I Got His Blood on Me: Frontier Tales

by Lawrence Patchett

  Victoria University of Wellington

  PO Box 600 Wellington

  http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup

  Copyright © Lawrence Patchett 2012

  First published 2012

  This book is copyright. Apart from

  any fair dealing for the purpose of private study,

  research, criticism or review, as permitted under the

  Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any

  process without the permission of

  the publishers

  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Patchett, Lawrence.

  I got his blood on me : frontier tales / Lawrence Patchett.

  ISBN 978-0-86473-830-1

  I. Title.

  NZ823.3—dc 23

  Published with the assistance of a grant from

  Ebook production 2012 by meBooks

  for my parents and family,

  and

  for Tina, Kōtuku and Aquila

  these are fictional stories

  I GOT HIS BLOOD ON ME

  The man bled on the motorway. Then he bled on the verge, the safety barrier, and the slip-road—and that’s where I found him, a pale shape staggering there, blankets and weapons falling from him. I was driving back from Paekākāriki at the time. I’d gone south to clear my mind, and in that half-awake state drove straight past him, then flashed with the after-image of what I’d seen. A man, a badly wounded one. Blood on his face, weapons.

  I reared around in my seat and saw it again. ‘What the hell?’ I said, my voice strange in the empty car.

  I pulled right off the road and climbed out the passenger side. He was a hundred metres back, wavering down the exit to the slip-road. I called out, but he didn’t turn. At my side motorists streaked past, their faces blankly focused on the motorway.

  I ran towards him and he collapsed and began hauling up on his rifle, hand over hand, then fell again. I picked up speed, my jandals flailing. By the time I reached him he was face down on the tarseal, a pair of knives tangled in his blanket, the ancient rifle fallen to the side. Ginger hair slewed on his white shoulders. With his hand he held his knee-joint together. It was twisted and leaking blood. Above that his thigh bent outwards, snapped obtusely.

  ‘Sir?’ I said, bending to him. ‘I’ll ring an ambulance, okay?’

  He turned and stared up, and I recoiled. Blood spilled from a gash above his hairline, sluicing into his right eye and dripping down. When he tried to speak, blood streamed in round his teeth and gums.

  I wrenched away and dialed 111. Just as I got through to the emergency operator, the man garbled something.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said, bending down.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘David,’ I said. ‘I’m here to help you.’

  He stared at me, then turned to pull away on his elbow. Something about my answer had scared him. But he couldn’t get far. The movement dislodged his hand from his knee and he grabbed at it, grunting.

  I went back to the phone call, told the operator where we were. There was a pause while she worked with the information.

  The man mouthed at me again, making signs with his hand. He was deathly white now, and blood was in his throat somehow.

  ‘What was that?’ I said.

  He indicated my phone, my talking. ‘What are you doing?’ His voice had a rough and ancient sound, like old England.

  ‘Ringing 111,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. The ambulance is coming. You’ll be away in no time.’

  At this he didn’t sag back as I’d expected, surrendering to the promise of relief from his pain. Instead he tried to drag away again, knives scraping on the tarseal.

  The operator was requesting more information. I described the man’s condition, and this he understood, turning to wave at me violently, gargling in words I couldn’t make out. I went across and bent right down to hear him.

  ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m talking to the ambulance. It’s all right, they’re coming.’

  He shook his head and coughed to clear his throat. ‘Who? Which are they?’

  The operator was talking in my ear. I pulled the phone away. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Which lot? Which hapū?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Why does that matter? They might be Pākehā, for all I know. Just ambulance people.’

  One hand holding his knee, he looked around wildly, as if this ambulance might appear from anywhere—from the whizzing motorway at the side, from the air buffeted by cars.

  ‘Neutral,’ I said, ‘they’ll be neutral. They won’t hurt you.’

  ‘They’ll be English?’ he said. ‘English Pākehā?’

  ‘No, just locals,’ I said. ‘I don’t know—bloody hell, they’ll be doctors. They’ll take you to hospital, man, fix you up.’

  This panicked him even more. Hauling up, he tried to crutch away on his musket, but collapsed loudly, his knives and musket clattering.

  The operator was talking in my ear. ‘Are you safe, sir? Are you well off the motorway?’

  ‘Something’s strange,’ I said. ‘I think this man might have been in trouble with the law. He’s scared about strangers or the ambulance, or something.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘Thank you for your help. We’re on our way.’

  I put my phone away and breathed deep, my hands shaking. ‘Jesus,’ I said, out loud. The rest of the morning was so normal—a fine sky, swampy raupō paddocks at the side. I was in my T-shirt and jandals. I was unshaven and unshowered. I’d just come down to Paekākāriki for a few things, and really just to get out of the house, to give Mary some room. We’d both been disestablished recently—our jobs had—and we weren’t getting along. I was at a low ebb, and so was she. I certainly wasn’t prepared for an emergency. I wasn’t prepared for anything.

  A short distance up the slip-road, the man was face down and seemed to have fainted. I sparked with an idea and sprinted back to my car. A half-empty Powerade bottle was in the passenger footwell. I ran back and lifted his head, the ginger curls greasy in my palm.

  ‘Drink,’ I said.

  His head lolled on my knees, and at first the Powerade dribbled over his lips to the ground, but something of the sugar must have found its way in, because he parted his lips and half-swallowed, then took another swallow and a little more. He tried to say something, then coughed and spat a clot of blood on the stones. Something was badly wrong in there, but he was desperate to say something. He was asking my name again.

  ‘David Miller,’ I said. ‘I live up the road.’

  ‘But who are you? Who are you from?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand the question.’

  He closed his eyes and switched languages, as if that was the problem. I couldn’t catch it at first, but he repeated and simplified until I heard, ‘Nō whea koe?’

  ‘I’m from Paraparaumu Beach,’ I said. ‘I’m not from the police or the jail. I won’t lock you away. It’s just your leg, mate—it needs a doctor. And your chest. Then you can go home.’

  I could hear the sirens screaming up the motorway. I took in the musket he’d abandoned now, the blanket he wore. ‘Where is that, by the way?’ I said. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Promise to protect me,’ he gasped. ‘You promise I won’t go to jail.’

  ‘I can guarantee it,’ I said. It pleased me to be on this safe ground—hospitals, the complaints process, his rights as a client of the health system. It was my field, or at least it had been. ‘You should tell me your name and address, though,’ I said. ‘I’ll be able to help you better, if I know.’

>   ‘I’m not giving my name.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘They’ll ask you, anyway.’

  ‘Smith,’ he said. ‘Call me Smith. That’s my name.’

  I laughed. ‘Sure it is, mate. I believe you.’

  The ambulance lumbered down the slip-road and into a wide turn above us, its lights swirling. The doors opened and both officers came running. Smith heaved up and saw the officers and the big, lit vehicle. He saw their uniforms. His eyes went wide with a new fear. He snarled an unplaceable curse, squirming against me and jabbing with his elbows until he lost his grip and the kneecap swung loose to dangle free, blood looping down.

  The detached kneecap stunned us both. I stared at its strings of blood, then at him, and his eyes went right into me. Then he mouthed a silent howl of pain and sagged back against the road. His eyes closed, and I felt the ambulance people pulling me by the shoulder, lifting me away.

  Smith was unconscious throughout his transfer into the ambulance and onto the motorway. I sat near the doors while an ambulance officer worked over him. It was not until Pukerua Bay that I thought about Mary, my fingers jittering on the keypad as I rang her at home.

  In fairness to her, she had no idea where I was, or what had happened, and she was waiting for another call. She’d interviewed for a job at MSD lately. She had the experience, and a second interview seemed likely. All the same it jolted me to hear how her voice flattened when she realised it was me.

  ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Hi.’

  I saw her in our kitchen, one eye on the laptop screen, scrolling through further job ads while she waited for me to continue. Being without a job was much worse for her than it was for me.

  Something was sticky against my ear. I pulled the phone away and found it smeared with Smith’s blood. I wiped it on my thigh.

  ‘What is it, David?’ said Mary.

  I looked at the ambulance officer. He was busy not listening.

  ‘I’ve had an adventure,’ I said. ‘There was an accident—I’m not hurt, though. It’s another guy. I’m helping him.’

  Mary’s listening changed. I saw her looking out our kitchen window, trying to make sense of what I was saying.

  ‘I found him on the road,’ I said. ‘It was a car accident. He’s pretty smashed up. I’m fine. You don’t know the guy.’

  ‘So you’re okay,’ she said.

  ‘I’m in the ambulance now. My car’s on the motorway, just past Paekākāriki.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t in the accident. Why are you in the ambulance? Why’s your car there?’

  I shook my head. I shouldn’t have tried to shortcut such a conversation. ‘I’m not hurt. I’m helping the other guy. I’m kind of supporting him.’

  ‘So you saw the accident?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m confusing you.’

  I saw her waving this away. ‘Jesus, David. Where are you?’

  ‘On my way to Wellington. It might take a while.’

  She fell silent again, and the ambulance curved up the hill towards Pukerua Bay.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said. ‘I should have called you first. Did you want to use my car today?’

  ‘No. I’ve got mine. Why would I need yours?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  She was quiet for a time. Then she said, ‘I’m confused about this, David. But I suppose you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m just helping a guy. I’ll ring you again.’

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘See you.’

  She rang off and I lingered over it, cradling the phone in my hand while, out the rear window, the last view of Kāpiti Island swayed out of sight. I was disorientated now that I’d spoken to Mary. I wanted her beside me. Just a few years back we’d taken this trip up to Wellington every day, not in an ambulance but in the train, commuting to work side by side. Sometimes Mary would fall asleep against me, twitching as the music in her earphones shifted and sighed. She’d never bothered looking out at the view—she’d been born there, she was local, she knew it well.

  I was the opposite. I was new in the area and eager to understand it all, to know all the stories. The old pā sites and middens and names. Paraparaumu. Wharemauku Road. In those first years I read all the old books and enrolled in a class in te reo. It was an exciting time—all that discovery, all those stories.

  Smith was sleeping the sleep, it seemed, of centuries. Even as he was unloaded and taken in for triage his eyes remained closed, his face deeply gone. Still in my shorts and T-shirt I was left behind in a waiting room, holding his weapons in a brown paper rubbish bag, sneaking a look through it when I got bored. Besides the long and awkward musket that poked out the top there were two knives, another steel blade with a handle of harakeke stalk, and a needle-like weapon or hook made of bone. Maybe it was a hairpin—I couldn’t tell. A leather pouch held something that I assumed was gunpowder. Nothing else, no wallet or phone, nothing to identify him.

  At length a junior doctor came and explained the extent of Smith’s injuries and what was planned for him, including a knee-procedure that, even in his clinical description, screamed with pain. Then I was shown a bathroom where I could sponge the blood from my clothes.

  On the train home I watched Tawa and Porirua and Plimmerton go past, remembering it all, what I’d read in undergrad and those first Kāpiti days. By the time we hit Paraparaumu I had a theory about him, about where he’d come from. It excited me.

  But when I got home I didn’t share it with Mary. As soon as I opened the door it was obvious that something was wrong. She didn’t look up when I came in. Instead she silently turned the pages of a magazine, her knees pulled up on a couch pillow. Right away I could see that the phone call had come—another ‘no thank you’.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I knew it was coming.’

  I was standing just inside the door. She should have been given the job. It was at MSD, and below her pay range. I knew better than to go across and hug her, so instead I just stood there, big and useless while her magazine made loud rasping noises, each page catching on her day-at-home jeans.

  At length she looked up again. ‘What was this accident?’

  I told her the basics. I didn’t go into my theories about Smith, but I heard my tone change as I hinted at his mystery and made light of my own role in his rescue, and Mary heard it too. She glanced at me, knowing I had more to say, knowing I had a theory, and deciding to let it go.

  ‘I’m sorry I was confusing on the phone,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t clear at all.’

  She shook her head—it didn’t matter now.

  ‘I promised to help him,’ I said. ‘He was freaking out. He thought they were going to take him to jail.’ I looked about the kitchen. ‘I’d better visit him again. I promised to help him.’

  Mary said nothing.

  ‘Weird day, huh?’ I said.

  She was looking at her magazine, but she didn’t seem to have it in focus anymore. I wanted to go across to her. She had an MBA. Her career mattered to her. She’d applied for so many jobs now. There was nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry about today,’ I said. ‘That stupid MSD thing. It doesn’t mean anything, you know.’

  She shook her head, not looking up. ‘It wasn’t stupid, David. I just didn’t get it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean anything by that.’

  But she stood up and went down the hall. I was just inside the door. I hadn’t even sat down yet. My car was still out on the motorway.

  When I next visited Smith I brought magazines and books and a box file. I was keyed-up. I’d dug up my old books and developed my theory. He was from another time. He’d stepped through a time hole and onto the motorway. Nothing else could explain his appearance, his behaviour. His ignorance of what an ambulance was. His hope for help from a local hapū. He still thought he lived way back then, still thought Pākehā were the minority. He was a Pākehā-Māori, some early
adventurer or trader or stray, sheltered and absorbed by locals.

  I’d not told Mary yet, but I was thrilled. This was a boyhood fantasy come alive.

  As a boy I’d devoured old history stories, so many and so intently that their characters came very close and real. Right through my school years they hovered there—always—just beyond. In my fantasy one of these characters turned up in my home town, disorientated and in need of a guide, and I showed them around. This is a car, I said, pointing. This is a telephone. You can talk to me, using this—I’ll show you. I dreamed it so often that it became a kind of certainty. Hongi Hika, Wild Bill Hickok, Baron Charles de Thierry—all of these were in my future, lost in a shopping mall or movie theatre and awaiting rescue.

  Now it was happening. This guy had walked right out of history and onto the motorway. I had a stack of questions for him.

  When I got to the hospital I found he’d been operated on. His leg was cocooned in a titanium brace and suspended from the bed-frame by a shackle. On my arrival he fixed me with a look of cold ferocity, even as I smiled and extended my hand.

  ‘And here is the man who betrayed me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  For answer he just glared at me.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ I said. ‘I’m David, from the roadside, the accident.’

  ‘Yes. I remember you.’

  I stood very still, my excitement draining. ‘So why are you saying that I betrayed you?’

  ‘You said you’d protect me,’ he said. ‘Funny kind of protection.’

  I took in the room, his curtained enclosure, the drip he was hooked into. Bandages humped over his forehead and shoulder, a long stretch of his forearm. Then I saw the canvas straps that held him down. Partly obscured by the sheets, his wrists and abdomen and his good leg were secured to the bed-frame. He’d been restrained.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Did you fight the doctors, Smith? Did you hurt someone?’

  ‘Of course I hurt them.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ I said. ‘That wasn’t a good idea, Smith. They’ll call the police on you. I can’t help you if you assault people.’