by Des Hunt
Buffy made them both jump with a sudden bark, deafeningly loud in the confines of the cab.
“Stop it!” shouted Dave and Tom together.
She was standing, staring at the undergrowth on the left.
Dave slowed the ute. “She’s seen something.”
A black shape could be seen running through the undergrowth.
“Is that the pig you caught?” asked Dave.
Then the animal sprinted through a gap in the ferns.
“No, it’s not,” said Tom. “That’s a dog.”
Buffy resumed barking, her nose touching the windscreen.
“I think she recognises it,” said Dave. “Didn’t look much like a pig dog, but. More like a Labrador. Let’s see if it will come to us.” He stopped, climbed out, put his fingers to his mouth and gave a piercing whistle.
Tom held onto Buffy to stop her jumping out too. The barking changed to a whine.
Another whistle.
“No,” said Dave, climbing back in. “It’s taken off.”
Buffy settled and they resumed their journey.
“That was somebody’s pet,” said Dave after a while. “I hope that one’s had its DNA taken. Seems mighty suspicious to me, the way it ran off.” He turned to Tom. “Did you see if it had a collar on or not?”
“There was no collar,” said Tom, quietly. He could have added, “Just like Mrs Hopwood’s dog, Harvey.” Instead, he let it be.
Chapter 8
Thursday morning Tom got up at six o’clock when Brandon’s alarm went off. He wanted to do a time trial along Inlet Road before the traffic built up. This would be a benchmark time for future training.
The track to the road was always dim because of overhanging trees. At that time on an April morning it was pretty much dark – the ideal hiding place for a black dog.
Tom heard the snarl and saw the white teeth at the same time. Then it was lunging at him, smashing into the front wheel. The bike toppled sideways. Tom thrust up with his legs, arms out, hoping to cushion the fall. The dog yelped. The bike crashed. Tom fell. And when it was all over, he was lying in the long grass at the edge of the track, with the dog standing over him, tongue out, panting, as if waiting for a reward.
“Harvey!” shouted Tom. “Why do you do that?”
More panting.
Tom sighed. “Get back so I can get up.”
Still more panting.
In the end Tom had to push the dog sideways so he could climb to his feet. He tested his legs and arms. Nothing seemed damaged. The same couldn’t be said for the bike though. Three broken spokes stuck out from the front hub.
Tom leant the bike against a tree and threaded the broken spokes through others so the bike could be wheeled back home. Riding it would only cause more damage to the wheel. The repair was already going to cost more money than Tom had.
Meanwhile, Harvey sat on the track watching Tom at work, seemingly pleased with himself.
Tom turned on him. “Look what you’ve done, you stupid mutt. That’s going to cost me heaps. Why don’t you stay inside the gate?”
Now Harvey realised he was in trouble. He crouched down until his nose was on the ground, his sad eyes looking up at the angry boy.
“Oh Harvey,” sighed Tom. “We’d better get you back home.” He’d started to walk towards the road when he had another thought. He returned to the bike. “I’m taking this with us. Your owner needs to see this damage. Come on Harvey, let’s go.”
* * *
The front door to Mrs Hopwood’s mansion was wide open. Harvey walked straight in, giving the impression the door was always open for him.
Tom propped his bike against a pillar before ringing the doorbell and waiting.
Harvey returned with his owner.
Mrs Hopwood saw who it was and sighed. “Okay, what was it this time?”
“He lunged at me again,” said Tom. “Damaged my bike.”
“I’ll pay,” she said, without pause. “How much?”
“I won’t know until I take it into the bike shop.”
“All right. I know the owner. I’ll give him a call and he can charge me back.” Another sigh. “You’d better come in so I can write down your name and details.”
They went into a kitchen gleaming with stainless steel appliances. Tom was invited to sit on a stool at a polished-stone breakfast bar.
“You had breakfast?”
“No. I’ll have it when I get home.”
“How about sausage and egg?”
Tom smiled. “Yeah, all right.”
As she cooked, she quizzed him about where he lived, who else was in the family, what school he went to, where his father worked – the full interrogation. Tom answered honestly without going into detail about why the family didn’t live together. Her little nods indicated she was quite capable of filling in the gaps.
When breakfast was served, she joined him at the bar. Harvey moved until he was crouched beside Tom’s stool, as if waiting for something.
“He’s hoping to get your plate to clean up.”
“Do you let him do that?”
“Yes.” Her eyes twinkled. “I call it the pre-rinse before it goes in the dishwasher. Saves on water.”
Tom chuckled. “He’s a nice dog.”
“Yes. He was mainly my husband’s. When he died I wasn’t sure I wanted a dog, but now I’ve become very attached to Harvey. He’s great company.” The eyes twinkled again. “Never argues about a thing.”
This was Tom’s chance.
“Except going out the gate,” he said, staring her in the eyes. “Harvey was on the other side of the road when he attacked my bike. He was in the forest.”
She turned away. “Yes, that worries me. The problem is we can’t have a gate put on until that man finishes the fence.”
“You could tie him up.”
“But he’s never been tied up in his life. That would be unfair.”
“It’ll be worse if the authorities find him near the kiwis. We saw a dog that looked like him well away from the road yesterday.”
Mrs Hopwood took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly.
Tom pushed on. “He could be the kiwi killer.”
“No!” she cried. “No! Harvey would never do that.”
“How would you know? Has he had aversion training?”
She shook her head. “The DoC people came and took samples, though. Surely they would have got back to me if he’s involved.”
“I don’t think the results are known yet,” said Tom.
He was about to push more when he saw tears in her eyes. Instead he asked, “Mrs Hopwood, have you got a collar?”
She nodded.
“Then put it on him and keep him shut in the house.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll do that.” Then she gave a crooked smile. “And thank you young man for reminding an old lady of her responsibilities.”
Tom also smiled, sensing they had just become friends.
* * *
Tom and Dave went into town after lunch, with Buffy in the cab, and the bike on the back.
Dave went to the supermarket while Tom sorted things out in the bike shop. Mrs Hopwood had kept her word and rung to arrange payment. She’d also suggested Tom could choose something extra to have fitted if he wanted. After much discussion Tom chose a speed and distance computer that would help with his training. The job would be finished by closing time at five o’clock, leaving four hours to search for Buffy’s owner.
With no idea of where the pig hunter might live, they decided to do a grid search of Kerikeri. While Buffy took plenty of interest in where they went, nothing caused her to get excited. She did react to any dogs they saw, but none of them caused her to bark like she had in the forest.
After covering the streets around the town, they moved out to the rural roads where there were lots of lifestyle blocks, on roads Tom hadn’t known existed. And yet there was still no major reaction from Buffy.
At quarter to five, Dave decided to qui
t and head back to town.
“This is stupid,” he said. “The hunter could have come from miles away. Nothing says he’s from Kerikeri. He could be anywhere up north. Kawakawa, Kaikohe, he could even have come down from Kaitaia.”
Tom said nothing. He had an idea where to search next, but it could wait until after they’d picked up the bike.
Once the bike was on the back they set off for home. As they approached the bridge over the mangroves Tom said, “Don’t turn off. Keep going. There’s something I want to check out.”
As they went past the new subdivision, Tom noted that another row of blocks had been added. It did look as if Mike Davidson would finish before the week was out as he had promised.
The man himself was not there, but a couple of new temporary posts had been put in beside the concrete ones. Tied to them with rope was a wire farm gate. Tom nodded to himself: Mrs Hopwood had taken their conversation seriously.
“How far do you want me to go?” asked Dave.
“Keep going until we’re past the forest.”
“What are we looking for?”
“A place where I heard a lot of dogs the other day.”
“Okay. Tell me when we get there.”
Buffy showed increasing interest as they travelled further along Inlet Road.
“You need to turn right soon,” said Tom, now almost as excited as Buffy.
“Onto Bush Road?” asked Dave.
“I don’t know what it’s called. It’s a gravel road that leads to the forest.”
“Yeah, I know it,” said Dave. Then after they’d made the turn, he added, “Seems like Buffy does too.”
She was breathing quickly, her mouth open, her eyes bright, peering forward, anticipating what would appear soon.
Only when the house came into view, did she start barking, climbing onto Dave’s lap to get her head out the side window.
“Get off, Buffy,” growled Dave. “I get the message. That’s your home.”
Tom put his arms around her, pulling her back.
“Thanks,” said Dave. “I’m going to drive past.”
“There’s a locked gate up here a bit,” said Tom.
“I’ll stop and turn around there. We need to do a bit of thinking.”
Buffy had stopped barking when they got to the gate, but the dogs behind the house hadn’t. It sounded like there was a pack of them.
After the ute had been turned, they sat studying the house expecting something to happen. Buffy was back sitting in the middle, staring at the house more intensely than either human. She knew somebody would come out soon.
When a man did appear out a side door, he first looked across to the ute, pausing a moment, before heading around the back to yell at the dogs.
“That’s Mike Davidson,” said Tom.
“Oh yeah? How come you know that?”
Tom explained.
“Mmm, I’ve heard of him,” said Dave. “Can’t say I’ve ever met him.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Wait a while and see what happens.”
First, the dogs quietened. Then Davidson reappeared to stare long and hard at the ute.
Buffy let out a little growl.
For a time it looked as if Davidson might come over. In the end he turned and went back inside.
“You going to take her back?” asked Tom, quietly.
Dave shook his head. “Nope. I know she wants to be with her pack, but I don’t think that’s the best thing for her.”
“So what do we do?”
“What we do,” said Dave, “is take her back home and hold her until she’s fully recovered. In the meantime I’m going to ask around about this Mike Davidson. Find out everything we can. I want to be prepared before we come back. He’s not going to like what we’re going to say.” He paused. “We need to be careful, because things could get ugly very, very quickly.”
Chapter 9
Friday morning Tom took Buffy on their first walk together. Her wound had healed enough to use a collar padded with cloth.
The collar and lead had come from Dave’s store of dog gear previously used by the original Buffy. Even though the registration tag was years out of date and the wrong colour, they left it there thinking it was better than nothing. Not that Tom intended going out on the road where people would see them. He planned to stick to the quiet of the forest.
Before he left, Dave warned him that most pig dogs weren’t taken for walks. Their only job was to chase and bail up a pig. She might not know what was expected of her on a walk.
This was confirmed over the first hundred metres where it became very clear Buffy was not used to being on a lead. She kept diving sideways to sniff things, almost pulling Tom’s arm out of the socket, and hurting herself at the same time.
“Take it easy, Buffy,” growled Tom. “Walk quietly.”
She lowered her head and walked alongside, although obviously not enjoying the experience. This worked for a minute or so before something especially smelly grabbed her attention, and she was back to tugging sideways.
Tom sat her down. “What will you do if I let you off? Will you behave yourself?”
Buffy wagged her tail.
“You won’t run away?”
More wagging.
Tom had trouble removing the clip from the collar, his hand was shaking so much. This experiment could go horribly wrong. What if she wouldn’t come when called? What if she decided to find her way home? What if she caught the scent of a pig or, worse still, sniffed out a kiwi burrow?
None of that happened. After the lead had been removed she stayed sitting, waiting to be released.
Tom gave the nod. “Okay, Buffy.”
Instead of rushing off, she stayed alongside Tom for a time, as if proving she could be trusted. Eventually, a smell took her sideways. Tom kept walking, hoping she’d catch up soon. Which she did, moving past him on to the next smell, whatever it was. And that was how the rest of the walk went: Tom walking steadily, Buffy stop-starting.
Not wanting to tire her too much, he turned back after a kilometre, returning to Dave’s place half an hour after they’d left. Before going inside, Tom sat her down and gave her a thank you pat. He was now more determined than ever to keep this dog as his own.
* * *
Later on Dave took them back to the logging site with the intention of asking his mates about Mike Davidson.
They were met by the foreman in the site office.
“Ah, Dave, Norm said you were coming for smoko, very timely. You know Ray, our security man?”
Dave nodded, they’d spoken to him on the way into the site.
“He’s heading off tonight to Auckland. His mum’s in hospital. He’ll be back Monday. The trouble is we’ve now got to work on Sunday.”
“Sunday? That’s unusual,” said Dave.
“Yeah. It’s because of this hurricane that’s coming. Cyclone Pene. Have you heard about it?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Well, it’s been moving down from the tropics for a few days now. Hasn’t caused any damage so far, but the remnants are expected to hit us late Monday, early Tuesday. If we don’t get the rest of this block on the ground before then, the storm will do it for us.” He let out a sigh. “Then we’d have a heck of a mess to clean up. Lose half the timber as well. The bosses don’t want that. So we’re working Sunday.”
“And you want me to do security?”
“Yeah. You know what’s involved. Just keeping the book of who comes in and goes out. Make sure there’s not too many trucks up top at the same time. That sort of thing.”
Dave looked at Tom. “Your dad working Sunday?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. He never tells me things like that. Anyway, I can look after myself and Buffy.”
Dave turned back to the foreman. “Yeah, I can do it. What time you starting?”
“Usual time, six o’clock. But we’ll be working later. The boys have agreed to go through till five. Ten hours will ge
t most of it done. We should be able to clean up the rest Monday morning.”
After that they joined the workers sitting on the logs. All the talk was about the coming storm and what it would do to the trees. The problem was that during the felling of a block, lots of trees were exposed that had never experienced the wind: they’d always been sheltered by those around the outside. That was the case with this block.
Tom could see what they were talking about. The trees nearby had bare trunks reaching high into the sky with a Christmas-tree of green at the very top. Even to him it looked like if you pushed one, they’d all fall over. The solution was to fell them in an orderly way before the storm came.
Not until they were about to return to work was Dave able to ask about Mike Davidson. Most of them knew of him, without being close.
“Arrived here a couple of years ago,” said one. “Bought that property down Bush Road. Does a bit of pig hunting, both with dogs and shooting.”
“I’ve met him a couple of times,” added another. “Talks about shooting things a lot. Could be all talk.”
“I know he’s had a few run-ins over jobs he’s done,” said Norm. “Slow to complete them and then lots of stuff needs fixing.” He pointed to Buffy who was sitting at Tom’s feet. “Why you asking? Is she one of his?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Go to the police, mate,” said Norm. “Using those transmitters is a criminal matter. Let them sort it out.”
“Aw, I don’t want to put a guy crook with the police. Not without giving him a chance to sort it out for himself.”
Norm shook his head. “You’re far too fair, Dave. From what I’ve heard about Mike Davidson he’s not the type to be told what to do. You take care, mate. And if you need any help, give us a call.”
* * *
Around five o’clock that afternoon Marika Greenwell arrived at Brandon and Tom’s place.
Tom was playing with Buffy on the lawn outside Dave’s when he heard the vehicle pull up. The engine sounded much too smooth to be Brandon’s van, so he led Buffy along the path to check it out.
“Hello Tom,” said Marika. “Bran not home yet?”
So it’s ‘Bran’ already, thought Tom. That was what his mum used to call him, now she used Brandon.
