Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said after a moment.

  They were in a patch of bush but the track was gradually rising, so Kitty expected that they would soon encounter a vantage point that would allow them to establish their bearings. But the sun was beginning to go down and in another hour it would be too dark to see.

  So they plodded along until they came to a clearing at the top of a hill. It was lighter up there, out of the trees, and Kitty realised that she had underestimated the amount of daylight left; they probably had closer to an hour and a half. Behind and below them they could see where they had been—a long and dense stretch of forest that had already fallen into evening’s shadow.

  Kitty suddenly shivered. ‘It’s going to be chilly tonight.’

  But she was unsettled by more than just the prospect of a cold night outdoors: she had the unnerving impression that they were being followed. Two or three times that afternoon the hairs on the back of her neck had risen and she had been sure they were being secretly observed, but had seen no one—neither behind them nor in the bush as they passed through it. She had thought to tell Simon, but in the end had kept it to herself in case he insisted they return to Paihia.

  ‘See that down there?’ he said, pointing. ‘I think that’s the river.’

  ‘The Kawakawa?’

  ‘Yes. But if it isn’t, we’re hopelessly lost.’

  Kitty looked at him in alarm. ‘Do you think we are?’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure that’s the Kawakawa. I’ve been in this area before with Reverend Burrows, on one of his flock-finding journeys.’

  And that reminded Kitty of something she had been meaning to ask. ‘Why didn’t you go out to Waimate when we were at Paihia? You would have had the time.’

  Simon removed his hat and flicked off a weta that had suddenly appeared over the edge of the brim. Conversationally, he remarked, ‘That was a tusk weta.’

  Amber’s keen eyes followed the insect as it sailed into the scrub at the side of the track.

  Kitty shuddered. ‘It was appallingly ugly, that’s what it was.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Simon agreed. ‘Did you know that “weta” is a shortened form of the word “wetapunga,” the name the Maoris give to the giant weta? It means, more or less, “God of ugly things”.’

  ‘Thank you for the entomology lesson, Simon. Why didn’t you go out to Waimate?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to,’ Simon said, putting his hat back on.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m thinking.’

  ‘What about?’ Kitty demanded, prying relentlessly.

  Simon twisted in his saddle to give her a hard look. ‘About whether or not I ever want to go back. And I don’t particularly want to discuss it at the moment, if you don’t mind.’ And he tapped Horo’s flanks with his heels and headed off down the hill.

  ‘Oh, very well then,’ Kitty muttered, and followed him.

  They rode for another hour until it really was becoming too dark to see. But just as they thought they would have to bed down in the cold, damp darkness of the bush, they emerged from the undergrowth and saw before them the glittering expanse of the Kawakawa River.

  ‘It’s wide, isn’t it?’ Kitty said doubtfully.

  ‘Yes,’ Simon agreed. ‘And clearly, at the moment, rather deep.’

  ‘Damn,’ Kitty said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They slept that night in a shelter they made from nikau branches on the edge of the marshland bordering the river. Kitty lay awake half the night worrying that wetas would creep out from the foliage and inside her blanket. And it was cold, but unfortunately not cold enough to keep the mosquitoes away; the next morning all three of them were covered in large red welts.

  ‘That was possibly one of the worst night’s sleeps I’ve ever had,’ Kitty complained as she came back from relieving herself in the bushes and washing her face in the cold waters of the Kawakawa. Her neck was stiff from using a saddlebag as a pillow, her body sweaty and grimy under the clothes she’d slept in, and her eyes felt gritty. ‘Do I look as bad as I feel?’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon said.

  You don’t look much better, Kitty thought. He had a large mosquito bite on his cheek and his hair was sticking up all over the place.

  He sniffed under his armpit, made a face and said, ‘A bath wouldn’t go amiss.’

  Amber was the only one who seemed in high spirits. She was dancing about collecting sticks and leaves for the breakfast fire, humming something tuneless and pointing at various things and saying their names. Now that she had rediscovered her voice, she appeared intent on using it as often as possible.

  Kitty dug out the horses’ nosebags and filled them with a mixture of chaff and oats. Tio and Horo had been allowed to graze intermittently during the journey yesterday, but she knew they would be consuming a lot of energy so had made sure to provide them with something extra. She hooked the nosebags over the horses’ ears and knelt next to the newly smoking fire with the remainder of the day before’s loaf of bread and a billyful of oats.

  ‘Porridge and toast?’ she suggested to Simon.

  Amber said, ‘Podge.’

  Simon held out his hand for the billy. ‘I’ll refill the water bottles while I’m at it.’ He limped stiffly off towards the river.

  Poor Simon, Kitty thought. A fortnight ago he had never even ridden a horse, and now here he was perched on the back of one for ten hours a day. No wonder he was moving slowly. She cut up the last of the loaf and stuck the slices onto sticks.

  Today, if the going wasn’t too difficult, they would perhaps make Waikare by late afternoon, depending of course on where they crossed the river; if they had to follow it all the way inland until it turned into a stream, it could be days before they reached their destination. Kitty sighed inwardly. She knew that this was the point at which she was supposed to say to herself that she had waited so long now to see Rian that a few days more wouldn’t matter—but they would. They would matter a lot. She didn’t think she could bear it if they were to be held up just because it had rained and the river had risen.

  She glanced up to check on Amber. Oh God, what was Rian going to say when she told him? What was she going to say? Hello, Rian, this is your new daughter? The thought of it made her stomach churn with nerves. Once he came to know Amber he would love her, of course. Kitty was sure of that, because what decent person wouldn’t love a child as sweet and as clever as Amber? But then her mind started to echo with Rian’s comments about a schooner being no place to raise a child, and wasn’t Kitty happy with the way things were? Angrily, she swatted at a mosquito buzzing noisily around her ear and reflected that yes, she had been happy—she’d been happier than she ever could have imagined. But now there was Amber, and some essential part of her had changed forever. How could she explain to Rian how her spirit soared whenever the little girl smiled at her, and how she had thought her heart might break with grief and happiness when Amber had first called her ‘Mama’?

  Kitty closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Oh, please don’t make me choose.’

  ‘Kitty? What’s the matter?’

  She opened her eyes. Simon was standing on the other side of the fire, the billy in his hand.

  ‘Nothing.’ She set the billy over the flames and added a good pinch of salt to the oats and water.

  ‘It didn’t look like nothing,’ Simon remarked as he positioned the bread around the edge of the fire. ‘You’re worried about what Rian is going to say, aren’t you?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘To me it is, yes.’

  Kitty sat back on her heels. ‘Oh, Simon, I want to see him so much it hurts, it actually physically hurts. But I’m terrified. What if he doesn’t, well, what if he won’t…’ She trailed off, unwilling to actually say it aloud.

  Simon jabbed a stick into the billy and gave the oats a vigorous stir. ‘Why don’t you try praying about it?’ He set the stick aside and gave Kitty a long, fond and slightly frustrated look
. ‘Go on, try it. You’ve nothing to lose. And this is me talking now, not Simon Bullock the CMS missionary.’

  ‘Pray to God?’ Kitty said disbelievingly.

  ‘You can pray to whomever or whatever you like,’ Simon replied. ‘Just as long as you do pray. You might find that it stops things going around and around in your mind. You might find that it gives you a bit of, well, balance.’

  Balance, Kitty thought wistfully. Yes, that would be nice.

  They crossed the Kawakawa three miles upstream, at a sweeping curve where the channel widened and the river spread out and became less deep. But the horses still had to swim part of the way, and Kitty found the moment when Tio’s hooves left the riverbed and she became waterborne extremely unnerving. Tio clearly did, too: her ears flattened against her skull and the powerful muscles of her shoulders pumped as she struck out for the far bank. Kitty slid out of the saddle and swam jerkily alongside, trying to hold Amber securely in place on Tio’s back.

  ‘All right?’ Kitty called out to Simon who, like her, had dismounted and was hanging grimly onto Horo’s mane. He nodded quickly, too busy trying to remain upright to speak.

  The water was swift in the middle of the channel, and surprisingly cold. Glancing back, Kitty saw with a surge of fear that the current had already swept them some distance downstream. She looked ahead again and, gritting her teeth, concentrated on keeping Amber in the saddle and her own legs out of the way of Tio’s.

  But a minute later Tio stumbled as her hooves struck the riverbed and she righted herself, then lunged up the incline to the bank. On dry land she shook herself, dislodging Amber, who slid to the ground.

  Kitty picked her up and hugged her, and together they watched as Horo launched himself out of the river and staggered up the bank, dragging Simon along beside him. Kitty’s hands and feet were numb with cold and she could hear her own teeth chattering.

  They sat on the bank in silence, all three of them, river water running out of their clothes, panting as they regained their breath. A few feet away the horses quickly settled, then bent their heads to graze.

  ‘I didn’t realise it would be so cold,’ Simon gasped.

  ‘No,’ Kitty replied, ‘but at least it isn’t raining any more.’

  Simon looked at her and suddenly they were laughing like loons, tears running down their faces as the fear and tension drained away. Amber laughed too, but as she was pointing at them they could only assume she was laughing at them, not with them. Which only made them laugh harder.

  Eventually they managed to compose themselves.

  Simon suggested, ‘Shall we walk for a while, to warm up and try to dry off a bit?’

  Kitty nodded; her backside was still sore and she didn’t relish sitting on it in soaking wet trousers.

  As they picked their way across the boggy ground that bordered the river, leading the horses behind them, a dark figure appeared unseen on the far bank. It crouched, watching for several minutes until the small party ahead had disappeared from sight, then slipped soundlessly into the swollen, fast-flowing waters.

  By midday Kitty and Simon were feeling better, and certainly a lot warmer, so decided to push on for another hour or so before they stopped to eat. Ahead of them lay an expanse of hills and valleys clad in thick bush, and they were both beginning to doubt now that they would make Waikare by nightfall.

  ‘We could follow the coastline,’ Simon said as they repacked the saddlebags after they finally did stop. ‘Although I doubt that would be any quicker. I’ve been into some of those bays by sea and they’re fairly rugged. A lot of them don’t even have beaches, just cliffs.’

  ‘No,’ Kitty said as she tightened Tio’s surcingle. ‘I think it’s better that we stick to the tracks and keep going overland. At least we know the tracks actually go somewhere.’

  They had been following the narrow but distinct paths that local Maoris had worn across the landscape for so long that the ancestors who had originally walked them were remembered only in whakapapa and legend. Haunui had done his best to include in his map all the tracks he knew of, but had admitted that he hadn’t walked them all himself and didn’t know where some of them led. He had, however, included as many landmarks as he could recall, and they were using these as a guide.

  Late in the afternoon, just as the sun began its descent behind the forested hills at their backs, they came across a small group of Maoris walking along the track towards them—an elderly man and woman, two younger women carrying several large ketes, and three children. The old man had a bundle of blankets rolled up and tied to his back. Kitty and Simon pulled off the track to let them pass, but the old man signalled to his companions to stop.

  ‘Good day,’ he said in Maori.

  Kitty saw that he had only one eye, and a hollow of knotted scar tissue where the other one should have been. He reminded her strongly of Wai’s assumed father, Tupehu, and for a moment she felt disconcerted.

  ‘Good day, Koro,’ Simon replied, also in Maori.

  ‘What is your destination?’ the old man asked.

  Simon said, ‘We are heading for Waikare.’

  The women glanced at each other and almost imperceptibly shook their heads.

  The old man hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Waikare is not a good place today.’

  ‘In what way, Koro?’ Simon asked uneasily.

  Grunting, the old man adjusted the bundle on his back. ‘There has been a battle there. Of sorts. The Queen’s men came and burned the Kapotai pa to the ground.’

  Simon shot a worried look at Kitty, then said to the old man, ‘When was that? When was this battle?’

  ‘At dawn.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Simon leaned forward in his saddle. ‘And are you Te Kapotai yourselves? Were you in the battle?’

  One of the younger women spoke up. ‘No. We were only visiting. But we saw it.’

  The old man frowned at her for interrupting. ‘The pa has gone and so have the Kapotai people. But they are not far away and they are angry. You Pakeha should watch out for yourselves.’ Then his wrinkled face relaxed. ‘But no matter. They will build another pa. Little was lost.’ He laughed and tapped his head. ‘Those Queen’s men in their little boats!’

  And with that he walked on, chuckling to himself.

  The others followed, one of the children giving a little wave to Amber, who waggled her fingers in reply.

  When they were out of earshot, Simon said, ‘I wonder what he meant by that? The comment about the boats?’

  Kitty shrugged. ‘Obviously Major Bridge has launched his attack. And that means Rian won’t be far away.’

  ‘Probably won’t be far away,’ Simon amended, not wanting Kitty to get her hopes up.

  Kitty urged Tio back onto the track. ‘I wonder how much further it is? We should have asked the old man.’

  ‘We should be able to see for ourselves soon. We’ve been travelling uphill for a while now, so with luck we’ll come across a vantage point. Or even a lookout.’

  But the bush at the summit of the hill they had been climbing was as dense as it had been in the valley below. They rode for another hour and finally came to a clearing on the eastern aspect of a hill that afforded them a view of the terrain ahead, but by then it was too dark to make out much more than a dimly gleaming stretch of water. In the darkness, they could only assume that they were looking down on the Waikare River, where the Kapotai pa now lay in ashes.

  ‘Mimi,’ Amber announced. It was early next morning and Simon had gone in search of water. But when Kitty bent to help Amber with the buttons on her trousers, she pushed her away and said, ‘No!’

  ‘Do you want to do it by yourself?’

  ‘Ae. Myself!’

  Kitty rolled her eyes; it was wonderful that Amber was learning to manage her own toileting, but rather time-consuming and slightly pointless since she hadn’t yet got the hang of doing up her own buttons. She watched as Amber ducked behind a ponga to do her
business in private.

  She waited for several minutes, then called, ‘Amber, are you all right?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Sweetheart? Do you need any help?’

  Still nothing. Kitty turned and pushed her way around to the other side of the ponga.

  Amber had gone.

  Kitty gave a moan that was half-panic and half-fear, and crouched to peer beneath the ponga’s drooping, browning branches in case Amber had crawled under there. She straightened, then turned in a full circle, but could see no sign of the little girl. A scream rose up in her throat but she stifled it, forcing herself to stand very still and listen.

  At first all she could hear were the sounds of the forest—the wet wind in the taller branches, the whisper and rustle of leaves heavy with the rain from the day before, and the gurgle of some invisible stream not far away. And then she heard it, a faint crackling of twigs and branches as something large moved through the bush, heading away from her. She lunged after it.

  But common sense somehow prevailed over her terror and she stopped and slid Haunui’s pistol from her saddlebag. With hands that were shaking with shock, she fumbled in powder and a ball, then jammed the pistol into her belt, hoping she wouldn’t blow a hole in her own thigh.

  She set off again, this time moving stealthily and straining to listen for the tell-tale noises ahead of her, the sounds she knew in her heart were being made by a war-crazed and bloodthirsty rebel warrior dragging her precious daughter to certain death.

  At one point she thought she saw a flash of something in the bush beyond, and realised that the trees had thinned slightly and that she was approaching another track. A moment later she had stepped onto it and saw, up ahead, a figure carrying a smaller one clamped under its arm like a rolled-up mat. A noose of terror tightened around Kitty’s heart.

  ‘Stop!’ she cried.