The Fire Blossom (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  “Do understand. Understand hipi, hipi is sheep! Pakeha man bad, pakeha man want my sheep!”

  “Come!” Ida began to run. “We have to get to the village. Who knows what could have happened!”

  “But she must have misunderstood something. She—” Cat ran after Ida.

  Kunari hurried along next to the agitated Chasseur.

  “Kamakama!” she kept shouting. Quickly!

  “She never would have left the sheep if she wasn’t terrified,” Ida yelled. “Something’s happening in the village. And the children are there!”

  Chris and Karl had almost arrived at Fenroy Station when they heard the shots. With Buddy’s help, they were driving a herd of lively young ewes toward the farm. The shearer’s foreman hadn’t been exaggerating. Butler’s sheep were a perfect match for their own, and the captain had given them a fair price. They’d also had a good visit with Butler himself, and his pretty wife hadn’t wanted to let the rare visitors leave. In the end, the men had stayed much longer than they’d intended. Karl was already worried about Ida. At the sound of the shots, the scared sheep ran in all directions.

  “What was that?” Chris asked nervously.

  Karl whistled to Buddy and chased the escapees on Brandy.

  “Ida’s hunting,” he guessed. “That’s no rifle, it’s a revolver. The Brandmanns will probably be having roast rabbit for dinner. Maybe we’ll get some if we ask nicely.”

  Chris shook his head. “If Ida’s hunting, that means Ottfried left. Where could he have gone now? Where did the shots come from?”

  He briefly scanned the plains, and saw a boat approaching on the Waimakariri.

  “That must be Pete!” He waved to the boatman.

  “Fenroy, Jensch!” Pete returned the greeting and steered his boat to the riverbank. “It’s good you’re here. I was gonna look for you at Butler’s farm. As soon as I heard what happened with the Redwoods, I came here as fast as I could. I—”

  “What did you hear?” Chris said, interrupting him in alarm, and slid off his horse. He caught the line that Pete tossed to him and pulled the boat closer. “We just got back now.”

  “You were looking for us?” Karl’s expression was fearful. “Did something happen?”

  “No, not yet,” Pete said as he disembarked. “But it could. The Redwoods are on their way here with the sheriff of Port Cooper. You know, that milksop, O’Malley. Apparently, they found their stolen sheep with your Maori tribe. They’re demanding them back and want to have the chieftain arrested.”

  Karl and Chris looked at each other. Wairau. Karl tried not to give in to panic.

  “We’ll be able to sort it out,” Chris said, and got on his horse again. “The Maori bought the animals in good faith. From Ottfried.”

  “Ottie?” Pete grinned. “It was he who put the bee in the Redwoods’ bonnets, and he’s leading the search party, or whatever you call it.”

  “Search party?” Karl asked. “I thought the Redwoods and O’Malley—”

  Pete shook his head. “Certainly not. The Redwoods don’t do things by halves. And the sheriff will shit his pants when he sees the Maori. He won’t go anywhere without cavalry if he’s intending to arrest a Maori chieftain.”

  Chris groaned. “How many?”

  Pete shrugged. “Around twenty men.”

  The men and O’Malley started when they heard two shots in quick succession.

  “Is it a trap?” O’Malley asked fearfully. “Are some of the savages behind us?”

  Te Konuta and the other young warriors were walking ahead. They passed through the gate in the simple fence made of woven raupo leaves that surrounded the village. The Maori had gathered by their houses, none seeming concerned about the sound of gunfire. The pakeha reached for their muskets again. Some of them played nervously with their bayonets, as though they could hardly wait to attach them to the weapons.

  Ottfried trembled too. He hadn’t considered shooting here in the plains. He wondered if Chris and Karl had returned. That could endanger his plan.

  The Redwood brothers could have told Ottfried what was happening. They surely recognized that the shots had come from Laura’s revolver, which they knew belonged to Ida now. However, they were concentrating too much on the Maori to notice the other men’s nerves.

  Ottfried felt the settlers’ fear almost physically. In the middle of an entire village full of traditionally dressed, muscle-bound, armed warriors with spears and war clubs, the newcomers were scared to death. The sheriff trembled even more than his troops. If Ottfried had a little luck, he wouldn’t even have to take the initiative. It was very likely that one of the other men would lose his nerve.

  Then Te Haitara and Jane Fenroy stepped forward from the group of village dignitaries. A few warriors followed the chieftain. The tension in the men behind Ottfried grew. Te Haitara looked particularly threatening, as tall and strong as he was. He radiated power. However, Jane Fenroy’s presence seemed to help ease the situation. The white woman made an impressive sight in her colorful skirt and tight woven top. O’Malley and his men stared as though entranced by her necklaces and hei tiki, and even more by her loose hair, which was held back with a wide traditional headband. They’d never seen an Englishwoman dressed in such a manner. The men’s tension gave way to confusion and interest when Jane began to speak.

  “My name is Jane, and I would like to welcome you to this village in the name of my husband, Te Haitara. The Ngai Tahu people are hospitable, and the village elders and the chieftain would like to welcome you to our tribe with a ceremony. We—”

  “Madam, I don’t want to interrupt you, but we are here on serious business.”

  Joseph Redwood had politely removed his hat, and Ottfried noticed that the men around him were starting to relax. He desperately tried to think of a way to force events to go his way as Redwood explained his problem. The woman facing them was far more authoritative than Te Konuta had been. O’Malley even bowed to her, and politely asked the chieftain for his opinion regarding the Redwoods’ accusation. The settlers had taken their hands off their muskets. The situation wouldn’t escalate by itself. If Ottfried wanted to save himself, he’d have to act, and it would have to be now. If Jane accused him, it’d be all over.

  Ottfried pulled out his musket and aimed carefully. It was more important now than it had been in Wairau. Then, it hadn’t mattered if he’d hit anything; the main point had been to fire the first shot. But here, the success of the venture depended on the shot reaching its target. Ottfried calmed his shaking hands with the thought that he would definitely be able to shoot more than once. Te Haitara’s men wouldn’t return fire, at least effectively. Two of the warriors were carrying hunting rifles, but that was nothing compared to the total firepower of the pakeha.

  Ida and Cat rushed toward the village, followed by Kunari and Chasseur. When they entered the gate, they realized that the villagers were standing together, facing their visitors. Ida was relieved. Everything looked peaceful. The Maori seemed to have planned a powhiri, and Jane was speaking the first words of greeting. Whatever the issue was, she was surely eloquent enough to set everything to rights. The women could see her irritated expression when James Redwood and Sheriff O’Malley spoke.

  “. . . so we demand that you show us the animals immediately, and if what the Redwoods say is true, give them back!”

  They watched as Jane’s face first reflected confusion, and then anger. She paused to consider her reply.

  Cat didn’t find the scene at all peaceful. It was far too similar to Wairau, which had been burned into her memory forever. Once more, there were two groups from different cultures facing off, and once more, one side was full of scared, heavily armed men. Cat carefully scanned the ranks of the pakeha men and saw the muzzle of a gun flash in the sunlight.

  “Jane! Get down!” Cat screamed, but the sound of gunfire was louder than her voice.

  Chris and Karl heard the shot as their horses galloped through the village gate. History was repeatin
g itself, and they had arrived too late.

  Cat watched as Jane reeled backward in shock. Rigid with horror, she expected to see a red stain blossom on her chest, as it had on Te Ronga’s. But Jane was still on her feet. The space of a heartbeat stretched into hours. Cat looked back toward the shooter and saw Ottfried Brandmann. He put his hand to his chest and collapsed. Then she heard Ida next to her.

  “I shot him, Cat. I shot him.” Ida’s voice was flat, and her gun was still smoking.

  Chris and Karl guided their horses determinedly between the Maori and the Englishmen. The Redwood brothers were bent over Ottfried, and O’Malley looked confused. He glared at the Maori and his troops, who seemed to be just about to break into a panic. The white men raised their weapons.

  “Clear for action!” someone shouted.

  But other voices commanded them to hold their fire.

  Te Haitara’s warriors gathered around their chieftain, who was focused on protecting Jane. The young woman had gone deathly pale, and had wrapped her bleeding left hand in her right. Ottfried’s shot must have grazed her. He had fired as he had fallen, taken down by Ida’s last bullet.

  “I shot him! God will punish me. I shot him, I shot my husband, I—” Ida’s whispers swelled into sobbing, stammering, and wailing. “God will punish me, oh God, oh God, I shot him—”

  “Otherwise, he would have killed Jane!”

  Cat felt like shaking Ida, but then she realized there were more urgent things to do. Chris and Karl were talking to the pakeha, but the Maori were armed too. She had to keep any more shots from being fired. It mustn’t happen again.

  “Don’t shoot!” Cat heard Karl’s commanding voice, and Chris repeated the words in Maori. The bodies of their horses created a living barrier between the two parties. “Do not shoot! Lower your weapons! This was an accident, someone shot by mistake—”

  It was the old excuse for what had happened in Wairau. But now Cat could see things more clearly, and the full force of the realization struck her like a blow.

  “No!” she cried. “That was no accident, just as it wasn’t an accident in Wairau. It was Ottfried. I saw him. He deliberately aimed at Jane, the chieftain’s wife. And—and it wasn’t the first time!”

  Cat glanced at the lifeless body and felt her certainty grow. She turned to Fenroy. “It was him, Chris. Ottfried killed Te Ronga.”

  “Who fired?”

  Slowly, order was returning to the meeting ground, and Sheriff O’Malley was starting to get himself under control, now that the imminent danger of escalation had passed.

  “Who shot first?” Joseph Redwood corrected him, and fixed the Maori with a threatening stare. No one could do anything for Ottfried Brandmann.

  Chris looked at Cat and then Ida, who had sunk to the ground, sobbing hysterically, the revolver still in her hand. “Apparently, it was Ida,” he said as calmly as he could. “A fraction of a second before Ottfried. Otherwise, Jane would be dead.”

  “Who is Ida?” O’Malley asked, and looked uncomprehendingly at the fragile young woman with the heavy weapon.

  While Chris tried to find other words to explain, Karl got off his horse, took the revolver from Ida’s hand, and held her comfortingly in his arms.

  “This is Ida Brandmann,” he said, introducing her. “She is—”

  “I’m his wife,” she sobbed. “I killed him, I—”

  O’Malley rubbed his temples. “Could someone please explain to me what happened here? Is this about sheep theft or murdering a husband?”

  Cat squared her shoulders. She would have to set things straight, even though she didn’t feel less confused or filled with grief than Ida did. Her friend had to come to terms with her husband’s death at her own hand, and Cat with the knowledge that her foster mother had not died in an unfortunate accident, but had been murdered.

  “This was a desperate attempt to disguise a theft,” she explained. “The Ngai Tahu didn’t steal your sheep. It was Ottfried Brandmann. When he became afraid that you might figure it out, he sold the animals to the Maori.”

  “And then he accused chieftain of the theft!” James Redwood said.

  “He just wanted to get rid of the creatures as quickly as possible. But when he heard that you were coming, he knew you would see the sheep sooner or later,” Cat went on. “So he needed a scapegoat.”

  “That would have come out too,” Joseph said.

  “Of course,” Cat said. “Jane Fenroy was about to explain everything.”

  “And then that swine tried to shoot her!” Chris said. “Oh God, Cat! Wairau . . .”

  O’Malley could draw no parallels. He had enough to do with understanding the current event.

  “But there must have been other people who knew,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been enough if just Miss Jane—”

  James Redwood rolled his eyes. He probably knew nothing about Wairau either, but he could easily imagine how a chieftain would react to the murder of his wife. “Naturally, he assumed that the Maori would shoot back,” he explained to the naive sheriff. “Brandmann wanted to start a shoot-out.”

  Te Haitara, for whom Chris and Cat had been alternately translating, interjected something.

  “Not a shoot-out,” Chris said, correcting him. “A massacre. The Ngai Tahu have no guns. In their anger, they would have charged at the pakeha with spears and war clubs, and of course they wouldn’t have had a chance. Your men would have obliterated this tribe, O’Malley. And that’s exactly what Ottfried wanted.”

  The sheriff went pale. “So how did his wife manage to shoot him?”

  He gazed helplessly at the weeping Ida. Makutu was with her now, speaking gently in the Maori language. She led her into one of the houses.

  “Ida and I arrived here just as he was aiming at Jane,” Cat said. “We saw him. I screamed, but no one heard me—only Ida. It was the only way to stop him. It was the only way to prevent a massacre.”

  “Hmm.” O’Malley nodded. Then he bent down to examine Ottfried’s body. “The angle is right,” he said. “I still can’t believe it, but it really looks that way. Any woman who can shoot a revolver is incredible! And the fact that she also hit her mark is an amazing coincidence. As though God’s hand—”

  James Redwood smiled grimly. “Miss Ida can do that without any help from God,” he remarked. “That little lady could shoot like the devil. From the very beginning.”

  Chapter 69

  It was a serious break with tradition, but not even Makutu protested when the chieftain canceled the powhiri. Jane Fenroy, who had pulled herself together quickly after one of the women cleaned and bandaged her wound, encouraged the tribe to take the Redwoods, O’Malley, and his troops into their circle of friends without a formal ceremony and feed them. There was beer and whiskey, and the women cooked over quickly lit fires. Ottfried Brandmann’s body was brought into the chieftain’s house to be prepared for burial. The sheriff recorded the events seriously and carefully in a notebook. He questioned everyone who had been involved, from Te Haitara to the Redwood brothers, and wrote down their statements.

  “But it doesn’t totally add up,” he finally said. “There were multiple people who knew he’d sold the sheep to the Maori. And if there had been a massacre, the governor would have ordered an investigation.”

  “Other than Jane and the tribe, only we knew about the sale,” Chris explained. “Karl, Cat, Ida, and I. And who knows how Ottfried was planning to keep us quiet. In any case, he would have had months to take care of it before any investigators arrived.”

  “It didn’t add up at Wairau either,” Cat said softly.

  She’d just sat down with the men again, after coaxing Karl out of the hut where Makutu had brought Ida. The young woman had wept and lamented, finally falling into a restless sleep. Now Makutu was keeping an eye on her, and Kunari was singing to her softly. Cat had concluded that the best thing she and Karl could do was let Ida rest—and Cat desperately needed a whiskey. Now she took a large swallow.

  “Wair
au Valley, you mean? I do remember hearing about that. A chieftain’s wife was shot,” O’Malley said. “But what does that have to do with this?”

  Chris and Cat filled him in quickly about the plight of the German settlers and Wakefield’s expedition to the Ngati Toa, intended to force them to give up the Wairau Valley.

  “And the whole thing escalated after an accidental shot was fired by the pakeha,” Cat said. “It killed my foster mother, Te Ronga. But now I know it was no accident. Just like today, Ottfried wanted to start a shoot-out. He wanted a fight between the Maori and the pakeha. If Arthur Wakefield had annihilated the Ngati Toa, the Wairau Valley would have been theirs!”

  Chris nodded. “And it almost worked. Colonel Wakefield was very close to sending soldiers. Without Tuckett, and if there had been a less sensible governor in the North Island, it could have happened.”

  “That could have never been Ottfried’s plan,” Karl said. “I’ve known him since we were boys. God knows I never liked him! But Ottfried never would have been able to come up with such a deceitful, complicated plan. Especially not back then. I know you knew him as a gambler and a racketeer. But back then, before Sankt Pauli Village was founded, he was an undiscerning, pious boy from Raben Steinfeld. He was arrogant and lazy, but certainly not a murderer. No, if the Wairau shooting was planned, that plan was made by someone else.”

  “Brandmann and Lange,” Cat said, and took another swallow of whiskey. She passed the bottle to Chris. “His father and Ida’s. They wanted to fulfill their dream of a new Raben Steinfeld, no matter the price. They sent Ottfried to Wairau, with a musket. Ida told me they’d bought a weapon especially for him, and probably with exact instructions about how he was to use it.”

  “They wouldn’t have had to be so exact, really,” Karl added, thinking of his own ineptitude with the weapon he’d been given for the Wairau expedition. “I bet he wasn’t even trying to shoot Te Ronga. His task was probably just to fire into the air.”

  “That would have worked better,” Chris said. “Then Te Rauparaha wouldn’t have executed Wakefield and his troops. There would have been a few shots fired, and the Maori would have chased the settlers back to their boats. Wakefield would have been furious, and would have returned later with all the soldiers he could find to decimate the village, without telling the governor anything about it.”