Beneath the Kauri Tree (The Sea of Freedom Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah Lark

  “Swords to plowshares,” said Peter.

  Sean grinned. “As long as Colin doesn’t sell the horse that pulls the plow.”

  Kathleen laughed, although her laughter was somewhat forced, and Violet laughed because she laughed at every joke Sean made, regardless of whether she understood it. She felt as if she were in a fairy tale: a family that talked and told jokes, with no screaming, no fighting about money, no beating.

  Violet’s fairy tale did not quite last six months. And then her luck turned bad, as it had so often in her life before the Burtons. When Violet later thought back to the day on which her father and brother appeared before Reverend Burton’s house, she would ask herself over and again what would have happened if the Barringtons’ ram had not won in its show class. If it had lost, Heather would have returned a week earlier from Canterbury. Violet and Rosie would have been living in the city, not in the parsonage in Caversham, and Heather would doubtlessly have pulled out all the stops to protect the sisters.

  As it was, it was hardly possible to hide Violet and Rosie’s presence, and the pastor could not afford any scandal. Traditionally, the church and parsonage stood open to all who came back impoverished from the goldfields. That applied to Jim and Fred Paisley as well as to Eric Fence.

  “Many thanks again for taking my daughters in.” For once, Jim Paisley was sober, and he tried a humble approach. Sheepish as he talked to the reverend, he turned his hat in his hands, which astonished Violet. She had not seen this pose in years—not since her father had developed the habit of drinking liquid courage before confessing a renewed bout of unemployment to his wife. “We, er, decided rather suddenly to go to the goldfields.”

  “You left us in front of a pub,” Violet said. Previously, she would not have dared, but in six months, no one had glared as evilly at her as her father did now.

  “Well, it doesn’t seem to have been so bad.” He played it down. “I knew that you would be welcome in the house of this, hmm, gentleman, and wouldn’t you say yourself, Reverend, that it was for the best? Two girls in the goldfields, it’d be rough for them, I tell you, very rough.”

  Peter Burton pressed his lips together. “In Tuapeka, there used to be families who stuck together and cared for their children,” he said calmly. “I ran a school myself. And in Queenstown—”

  “Oh, Reverend, we weren’t in the fields around Queenstown,” Paisley interrupted quickly, as if to defend his honor. “My partners and I were seeking new claims. We—”

  “So, you found gold and are rich now?”

  Peter could not refrain from making his remark as he let his gaze pass over Paisley’s filthy shirt and his threadbare work pants. The three men did not even have shovels and pickaxes on them anymore. Peter thought it likely they had pawned them.

  Paisley made a face. “Poor men have no luck,” he said, trying to garner sympathy.

  “And the money from the sale of your house?” asked Kathleen sternly. “There must still have been some after the crossing.”

  Paisley shrugged his shoulders. “Money comes and goes; luck comes and goes, and some only have their own hands’ work to rely on. I learned from it, Reverend,” he said ponderously. “I was seduced into risking everything, and I won’t deny it: I failed.”

  A cold flash ran down Violet’s spine. His show was familiar; she had witnessed her father like this many Sundays after a boozy Saturday night. Her mother would point out that he had drunken half of his week’s pay. Even though she had only been ten or eleven, Violet wondered at the time how her otherwise smart mother could fall for his whining and his useless excuses.

  The pastor looked as unimpressed as Kathleen. “What are you thinking of doing now?” he asked Paisley sternly.

  Jim rubbed his forehead. “I’m going to look for respectable work,” he declared. “Just like my son. We’re headed to the, the . . .”

  “West coast,” Eric helped him.

  “That’s right. That’s where we’re going, to the coal-mining region. I can feed my family, Reverend, believe me.”

  “You want to go to Greymouth or Westport?” asked Kathleen. “Without money or horses or a wagon? How do you plan to get there?”

  Jim shrugged. “Someone may take us a piece of the way now and again. We’ll manage. With, with God’s help.” He crossed himself.

  “So, you’ll leave the girls here,” Peter said.

  Kathleen and Violet held their breath.

  Jim Paisley shook his head. “Of course not, by no means. How could I? We want to be a family again, you see. We need to stick together, and for that we need a woman in the house. Just look at us.”

  “And Violet’s supposed to be this woman?” asked Kathleen. “She’s supposed to cook, wash, tidy up, and keep your clothes in order?”

  “What else?” inquired Paisley. “Don’t you do that for your husband? Wouldn’t you have done it for your father in his old age? Since my beloved wife was taken from us, Violet is the woman of our family. Get ready, Violet, we’re leaving soon.”

  Kathleen gave her husband a desperate look.

  Peter tried again. “Mr. Paisley, why don’t you go with your son first and then send for the girls? A family, as you just said, naturally belongs together, but it also requires that a father build a nest, so to speak, for his family.”

  Jim Paisley grimaced. “You see, now we understand each other. A nest, exactly, that’s what we’re making, right here and now. We’re going to rent a cute miner’s house. Fred and I’ll earn money. Violet’ll make it homey. It’s not that hard, Reverend. Usually there’s already furniture inside.”

  In England and Wales, that was true. A miner did not make much, but the mine looked after good people. Did the mine owners in Greymouth or Westport think so progressively? The west coast wasn’t particularly friendly to families. The typical coast dweller was a whaler or seal hunter. Miners mostly came without families, and though they were paid properly, they were otherwise on their own.

  “Violet!” her father said, his voice booming.

  Violet stood as if frozen. When her father had appeared, she had been puttering around the garden, harvesting winter vegetables. It had been completely unreal to see his heavy form emerge in the clear air in front of the silhouetted mountains and the homey little church. Even worse, Jim had hardly made an effort to greet her. They had not exchanged two words when the pastor and Kathleen stepped out of the house. Rosie had fled under the garden bench when she saw her father coming, and she was still hiding there.

  “I don’t want to,” said Violet. She had not considered it. The refusal simply burst out of her. “I don’t want to go to the west coast. And Rosie doesn’t either.”

  Jim Paisley grimaced again. “Violet, that wasn’t an invitation. It was an order. We’re a family; I’m your father, so let’s go.”

  “You don’t even know where you’re going,” Violet yelled desperately.

  “Of course we do,” Eric Fence jumped in. “First to Canterbury, then straight across the country and into the mountains, and there we are.”

  “That’s more than three hundred miles,” said Peter. “And it’s still winter. There might be snow, and you have to make it over the mountains. You should have better considered where you wanted to go before booking your passage. It’s closer from other ports. You could also go by ship.”

  Jim Paisley did not give the pastor another glance. “Pack your things, Violet.”

  Violet cried, and Rosie screamed when Jim Paisley pulled her out from under the bench. Kathleen briefly considered calling for the police, but Jim Paisley was Violet and Rosemary’s guardian, and he was not drunk at the moment.

  “Can’t we ask Sean if there’s some option?” asked Violet desperately as Kathleen packed a few household objects and blankets into a bag. “We could sue and—”

  Kathleen shook her head. “The Maori,” she said bitterly, “may have some rights. They’re still negotiating that. We’ll see how it turns out. But women, Violet, don’t have any r
ights. Your father is not allowed to beat you to death, but even if he did, he could probably talk himself out of the charge somehow. Otherwise, he can do just about anything. You have to hang on until you’re an adult. Try to write us, Violet, best as you can. Writing mistakes don’t matter. We should keep in touch.”

  Violet looked at Kathleen desperately, and an idea flashed through her eyes. “What if I marry? I mean, if someone married me?”

  She was thinking of Sean, of course. At age fourteen, it had to be possible. If he did that for her, just to save her, they could always divorce later. The idea was too crazy. She dared not suggest that Kathleen ask him. If Heather were there, she would have asked him.

  Kathleen’s face assumed a hard expression. “Marrying doesn’t help anything, Violet. Don’t even think about it. If you flee heedlessly into marriage, you’ll go from the frying pan into the fire.”

  “It could, you know, be a sort of trade,” Violet whispered.

  Kathleen snorted. “It often is, dear,” she said, thinking of her own story. She, too, had once agreed to a trade: Ian Coltrane had given her son a name, and, in return, she gave him the money to emigrate. “But you’re rarely the buyer or seller. You’re the horse.”

  The Burtons ended up paying for the Paisleys’ train travel to Canterbury. They paid for Eric Fence, too, once Jim declared they must all travel comfortably or no one would. Peter Burton would not have been extorted, but Kathleen was determined to do what she could for the girls. The pastor drove the family to the train station, purchased the tickets, and insisted on overseeing the boarding.

  “No doubt he would have sold the tickets a moment later and drunk the money away,” he said when he returned home and explained his long absence to Kathleen. “Leopards like that never change their spots, no matter what he pretended in front of us. Did you give Violet money?”

  Kathleen blushed. Her husband knew her well. Still, she hoped that Jim Paisley had not seen anything.

  “Maybe he didn’t notice that you gave her something, but he’s likely to guess,” judged Peter. “He’ll try to beat something out of her.”

  Kathleen tried not to think about it. She could still recall all too well how Ian Coltrane had taken the first money she earned with her sewing. She hated delivering Violet to a similar fate. If she made it through a few years, Violet and Rosie both had a chance of escaping misery. If only Violet did not fall in love, or marry just to be free of her father. If only Violet did not seek a way out that wasn’t one.

  Chapter 6

  Kupe did not have the same concerns as Matariki about stealing laundry from a clothesline. He had no intention of arriving in Hamilton wearing the garb of a Maori warrior. During the last few battles, the Hauhau had reminded themselves of the tradition of going to battle half-naked, wearing only hardened flax fastened to a belt. That tradition, however, had proved just as useless as every other attempt to coerce Tumatauenga, the war god, onto the side of the Maori.

  Kupe started seeking out pakeha settlements before reaching the city, and he found one near an abandoned marae. There was a tiny sheep farm with a primitive wooden house, a few sheds, and fenced-in pastures. Kupe felt a twinge of his old rage when he figured that the owner had likely taken part in the dispossession of its former inhabitants. Perhaps he should go inside and massacre them. Then he could gloat about it, and likely he would find some money.

  Kupe quickly gave up the thought. He wouldn’t be any good at massacring people. He had felt nothing but disgust when his tribal brothers cut out the heart of a dead soldier to eat it. He was slowly coming to face facts: he was no more a warrior than Matariki was a priestess. Heritage was not enough. One grew into these roles. While Kupe’s upbringing in the orphanage had incited his rage, it had not prepared him to shed blood.

  Kupe’s luck was good in regard to a clothesline. Men’s clothing, and only men’s clothing, was drying in the sun. Work pants, shirts, everything in one size. When evening finally descended and lamps were lit in the house, he cautiously approached the line. The garden seemed abandoned, but when he moved to reach for a shirt, a grim voice sounded through the twilight.

  “Stay where you are, boy! And hands up, show me your hands, no war clubs.”

  Kupe startled. His waihaka did hang from his wrist, but he did not hold it at the ready. After all, he had not counted on a fight. His opponent seemed familiar with traditional Maori weapons and how quickly a practiced warrior could strike with war clubs. Kupe turned, hands up, in the direction of the voice.

  “Good. Now, come into the light, so I can see whom I’m dealing with.”

  The voice came from a shed to the side of the house. A gun barrel glinted.

  Kupe hesitated.

  “I wouldn’t try my luck in your position.”

  Kupe stepped closer to the house until the light coming through the window from inside partly illuminated him. He hoped he looked at least a bit dangerous, but he had lost all his weapons except for a knife and his waihaka. For this man with his gun, Kupe made the perfect target. He surrendered.

  “Don’t shoot,” he called. “I’m, I’m almost unarmed.”

  The man laughed and now stepped out of the shed. He wasn’t young, and he was considerably shorter than Kupe; however, he looked stronger and surely capable of protecting himself. And then he spoke to Kupe in Maori.

  “Who’d believe it, a warrior. If a lost one, where’s your taua, young man? Your iwi?”

  Unfortunately, Kupe understood the words for “regiment” and “tribe” but no more. He bit his lip. “Pardon me, sir,” he said politely. “Could we, could we perhaps speak English?”

  The man laughed even louder and lowered his weapon. “Well, aren’t you a strange warrior? And here I was seriously worried you were the scout, and a whole taua of berserk Hauhau warriors was lying in wait in the woods.”

  Kupe thought about bluffing and claiming this was the situation, but there was no point.

  “You are alone, right?” asked the man in a somewhat friendlier tone.

  Kupe nodded.

  “Well, then come on in. I’m sure you’re hungry. Take some of the clothes if they’re dry. If not, I have more inside. Piu-piu skirts are tapu in my house.” Again he laughed.

  A few months before, Kupe would have gotten angry if someone had compared his warrior’s belt with a girl’s dancing clothes, but now he didn’t care. He seemed ridiculous to himself. The pakeha soldiers’ uniforms were much more suitable for war than the Hauhau’s near nakedness. And a gun was superior to any spear.

  “Oh, my name is Sam, Sam Drechsler. No need to call me ‘sir’; no one does.”

  Sam Drechsler let Kupe enter first, likely to eye him for hidden weapons. The door opened into a single room. Sam’s cabin was solid but small. He and the yawning old dog were clearly the only occupants. A stew bubbled in a pot above the fire. In front of the fireplace, there was a rocking chair on a flax-fiber mat, Maori handwork.

  “My wife weaved it,” Sam said when he noticed Kupe staring at it. “Akona, a Hauraki.”

  The man had married a Maori? Kupe was surprised, and immediately he felt safe.

  “Well, go ahead and change. I won’t look. That thing you’ve got on doesn’t hide much, anyway. You don’t need to hide your knife. I noticed it a long time ago.”

  As if to show he did not fear Kupe, Sam turned to a shelf, taking down a jar of flour. He poured some of it into a bowl, added water, and prepared the dough for flatbread.

  Kupe slipped into the clothes. A little big and unusual after the many months among the Hauhau, yet comforting and warm.

  “Your wife passed?” he asked shyly.

  Sam Drechsler shook his head.

  “No,” he said, chagrined, “she didn’t want to leave the tribe. We were neighbors as it were, the tribe and I, when I came here to look for gold.”

  “There’s no gold here,” said Kupe without hesitation. The Hauhau would have known about gold veins. Kahu Heke was always in search of funding source
s for his campaigns.

  Sam laughed. “I know that now. But back then, nearly twenty years ago, I thought I’d be the second Gabriel Read.”

  Gabriel Read was a geologist, and it was he who had discovered the first goldfield near Dunedin two decades before, making a fortune.

  Sam Drechsler took out a pan and prepared flatbread the Maori way. “Go ahead and take the pot off the fire. I hope you like mutton stew.”

  Kupe did as he was told.

  “Well, instead of gold, I found Akona. She was a beauty. The tribe was friendly, took me along to hunt and fish—and Akona took me to her bed. When more whites came, I bought a few sheep and built this house. Things went well for us, Akona and me, and our son, Arama, or Adam. But then the wars started down in Waikato. Here, near Hamilton, there wasn’t any real fighting, but there were strife and quarreling among the pakeha and Maori. Ultimately, the tribe moved away. Akona went with her people. She took Arama with her. It wasn’t the wrong choice. If I think about it, he must have gone to school over there.” Sam gestured with his chin in Hamilton’s direction. He stirred the stew once more and filled Kupe’s bowl. “Where they spit at every Maori.” He sighed.

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” asked Kupe, taking a spoonful of stew, which tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten.

  Sam shrugged. “They didn’t want me,” he said simply. “After ten years of good neighborliness and friendship. I’m not blaming the tribe. The pakeha started it. They stoked the hatred, and even the most dignified chieftain and the coolheaded elders lost their patience. It hit me. It always hits the wrong ones.” He fell silent for a moment and blew his nose. “But now, what’s your story, young man?” he asked. “And don’t leave anything out.”

  Kupe looked at Sam’s round face where a shaggy beard grew. His head was bald in some places, while in others hair grew abundantly. Most of all, his gaze was friendly and open.