The Unknown Zone

by Phil Smith

  Instantly he drew on the courage he’d acquired as he clung, pinned by metal spikes, to the flat side of the Square Kauri. The same strength now rose up in him again, surprisingly easily, and he straightened his shoulders, raised his head and faced his snarling adversary with a calm smile.

  Atawhai’s lip curled to reveal broken, tobacco-stained teeth and her angular fingers clutched the rakau. Her jaw dropped and she took a step backwards.

  ‘Go, damn you; go and wait in the wash-house. I’ve a mind to give you a good thrashing myself, right now.’

  ‘No one’s getting a thrashing today. I’m leaving home and I won’t be back.’

  Atawhai’s eyes bulged with rage.

  ‘What’s wrong, Auntie? You look like one of those sideshow clowns where you put the ping-pong ball in its mouth and win a prize. Only I guess there’s no prize this time, eh?’

  Atawhai collapsed back into a chair and plunged her face into her hands. She let out a few sobs before facing Hemi again.

  Her face twitched. ‘After all we’ve done for you,’ she sobbed. ‘When your parents died we brought you up like one of our own, looked after you like one of us. Treated you like royalty. And this is how you treat us. This is the thanks we get! Do you know that your uncle gave up a damn good job as a storeman in Onehunga to move to this dump and help your useless father out? You got no idea what we sacrificed to come and live in this hole, and you give us nothing but strife.’

  Hemi turned and walked to his room. He took down his army pack from the wardrobe and quickly assembled his possessions: sleeping bag, sheath knife, water bottle, spare shirt and jeans, eight pounds and ten shillings in notes and coins, sandshoes, socks, and a framed photo of Sonny in his army uniform.

  From down the hallway, Hemi could hear the woman wailing.

  ‘To hell with you!’ she shouted. ‘Go and don’t come back. The land is ours now. You’ve got no part in Kaimiro any more. I hope you burn in Hell.’

  It had been less than ten minutes since Hemi entered the house and now, his pack slung over one shoulder, he was bounding down the front steps and striding across the yard towards the bridge.

  Atawhai was venting hysterical obscenities from the verandah.

  Hemi crossed the bridge and the cackling grew fainter.

  Just past the bridge, the gravel track turned right towards the sea then ran along the top of the escarpment for a few hundred yards. It wound through a tunnel of kanuka and nikau palms before ascending the slope of the headland.

  At the top of the rise, where the track turned sharply, Hemi stopped for a final look through the pohutukawa across the bay, out to the Aldermen Islands to the southeast.

  Instantly he saw himself back aboard the Tide Song, his fishing rod bent double, Sonny and his mates urging him on, and hauling in a striped marlin the size of himself. The trip out to the Aldermen gave Hemi a taste for freedom and adventure. That same feeling, with a tinge of danger, came back to him now.

  It was at this point that Hemi heard the car.

  His first impulse was to jump off the road and take cover, but now he was filled with courage and refused to cringe as he did in the days when he was Monkey-boy, when he was the Lonesome Loser.

  This time he would face the confrontation.

  This time he would put freedom ahead of peace.

  The engine noise got louder.

  Hemi waited on the bend, arms folded comfortably on his chest.

  By the time Baldy and Tamatea saw him they were well into the corner, with the steep downhill section just ahead.

  Hemi watched with concerned amusement as the Zephyr slewed to a halt.

  Baldy’s head shot out the window. He was ranting like a bull.

  Tamatea leaped from the car, incoherent with fury.

  Hemi laughed aloud. The jerking caricatures danced and screamed like actors in a low-budget satire.

  Slowly, triumphantly, he raised his middle finger in a final farewell and turned and walked on.

  ‘Go and get the shotgun, Tamatea,’ screamed Baldy, gunning the engine. ‘And the ammo belt. Meet me down the road.’

  Baldy gunned the engine.

  ‘Right-o Dad, this is goin’ to be a real blast, eh!’

  Hemi kept walking.

  ‘You stop right there, arsehole, you hear me?’ Baldy shouted. ‘You try and run away and hide like a cowardly pig and we’re coming after you with the gun! We’ll track you down. We’ll show you who’s in charge around here!’

  There was no room for the car to turn around.

  Baldy jerked the column-change up into reverse and let the clutch out with a thump.

  The wheels skidded on the loose gravel. The motor revved as the Ford bounced back up the track.

  Halfway around the corner the left front wheel struck a rock, wrenching the steering wheel from the driver’s grip. Baldy slammed on the brakes, the wheels locked up and the vehicle spun violently around. Now it hung suspended over the dropoff, its front bumper four or five feet above the ground.

  Hemi watched, more worried — despite himself — about his uncle’s and his cousin’s safety than his own, as the car door flew open and Baldy tumbled onto the road.

  Relieved suddenly of the weight of its driver, the unbalanced vehicle rocked gently a few times then tipped over the edge, banging and grinding through the trees till it graunched to rest upside-down on the rocks nearly a hundred feet below.

  After several seconds, Baldy hauled himself to his feet. His shoes were missing and he staggered towards Hemi, shaking both fists.

  ‘I’ll kill you for this!’ he sobbed, then he yelled, ‘Tamatea, for Heaven’s sake, bring the bloody gun, will you. I want to kill him, kill him right now!’

  ‘I wish I could help you, Uncle,’ said Hemi. ‘But I think you’re all too far gone.’

  He shouldered his pack and marched away, leaving Baldy swaying, vibrating with animosity, in the middle of the road.

  The track curved around another valley and over another promontory before winding down through the bush to flat dairy farmland. Hemi walked the three miles to the main road, hearing intermittent gunshots in the distance. The skeleton in the kauri tree now seemed so far away, so long ago. Last night’s triumph over fear was now being tested. ‘You will grow in mana,’ the wairua voices reminded him. ‘You will not fail us.’

  The poplars and willows were in full leaf and the scented honeysuckle lay heavy in the air. The last of the herds were returning from the afternoon milking. Hemi waved as two or three cars and the tanker went by in clouds of dust. Then a red Hillman Super Minx with a white roof thundered past. It suddenly stopped and reversed back.

  Four young guys were passing bottles of Rheineck lager around.

  ‘Hey, jump in Maori boy,’ the driver slurred. ‘Where the fuck ya off to?’

  ‘Auckland. Thanks.’

  ‘Same as us. Want a beer?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hemi.’

  ‘Where you from, mate?’

  ‘Kaimiro.’

  ‘On the run, eh?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Us too!’ The boys laughed and hooted.

  Hemi took a swig of the lager.

  It was cold and stung his mouth deliciously. He took another long swirl and wiped his lips with his sleeve. It tasted like pure freedom. But the pleasure of it was tainted with the sensation of being on a wild horse in a paddock of blackberry.

  ‘Better whack open another one, eh Hemi!’

  Gravel crashed in the wheel arches and the big-bore exhaust boomed. The car hurtled sideways into the corners and fishtailed down the straights. They approached a stream bridge. The front seat passenger wound his window down and hurled an empty bottle over the rail.

  ‘Take that you fucken bastards,’ he screamed, to no one in particular. The glass smashed on the rocks and the guys roared and hooted again. Stones scattered and the Hillman slewed across the road.

&nb
sp; ‘Where’d you learn to drive like this?’ said Hemi.

  ‘Never driven before in me fucken life,’ shouted the driver, a pimple-faced adolescent with a flat-top, as he swerved off to the left at Coroglen and the car began the tortuous journey over the Coromandel range to Tapu.

  More bottles were uncapped, and smashed.

  ‘Bastards won’t fucken catch us now,’ said the driver. ‘We borrowed this from Tairua. We’re heading to Auckland for a party tonight. Monster piss-up, mate. You don’t want to miss it. Heaps of chicks!’

  ‘You mean you stole this car?’ Hemi’s hand crept towards the door handle. Bowling into Auckland with a gang of drunken car thieves was not in the plan and he waited for an opportunity to get out.

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Flat-Top. ‘The boys’ve got to find a bit of fun now and then, eh boys?’

  ‘Drink more piss! Drink more piss!’ the other three chanted, thumping their chests in rhythm.

  ‘There’s going to be a roadblock somewhere. You’ll get caught.’

  ‘We know. That’s why we’re going the back road. Buggers won’t know we’ve gone this way.’

  After half an hour of motoring madness the car was over the hill and on the bitumen, zooming south to Thames.

  A flashing light appeared behind them, drawing closer.

  ‘Shit, it’s the fucken cops. Boot it, mate. Let’s see what this heap’s good for.’

  Siren wailing, headlights flashing, the black Velox was closing the gap. Hemi clenched the back of the seat in front and closed his eyes.

  The police were on their back bumper.

  The middle passenger struggled out of his jeans and pushed his white buttocks against the rear window. The boys bellowed with approval.

  ‘Pull over!’ crackled the police loud-hailer, and the bigger car moved out to overtake.

  With a tight corner coming up, Flat-Top took the last unopened bottle of Rheineck and tossed it out the window just as the police drew alongside.

  It scored a direct hit.

  Covered in beer-frothed granules of windscreen glass, the cops could only hang on as the Velox swerved to the right and plunged across the grass onto the beach.

  The Pakeha guys bayed and howled while Hemi hung on and, for the first time in his life, prayed to God, to the wairua, to whoever was listening. Prayed for deliverance. Prayed not to die.

  ‘Take it easy, will you!’ cried the bottom-barer, now white and almost sober with fear. ‘This is out of control.’

  But the driver, his face like a ferret in a henhouse, was just getting into his stride. ‘What do you mean “out of control”?’ he yelled. ‘We’re havin’ the time of our fucken lives!’

  In Thames they veered right and raced down Queen Street to bypass the busy Pollen Street shopping area.

  The roadblock was set up on the town side of the Kauaeranga Bridge and by the time the boys saw the queue of cars it was too late. To Hemi it was like watching a movie in slow motion as bystanders leaped for their lives. The car slammed over the spikes and careered on exploding tyres onto the bridge. The others had their heads down but Hemi stayed alert, ready for the crash.

  With the screech of rending rims, the Super Minx spun twice in a cascade of sparks, then banged sideways to a halt against the footpath — on the wrong side of the road.

  The occupants bolted from the wreck and took to the fields, two to the stop-bank on the left and two across to the mangroves to the right.

  Hemi spotted another way out and went for it.

  10

  Change in fortune

  The attack, if you can call it that, came at sunrise upon my fourteenth summer at Kaimiro.

  There had been a premonition of a siege, thanks to our agent Flanagan’s attentive observations at Kororareka the previous week, and our storage pits up on the headland had been provisioned in readiness.

  Flanagan had heard rumours that the Ngapuhi planned to claim parts of our coastline, their optimism no doubt buoyed by their bloody success at Wharekaho.

  Their war canoes, numbering six, with I suppose no fewer than two hundred men in total, pulled up near the waterfall. While our people hurried up to the fortified stronghold, our Chief Rangi-nui and I went down to the beach.

  When the invaders’ arrival was first signalled by the sentries there had been much commotion among our warriors. They gathered their mere and pouwhenua — and would have performed the customary haka to buttress their resolve, while at the same time challenging and attempting to intimidate the advancing foe. But the kaumatua, knowing what formidable arsenal the Ngapuhi presented, pressed the people to withdraw to the pallisades.

  On the beach we found Hongi Hika — astonishingly clad in a complete suit of armour — in jovial mood, and amenable, we thought at first, to reasoned negotiation. But the proliferation of muskets among his people sparked no small consternation on our side and we knew full well that should their mood turn obstreperous our fate would be sealed.

  Nearly every man bore a gun or pistol, some having both.

  ‘You have a fine kainga,’ said Hongi Hika, as his crew disembarked. ‘My men are hungry and need a place to rest awhile.’

  ‘Our beach will offer safe haven for the day,’ said Rangi-nui. ‘The rocks abound with shellfish and in the bush the tawa and karaka berries are in season.’

  A ripple of derision spread among the invaders.

  ‘Our need is for shelter from the rain, for, you see, the sky is the colour of blood. We would feed on potatoes and salted muttonbirds, and find comfort with your women.’

  Their countenance turned more menacing and some began to make their way up the pathway.

  ‘Wait,’ I cried. ‘We have no need to fight each other. We’ll shed no blood today if you please.’

  Hongi Hika’s head revolved mechanically towards me and though his mouth curved as if to imitate a smile his eyes were as icy as a serpent’s and his voice as venomous.

  ‘There’ll be blood by my decree and yours will flow most readily, Pakeha.’ He scowled and struck me across the face with the back of his hand. Then he turned to Rangi-nui, all cheerfulness now evaporated.

  ‘You can escape annihilation by one means only,’ he said. ‘You will give us all your taonga: your pounamu, your mere and patu, your adzes, your hei-tiki. You will hand over all of your gold, your weapons, and your waka. Do this and we will let you live, for now. We will not burn your whare, we will not violate your women nor steal your children, and you can dwell on the land until we choose to come and live here.’

  Now, having been warned by Flanagan’s timely intelligence, we had prepared a deep hiding place in the raupo-swamp beside the stream for our weapons and wood carvings, leaving only those things of lesser value conspicuous in the pa. The greenstone, which comprised some nine hundred pieces, we hid in a cave ’neath a giant tree an hour’s journey up the valley.

  Resistance being tantamount to suicide, we thus agreed to concede symbolic defeat and to hand over whatsoever they could find upon inspection, as well as food in abundance from the garden.

  So were the invaders temporarily appeased by our co-operation. They sailed away, if only for a season, towing our waka behind them.

  Hence commenced our decline, for worse was yet to come.

  That night our people, numbering in all around three hundred including children, remained crowded up on the terraces.

  The young men, aggrieved by what they perceived as our cowardly relenting and the loss of our possessions and mana, insisted we return to the swamp and, without delay, retrieve the weapons and be ready to resist next time.

  Anger and despondency weighed upon us.

  But Rangi-nui urged us to wait a while.

  ‘Have you forgotten Hongi Hika’s great treachery twelve months ago against the Ngati Maru at Totara Pa?’ he said. ‘There the Ngapuhi harassed the village, then feigned mercy and, as in our case, made off, seemingly placated by the people’s goods and weapons. But the invaders camped a fair way off and when night fell
they returned with stealth and set upon the unsuspecting pa with ferocity, killing the unprepared occupants.’

  This was a dreadful possibility and, I had to admit, a brilliant piece of tactical strategy. Hongi Hika was not an adversary to be trifled with.

  ‘It is my fear that they might repeat this treachery to our exceeding disadvantage,’ I told the villagers. ‘We must heed Rangi-nui’s wise counsel.’

  The young men stared into the darkness as if trying to see their foes returning but the fire had gone from their eyes. The weapons would stay in the swamp.

  So it was that from that day our holdings did decline, for without our canoes the commerce could not continue. Denuded of spirit and hope, our people gradually lost interest in the gardens and orchards and moved to other parts.

  But our business in the Bay, thanks to Flanagan’s good stewardship, had gained us some weight in currency. With this we purchased lands a day’s sail down the coast, at Opoutere, beside a beautiful inlet named Wharekawa, where many of our people, including Rangi-nui, moved during the following years.

  As for me and Anatohia, our daughter Ngarimu and our son Herewini, we remained at Kaimiro along with several other families, tending our crops in subsistence manner, gathering fruits from the forest and food from the sea as the primitive South Sea Island castaways we’d become.

  Now and then we’d visit Rangi-nui and his people, and they’d come north by canoe to stay with us awhile.

  We were expecting a visit from Flanagan and when, in July of 1826, a gaff-topsail ketch dropped anchor in Kaimiro Bay it was no surprise. But somehow the ship looked familiar. I stared harder. It was the Arrow.

  I ran to the water’s edge and waded out waving with joy as the longboat was swung from the davits. Flanagan was aboard and the joyful commotion of our reunion was tempered only by the melancholy recollection of our valiant shipmates’ demise, eighteen years earlier, upon the West Coast’s blood-soaked sands.

  Herewini had never been aboard a ship of this kind and with foreboding he came with us down into the saloon and roamed with fascination throughout the vessel.

  The men marvelled at my appearance, clad as I was in bare feet, with canvas pants and shirt made of sail cloth. A tot of rum was poured and, while the youngster did clamber among the rigging, we enjoined in conversation.