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

by Sarah Lark

  Colin looked at things differently. “Mr. Redcliff, we were told we would be assuming leadership posts here. We—”

  Laughter broke across Redcliff’s broad, weathered, brown face. “Well, if you can construct bridges and explode tunnels, Mr. Coltrane, I won’t stop you.”

  “Sergeant Coltrane,” Colin said stiffly.

  Redcliff rolled his eyes. “Well, Sergeant Coltrane, show me a few useful construction sketches, and you’re my man. I’ll provide a team of workers for the next section. If you only know iron in the form of bullets, and your experience with explosives is limited to firing your gun, then better grab a shovel and focus on the important work.”

  “I had assumed we would be overseeing the men.” Colin did not give up.

  Redcliff sighed and pointed to a team of construction workers who were leveling the ground for a rail track. Some were striking at the hard substratum with pickaxes while others were laying ties.

  “We’re not in Australia, Sergeant,” observed Redcliff, nodding at one of the men who looked up briefly from his work. “These aren’t chain gangs; they’re free laborers who’re prepared to earn their money with hard, honest work. They don’t need oversight, least of all armed. They respect their foremen because they work even harder and know a little bit of the business besides. Whether they used to be armed constables, gold miners, or gravediggers doesn’t interest me.”

  “But—” Colin wanted to make further objections, but Redcliff waved them away.

  “So, boys,” said the stout construction manager, clearly thinking that was enough with the formalities, “welcome to the Midland Line. If you put your backs into it, you’ll be foremen in no time. You must have good heads on your shoulders; otherwise you wouldn’t be sergeants or whatever else you are. Here, anyway, there’s work for everybody. Except smart-asses. Them we send straight home.” With these last words, he fixed his eyes on Colin.

  “I haven’t finished what I have to say,” Colin said, coldly returning Redcliff’s stare.

  Redcliff handed him a shovel. “Here, let action do your talking.” He grinned. “And complain all you want. You wouldn’t be the first, nor are you the first they’ve sent me from your club, but it won’t do you any good. Look at the facts. The government hired loads of you boys to have at the Maori. But they’ve proven to be peaceful little lambs.” Redcliff laughed. Word of the dubious victory in the invasion of Parihaka already had gotten around. “So, now they need to assign you to other work. Do your duty here where they sent you, or quit and look for something else.” With that, Redcliffe turned away.

  Colin Coltrane reached for the shovel, gritting his teeth. He would quit this service as soon as he figured out an alternative. He needed to see Matariki as soon as possible.

  It took more than two months for the train company to give the men more than a few hours off. And when the time finally came, Colin would have most liked to do the same as his colleagues in construction: ride the relatively short distance to the next settlement with a pub, get drunk, and otherwise sleep, sleep, and sleep. None of the armed constables had ever worked as hard as they did on the Midland Line.

  In time, the pain of the physical work lessened, but he never quite got used to the hard and often dangerous work. There were always injuries during explosions or bridge construction: the Midland Line drew defiance from nature, and the mountains seemed to resist it desperately. After a short time, Colin no longer had an eye for the beauty of the forests in which he chopped wood or the sublimity of the mountains against which men like Redcliff measured their strength. This was not the life he had pictured. He was used to giving orders—and as a boy he had learned to sell. He didn’t want to organize like Redcliff or break his back like the other railroad workers.

  Even as an adolescent, Colin had thought less of gold mining than horse trading, and he most certainly would not grow old here working on the Midland Line. Yet he still lacked a clear business idea for setting up a new life all his own. Colin brooded as he directed his horse’s steps first to Canterbury, then to Dunedin. In any case, Matariki should now be free for him. She ought to have successfully passed the matriculation exam, and probably she was dying for a wedding soon. Colin looked forward to her laugh, her kisses, and her lithe body. He also thought of her dowry. His love for Matariki Drury was a gift in every sense. She warmed his heart, and she would open the gateway to a new life for him, a life in which Colin Coltrane could be his own master as his father had once been on his farm on the Avon River.

  To see Matariki, Colin had to ride into the mountains of Otago. As he had expected, the girl had passed her exam and had only just returned home. Colin was tense on the Drurys’ farm. He had since become halfway knowledgeable about the conditions on the South Island, and according to his information, Michael Drury could hardly be a sheep baron like, for example, the Wardens or Barringtons in the Canterbury Plains. Otago and the region around Lawrence was sheep land, but all the big breeders found themselves rather in the vast plains in Canterbury or farther into Otago in the foothills of the highlands. Lawrence, under the name Tuapeka, had been known for gold finds rather than animal breeding, and according to what Matariki had hinted, the money for Elizabeth Station seemed originally to have come from gold mining. Colin thought he recalled rumors about Drury’s spectacular gold find. There had been a death, and somehow the diggers in Tuapeka had connected his father’s name with it. He did not know anything more. Ian Coltrane had died shortly afterward, and the loss had left the then fifteen-year-old Colin completely distraught. Immediately afterward, he had been forced to leave Tuapeka and move into his mother’s household in the city. About the circumstances of his father’s death, he still knew little. Back then, he could not have cared less about Michael Drury. Now, he was quite interested in him, even though he was not Matariki’s birth father. There once had been an intimate relationship between Drury and Colin’s mother. The family history was opaque, but Colin would have time to get to the bottom of it.

  Colin spent a night in Caversham just outside of Dunedin, where he rode straight into a family tragedy. He did not really comprehend how the death of a young banker on the North Island so affected his mother and even more so his sister, Heather. The man had been married to Chloe, Heather’s best friend.

  Terrence Boulder had died in a boating accident. The young man never returned from one of his sailing excursions. Chloe was completely destroyed and was now planning her return to the South Island. Heather and Kathleen did not talk about anything else. They only occupied themselves with comforting Claire Dunloe and thinking about how they all could best help Chloe move past her loss. For that reason, Colin’s hardships building the railroad hardly interested Kathleen. Only Reverend Burton listened to his complaints.

  “That’s what I was hinting at in England,” he said. “The Maori are not a rebellious people. The unrest on the North Island couldn’t last. A few charismatic madmen incited something for which everyone had to suffer, the Maori and pakeha, but now things are calming down. We don’t need an army or a large police force. Mr. Redcliff is right: in the long run, you’ll either have to come to terms with railroad construction or look for something else. Although, the railroad certainly has a future, and you do have brains. Why don’t you work hard for a year or two and see if they would send you to university? Engineers are in demand. I’m sure the railroad companies offer scholarships.”

  Colin shook his head. Under no circumstance would he consider studying again. No, his way out of this dilemma was Matariki. Full of hope, he set out early the next morning for Lawrence. Perhaps he would even find a new direction on the farm. Anything was better than railroad work.

  Colin and his fast horse traveled the forty miles from Dunedin to Elizabeth Station near Lawrence in good time. Thanks to the gold seekers, the road was well paved, though now that the fortune hunters were gone, Lawrence was just another town, the center of a community of farmers and livestock breeders. Elizabeth Station counted among the larger farms.
The people in town spoke with respect and some envy of Michael Drury’s estate.

  The road led Colin farther into the mountains and into virgin land. All around Lawrence, the gold seekers’ destruction of the forests and plains was evident. In the worst years, Gabriel’s Gully, the center of the goldfields, had been nothing but a mud waste. Now, grass was growing. It would be years before the trees grew again, the birds returned, and nature resembled even distantly the glory of the highlands.

  Colin directed his horse down convoluted paths between rocks and along crystal-clear streams, noting untouched, lush, green grasslands and sparse southern beech forests. Gold miners had not lodged anywhere near here, which was strange. Matariki had told him that Elizabeth Station was built on Michael Drury’s old claim, or above it. Thanks to the relations between her mother and the local Maori tribe—Colin grinned at the thought of the similarities in Matariki—the Drurys had been able to buy the land.

  “Why didn’t you keep mining the claim?” Colin had asked, but Matariki had shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, there just wasn’t any gold.”

  Colin found that exceedingly strange. The money for the land purchase had to come from somewhere. The Maori might have offered Lizzie a special price, but they did not just give it away. And then came the purchase of the sheep, the house construction, and so on.

  As Colin passed a former gold miners’ camp, he brooded over it. That must have been the first hut Michael Drury erected on his claim. Colin vaguely remembered that Michael and his partner had not lived in Tuapeka but a few miles outside of the main camp. Did the wealth of Matariki’s family originate here?

  Colin suppressed the impulse to look more closely at the stream. It would not do any good. He knew nothing about looking for gold. Back when he panned for it, he merely dug aimlessly like most of the fortune seekers. He rode farther up into the forest. The path here was well traveled, but the landscape was otherwise unspoiled. The trees seemed to strive high into the heavens, but the grassland was quite often cut through with rock. The slopes reminded Colin of the landscape around Arthur’s Pass, but this region was far less raw and hostile. On the contrary, the valleys and streams seemed inviting to him, and clearings and gentle slopes overgrown with grass offered themselves for the construction of a farmhouse. Finally, Colin encountered the first flocks of sheep—rather small animals but all of exceptional quality. As he rode alongside a stream, he stumbled upon a waterfall that poured into a tiny pond. In the grassland next to it, five rocks jutted up like needles from the ground, and on the hill above them rose Elizabeth Station. It was no manor house like many of the stations in the plains, but a solidly built farmhouse with stables and pastures.

  He was reminded a little of his parents’ old farmhouse on the Avon, but Elizabeth Station looked more resilient and sturdy and, above all, beautifully tended. Flowers bloomed in the garden along with rata bushes, and wine grapes grew on the slope to the side. Colin recalled that Matariki had told him of her mother’s effort to make wine in New Zealand and to achieve the same quality as the large estates in Europe.

  He did not think much of such hopeless enterprises. A wife, as his father had taught him, was to care for the household, livestock, and children. He had seen what happened with his mother when she was given too much slack. He wouldn’t let it come to that with Matariki. It was better to marry her right away. More university would only fill her head with nonsense.

  The Drurys’ house and gardens seemed unoccupied at first glance, but suddenly, a powerful-looking Maori stepped out from between the grapevines. Instinctively, Colin reached for his gun even though he had not carried one since he had been deployed to construction. When he looked more closely, the man did not look threatening. He was not tattooed. The ax he carried was a tool, not a weapon. Still, he looked suspiciously at Colin and his horse, and then called something into the vineyard. A moment later, Lizzie Drury appeared. She told the Maori in a few words that it was all right, and he followed her down to where Colin was.

  “Ah, there you are, Mr. Coltrane.” Lizzie Drury looked at him amiably, yet her smile was not half as radiant and heartwarming as her daughter’s. At least not at the sight of Colin. “Matariki will be happy. She’s talked about nothing for days except your visit—whenever she’s not talking about the race, that is.”

  Meanwhile, Colin had dismounted, and Lizzie offered him her hand, then introduced the Maori.

  “This is Hemi Kute, a friend of our family. He has been helping me in the vineyard this morning while Michael is sorting a few sheep and Riki is training her horse.”

  Matariki’s brothers, as Colin already knew, had been attending a boarding school in Dunedin since last winter.

  Colin did not quite know what was expected of him, but the strong Maori calmly wiped a dirty hand on his pants and held it out to Colin.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, although his facial expression was grim. “We’re all very excited to meet the man Matariki has chosen. The Ngai Tahu will be happy to welcome you to our village sometime.”

  Colin was somewhat taken aback but then shook his hand. If all of the Maori here were like this, he understood what Reverend Burton meant. One did not need an army to keep the tribes of the South Island within their bounds. So far, Colin had hardly seen any Maori. Apparently, Redcliff negotiated with the tribes to whom the land for the tracks belonged, but he did not need any armed support when he did.

  Lizzie turned toward her house. “Come with me, Mr. Coltrane. You must be thirsty after the long ride. Matariki will be back soon. She’s expecting you today, but she’s also taking this race very seriously. Though she has a Kiward cob, as she says, so she won’t be outrun in harness racing. Hemi, how about you?”

  “I need to go. We want to send a few sheep to Dunedin with Michael’s shipment, and I promised to help sort them out. I’ll just catch a few fish and then head home.”

  Colin watched as Lizzie furrowed her brow when Hemi turned toward the stream. Couldn’t the man fish elsewhere than in front of his employer’s house?

  Lizzie laughed when he made a remark along those lines. “Hemi doesn’t work for us,” she said, and then explained further. “He’s just a friend, as I said. Unlike most of his tribe members, he’s interested in viniculture—he likes to drink wine, in any case. So, I take advantage of that.” She smiled, her expression more relaxed as soon as she spoke about her vineyard. “But otherwise—”

  “Otherwise he raises sheep?” asked Colin.

  That, too, was unusual. Apart from exceptions like the community of Parihaka, Maori tribes practiced little agriculture and rarely had their own livestock.

  Lizzie nodded. “His tribe,” she specified, “and they’re good. Michael sometimes spends sleepless nights wondering if they’ll be able to sell their rams for more at auction this time than he will.”

  Colin determined not to spend more time thinking about this strange tribe, but if he decided to trade in livestock again, the natives might be an interesting new customer base—particularly as Matariki’s ancestry could smooth a few paths there. For now, however, he was more interested in what Lizzie had been saying about his fiancée and horse racing.

  While she offered Colin a glass of water and set the table for the family’s luncheon, Lizzie readily told him about it.

  “Oh, it’s another of Reverend Burton’s ideas about which the bishop will not be happy. Kathleen’s pulling out her hair. Peter thinks that since people gamble anyway, they could try combining a horse race with a collection for the poor. It won’t be dangerous; he’s looking out for that for the riders and the gamblers. If someone’s tempted to bet his week’s pay on Matariki and her Grainie, Peter will keep them from it.” Lizzie laughed.

  Colin cast a brief, appraising glance at his horse waiting in front of the house. It was a fiery, long-legged animal; surely someone could win a race with it. But with Matariki’s pony?

  “That’s precisely the joke,” Lizzie explained when he gave voice to his considerations. “
It’s a harness race. It comes from England, and it’s a new trend in the plains. It goes over a few miles instead of a short course like normal races. The horses can only trot. Anyone who gallops is disqualified or has to start over. Matariki knows all about it. And there she is now.”

  Matariki’s small mare approached at a walk, but when Matariki saw Colin’s horse, she immediately spurred the mare to a gallop. She threw the reins beside those of Colin’s gelding on the hitching post and hurried inside straight into Colin’s arms.

  “Colin, dearest, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

  Matariki was radiant, and Colin was instantly back under her spell. He kissed her, and she returned his affection by snuggling her lithesome body against his. Matariki’s face had tanned and grown somewhat fuller since the last days of Parihaka. Her long black hair was braided, and she wore a brown riding dress. Matariki’s waist was so narrow that she had no need of a corset. A good pakeha girl would have worn one, but Colin pushed the thought aside. She was a child of nature, and for now she could remain one.

  “You have to tell me everything about the railroad,” Matariki demanded breathlessly. “It’s supposed to be exciting. Real pioneer work. Until now, people could hardly make it over the mountains with horses. Are you working under this Redcliff fellow? At the university, they talk about him as a genius.”

  Colin did not have the slightest desire to talk about the railroad construction and even less about his boss who remained unimpressed with his efforts. Harness racing sounded much more interesting. It did not take much to bring Matariki around to her current favorite subject.

  “You can’t just win with a Thoroughbred horse. It depends on the trot, not how fast you can canter. In England, they don’t ride the horses either. There, they’re pulled in sulkies, those little two-wheeled carts.”