Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Are you sure, Kobi? Would she have told you?’

  ‘She told me everything, Gib. I would’ve known.’

  John-Cody felt the relief in his veins. ‘Thanks, Kobi, I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘Likewise. You take care of yourself.’

  ‘I will. Bye, Kobi.’

  ‘Goodbye, Gib.’

  Kobi put the phone down and lay back in the darkness for a moment, then reaching above his head he pulled the cord for the light and climbed out of bed. It was ice cold in the room and his bones ached, but he went across to his chest of drawers and sought the letter he’d received from Mahina.

  Libby stayed at the airport hotel and cried long into the night, something she had never done before. It was grief, a loss, the tears just flowed and there was nothing she could do to stop them until she was all cried out. She woke in the morning, looked at the clock and wondered if he would be there yet. She worked out the hours and decided he wouldn’t. She got up, settled her bill, bought a cup of coffee from the petrol station and drove back to Manapouri. The drive took all day, through Central Otago down to Queenstown and on from there. She counted thirteen hours from when his plane took off and tried to imagine the feelings he would go through when he touched down in the United States.

  John-Cody landed at Los Angeles with a trembling sensation in his limbs. It wasn’t so much fear as deep-seated trepidation: memories shifting restlessly through his mind all the way from New Zealand, thoughts, fears, wondering whether he would ever see Libby again, whether he would ever sit on the dive locker aboard the Korimako and listen to the silence of Doubtful Sound. He dozed and slept fitfully, but bad dreams disturbed him, dreams dominated by Elijah Pole’s face and Tom’s white hair barely visible among the waves. He had a window seat and the buildings of Los Angeles lifted in squared blocks of stone from the desert floor. Smog hung round the buildings where the sun couldn’t burn through, and as the plane got closer he picked out the freeways jammed with cars.

  He saw the two FBI agents as he walked up the closed gangway to the gate: grey suits and cropped hair, their badges open in the breast pockets of their jackets. He was back in McCall after he jumped parole and they were the same men, though they couldn’t be because both were young and twenty-five years had elapsed. He had told the New Zealand authorities his departure date and they must have informed the FBI. The two agents spotted him and came over. He waited, his canvas grip the only baggage he had, his hair long and not brushed and still frayed at the ends.

  ‘Mr Gibbs?’ The smaller of the two, with dark hair and bright blue eyes, spoke to him. ‘I’m Special Agent Thomas. This is Special Agent Givens.’

  John-Cody looked at the other man who smiled a little awkwardly. Both of them seemed uneasy, almost embarrassed. He set his bag down on the floor.

  ‘You want to cuff me?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Givens said quickly. ‘Just as long as you don’t run away.’

  John-Cody shook his head. ‘Son, I just quit running.’

  They flanked him through immigration and customs and he ignored the glances he received from other passengers. He said nothing and they said nothing, other than telling him they had to take an internal flight to Seattle and hoped another journey wouldn’t be too tiring.

  On the plane they occupied three seats with John-Cody in the middle. They told him that the Seattle field office had dealt with his case back in the 1970s and that’s why they were taking him there.

  ‘What’ll happen to me?’ John-Cody asked Thomas. ‘I do my other eighteen months — that and the time they add for parole jumping?’

  ‘Sir, to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue. I’ve never been involved with anything vaguely like this before. Not with Vietnam and all.’

  Givens smiled then. ‘Hell, I wasn’t even born.’ He looked at John-Cody. ‘You were a boat skipper in New Zealand?’

  ‘Aotearoa,’ John-Cody said. ‘That’s what the Maori call it. It’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Aotearoa then. What kind of boat?’

  ‘Buck-eye ketch.’ John-Cody looked at him. ‘You sail?’

  Givens nodded. ‘Out of San Diego for a while.’

  ‘That’d be good sailing.’

  ‘We thought so.’ Givens squinted at him. ‘New Zealand immigration told us you just got back from the Sub-Antarctic. Pretty rough down there, I bet.’

  John-Cody stared into space. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘pretty rough.’

  The conversation died after that and when they landed at Seattle another agent was there with a car to meet them. John-Cody sat in the back with Givens as they drove downtown to the field office. The building was square and flat, three storeys and guarded by black-uniformed FBI cops. Thomas flanked him on one side and Givens opened the doors and they walked him the length of the hall to a door at the end. John-Cody saw the lock on the outside and the saliva dried in his mouth. Thomas opened the door and he saw a bench with a white pillow and grey blanket and his mind rolled back. For a moment he just stood there.

  ‘Inside please, Mr Gibbs.’

  He looked at Thomas and fought momentarily for breath.

  ‘Please, sir. It’s just a holding cell.’

  John-Cody stepped into the cell and they closed the door and he heard the lock tumble and he was trapped again like an animal. He shut his eyes and saw Hall’s Arm with stands of rimu and kahikatea beyond the toi toi and jointed spear grass. He saw the massed forest of beech and heard weka calling and high above it all there was snow on the peak of Mount Danae.

  Jonah sat with his father in the converted room in the general store in Naseby. Kobi lay stretched out on the bed, his head propped against pillows with a bag of sweets at his elbow. The TV was on in the corner and Jonah sat at the table and stared at a photograph of Mahina with John-Cody just after they got together. His mother had taken it and now she was gone and Mahina was gone and as of this morning John-Cody was gone also. He looked at his father and saw he was staring too.

  ‘Hotels in Dusky Sound.’ Kobi shook his head, let go a breath and closed his eyes again. ‘I used to fish in Dusky Sound. Your sister loved that place. Even when she was tiny.’ He lay for a few minutes more and then sat up. ‘Ned Pole, eh. Always was the joker.’ He took his wallet from where it lay on the shelf beside his bed. ‘Go and get us a beer or two, Jonah. Better still, go over to the pub and set them up. I feel like a drink tonight.’

  Jonah stood up and fished in his pockets. ‘I’ll shout you the piss, Dad.’

  ‘No, boy.’ Kobi shook his head. ‘I’ll shout you. You just go on ahead and set them up.’

  Jonah took the wallet and stepped out of the room. Kobi waited till he heard the sliding door close at the back of the store then he slipped a hand under his pillow and took out Mahina’s letter. She had written it when she knew she was dying and when he read it and took in the implications she was already dead. He held it to him now, hands trembling slightly, then he slipped it into his jacket pocket and reached for his hat. He would get Jonah to drive him to Te Anau in the morning.

  Libby sat with Alex in the office. She was due back in Dusky Sound but hadn’t the heart to go. She had been on the phone to the Green Party all morning, trying to get them to look into the boundaries of the national park more quickly. She told them that Pole’s hearing was imminent and unless somebody did something the fiords would never be the same again. They understood of course and the House of Representatives were looking into the matter, but there was no way they could hurry the parliamentary process. The hearing was less than a week away and she was trying to prepare a submission of her own. She would cite the dolphin pod and the Department of Conservation would back her, but she was not in a position to prove that the pod was resident and the argument about an acoustic model was a non-starter. There was neither the funding nor the time needed to provide such a model and the economic pressures on the area were significant. Fiordland depended on tourism and all Pole was doing was adding to the tourism revenue. He would win:
something in her heart told her he would almost certainly win. With John-Cody gone, the way was much clearer.

  She sat on the couch reviewing the videotapes she had made in Port Ross and her fears were replaced by a sudden rush of excitement: all that had happened, the tragedy of Tom’s death and John-Cody having to leave the country, had overshadowed what she had achieved. She was the first person on the planet to film a southern right whale giving birth: not only the birth, but the drama that followed, when the calf would not take its first breath. Alex watched with her. When the film was finished they both sat there in amazement.

  ‘My God, Libby, that’s powerful stuff,’ Alex said. ‘You could make a fortune with it.’

  Libby glanced at her and stood up. ‘I don’t know about a fortune but I might get something for it. I think I should show it to Steve Watson in Dunedin.’

  John-Cody sat in the cell for an hour, sixty minutes that felt like an eternity: the sweat ran on his palms and moistened his hair and he went through every emotion he had ever experienced going back twenty-five years. When a key finally turned in the lock he didn’t quite believe it, but Thomas smiled at him and stood aside, indicating for him to come out.

  ‘The Special Agent in Charge wants to see you, Mr Gibbs.’

  John-Cody followed him down the hall and up to the next floor where they came out in a foyer with a leather chesterfield and armchair in FBI blue. The Fidelity Bravery Integrity shield was emblazoned on the wall and a secretary looked on as Thomas led him to a spacious office with a big desk and a twin set of couches against one wall. Windows dominated one side and a big man dressed in a blue suit stood with his back to them, hands in the pockets of his trousers.

  ‘Mr Gibbs, sir.’ Thomas withdrew and closed the door and John-Cody stood there in his jeans and denim shirt and the agent still stood with his back to him. His hair was white, cropped like a marine and shaved above the wrinkles that lined the back of his neck. He turned and his face was flat and square-jawed and there was something familiar about him.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Gibbs.’ He gestured to a high-backed chair in front of the desk then sat down himself. For a moment they looked at each other without speaking then the agent cocked his head to one side.

  ‘You still play guitar?’

  John-Cody frowned.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  ‘Should I?’

  The agent sat back. ‘The last time we saw each other was a mother of a night on the Camas prairie. Agent Muller. I arrested you that night.’ He half smiled. ‘I remember you telling my partner and me it might not be such a good idea to drive that road at night. I figure that maybe we should’ve listened.’

  Recollection now: his face, his eyes and the square, almost carved features. John-Cody nodded slowly. ‘You were in the passenger seat.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  For a moment they looked at each other and then John-Cody looked at the desk and the office and the SAC’s card in the tray. ‘You made it up the ladder then.’

  The agent laughed. ‘It took me twenty-five years, Mr Gibbs, but yes, I’m the boss in this field office. What’ve you been doing since I last saw you?’

  ‘Skippering a boat in New Zealand.’

  ‘I heard that. Sorry we had to bring you back.’

  ‘So am I.’ John-Cody ran his tongue round the inside of his mouth. ‘What happened to your partner?’

  Muller’s face darkened. ‘He died in that car wreck.’

  Again John-Cody was standing by the road with his breath coming in clouds of steam. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault.’ Muller sat forward then. ‘If you hadn’t got to Grangeville and told the sheriff I wouldn’t be sitting here myself. I want to thank you for that.’

  For a long moment they looked at each other. ‘What happens now?’ John-Cody asked him.

  Muller pushed back his chair, and stood up. ‘Right now I give you a ride to a hotel. You get some rest and we talk again in a day or two.’

  ‘Will I go back to jail?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  JOHN-CODY STAYED THE night at a hotel in Seattle. Muller made the reservation from the telephone in his office and then drove him downtown in his own car.

  ‘You’re all set,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to talk to the prosecuting attorney about your case and as soon as I have some news I’ll send a car for you.’ He smiled then. ‘Promise me you won’t go walkabout.’

  John-Cody returned the smile. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Good enough.’ Muller leaned across him and opened the door.

  John-Cody checked into his room then went to the bar and ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. He sipped the beer and slammed the shot then ordered another. He slammed that one, ordered a third and sipped it.

  ‘Winding down, uh?’ the bartender said to him.

  ‘Something like that.’

  It was warm outside still, summer in the northern hemisphere, incongruous to John-Cody after all those years of having the seasons the other way round. He ordered food at the bar then went to his room and slept through till morning.

  He stayed a full week in the hotel waiting for Muller or somebody else from the FBI to contact him. With too much time to think, he kicked his heels and wandered the city aimlessly. Two days running he took a cab to the docks and sat for hours drinking coffee out of styrofoam cups and watching the fishing boats leave and return to the harbour. Gulls cried and it was good to smell the salt in the air, feel the wind on his face and, above all, gaze out to sea.

  When he got back to the hotel on the evening of the seventh day Agent Thomas was waiting for him.

  ‘I need to take you to the field office right away, sir,’ Thomas told him.

  John-Cody narrowed his eyes. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  Thomas’s face showed no expression but he gestured to a car parked in one of the bays outside and John-Cody stepped across the asphalt ahead of him. His heart jarred his ribs and he could feel the sinking sensation once again in his stomach: he was glad he had spent some time at the harbour.

  Thomas hardly spoke on the way across town to the field office. He left the car in the underground car park and they went up in the elevator. Muller was on the phone when Thomas showed John-Cody in and he waved him to a chair. John-Cody sat and tried to concentrate on keeping his breathing easy. Outside he could hear the howl of the traffic, horns blaring, engines roaring, and he knew it was a sound he would never get used to again. Muller swung back and forth in his chair as he spoke into the phone and every now and again he would glance at John-Cody, but he didn’t smile. In the end John-Cody could sit still no longer so he got up and paced to the window. All he could see were buildings, the street below and hundreds of vehicles choking the life out of the place. Behind him Muller finally put down the phone.

  ‘How you doing?’

  John-Cody turned. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you could tell me.’

  Muller picked up a folded sheet of paper from his desk and moved to the window. He gestured outside. ‘Not much of a view but better than some, I guess.’ He passed the sheet of paper over.

  ‘What’s this?’ John-Cody took it gingerly.

  ‘It’s a letter of declination, Mr Gibbs. From the prosecuting attorney’s office.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Why don’t you read it?’

  John-Cody looked in his eyes. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘OK.’ Muller put his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders and then he smiled. ‘In a word — your freedom.’

  For a moment John-Cody didn’t say anything, then carefully he opened the letter.

  ‘Basically what they’re saying is that they agree with what I told them,’ Muller went on. ‘What happened was twenty-five years ago and to do with your conscientious objection. You’re not a felon, Mr Gibbs. In my book you never were. They’ve pardoned you in the same way that everyone else was pardoned.’

>   ‘What about the parole violation?’

  ‘Forgotten. Written off. Never happened. Your slate is clean. You’re free to go where you please.’

  John-Cody looked at him. ‘Except New Zealand.’

  Muller’s face clouded. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘So am I.’ John-Cody held out his hand. ‘Anyway it’s not your fault. Listen, thank you for what you did.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything other than exercise a bit of common sense.’ Muller shook his hand. ‘Good luck, Mr Gibbs.’

  Outside John-Cody stood on the sidewalk, where Thomas was waiting by the car to drive him back to the hotel. He was free but he was trapped. His home was thousands of miles away and there was no way he could go back to it. The traffic whizzed by and the sound drummed in his head and for a moment he closed his eyes, but it was no good, no amount of imagining would take him there again.

  ‘Mr Gibbs?’ Thomas’s voice broke in on him.

  John-Cody squared his shoulders and walked over to the car.

  He phoned Libby from the pay phone in the hotel lobby the following morning.

  ‘So your record is clean?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I’m still stuck here though. I can’t come back to New Zealand.’

  Libby was silent. He could tell she was fighting with tears. ‘What’re you going to do?’ she said at last.

  ‘I don’t know. Pretty soon I’m going to need some money though. How’re the repairs going on the boat?’

  ‘They’re under way. I’ve supervised them myself, but Jonah’s on his way back from Naseby. He’s going down to Invercargill to check.’

  ‘How’s Bree?’ John-Cody asked.

  ‘She’s OK. A bit morose. She misses you terribly. She wants an address so she can write to you.’

  John-Cody was still for a moment. ‘She hasn’t written any more of those other letters, has she?’

  ‘No. I let Jean in on it, John-Cody. She said she’d tell me if Bree posted any more.’

  John-Cody leaned against the booth. ‘Look, as soon as I get settled I’ll call you with an address. But right now I have no idea what I’m going to do or where I’m going to do it. I’m lost, Libby, and I’ve never been so lost in my life.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Look, my money’s running out. I’ll call you as soon as I know where I am. In the meantime you better put the boat up for sale, the wharf too, I’m going to need the money.’