucked the reins and headed out of town. As his horse trotted beneath the trees it occurred to Coffin that it might after all not be such a bad idea to have someone like FitzRoy preside over the signing. The Maori loved ceremony and FitzRoy could embroider language with the best.
By the time he drew near the chosen site he could see Maori chiefs and their entourages striding along parallel to the pakeha path, clad in flaxen skirts and elaborate feather capes and headdresses that shone in the sun.
The pa, or village, was not exactly Windsor Castle, but considering it as a military fortification entirely designed and constructed by savages it was quite impressive. A deep ditch encircled the whole community. This was backed by a high, stout stockade. Ports had been chopped in the palisade to allow the defenders within to make use of the firearms newly acquired from the pakeha. There was also internal scaffolding which permitted warriors to sling rocks and throw spears and clubs down on any assaulting enemy. As was typical, the pa had been built atop a steep hill. Coffin would not have enjoyed assaulting such a strong position, even one defended only by heathen.
Which was one reason why everyone had gathered here today, to sign the treaty that would ensure such conflicts never came to pass.
The village was crowded with spectators, both white and Maori. Ignoring the pomp and confusion surrounding them, the women of the village went about their daily tasks. Grain still had to be ground, garments had to be repaired, and children fed regardless of how momentous the occasion. One young woman sat beneath the arch of an elaborately decorated house reading a Bible.
The inhabitants wore an eclectic compendium of the traditional and the new. Christianized Maoris were as likely to stroll about nearly nude in their flax skirts as they were to don the trade clothing the miss
ionaries favored, while their pagan cousins sported the latest in sailors’ fashion.
The Maori adopted new ideas at their own pace. So far they seemed more taken with the pakeha religion than its culture.
Coffin jumped down from the buggy and tied the horse alongside a long line of similar vehicles. One thing he knew from his conversations with such men as Te Ohine: of all the pakeha gods, the gun was the only one all Maoris had immediately embraced. It answered the prayers of the Maori as quickly and efficiently as it did those of white men, while its doctrine was simple enough for anyone to understand.
A large table had been set up in the center of the village. Behind it stood Maori storage houses, intricately carved wooden sheds set high up on poles. Off to one side a cluster of children swung on vines that trailed from the top of a local version of the maypole.
Coffin was late. The ceremony was already underway. Chiefs marched up ceremoniously to the improvised stage to sign their names or make their marks on the paper while Kororareka’s leading citizens beamed approvingly. As the signing continued FitzRoy rambled on in his impressive voice about what a great day this was for New Zealand, for Maori and European alike, and how this Treaty of Waitangi would go down in history as a model of its kind between settlers and native peoples. He conveniently neglected to point out that His Majesty’s government had yet to approve so much as a word of it.
There was a tugging at Coffin’s sleeve. He found himself looking down into the face of a wide-eyed Maori boy of twelve.
“You Coffin sir?”
“Me Coffin sir, yes.”
The boy grinned. “You come.” He turned and started away.
“Just a minute! Who wants me?”
“Priest-man.” The boy struggled with the unfamiliar words.
Coffin hesitated, then followed the youngster. He was getting tired of listening to FitzRoy anyway. The boy led him to the large meeting house on the left side of the clearing. Removing his top hat, he bent to scramble through the low entrance. Unlike most Maori structures, this one proved spacious enough to allow him to stand up inside.
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