The Unknown Zone

by Phil Smith

  It was around this period that the first of the Coromandel’s pine forests started to mature. The mill expanded to meet the new demand.

  ‘You know we’re in the right jolly place at the optimum time as regards all this new stuff,’ said Bart at smoko one afternoon. Until then he could never bring himself to regard Pinus radiata as real timber. ‘It’s really just a blasted weed,’ he’d say. ‘Not decent timber like kauri and rimu. Soon it’ll run rampant over the whole country. It’s taking over the native forest. It’s going to bugger the bush for good, you know. Turns the soil acid.’

  ‘Good for us, though,’ said Laurie. ‘The supply of native logs, especially kauri, is going to run out within ten years. Then all there’ll be is pine.’

  ‘Surprised we’ve lasted this long,’ said Reg, ‘what with all them bloody hippies — what do they call themselves, flamin’ environmentalists — these buggers are tryin’ to get the Government to kick native loggin’ in the guts. Pack of bloody poofters. And you mark my flamin’ word, they’ll get their way, too!’

  ‘There’s still plenty of trees up there,’ said Hemi, stirring his coffee. ‘You just can’t haul them out with a bulldozer any more. We need to use a helicopter.’

  The stark simplicity of his idea took several seconds to unfold in the minds of the men. Theirs was a world of snorting bulldozers, huge trucks, deep mud, chainsaws and axes.

  ‘Helicopter, be buggered!’ said Eric. ‘We’re bushmen, mate, not wankers!’

  ‘You can’t bloody drag logs out of the bush with a helicopter,’ laughed Harry. ‘How are you going to land the bastard?’

  All eyes turned to Hemi. He might be operations manager and the son that Bart and Janet Larkin never had, but in bushman’s lore, Hemi Ratana was still just a beginner.

  ‘I saw an ad the other day in an American magazine for a portable sawmill,’ Hemi answered in his usual calm manner. ‘It’s small enough to sit on the back of a trailer. The chopper lowers the thing onto the site. The portable mill saws it up into beams. Along comes the chopper and the deed is done.’

  Some of the men grumbled about how things were never this complicated in the old days, and how some bugger’s sure to get killed.

  ‘I say!’ said Bart. ‘And in the case of the standing trees the wood’s already seasoned.’

  ‘And the environmentalists can’t grizzle,’ said Reg. ‘Because we’d only be takin’ dead trees.’

  They started by chartering a helicopter. Within six months the yard was full of stacked lumber. Another building went up, this one for manufacturing furniture components for buyers in the United States and Europe.

  Larkin’s Sawmill changed its name to Larkin Corporation, retaining the fantail logo, and was listed on the Stock Exchange.

  The men bought their own helicopter, a Bell Jet Ranger 500, and Hemi learned to fly it.

  By the age of twenty-five the boy who climbed trees owned two houses, a large shareholding in Larkin Corp, and drove a new Toyota Land Cruiser.

  ‘You know, Hemi, I’ve been thinking,’ said Bart one morning as they waited for a taxi in Queen Street after a meeting with the brokers. ‘Things seem to have been going fairly well recently I’d say, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’d say that,’ said Hemi, undoing his tie and pulling it from his neck.

  ‘Now I know it’s a weed and all, but what say we plant a bit of pine forest, eh?’

  ‘We could do that, sure,’ said Hemi. ‘Where do you have in mind?’

  The pair climbed into a taxi and Hemi directed the driver to Mechanics Bay.

  ‘Well it so happens I’ve got a few acres north of Tairua. Bought it when I came out here after the war. Mostly scrub. Steep hill country. Bit of marginal dairy farmland.’

  They paid the driver and walked across to the helicopter.

  ‘Let’s fly over it on the way back, then,’ said Hemi, going through the start-up procedure. He lifted the collective lever, and eased the cyclic forwards. The machine raised its tail and swung up into a cloudless sky. They could see from Whangarei Heads in the north to the snow-covered peaks of the Tongariro National Park in the south. Within twenty minutes they had crossed the firth and were rocking in the turbulence above the bush-covered Coromandel Range.

  ‘It’s coming up on the left now,’ said Bart as they banked out towards the ocean. ‘From this ridge down here, across to the main road in the distance, then right up to those hills straight ahead.’

  Hemi blinked in astonishment and looked at Bart.

  The northern boundary was Tapuwaetahi’s summit ridge.

  On the other side lay Kaimiro.

  ‘That’s a fair slice of countryside,’ said Hemi.

  ‘About 5000 acres of freehold and another 3000 of leasehold. Over those hills is the Kaimiro Valley. That’s all been leased to an American mining outfit. What say we go and have a look, eh?’

  Hemi’s fists tightened on the controls as he remembered his father’s plea, ‘Get us back our land, Hemi. Make that your mission.’

  Minutes later they were flying slowly over the ridge. Kaimiro looked like news footage of the Vietnam jungle after a bombing, and Hemi wanted to cry with rage and sorrow.

  The Square Kauri and its companions rose like domes from the surrounding forest. Hemi guided the aircraft to a space next to the colossal tree and hovered there. He could make out the weathered shingle roof of the old shanty nestled among the thicket of epiphytes. It was littered with leaves and branches. The skeleton and the polished gum, the greenstone and the gold key: they must all still be as he left them.

  And he could see easily the smooth branch he scrambled out onto in his terror in the night, feel again his hands sweating and his aching arms clamped desperately to the tree, and the silken voices telling him, ‘You will grow in mana, you will not fail’.

  ‘Thank heaven they’ve left this part of the bush intact,’ said Bart through the helicopter’s intercom. ‘They’ve certainly buggered the area lower down.’

  They dropped slowly into the valley and hovered above the old homestead. The building was as Hemi had last seen it seven years ago, only now it was surrounded by a different collection of cars and caravans, and a barricade of some kind had been built around it.

  Across the slopes to the west, swathes of yellow and red clay had been exposed by earthmovers.

  A network of mining access roads had been bulldozed up the western side of the valley and a depot for vehicles and machinery had been carved out of the clay.

  Hemi had seen photographs in the newspapers of the mining operation as it progressed but nothing had prepared him for the devastation.

  ‘The blighters are making a devil of a mess, aren’t they?’ said Bart. ‘Look at all those good logs they’ve wasted.’

  In places the stream had been partially blocked by landslides and ran thick with silt, dispersing a plume of orange stain far out into the clear sea.

  Where the mine shafts penetrated the hillside the bush had been obliterated by blasting and roadworks. Two dump- trucks laden with ore moved down the valley while a third was parked beneath a conveyor that carried the crushed rock from deep in the ground.

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ said Hemi, applying power to the Jet Ranger’s rotors.

  Back at Hikutaia they touched down on the paddock next to the mill. They took off their helmets and headsets and climbed from the cabin.

  Hemi shrugged aside the frustration of helplessness as he remembered Sonny’s mandate: ‘Get us back our land, Hemi. Make that your kaupapa. Put this injustice right, and maybe there’ll be gold at the end of your rainbow one day!’

  16

  Come out with your hands up

  ‘Sorry, sport, this is as far as you fucken go. You’re on private property.’ The mine foreman barred the way.

  ‘You’re damn right it’s private property,’ said Hemi. ‘Who’s in charge around here?’

  Three men clad in clay-splattered overalls lumbered forwards and stood with their arms folded, facin
g Hemi’s Land Cruiser.

  ‘I’m the boss,’ said the foreman. ‘Who the blazes are you?’

  Hemi got out of the vehicle.

  ‘I’m Hemi Ratana. My family’s owned this property for four generations. What’s going on?’

  ‘Well if you was the flamin’ owner, mate, you’d know that this whole valley’s been leased to American Mining and Minerals and we’re aimin’ to start work as soon as those bastards over the way have been given the boot.’ He jerked a thumb across the river to where the homestead had been turned into a fortress.

  The bridge was barred by lengths of railway line. Behind these lay several car bodies topped by tangled barbed wire and junk. The bonnet of a Mark 1 Zodiac had been nailed to a totara tree. Painted on it were a black skull and the words ‘Death Zone’.

  Only the roof of the house was visible above the wall of corrugated iron and sharpened kanuka poles. Steel gates hung wide and Hemi could see men standing around a fire drinking. Black smoke from burning tyres billowed into the bush.

  ‘So these buggers’d have to be mates of yours then, eh?’ sneered one of the miners. ‘Callin’ themselves the Black Dogs. Tellin’ us they’re the bloody owners.’

  ‘That’s my cousin, Tamatea,’ said Hemi. ‘They’re squatters. You can use your bulldozers on them if you like.’

  ‘Well that’s bloody-well easier said than done,’ said the foreman. ‘Have a look at this.’ He pointed to one of the Land Rovers. The driver’s door was punctured by three bullet holes.

  A burst of song, some folksy anthem, arose from across the river where a group of twenty or thirty people gathered around a campfire among the ruins of the sawmill.

  Guitars were being played and girls in tie-dyed muslin dresses and men in bell-bottom trousers were swaying to the rhythm. An array of tents and an Indian tee-pee punctuated the pasture.

  ‘Who are they?’ said Hemi.

  ‘Flamin’ anti-minin’ wankers,’ said the foreman. ‘Pack of useless bludgers! Never done a decent day’s work in their life. You look like you belong with them.’

  ‘Luminous greenies, more like it,’ scowled a worker holding a shovel menacingly. ‘Bastards ’a been campin’ here for a week makin’ our lives hell. Just wait’ll the cops arrive. They’re due any time. They’ll show ’em a thing or two.’

  ‘You called the police?’ said Hemi.

  ‘Too right, mate! We’re trapped here like rats in a sewer. Your cousin and his thugs’ve been takin’ shots at us and we can’t get our trucks started because the hippies stuck sugar in our fuel tanks. What do you expect us to bloody do, go and knock on their door with a bunch of flowers?’

  A siren’s wail trailed into the valley.

  The foreman pulled a rag out of his pocket and wiped the grease from his massive, hairy hands. He squared his shoulders and spat the saliva-soaked stub of his fag at Hemi’s feet.

  ‘So what kind of mischief are you plannin’ to get up to, Maori-boy?’ said the miner. ‘Because you better know right now that we aim to give as good as we get, and if you’re here to cause trouble then you better bugger off quick smart while your head’s still on yer shoulders.’

  Hemi felt his biceps swell. He took a deep breath, counted slowly to five, then he turned to the men. ‘There’ll be no violence from me. My plan is simple — get rid of the lot of you: miners, hippies, lawyers, scumbag gangs and anyone else who’s got no business here! This is Ratana family land and that’s the end of the story.’

  Hemi was surprised by his own outburst. He’d told himself that he’d come to Kaimiro simply because its new mining roads provided the easiest access for surveyors needing to peg the northern boundaries of Larkin’s proposed forestry block. But he knew the real reason — he wanted to save what remained of the bush and he thought the mining company might be willing to lease the upper part of the valley to him.

  From the air the devastation had been shocking enough, but here on the ground it was as if a war between Man and Nature was being waged, and things looked dismal for Nature.

  Hemi realised he was trembling and he held his breath again. His anguish subsided and he knew he’d said more than was necessary. He knew, too, that his confrontational approach to the miners had been unwise. Bart had told him often enough, ‘Don’t be a blabbermouth, son. Don’t blurt everything out. Don’t answer questions that you haven’t been asked. Don’t tell people any more than they need to know.’ Hemi had memorised the words. But the act of coming back to Kaimiro, of coming home, brought hot emotions to the surface like lava in a volcano.

  It was as if he knew that each visit would bring fresh violence and unpleasantness; perhaps as a punishment to be endured for sins he never knew about; or maybe it was some weird kind of self-flagellation for having been so cowardly, so insipid, in the past.

  The foreman’s lips curled into a sneer and his eyes drifted slowly over Hemi’s vehicle.

  ‘Well, there’s one thing for bloody sure, mate,’ he snarled. ‘All our lawyers’ll be drivin’ around in new Land Cruisers by the time this bullshit is settled. And I’ll tell you what else, jungle bunny, you’re a fool to pick a fight with us. You’re a bloody fool!’

  Without replying, Hemi hopped back in the vehicle, reversed thirty metres down the road, before turning off into what looked like impenetrable scrub. The miners watched in disbelief as the Toyota disappeared down the barely visible track that led through a cutting to the rain-swollen Kaimiro.

  The protesters stopped their singing to look in amazement as Hemi ploughed down the overgrown track, then rose to their feet to see the vehicle enter the water, submerging its wheels, then its headlights, bucking and swaying over boulders, pushing a bow-wave ahead of it, then surging from the stream and slithering up the bank, flinging mud from its tyres.

  A young woman in a light cotton shirt, faded jeans and flame-red hair tied back in a ponytail marched towards him.

  Hemi wound down the window.

  Rachel had changed.

  She was taller and more confident than that disastrous day at the taniwha’s pool in 1965.

  She showed no signs of recognition, perhaps because she was flustered.

  ‘You better stop here,’ she warned. ‘The Black Dogs are shooting at people.’

  He couldn’t believe Rachel had failed to recognise him, but decided to play it cool, to wait and see. The meeting with the miners had gone badly and the last thing he needed right now was another reminder of his inadequacy. He would talk to the protesters, find out where they were coming from, then, possibly with the aid of the police, get up to the house and talk to the occupants. If there was a part he could play in managing a truce then Hemi felt bound to offer his help. He had walked out of Kaimiro during a crisis before. This time he would fight for his mana-whenua, for the right, given by his tupuna Tuapiro, Ururangi, and Sonny, to stand here unchallenged.

  Hemi smiled.

  ‘I’m Rachel Revington,’ she said, offering her hand through the window. ‘I’m with the Coromandel Watchdog Group. Have you come to join us?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m with Larkin Corporation.’ Her handshake felt strong but cool and she had perfect nails. ‘I guess you’re the good guys.’

  She regained her composure and looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘We’re a coalition of groups and individuals trying to stop American Mining destroying the Kaimiro Valley. But right now we’re stuck here, and you’d better keep your head down as well or go back where you came from, if you don’t want to get killed.’

  Right on cue a rifle shot, then another, cracked across the valley. The protesters ran for cover.

  ‘See what I mean!’

  An obese but unmistakable Tamatea stood in the gateway about 100 metres away holding a .303 jungle carbine at waist level. He let off four more shots randomly, then gave a raised-fist salute to the miners.

  Hemi had been expecting to see Tamatea and he’d decided to stay out of his way if he could. Seeing Rachel again had uncovered the pain
and embarrassment he felt when they were teenagers. Tamatea would only heighten those feelings. But confronted by the sight of this gormless, posturing oaf, Hemi was surprised and pleased to discover he felt nothing but pity, both for Tamatea’s contemptible appearance and for the woeful situation his cousin had found himself in. His nemesis of all these years was little more than a cardboard cutout, parading with Sonny’s hunting rifle, staunch to the end.

  He stepped out of his vehicle and strode away from the relative shelter of a pile of rotting logs.

  ‘For God’s sake, get down!’ Rachel cried, as another gunshot echoed around the valley.

  Hemi crossed the open ground, calmly heading towards the building, his hands raised to shoulder height, palms forwards. Tamatea swiveled towards him.

  Across the river the miners had retreated to the safety of the workshop building.

  Hemi swung his legs over a broken fence and pushed through some tea-tree.

  With the length of a cricket pitch separating the cousins, Hemi stopped and lowered his hands slowly to his sides.

  Tamatea jerked the rifle bolt, ejecting the spent shell and loading a live one.

  ‘You’re not planning to shoot anyone, are you, Tamatea?’

  The rifle barrel lifted.

  ‘Well, if it’s not the fucken Monkey-boy! You just don’t know how to stay away from trouble, do you?’

  ‘Calm down, cousin. I only want to talk.’

  ‘You got one minute.’

  ‘I want to know what’s going on here.’

  ‘You don’t want to chat about the old days, eh?’ Somehow the menace seemed to have gone from Tamatea. ‘About you being the Lonesome Loser, the orphan-boy, the creep who sneaked away when things got a bit tough? Come back to apologise, have you? Or maybe it’s me that should say sorry to you,’ he said with a broken laugh, like a man who knows control is slipping away from him.

  Several other Black Dogs members armed with shotguns and rifles appeared from the house and joined those around the fire. One of them tossed another tyre onto the blaze.