The Moa Cave

by Des Hunt

  Molly looked at her. ‘Why don’t you stay here and help me get dinner? Bill can take the kids to see the penguins by himself. Then we can have a good chat about things.’

  The penguin hide was not far from the end of the road, hidden amongst some flax bushes. They had a good view of the beach that Tyler had explored that morning, where the yellow-eyed penguins would come ashore just before dark.

  Bill said it was okay to talk quietly. The girls sat at one end of the wooden bench whispering and sometimes giggling. Tyler sat well clear of them, thinking about the cave and when he could get there next. He glanced in the direction of the cliffs. There were animals climbing amongst the craggy rocks above the cave entrance.

  He turned to Bill. ‘Are they goats?’

  ‘Yep. There’s about twenty of them up on that bluff. I do a bit of a cull every now and then. There’s an Indian community in Dunedin that buy the meat. Goats are good to have in a place like that where the cattle won’t feed. They eat anything and don’t take any looking after.’

  ‘Do they ever fall down?’

  ‘No way. They’re the most sure-footed animal there is.’

  ‘What about falling into caves?’

  ‘There are no caves; not around here. There’s a few sea caves further up the coast where the water eats into the cliff, but you can’t get into them. You’ll see one of those tomorrow at Jacks Bay. It’s quite something.’

  So, thought Tyler, there are no caves around here. He smiled to himself. Then what was that I was in this morning? It surprised him to think that Bill didn’t know about it—the entrance wasn’t all that hard to find. Yet maybe nobody knew about it. Perhaps in the future it would become known as Tylers Cave and be shown in the tourist guides and things.

  His thinking was broken by a nudge from Bill who was pointing to the beach. Two creatures were waddling out of the water. When they reached the sand they leaned forward, moving faster until they looked just like workers leaning into the wind as they rushed home after a hard day’s work.

  As he watched, another bird came out of the water, then another. The tide was now fully out and the penguins’ trip up the beach took a couple of minutes. At one stage there were six of them in view. Altogether they counted eleven. Bill was pleased. He said that meant there were probably eleven pairs nesting on the beach, the biggest number for years.

  When Bill said it was time to go, Tyler asked if he could stay a while longer. He wanted to go to the cave, though he didn’t say that. Bill said it was okay as long as he was back within half an hour. Then to Tyler’s dismay the girls decided they wanted to stay too. He almost changed his mind; instead, he marched out onto the beach heading for the cliffs, hoping they would get the message and leave him alone.

  They didn’t: they rushed to catch up to him.

  ‘Is this where you went this morning?’ asked Hine.

  ‘Did you see any penguins?’ asked Mandy.

  ‘Was the fossil in those cliffs?’

  ‘Did you cross that stream there?’

  ‘Where was the dead bull?’

  ‘Yeah, where did you bury the guts?’

  He tried to ignore them. Yet even when they stopped asking questions they kept walking alongside. He decided to abandon the visit to the cave. He wasn’t ready to share it with anyone yet, and certainly not with the girls. They would just spoil it for him. He would get up early and return in the morning.

  When they reached the stream, Tyler decided he might as well show them where he got the fossil brachiopod. They had just crossed it when they heard the roar of a vehicle coming down the road. Tyler turned to see a ute drive onto the sand. It was ablaze with lights. There was no doubting that it was Shifty and Grunty’s vehicle.

  Tyler hoped they would head the other way, but it was not his lucky day. The ute came along the beach swerving from side to side, spewing plumes of sand from the skidding tyres. Then it stopped swerving and moved forward as if the driver had spotted something.

  ‘Look there!’ yelled Hine pointing to the other side of the stream. A small penguin had just hauled itself out of the water. It was the one from the cave returning from the day’s fishing. It looked so tiny and exposed.

  ‘Oh no!’ screamed Mandy. ‘They’re going to run it down.’

  Without thinking, Tyler sprinted across the stream towards the penguin. The bird stopped and looked directly at him. Then it was framed by the spotlights and froze in panic. Tyler ran past it until he was between it and the ute. Now they would have to turn away or they would hit him.

  But the ute made no change of direction. It kept roaring towards him as if he hadn’t been seen. He screamed at the driver to stop. Still there was no response. Now he had to save himself. With all his strength he threw his body sideways, crashing onto the hard sand. The ute screamed past in a rush of wind and sand. He heard a cackle of laughter, and then it was gone.

  Somehow it had missed. When he looked up he saw that it had turned at the last minute and was now powering its way back up the beach. He turned to look for the penguin. The only thing he could see was a lump on the sand beside the tyre tracks. He scrambled forward hoping it was not what he thought it was, yet knowing that it was.

  The bird was totally limp. He got out his torch to examine it.

  ‘Is it all right?’ asked Mandy as the girls arrived.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Hine.

  ‘I’m okay, but the penguin isn’t.’ There was no blood on it, but no sign of life either. He picked it up, cradling it in his arms. The thing was so tiny—it was not surprising that it was easily damaged.

  ‘Is it dead?’ asked Hine.

  ‘I think so.’ He pointed the torch to the ground so the girls couldn’t see his face. He didn’t want them to see his crying.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Take it back and show the police,’ he said angrily. ‘I want those two caught.’ He started walking towards the shore.

  Hine said, ‘You think they’re the ones that shot the bull, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And forced us off the road. They’re animals and have to be…’

  All of a sudden he was struggling to hold a squirming bird. The flippers were wiggling strongly and the open beak was much too close to his face. Quickly he leaned over so that it could escape onto the sand. It lay there for a moment, before shaking itself and slowly limping off up the beach. Mandy clapped and Hine cheered. Tyler took the opportunity to wipe his eyes while they weren’t looking.

  ‘Do you think it’s got a nest somewhere?’ asked Hine.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it’ll have a burrow somewhere. But it’s best if we leave it alone. It’ll be okay now.’

  ‘You were very brave,’ said Mandy. ‘They would have killed it if it hadn’t been for you.’

  Yes, he thought, they would have. But he didn’t feel brave. He felt sick. How could people behave like that? What caused them to do things like that? He shook his head. He could never understand them. Never in a billion years.

  Much more than the half hour had passed before they got back to the woolshed. Hine had issued her dare: they had to walk through the cattle paddock in the dark. The journey had been slow. All light from the sun had gone and the moon had not yet risen. They could hear the beasts—snorting, thumping and chewing—but could not see them. Then they heard the plop, plop, plop sound of one emptying its bowels. Hine started giggling and soon they were all laughing. It was a happy group of kids who finally sat down for dinner. Even Alice looked happier, though she still clutched her cellphone as if her life depended on it.

  Chapter 6

  The moon was low in the sky when Tyler arrived at the cave the next morning. It was cold but not the freezing cold of the morning before.

  He was surprised to find he was nervous as he crawled into the opening. During the night he had thought about lots of things including the little penguin. He wasn’t so sure that it was as healthy as it had made out. Maybe they should have looked after i
t a bit longer; perhaps had a vet check it over.

  Both birds were squatting on the nest, and both seemed healthy. He moved to the side of the cave closest to the birds and rested the torch on a rock, pointed at the birds. From his pocket he took his Game Boy with the camera attachment. He crept forward taking photos every few steps. The birds watched but didn’t seem worried. When he was a few metres away he sat on the sand to study them. He could now see differences between them. The one that had stayed behind on the nest had some head feathers out of place that looked like a dish mop. He decided to call her Mopsie. The name of the other one was easy: he had to be Hopi. As if to prove the point, Hopi rose from the nest and limped towards the opening.

  He stopped and looked back at his partner. Tyler could almost read his thoughts. ‘Hey Mopsie, I don’t feel too good today. Maybe you should go fishing instead.’ He went back to the nest. To the boy it seemed as if his limp had suddenly got worse. Hopi stopped and started making high-pitched croaking noises.

  But Mopsie wouldn’t budge. She nestled down tighter on her eggs. ‘No, Hopi. We had an agreement. Week on and week off. It’s only three days since I last went.’

  ‘But I’m injured. Can’t you see that?’ Then he played his ace card. He moved forward and rubbed her head with his beak, messing her mop even more. ‘If I’m not fully fit I could get killed. There are sharks out there, you know. They’ll see my injured foot and say, “Hey, that penguin looks like an easy meal.” And I would be too. So how do you think you’ll feel if I never came back?’

  It took a few minutes and a lot of head rubbing before Mopsie finally gave in. She moved from the nest giving Tyler a quick glimpse of two white eggs before Hopi shuffled into place. She waddled to the opening. Before going out, she looked back at her mate. ‘Remember Hopi, it’s only for today. Then we get back to normal. Okay?’ But Hopi had already gone back to sleep.

  The opening was a smudge of light when Tyler began to explore the cave in detail. There was a sandy circular floor in the middle with a ledge on all sides except by the opening. The ledge was deeper at the back where the roof was lower and he had to crouch to avoid bumping his head.

  There were several places where the side of the cave disappeared into a crack. He explored a couple, but neither of them led anywhere. He assumed they would all be the same: it was a simple cave with only one chamber.

  The ledge was wider between the nest and the opening. Towards the back he could make out something like a large stone, lighter in colour to the rest of the rock. Yet when he got closer he saw it wasn’t a stone—it had squiggly lines and was too smooth. With rising excitement, he moved to look from the other side.

  Now he could clearly see what it was. Two empty eye sockets stared at him. It was a skull—a human skull. He moved his torch and there, laid out on the rock, was the rest of the skeleton.

  For a moment he was scared. He’d seen plenty of pictures of skeletons but never a real one. Then his curiosity took over. Obviously he wasn’t the first person to find the cave; there had been at least one other. But how long ago was that? He knelt to study it better. The bones were brown and in places seemed as if they were joined to the rock. The first stages of changing into a fossil had begun. These were very old bones.

  Crawling alongside the skeleton, he could now see it was lying on its side. ‘About my size too,’ he said, and the thought sent a shiver down his spine.

  In amongst the skeleton was a much larger bone that seemed out of place and yet familiar. Looking closer he saw the hokey pokey holes of a moa bone like the one he’d found the day before. The person had been holding or cuddling a moa bone. He traced the bones of the arms down to the hands. Sure enough, one of the hands was close to the middle of the bone. The other hand was nearby and it too seemed to be holding something that was hidden by a pile of dust.

  He knew he shouldn’t touch anything but who would know? He leaned over and dug into the dust with his fingers. Beneath were pebbles. Soon he had uncovered a mound of them ranging in diameter up to about the size of his thumb. He picked one up to study it closer. Then he smiled to himself. He knew what it was. Even after all these years the shiny, polished surface was a giveaway. It was a gizzard stone. He knew lots of birds took stones into their gizzards to help grind their food. But the only bird around here that could swallow stones this big was a moa, and they had been extinct for about four hundred years.

  Tyler moved back onto the sand to think. He had no doubts that he’d discovered the skeleton of a moa hunter, a major find because it was so well preserved. Things like this were found only very rarely. Bone people dreamed about making discoveries like this. He wouldn’t be able to keep it secret. Yet once he told others they would take over and stop him coming back to his cave. Maybe he didn’t have to tell them just yet. He had two more days of holiday. He could enjoy his cave for that time before telling the rest of the world. That too would be exciting. But in the meantime he would get his excitement by just being here, by himself and thinking.

  Chapter 7

  During the night Tyler had done a lot of thinking about the girls and how they wrecked almost everything. He had decided to go on the attack. It was his turn for a dare and he would use that to get his own back. He would choose something they would never do. If he kept on beating them in the game, they’d soon stop laughing at him.

  Today’s trip was to Jacks Bay, then Catlins State Forest Park and back to the farm to go searching for seals.

  It was late morning before they arrived at Jacks Bay. Clouds now covered the sky, yet the day was calm and it seemed that rain was still a long way off.

  Jacks Bay was an arc of sand protected by rocky cliffs at either end. A gravel road separated the beach from a line of small cribs built on the flat land in front of a backdrop of rolling hills. The water in the bay was calm with only a few gentle waves reaching the top of the shore.

  The attraction of Jacks Bay was the nearby blowhole, which, according to the guide book, performed best at high tide. It was a thirty-minute walk across farmland.

  Tyler was keen to get going, hoping that he would soon find something for his dare. However, the other three had all brought their cellphones in the hope of making contact with home. After asking a couple of locals they found the magic spot on a bluff at the southern end of the beach. Then Tyler was forced to hang around while the others pushed buttons and stared at screens. He thought how stupid they looked standing on a hilltop fiddling with their little machines.

  Mandy and Hine looked happy with the results of their messages, but Alice clearly was not. In fact she didn’t look good at all. She had hardly spoken since they’d got in the car and Tyler wondered if she was becoming ill. He hoped not. He didn’t want anything that could cause the trip to be cut short. He wanted as long as he could to visit his cave.

  Eventually Alice came over and said they could go to the blowhole by themselves. She was going to wait around for a reply.

  ‘You sure?’ asked Hine. ‘We can stay a while if you like.’

  ‘No, you go. Just follow the orange posts and you’ll find it easily enough.’

  There was a track, but it was far too muddy to use, so they stuck to the grass of the paddock. The orange posts were located at the top of hills or by gateways, and sometimes it took a minute or two to find the next.

  At one place they came close to the edge of a cliff where a patch of bush had been fenced off from the cattle. A waterproof notice with a skull and crossbones in one corner was tacked to a fence post. Tyler knelt to read it.

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Hine.

  ‘ “Warning! Feratox poison baits are laid for possums in this area. The baits are cyanide in blue paper bags.” Then there is a whole lot of do’s and don’ts about touching dead animals and keeping dogs and children out of the area.’ He stood. ‘I wonder where they are?’

  They searched the bush. There were a lot of small birds indicating that the poison was having some effect, but no sign of any blue paper bag
s.

  ‘Maybe they’ve taken them away,’ said Hine.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Tyler climbing the fence. ‘I’ll take a closer look.’

  The trees weren’t big, but the undergrowth was thick and difficult to walk through. He walked parallel to the fence and was beginning to think the baits weren’t there, when he spotted something blue attached to the trunk of a tree.

  ‘I’ve found one,’ he called to the others. ‘If you move along a bit you’ll see it.’

  ‘Is there anything in it?’ asked Hine.

  He peered inside. There were half a dozen small pellets.

  ‘Yeah! It’s got stuff in it. I guess that’s the cyanide. It doesn’t look all that dangerous.’ A while later he climbed back over the fence.

  ‘When are you going to give your dare, Tyler?’ asked Mandy as they headed for the next marker post.

  ‘We could eat that cyanide,’ he replied, laughing.

  ‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘But remember, you have to do it first.’

  He stopped and looked at her. She wasn’t smiling. Instead, there was fire in her eyes.

  ‘It was a joke, Mandy.’

  ‘Sounded like a dare to me. What do you think, Hine?’ Hine shrugged, plainly wanting no part in the argument.

  ‘I can’t eat that. Nobody would eat that. That’s why it was a joke.’

  ‘Then you lose a life.’

  This time there was no warning to the anger. It was there, raging in his head, pressing to get out. His hands balled into fists and he stepped towards Mandy.

  Hine called, ‘Tyler!’ There was something about her voice that caused him to turn. Her hands were open, pleading with him. Her face showed real concern. ‘No Tyler, don’t,’ she said softly.

  He stared for a moment and then ran. He had to get away from them. It was the only way. He hated getting angry and he never wanted people to see him like that. The anger was a curse—a horrible curse that couldn’t be beaten. The only way was to run and hope that you left it behind.