Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  The schooner’s rowboat was tied alongside but the ship itself looked deserted, and for a defeated moment Kitty wondered if in fact anyone was on board. Then, suddenly, a ratty, moustachioed face peered cautiously over the gunwale.

  ‘Pierre!’ Kitty cried. ‘It’s me, Kitty!’

  Pierre’s face broke into a delighted grin, and a second later the ladder came tumbling over the side.

  Kitty secured the waka to the base of the ladder and indicated to Amber that she should climb onto her back. But Amber had other ideas: she wriggled past Kitty, grasped the sides of the rope ladder and scampered up it.

  ‘Amber, be careful!’ Kitty shouted, her heart in her mouth. Then she breathed a sigh of relief as Pierre’s sinewy arm appeared and hauled the child over the rail.

  Kitty grabbed Bodie, unceremoniously stuffed her into Simon’s knapsack, borrowed expressly for that purpose, and followed Amber up the ladder. At the top, Pierre helped her onto the deck and gave her an enthusiastic embrace.

  ‘Kitty, Kitty, it is very good to see you!’ he declared, kissing both her cheeks flamboyantly. ‘We have been missing you!’

  Kitty set the knapsack on the deck; Bodie struggled out of it, looking very affronted, then stalked off a few feet before she sat down and began to groom herself.

  ‘I’ve missed you, too, Pierre,’ Kitty said, feeling ridiculously weepy. ‘I had to come back. I couldn’t bear it in Auckland.’

  ‘Then I am glad,’ Pierre replied, his gaze shifting to Amber. ‘And la petite fille, she is who?’

  ‘This is Amber. I’ve, er, adopted her,’ Kitty said nervously. ‘I found her wandering the streets in Auckland. I made extensive inquiries, but she had no one to look after her and, well, I brought her with me. Permanently,’ she ended lamely.

  Pierre bent down and extended his hand to Amber. She took it hesitantly, shooting a look of uncertainty at Kitty.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kitty assured her. ‘Pierre is a nice man.’

  Amber looked doubtful a moment longer, then reached out and vigorously tweaked the end of Pierre’s long moustache. He gave a yelp of surprise and she giggled irreverently.

  ‘She is a cheeky one,’ he remarked, his eyes watering. ‘And how many years have you, Mademoiselle Amber?’

  ‘She can’t speak, Pierre,’ Kitty said. ‘Or, at least, she hasn’t yet. But she isn’t slow.’

  ‘I see that,’ Pierre muttered. ‘And how has Madame Boadicea been? We thought she must have stole away with you.’

  ‘She did, and she’s been her usual self,’ Kitty said. ‘Pierre, where is Rian? I was hoping you would know. I’m desperate to see him.’

  Pierre gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Not far. We were at the fight at Puketutu six days ago. Mon Dieu, what a débâcle. Then we pass through here on the way to following the Queen’s men to the Waikare River. Hulme has gone to Auckland and Major Bridge commands now. He is in pursuit of the Kapotai warriors to steal back the loot from Kororareka. Gideon was watch on the Katipo, then I draw the straw and she is the shortest, so now I am here.’

  Kitty nodded. ‘When did they leave for Waikare, Rian and the others?’

  ‘Not yesterday, the day before.’

  ‘On foot or by sea?’

  ‘On foot. Less easy to be seen that way,’ Pierre said.

  For a second Kitty was again overwhelmed with annoyance at Rian’s absurd need to sneak around after the British soldiers and generally put himself at risk for no good purpose. But she thrust her anger to the side—she needed a clear head.

  ‘Simon and I are going to find them,’ she said abruptly. ‘We brought horses up with us.’

  A shadow crossed Pierre’s weathered face, but then he simply shrugged. ‘Then you need to leave today.’ He squinted up at the sky. ‘The weather, she is setting in.’

  ‘I know. Shall I leave Bodie here with you?’

  ‘Oui. It is boring and she will be company,’ Pierre said. ‘And the little girl?’

  Kitty made a regretful face. ‘I was going to ask Aunt Sarah if she will look after her. I hope she won’t mind. I don’t expect it will be for long, do you?’

  She looked at Pierre but, disconcertingly, his countenance remained impassive.

  When Kitty told Sarah that she and Simon planned to go after Rian, Sarah was very much against the idea.

  ‘It’s far too dangerous, Kitty,’ she insisted. ‘Heke and Kawiti’s men are everywhere. You may even be shot at by the British if you’re wandering around in the bush.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Kitty said stubbornly. ‘I’ve mouldered away in Auckland for months and I’ve had enough. I have to see him, Aunt Sarah.’

  For a long moment, Sarah regarded her with some compassion: if it had been Caleb, she would almost be tempted to go out and look for him, too. But what she said was, ‘I wouldn’t call adopting a little orphan girl “mouldering,” dear. I would call that doing God’s work in the best way you know how.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Kitty snapped. ‘I’d call it doing what any decent person would do.’

  ‘It’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ Sarah countered. Then she sighed, aware that her niece was behaving in such a short-tempered manner only because she was worried and desperately missing her husband. ‘He will come back, Kitty, you know he will. Hasn’t he always been a very competent and capable sort of man?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then can you not wait here until Major Bridge’s men come back from Waikare?’ Sarah frowned. ‘Rian is fighting with the Volunteers, isn’t he?’ Then, seeing Kitty’s hesitation, she raised her hand. ‘No, never mind, I don’t want to know. And either way, I still believe a man the cut of Rian Farrell is perfectly capable of looking after himself.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I’m still going to find him,’ Kitty said flatly.

  Sarah had an inspiration. ‘You can’t. You can’t leave that little girl here by herself. She’ll think she’s been abandoned all over again.’

  This struck at the very centre of Kitty’s heart.

  ‘I know that, Aunt Sarah!’ she almost shouted. ‘Don’t you think I don’t? But I can’t help it, I have to find him!’

  Sarah’s cat’s-bum mouth from the old days appeared for a moment, then disappeared just as quickly: she knew Kitty wouldn’t be taking the decision to leave the little girl at Paihia lightly.

  ‘Very well,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I can see I can’t talk you out of it. I’ll look after Amber, on one condition—and that is that you must come back here after a week. That poor child won’t know whether she’s Arthur or Martha if you’re away any longer than that.’

  Kitty thought furiously—she wasn’t going to cover much distance in a week, given the way the weather was setting in. On the other hand, Waikare wasn’t all that far away, and that meant Rian wasn’t, either.

  And then she stopped, realising with an unpleasant jolt how just selfish she was being. She was desperate to know Rian was safe, but at what cost to Amber? Feeling tears approaching, she bit her lip and said, ‘Yes, I know, you’re right. It will have to be no more than a week. I’ll try to be back before that.’

  ‘Yes, you do that, Kitty,’ Aunt Sarah said, slightly reprovingly. ‘I’ve not been a mother myself, as you well know, but I’ve been around children long enough now to know that they need the constant presence of someone they love. And that little girl is very attached to you, Kitty, it’s as plain as the nose on my face. So you must be back as soon as you can, for her sake if no one else’s.’

  The next morning dawned cool and overcast, and it began to drizzle as Kitty and Simon saddled the horses. Kitty had named the grey Tio, which in Maori meant oyster, because that was her colour. Simon, however, had settled on something rather more pragmatic for the bay—Horo, the word for fast.

  Despite Sarah’s disapproving looks, Kitty was wearing her moleskin trousers, a man’s blue serge shirt and heavy jacket, a broad-brimmed hat and a rainproof oilcloth cape. On either side of her saddle hung bags containing a
change of clothes, a tinder box and some basic food items, including bread and cheese, and tea and sugar in twists of paper. There was also a pistol Haunui had somehow acquired and passed on to her, and which Kitty had no idea how to fire.

  Simon was attired in a similar fashion to Kitty, although he looked as miserable as the day and his old felt hat had collapsed around his ears like a sodden cabbage.

  ‘We’d better set off, I suppose,’ he said, looking at his watch.

  Kitty nodded and walked across Sarah’s lawn to say goodbye. She hugged her aunt, Rebecca and Haunui, and bent down to say farewell to Tahi, who gazed back at her with big, serious eyes. Then she sat down on the edge of the verandah and put Amber on her knee.

  ‘I have to go away for a few days, Amber,’ she said in Maori. ‘But I promise I’ll be back. All right? I promise, sweetheart, I promise with all my heart.’

  Amber looked at her for a long moment. Then, with a curiously blank face, she slid off Kitty’s knee and went and stood at the other end of the verandah, staring out into the rain.

  Kitty’s heart almost broke. She glanced over at Simon, who shook his head sadly, then at Sarah, who said, ‘I told you that would happen, didn’t I?’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Sarah, that’s a helpful thing to say,’ Kitty said angrily as she stood up and made herself walk back to the horses before her guilt got the better of her.

  She and Simon mounted and squelched across the grass towards the beach. Blending into the low sky, the sea was the colour of gunmetal, the waves small but choppy. Kitty itched to look back for one last glimpse of Amber, but was frightened that, if she did, she wouldn’t leave at all.

  But at the last moment she did turn her head, and there was Amber standing at the edge of Sarah’s garden, her hands parked on her hips and a furious expression on her face.

  ‘Mama,’ she cried in a rusty, cracking voice. She stamped her foot and, bent almost double with the effort, shrieked it again. ‘Mama!’

  Kitty reined in Tio and closed her eyes. Then she pulled the horse around.

  Simon dismounted, groaned theatrically and knocked the rain off his hat. They had been following various tracks south from Paihia and around the Haumi rivermouth for almost four hours now, and he had demanded a stop so he could ease his legs, which, he moaned to Kitty, were surely on the verge of snapping off. They were heading for the eastern reaches of the harbour, where Major Bridge’s troops had allegedly been going. It would have been very much quicker to take the horses across the bay to Kororareka and go south-east from there, or even by water straight down the harbour to the mouth of the Waikare River. But there had been no suitable transport for the horses, so their only choice was to ride all the way around the harbour, which was probably going to take them several days.

  ‘Oh, bear up,’ Kitty said benignly as she passed Amber down to him then slid off Tio. ‘Although I have to admit, I’m a bit sore myself. It does take a little while to get used to being in the saddle for long stretches.’

  Amber had been riding in front of her, leaning back against Kitty. At one point, Kitty suspected, she had even gone to sleep. She was wearing the little trousers and jacket Kitty had bought for her in Auckland, and Kitty thought she looked rather sweet with her hair fluffing out from beneath her cap. She had stopped shouting the minute Kitty had turned back on the beach at Paihia and had shrieked with delight when it became clear to her that Kitty was packing her things so she could go with them. Since then she had said ‘Mama’ no less than eleven times, and Kitty had been absolutely thrilled. She had also said something that sounded like ‘potie’, which Kitty assumed was Amber’s version of ‘Bodie’. The letters ‘B’ and ‘D’ were not part of the Maori tongue, so naturally they would be difficult for her to pronounce, at least to start with, as Kitty had said to Simon at least three times.

  Amber ran happily around, helping Simon collect sticks and dry leaves for the fire while Kitty unpacked the saddlebag containing the food. Simon soon had a small fire going in the shelter of an enormous kauri log, and crouched in front of it, warming hands that were chafed red from gripping wet leather reins. Amber watched him for a moment, then did the same thing, squatting down and reaching out little brown hands towards the small flames.

  Kitty smiled. Even though it was wet and cold and they were going to be tired and sore for the foreseeable future, she hadn’t felt this happy in months. She had Amber now, and they were on their way to find Rian, and as far as she was concerned everything was right with the world. She cut several slices of bread from one of the loaves they had packed, and skewered them with green sticks.

  ‘I thought your aunt was going to have a hysterical fit when you said Amber was coming with us,’ Simon remarked as he poked at the fire. Then he added, in a very good approximation of Sarah’s outraged voice, ‘If even just a single hair on that child’s head is harmed, Kitty Farrell, you’ll not be able to live with yourself!’

  ‘I know, she was rather upset, wasn’t she?’ Kitty made a rueful face as she sliced cheese to put on the bread after it had been toasted. ‘But she did tell me I shouldn’t leave Amber behind. So, in the end I was only following her advice, wasn’t I?’ She poured water from a bottle into a billy and set it on the fire for tea. ‘I couldn’t leave her behind, Simon, not after her crying out like that. I wonder if she could always do it—speak, I mean—but just didn’t want to.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Simon said. ‘But obviously she was upset enough to try, which I suppose is a good sign. She’s clearly regarding you as her mother now.’

  ‘Yes, but how did she know to say “Mama”? Do you think someone taught her?’

  Simon shrugged, then swore softly as his piece of bread fell off the stick and into the fire. He wriggled the stick under it and flipped it out, wiping the ash off onto the leg of his trousers. ‘That’s toasted enough, I think. Pass me some cheese, please?’ Kitty obliged. ‘Actually,’ Simon continued, ‘I think she’s been listening to us when we’ve been talking, and picked it up that way.’

  A strong gust of cold wind blew into the shelter created by the kauri log and fat drops of rain sizzled in the fire.

  ‘I think it’s really setting in,’ Simon observed dolefully, nodding out at the grey wall of rain. ‘Do you want to press on or find somewhere better to shelter?’

  ‘What time is it?’ Kitty asked, putting a slice of cheese on Amber’s toast.

  Simon looked at his watch, then slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Half past one. A bit early to stop, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I’d rather press on,’ Kitty said, anxious to get as near as possible to the area where they suspected Rian was before night fell.

  Simon withdrew the map Haunui had drawn for him, and carefully opened it and spread it out on dry ground, away from the rain. ‘If we carry on across-country towards Kawakawa, but turn back towards the coast before we get there, we should be able to ford the Kawakawa River somewhere near Taumarere. Here, see? We should be able to,’ he emphasised, ‘providing it isn’t too swollen by all this rain.’

  Kitty said, ‘Can you move out of the light, please?’

  ‘What? Oh, sorry.’

  Amber came over, too, and huddled beside the map, her little features taking on the same expression of studied concern Kitty had no doubt was on her own and Simon’s faces.

  ‘Which part of the river?’

  ‘Here,’ Simon said, pointing with an ash-smudged finger. ‘Then if we go across-country again, from here to here, in theory we should arrive at Waikare where the Kapotai stronghold is and where Major Bridge was heading.’

  Kitty rescued Amber’s cheese on toast, which she had left too near the fire and was now smoking, and carefully picked off the charred crusts. ‘Well, we’ll have a cup of tea, shall we, then keep on. I wonder if we’ll get as far as the river tonight?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Simon said, ‘although I don’t think we should try and cross it tonight. Not in the dark.’

  ‘No,’ Kitty agreed. Then she frowned.
‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over there.’ Kitty pointed to a stand of bush beyond the kauri log. ‘I thought I heard something moving.’

  Simon looked, then listened intently. ‘I can’t hear anything. A branch breaking, do you think?’

  Kitty stared into the trees a moment longer, then shrugged and turned back to her food.

  They finished their meal, such as it was, and pushed on again through the rain. Amber became tired and grizzly, but, as the rain began to lift later in the afternoon, so did her mood. Every time they passed something interesting—a bird, a tree, some sort of geographical formation of note—Kitty told Amber the name for it in both English and Maori, and soon the little girl was repeating the words after her quite recognisably. She was much better at Maori than English, though, which reinforced Kitty’s suspicion that she had learned at least some of her native tongue before she’d run away from her family’s village. Family! Kitty thought in disgust, still not quite able to comprehend the callousness that could have deliberately ignored a helpless child.

  They saw very few people as they travelled, only a handful of Maoris also apparently on the move, and a small family of English settlers inland and south of Opua, who warned them that ‘John Heke was still on the warpath’ and that they had better keep their eyes open if they knew what was good for them.

  Kitty knew what would be good for her—a hot bath, a good dinner and a nice, soft mattress—and she expected that Amber and Simon felt the same way. She had two sore spots on her backside from sitting in a wet saddle all day, the insides of her calves were rubbed raw from the stirrup leathers, and she was getting a headache. Soon they would need to find shelter for the night and make themselves something hot and filling to eat.

  ‘Where are we?’ she said to Simon as she urged Tio abreast of him. The poor horses looked as fatigued as Kitty felt. Tio’s lovely, elegant head was drooping, and Horo’s hindquarters were caked with mud from sliding down the bank of a stream they had crossed an hour earlier.