“Thank you, sergeant. That was so exciting. I thought the battle in The Square was good. But this was much, much more convincing. I see now what you were hinting at earlier…Palmerston North really knows how to do a sham fight. We almost didn’t come…but we won’t miss the next one. And I’ll be enlisting as soon as I turn eighteen in two years.”
30
Dead Shot at Work
Dead Shot balanced on his hind legs and thrust himself forward into the mare who had lowered her rear in his direction, her tail raised.
“She was ready for that one,” said Mr. Jordan. “When they’re ready, they’re ready. Wish women were like that. You never know with women.”
Frank nodded. Mette had been very down since they’d captured Ernest, turning away from him every night for the last week. She had accepted his apology for the argument, and for not allowing her to drive the trap, and was already visiting her sister and making excursions into town. But he could tell she was unhappy about something.
He’d been taking Dead Shot around the district, mating him two or three times a day with the local mares, raking in the fees. Today he was in the paddock behind Mr. Jordan’s saddlery with one mare just finished and two more waiting in line for their turn. Dead Shot had achieved a measure of fame from the review, especially the sham battle. Even the mayor had sought out his services for an older mare he had in his stable who happened to be in heat. Dead Shot was not particular and the mayor was thrilled when his mare fell with a foal.
Frank had already made good money from the venture, and Mr. Milroy was pleased. He’d promised to leave his horse with Frank for the rest of the mating season, even though the threats against him up in Patea had ceased and Ernest was safely out of the way. With a total of fifty mares serviced at three guineas clear per shot he’d be able to pay off his overdraft and have a little put aside for the winter. Life was looking up.
Now, if Dolores would cooperate and go into heat, giving him a winning horse of his own, everything would be splendid.
He still wasn’t sure what the whole thing had been about. What had possessed Ernest to do what he’d done? Inspector James had pressed Ernest and his co-conspirators, but they had refused to cooperate. Thinking that they were afraid of someone, he had decided to risk taking his troopers into the farm near Hawera. All he’d discovered was that the old soldier Inspector Pardy from New Plymouth suspected was the leader of the gang had died over a year before and was buried on the farm.
Inspector Pardy did mention that Dead Shot had been born and bred on that farm, and sold later in an estate sale, as Mr. Milroy had said. And the farm clearly operated as a gang base, even without the old soldier-gone-bad. The farmhouse itself had fallen into disrepair but items found there indicated the presence of various people at some point. It was a stop on an underground railway of sorts. Frank had a strong feeling that there was a presence still out there who had managed the whole affair. But whoever it was had gone to ground.
Inspector James visited them one last time, and asked Mette if she’d be willing to testify against Ernest, and against Bernard. Ernest was having a bad time with his broken leg, and walking with some difficulty. Agnete had implicated him in his father’s murder, but her testimony would not be held to much account because of her own chequered history.
The inspector expected Ernest to get off with a short sentence, and was thinking of sending him back to Gippsland, where he was wanted for, of all things, sly grogging - selling liquor without a licence. Clearly the temperance stance had been a front. He’d also left a wife there and would be arrested for desertion the minute he set foot in Melbourne. Save the Crown cost of a long trial with the same result.
As for Bernard, Inspector James was convinced that with Mette’s testimony he would be sent to the gallows.
“It won’t be pleasant,” he told Mette. “I was present at a hanging back in ‘71, in Hokitika. Anthony Noble, a coloured man who violated a young girl named Mary Jane Malaumby and then cut her throat with a sharpened tomahawk. It was his second offence. He’d already spent three years in prison for a violent assault on a woman. And we found him soon after the murder covered in blood. He was left-handed and the weapon was a left-handed tomahawk. No doubt in my mind he did it, and he got what he deserved. But in this case we only have your word - although I saw him attack the pair of you outside the hotel. His defence will come at you vigorously.”
Mette had gone white. “But I won’t need to watch him hang, will I?”
“Of course not, unless you want to. In Noble’s case it was a quick death, but sometimes they struggle…”
Frank caught Mette as she fainted. “She’ll testify,” he said to the inspector. “But she’ll need some time to come to terms with it first. I’ll do what I can to help.”
He felt unsettled. And things didn’t get better when Will Karira arrived at the farm one morning accompanied by Wiki and the two men from Motuiti Marae. Karira was dressed casually in mole trousers and a plaid shirt, and wearing a shark tooth on a piece of leather around his neck. What was stranger, he’d had someone tattoo his face - not full moko, but a small design in the centre of his forehead. Wiki’s grandmother was a Tohunga Ta Moko - a tattoo artist - but Frank was under the impression her mind had deteriorated. She wasn’t able to take care of her grandson, and Hohepa had come to live with Frank and Mette, sharing the soddy with his brother Hemi. But perhaps the skill stayed with her even though her mind had gone.
“Has something happened, Will?” he asked.
Karira nodded. “I’m sorry, Frank. I won’t be able to help you with the agency any more.”
“Why…? Never mind. We should probably close it down. We weren’t doing much business anyway. Are you going somewhere?”
Karira stared at Frank for a long time. “I’m going up to Parihaka,” he said finally.
Frank was shocked. “Parihaka? But why? You’ve never been…is it because of Wiki?”
“Partly,” said Karira. “She helped me see the light. But you know how things are for Maori. You must have heard what people say or think. I’ve been getting more and more annoyed about it since my uncle sold the pa. Even people who mean well, like Inspector James, say things that irritate and insult me.”
“What if there’s a war?” said Frank. “And I’m sent to the front? It’s looking more and more likely. I can’t fight you…I think of you as my brother. I always have.”
“Anahera is there,” said Wiki. “You won’t mind fighting him…”
He didn’t have the heart to tell Mette. She had taken on the boys, Wiki’s brothers, and was treating them as if they were her own sons. He felt himself sinking into a black mood once more.
31
The Long Shot
“You’re a mess,“ Mette said to Frank. “You can’t have brushed your hair for weeks - and it’s much too long. You look like a wild man from the woods.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I haven’t had time to think about it. I should visit Mr. Nash at his barber shop.”
“Do that next time you’re in town with Dead Shot.”
“I’m not taking him anywhere until he’s serviced Dolores. And who knows how long that will be? She’s taking her time. I could do with a bath. Could you heat some water for me?”
She put the kettle on the hob and watched him drag the hip bath into the kitchen. Filling the bath was a slow job, and he stripped off and sat in it before it was half full, impatient as always. As he lathered himself with a bar of Pears’ soap, a luxury they could almost afford these days, she topped up the water with kettles full of hot water, careful not to scald him in the process. He looked nice. She wished she could squeeze into the bath with him.
“That feels good,” he said. “I haven’t felt this clean since our wedding day.”
“You looked better on our wedding day,” said Mette. “You had a nice trim haircut and beard. You can’t wait until you go into town. I’m going to give you a hair cut now.”
She too
k a towel off the towel horse, where it had been drying for several days, and draped it around his shoulders. “Now, sit up and I’ll cut your hair. I can’t promise I’ll do as good a job as Mr. Nash, but you’ll look more presentable than you do now.”
“Delilah,” he said, leaning back and enjoying the attention. “You want to take away my strength.”
The sun was still high, a long way from setting on this beautiful summer evening, but they decided to go up to the blind in the high paddock anyway. They felt safe now that Ernest and Bernard were under lock and key in the Wanganui Gaol. The trial was still months away, and it seemed for the moment that everything had returned to normal.
But Mette could not stop thinking about the baby. She had missed her monthly for the last two months, but she felt nothing - no sickness in the morning, no movement inside her. She was sure now that there had been a baby, and that it was gone. She thought about him constantly, imagining him being born, starting to walk, to talk, to laugh with them. It was as if his spirit had continued growing. Sometimes, with all the war talk simmering, she thought it would be better if her baby was a girl, and she reimagined the story that way. A girl would not be sent away to war.
They left Hemi in charge of the stable and of Dead Shot - glowering in his stall, champing at the bit, ready to mate with the unwilling Dolores or any other mare who crossed his path - and walked up the narrow path beside the fence to the high paddock.
Frank stuck his head into the soddy to leave instructions with the boys. “Hemi, if you see Delores getting restless and running around the paddock flicking her tail, come up and get me.”
Mette was embarrassed at the thought of Dolores having to do that. She was glad she could just tell Frank when she wanted him, and didn’t have to play silly games. At the moment she had no desire to run around the paddock herself, so she sympathized with Delores.
“The light is really good today,” said Frank after he’d spoken to Hemi. “I think I’ll take my gun with me.”
Mette wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Your gun? That isn’t very nice when we’re sitting up in the blind watching the sun go down. Do you want to shoot something? A poor little rabbit or stoat who’s not causing anyone any trouble?”
He grinned at her and slung his Snider-Enfield over his shoulder. “I was thinking you might like to shoot something,” he said. “Didn’t you ask me to teach you? To protect yourself?”
“I suppose I did,” she said. “But I feel safe now.” She looked at the gun with its polished oak stock and long metal barrel. It was part of him. He was still a soldier, whatever else he had become. She needed to understand everything about him. “I’ll let you show me how to use it as long as I don’t have to shoot at anything living.”
“We’ll shoot at the treetops,” he said. “But first I have to show you how to load. Once you master that I’ll give you a chance to shoot the top off a tree. The tree won’t feel a thing, I promise.”
They reached the blind. Mette sat beside Frank and watched him load his gun. It seemed very complicated.
“See this?” he said. “This piece on the top is the hammer. You pull back on it so it’s in the half-cocked position. Then you pull this part open - the breech block.” He took a cartridge from his pocket. “You put this cartridge into the breech - the cartridges are self-contained so nothing else needs to be added…”
Mette yawned. “Do I have to know all this? Can’t I just shoot at a tree?”
“I suppose so,” said Frank. He snapped the breech closed. “The main thing to learn is how to aim and shoot. Once you feel comfortable holding and aiming the gun we can get into other details. Now watch.”
He stood with the rifle resting against his shoulder and stared along the barrel at a tree halfway down the hill that ran towards the river. She saw him take a deep breath and exhale. He stopped breathing, staying completely still. His finger moved slowly on the trigger. There was a tremendously loud bang and a cloud of smoke, and he dropped the stock so the barrel pointed at the ground. She was so interested in watching him that she missed seeing where the shot had gone.
“Did you see that?”
She looked. The top of the pine tree had disappeared. “I’m sorry. I was too busy watching you…why did you hold your breath like that?”
“You have to slow yourself down, to concentrate. Listen to your own heartbeat. If you breathe too much you make the barrel move. Do you want to try?”
“Sergeant Frank, Sergeant Frank…”
Mette jumped to her feet and looked back towards the farm. “It’s Hohepa…Delores must be…”
Hohepa appeared over the crest of the high paddock, his face red from running up hill. “Sergeant Frank…there’s someone here to see you. A carriage is coming down the lane.”
“Another customer,“ said Frank. “I’ll go down and tell him he’ll have to wait until after Dolores…stay here Mette. I won’t be long, I promise. And then we can watch the sunset together.” He took two cartridges from his pocket. “Practice loading with these, but don’t shoot. I’ll show you how when I return. This gun pulls to the right, so you need to take that into account…”
She sat with the rifle across her knee and practiced opening and closing the breech. It wasn’t difficult. She wondered how it would feel to shoot at someone. She couldn’t do it, she was sure, even if her life depended on it. Well, perhaps Bernard, but he was in gaol.
Frank did not return. She practiced aiming at another tree and could almost imagine the top flying off. Eventually she was bored. She put down the gun, stood up and looked over the edge of the blind.
Frank was by the gate to the paddock talking to a man she thought she recognized. A tallish, thin man with stooped shoulders. She couldn’t see how he’d arrived, but the farm gate was open as if he’d walked through from the road. He’d probably left his trap outside somewhere along the grassy verge. People often did. She imagined them deep in a long discussion about horse racing or cricket, or the coming war. Just as well she hadn’t gone down there with him. Hohepa was standing with his back to the man, and the man’s hand was resting on his shoulder. He looked familiar, he really did.
She sat down, put one of the cartridges into the breech and snapped it shut with a nice loud click. Now she was this far she wanted to shoot at something. Ernest, for example, or…Her mind wandered around in the past few weeks, and suddenly she remembered where she’d seen the man talking to Frank. She hopped up to take another look. Surely it was Mrs. Patterson’s coachman? What would he be doing here? He still had his hand on Hohepa’s shoulder, but now it looked threatening. Frank had his hands above his head and had backed away. She heard raised voices. Hohepa screamed something - did he say He Kino? Surely Ernest hadn’t come back. Yes, she was sure. He had said He Kino.
It came to her in a rush. She’d seen Bernard for the first time at Ernest’s place; he was with Mrs. Patterson, and the coachman was waiting outside. Someone had brought Hohepa back to the hut, and he’d said it was He Kino. At that point she hadn’t realized He Kino was Ernest. But perhaps he wasn’t. And Hohepa had claimed to have seen He Kino from the window of the hotel, when Ernest had already run off into the bush.
And another thing. when Frank and Inspector James arrived at the book shop, Ernest was gone. The coachman must have warned Ernest. Why hadn’t they seen that? The coachman was another gang member, placed there by the Australians. But because he was a coachman they hadn’t paid attention to him. He was just a part of the scenery. She didn’t even know his name.
The coachman had something in his hand now. A gun, pointed at Hohepa’s head. Frank was walking slowly towards the stable. She knew with a cold certainty that he would kill both Frank and Hohepa before he left with Dead Shot.
She realized she was clutching Frank’s gun, and it was loaded. If only Frank had shown her how to shoot. But she had watched him do it…maybe she could take a shot…even hit the target.
She rested the barrel of the gun on the back of the blind
and looked down through the sight. Her heart was pounding. No time to breath slowly and calm herself. The barrel swayed wildly from side to side and she could feel panic rising…what if she pulled the trigger and hit Frank?
Frank had reached the stable, and released Dead Shot into the paddock.
She saw the coachman’s arm move upwards. He was going to kill Frank. Mette moved the gun slightly to the left so she would be sure to miss Frank and Hohepa, held her breath, then pulled gently on the trigger. The explosion was deafening, but the recoil was worse. The gun stock punched against her shoulder and sent her flying. But before she fell back she saw that she had missed, although not by much. A puff of dirt rose from the ground inches from where the coachman was standing, and hung in the air. He jumped back and stared up in her direction, his gun no longer against Hohepa’s head. Hohepa sprang away from him.
She had another cartridge. But how could she put a new one in when the spent cartridge was still in the breech? It took her a minute, but she managed to eject the cartridge, moving slowly so she did not drop the second cartridge. This time she had to hit him or he would surely kill Frank. She laid the barrel on the back of the blind and aimed at him, not bothering to move it to the left. Frank had stepped forward and was looking up towards the blind, nodding. In her mind she heard him say, “Shoot, Mette. Shoot.”
The three of them were spread out, and she felt more confident that she could hit him this time. She could see Frank edging towards the coachman.
She took a deep breath, breathed out slowly, and squeezed the trigger gently. But as she did, she felt the tiniest of flutters in her belly. She stopped for a second, and felt it again. A child, alive. Inside her.
Without thinking about it, she raised the gun higher, aiming at the trees behind the house. She could not kill someone when a new life was growing inside her. But at least another shot might give Frank a chance to jump on the coachmen. She pulled the trigger, this time bracing herself against the recoil. The stock punched into her shoulder, and she could feel a bruise forming; but she had not shot as high as she intended. She saw the bullet hit the corner of the house, causing splinters of wood to shower downwards onto the coachman and Frank, who was edging towards towards the coachman.
Dead Shot Page 20
