A Friend in Paradise

by Des Hunt

  “We’re off to Paradise this morning,” Jim said, with a smile. Robbie didn’t say anything. “Got to bring the sheep back for drafting and shearing. It’ll be good having some help. Hope you don’t mind doing a little bit of work.”

  * * *

  The road to Paradise was not easy. Jim said it was still mostly a public road, but it looked as if it’d been years since the council had done any work. It was all right for the couple of kilometres down by the river, then it left the flat and wound up a steep hillside, through native bush. The road was mostly bare rock. Twice, Robbie had to leave the ute to shift branches blocking the way. There were several rock slides, most of them months or even years old. The track had simply been reformed over the rubble.

  At the top they stopped and climbed up to a knoll. The view was fantastic, all the way back across the Bay of Plenty. The islands Robbie had seen from the plane were cone-shaped ghosts in the blue haze. White Island had calmed down and the freshening wind was carrying the steam to Cape Runaway in the east.

  Inland was all forest. Not like the young bush they’d just driven through this was mature, timeless forest, untouched by man. The only forces controlling this forest were natural ones: wind, water, earthquake, and volcanic ash. Ancient rimu stood high above the lesser plants, their branches covered with a miniature forest of their own.

  “Some sight, eh?” said Jim.

  Robbie didn’t answer. He was listening to the birds. He could recognise most of them: tui, bellbird, grey warbler, fantail. But one had him puzzled. “What’s that bird?” he asked when one sounded distinct from the others. There was an answering call from deeper in the valley, and another, even further away. They sounded like notes played on a flute as it disappeared into the distance.

  The man shook his head. “I haven’t a clue. I can’t even tell the difference between a tui and a bellbird. What do you think it is?”

  Robbie didn’t answer straightaway, hoping they would call again. “Could be a kokako.”

  “Is it rare?” asked Jim.

  “Yes. Very. Its closest relative, the huia, is probably already extinct. Kokako are only found in deep forest.”

  “Then I’m not surprised they’re around here. This is deep forest. It might not be far from town but the steep slopes make it almost impossible to get into. I bet there are all sorts of things in here people don’t know about.”

  On the way down from the knoll Robbie saw a small hut with a funny aerial. “What’s that?”

  “Seismograph. It’s part of a national network recording earthquakes.”

  “Do you have earthquakes here?”

  “All the time. So they tell me. But most you can’t feel.”

  “Any big ones?”

  “Yeah. The one that hit Edgecumbe in 1987 caused a lot of damage. Ever been in an earthquake?”

  “No. We don’t have them in Auckland.”

  “You’re lucky. I can tell you, the big ones aren’t fun.”

  Robbie wasn’t so sure. How would he know what they were like, unless he was in one? An earthquake could be fun. Perhaps even as much fun as a volcanic eruption.

  From the top, the track crawled down the steep hillside. Robbie caught glimpses of pasture and realized there must be farmland below. But nothing prepared him for the view when it came. There, in the heart of the bush, was an incredibly green valley. A river twisted through the pastures, where clusters of cone-shaped kahikitea provided shade for flocks of sheep. In one place the river divided to form an island, with a giant puriri standing in the middle. It looked like a picture from a fairytale, and to Robbie, it was vaguely familiar. They sat in the ute, silently admiring the view.

  After several minutes, Jim said quietly: “This is what your dad and I argued over.”

  Robbie stiffened slightly. He kept his eyes fixed on the valley.

  “It was after our father died. We inherited equal shares to the farm. Allan, your dad, was already at university studying architecture, and I’d been running the farm for years, so we kept it that way. Anyway, he came home one Christmas and we drove up here. I told him I was going to open it up to the public, because it was costing money to farm. I wanted people to enjoy part of the wilderness without having to tramp for days. Some freedom camping, kayaking, white-water rafting — that sort of thing. But your father disagreed strongly. And … well … one thing led to another and in the end it got very ugly. Allan walked back to the house and was gone when I got back. That was the last time I saw him.

  Robbie closed his eyes, picturing his father. Not as an angry man, but as the gentle person who read him stories and drew him pictures. He now knew many of the pictures were images from this valley.

  “Eventually I bought his half of the farm, and then we lost contact. Wool prices picked up for a while and I still haven’t got around to opening the valley up. I never got the chance to tell him that. I think we both thought there’d be plenty of time to get together before we got old. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance.”

  The man turned to the boy. “Oh, Robbie, you’ve got no idea how much I regret what happened.”

  Robbie opened his eyes and turned to him. “Why didn’t you come to the funeral?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t even know he was ill. The first I knew was when the lawyer wrote to me about a little bit of money still owing on the farm. I contacted your mother as soon as I heard. She didn’t even know I existed. Allan had told her all of his family were dead.”

  Robbie couldn’t understand why the brothers had behaved like that. At the same time he felt good that Jim had told him something more about his father. They sat for a while, each with different thoughts and memories. Robbie was the first to speak. “I know why it’s called Paradise.”

  “Oh yeah? Why?”

  “Because of the paradise ducks.” He pointed to a pair feeding near the river. The dark male and the lighter, white-headed female were the easiest ducks to recognise. They always came in pairs.

  “Ah! But why are they called paradise ducks?”

  “Because they only live in places like this?”

  “Exactly! So which came first? The place, or the duck?”

  Robbie had no answer to that.

  Chapter 4

  Three hours later they had all the sheep grouped in a space near the track. “All” probably wasn’t completely accurate. Jim pointed out a couple of ewes with extra long wool who must have missed the last muster, and some of the lambs had long tails, showing they’d missed docking. There were probably a few other old biddies still hiding in the edge of the bush

  The lambs were well past weaning, many of them almost as big as their mothers. Watching them drink made Robbie laugh, especially when there were twins. They lifted the whole rear end of the ewe off the ground, trying to force out the last drop of milk. Jim explained that he combined weaning with shearing so he could get the lambs back to the homestead more easily. This way they simply followed their mothers.

  With two of the dogs controlling the sheep they took one final turn around the outside, starting where the river choked into the gorge — the only natural exit from the valley. Driftwood was piled on either side, where it had been dragged back to stop it forming a dam”

  “Most of that’s left over from Cyclone Bola. That was back in 1988, when half a metre of rain fell here in just two days. This valley was a lake. I lost a quarter of my ewes. The others survived by going into the edges of the bush. I can tell you, it really knows how to rain up here.”

  Ben, one of the dogs, weaved in and out of the edge of the bush. He found one ewe with her lamb. Both had long tails, and Robbie wondered if the ability to miss docking was inherited. After some difficulty, they caught the pair, tied their legs and threw them in the back of the ute.

  At the other end of the valley the river emerged from another gorge. Narrower than the outlet, and just a few metres across, it was a raging torrent. No animal would be able to pass up there, unless it could fly. No sheep, no humans, no dogs
.

  “What’s up there?” asked Robbie.

  “I’ve been over it by helicopter. It opens out a bit, higher up. Then it gets real steep eventually leading to the mountains. It’s deep bush all the way. Real wilderness stuff. None of it has ever been explored properly.”

  Robbie looked at it with longing. His mind was working overtime, imagining all sorts of amazing creatures living beyond the gorge.

  They forded the river and began searching back down the valley. A bit further on Ben started barking again. Jim stopped the ute and they waited, expecting a ewe to crash out of the undergrowth any moment Instead, the barking continued, increasing in volume.

  “What the hell has he found this time?” said Jim, opening the door. Robbie followed.

  Ben was standing, barking at something in the scrub. Jim walked up and parted the leaves. Carefully he put in his hands and pulled out a bundle of brown fur. “Ever held a kiwi before?”

  It was just a chick, about a third the size of a grown bird. Jim handed it to him. Although they looked like fur, the feathers were surprisingly coarse. They felt nothing like any other feathers he’d ever touched. Robbie shifted his hands to get a better hold and felt something warm and sticky. “I think it’s injured.”

  Jim looked at his bloody hands. “Yeah. That’ll be what was upsetting Ben.”

  Robbie turned the bird over. One leg and thigh had been completely torn off. Part of the gut was spilling out of the wound.

  “Did one of the other dogs do it?”

  “No way!” said Jim. “No dog of mine would attack a kiwi. This is down to someone else’s mongrel.”

  Robbie could see that the injury was bad. It would be impossible for this animal to survive. Better if it died now instead of a long painful death.

  “Will you kill it?” he asked.

  Jim nodded.

  Robbie turned the bird upright and cuddled it to his face. “Sorry kiwi, but it must be hurting you heaps.”

  After a final hug, he handed it to Jim. The man held it by its short neck, gave a quick, twisting jerk, and the body went limp. It was as if he’d killed a chicken for dinner, not one of the most ancient birds on the planet.

  “There might be some others around here somewhere,” said Jim. “Maybe the adults.”

  They found them a little further into the bush. The flies helped locate them. Both were badly mauled and dead, but not eaten. Obviously the dog hadn’t killed for food.

  Jim looked puzzled. “I can’t understand why a dog would be up here. No dog would stray this distance. Someone must have brought it here. But there’s nothing else for them. There’s no hunting in these parts. It’s too steep for deer and pigs.”

  “Maybe it’s some other animal?”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Ferret or stoat? Do you get them here?”

  “Yeah, a few. But they don’t kill for fun. Only pet animals do that.”

  Jim leant over and picked up one of the bodies. The ground underneath was alive with maggots. “They’ve been dead a few days.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Leave them.”

  “Shouldn’t it be reported to DOC or somebody?”

  “No!” he said sharply. “It’s best if we keep the authorities out of it. We look after our own affairs around here.” The way he said it left no room for further, discussion.

  * * *

  It was nine o’clock before they sat down to dinner. Robbie was hungry, and tired. Not the kind of bored tiredness he’d suffered at home, this was the pleasant exhaustion that came from doing things.

  They were finishing the dishes when a visitor walked in without knocking, almost as if he lived there.

  “Hello, Price,” said Jim. “How’s the New Year treating you?”

  The visitor snorted. “What a load of excrement! Can you believe the carry-on? Like any reasonably intelligent beings, we invent a way of keeping time. Then along come the idiots who treat it as if something magical is going to happen when we get back to our chosen start point each year.”

  Jim laughed. He’d obviously heard the visitor’s views before. “Price, meet my nephew, Robbie. Robbie, meet Price, my nearest neighbour. He has a place down by the river.”

  Robbie wiped his hand and held it out. “Hello, Mister Price.”

  “There’s no Mister with it. Just Price will do.”

  Price was all hair. He reminded Robbie of a man who lived on the streets at home. Everyone called him Moses because of his long, grey beard and hair. Price was the same, but with strong, blue eyes shining out of a sun-blackened face. Robbie was both excited and a little scared by what he saw.

  “I hear you had a bit of excitement when you landed. They should have got rid of those birds when they stopped nesting back in the spring. I wrote to them giving them a way, but nobody wanted to know.”

  “Price is an electronics expert,” informed Jim. “He invents all sorts of gadgets.”

  “This one was simple. All you have to do is play their alarm call twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Wouldn’t that drive everyone mad?” Robbie asked.

  Price grinned. “Not if you play it three octaves higher than normal. They can still, hear it, but we can’t. Simple.”

  Jim fetched a beer for Price and himself, and a cola for Robbie. They sat down at the table.

  “You haven’t been after the kiwi in Paradise have you?” Jim asked.

  “You know I haven’t,” said Price quietly. “But you’d better tell me about it.”

  Jim went on to describe what they’d found. Price listened intently, increasingly concerned as the story went on. “I don’t like the sound of that. Last thing we want around here is a kiwi killer. Remember that mongrel in Northland? Killed five hundred birds in a few months.”

  “Yeah, but what the hell can we do about it?”

  Price was silent for a while. “I could camp up there for a few nights. Find out exactly what’s happening.”

  Jim thought about that for a moment. “You don’t mind? It would be great if you could.”

  “I could keep you company,” said Robbie slowly, trying not to show any excitement.

  Jim raised his eyebrows at Price. “What do you think?”

  Price looked the boy up and down slowly “Yes, I suppose so. As long as he knows how to behave himself.”

  “Yessss!” hissed Robbie, clenching his fist.

  Jim smiled. “OK. But only if you give your mum a call and tell her you got here safely.” He pointed to the phone. “Lift the receiver and see if the line’s clear.”

  With mixed feelings Robbie lifted the handset. Instead of a dial tone there was the noise of hisses and high-pitched squawks. “Sounds like someone’s using a fax.”

  “That’ll be Richardson on the Internet. He’s always using it.”

  “Do you still use dial-up?” asked Robbie.

  Price chuckled. “Yes! There’s no broadband on a party line.”

  Jim turned to Robbie. “There’s a mobile on the bench there. Use that. You’ll have to go upstairs though and along to the end of the passageway. That’s the only place you’ll get a signal around here.”

  The phone call was difficult at first. Awkward questions about how everyone was and what they’d been doing. Then Robbie started describing Paradise and everything that had happened or was going to happen there. He gave his mother little chance of squeezing in any of her own words. But she didn’t seem to mind. Instead she sounded just as excited about what was happening as he was. At one stage though, towards the end, Robbie felt that she might be crying. However that couldn’t be so, for at the same time she seemed to be laughing.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning they drafted the lambs from the ewes. For Robbie, it was a totally new experience. His job was to force the animals down a narrow pen so Jim could use the gate at the end to swing the ewes into one pen and the lambs into another.

  To begin with he was a little scared of the
ewes, especially the ones that turned and stared at him, stamping their hooves and snorting. Eventually he found that if he treated it as a game of chicken they soon gave in and turned to follow the others down the race. After a while he started enjoying the close contact with the animals. What he found difficult to take was the noise. The separated lambs and ewes never stopped bleating, in the vain hope that somehow they’d get together again.

  Morning tea was a welcome relief from the noise. They took their drinks and sat on some old implements in the shade of a huge macrocarpa tree.

  “We’ve got to work out some way of getting you up to Paradise this arvo,” said Jim.

  “Can’t we take the ute?”

  “Nah, I’ve got to head into town for some shearing gear. The gang starts tomorrow. Anyway, Price wouldn’t drive the thing. He goes everywhere on his motorbike.” Jim stood and walked to a pile of stuff leaning against the trunk of the macrocarpa. He brushed away the brown needles, exposing a faded green canvas cover. “Give us a hand with this.”

  A rope tied the canvas tightly around something. The knots were too tight for Robbie. In the end Jim took out a pocket knife and cut them. Together they lifted the cover to reveal an ancient farm bike.

  Jim laughed. “There we are. This should do the job!”

  Robbie wasn’t so sure. “Does it still go?”

  “Did last time I started it, about six months back.” Jim kicked the back tyre. “Needs a bit of air. Here, hop on. You steer while I push you over to the compressor.”

  “Don’t you use it much?” Robbie asked as they slowly moved towards the back of the shearing shed.

  “It’s not mine to use. It was your father’s.”

  Robbie said nothing.

  “I looked at it a couple of times each year, making sure it’d still be OK when he came back. But he never did.” He paused for a while before adding, quietly: “I guess it must be yours now.”