Phantom of Terawhiti

by Des Hunt

  Searching for the bowl took several minutes — long enough for Zac to think that Tasha might have taken it. She hadn’t, although she had probably moved it for it was well away from the edge of the track. Zac stuffed it into his backpack alongside his bike tools and lunch. He stood to take a look around the bay. All was just as quiet as before, almost as if his encounter with the animal hadn’t happened.

  A short time later he was back on his bike heading around the bay. He would eat while he checked to see if anything new had washed up overnight.

  It wasn’t until he rode around the north side of the building that he discovered the vehicle that had made the tracks around the coast. Tucked away in some bushes was a ute that Americans would call a monster pick-up. All it needed was a set of horns on the bull bars and it could have been straight out of Texas.

  After another brief moment of panic, Zac figured that if anyone was in it, they would already be shouting at him. But if they weren’t there, where were they? His first thought was that they were in the cable building. However, the gate was shut and padlocked. Perhaps there would be clues in the pick-up.

  The ute’s tray was tied down with a black cover. It took only a moment to untie one corner and peer inside. It looked empty, except for a shadow on the other side that was difficult to make out. Releasing more of the cover revealed the animal bed that Zac had seen on the beach.

  ‘Why just that?’ he said to himself. ‘Why not other stuff as well?’

  Perhaps there was more in the cab. Standing on the high step he raised his head until he could see inside. There were two rows of seating. The front seats held nothing of interest, but the back seats certainly did: a pistol lying next to a box of ammunition.

  Zac’s nervousness tightened several notches. Guns were scary, especially out in this remote place where anything could happen and no one would ever know. And this wasn’t just a rifle used for hunting — this was a pistol, a gun used for shooting people. Why were these people carrying a pistol? Zac looked around nervously. Where were they?

  The answer was not long in coming. Zac was debating whether he should abandon his lunch and get out of there, when he heard a voice calling from up the valley. Although echoes distorted the words, the intent was clear: somebody was calling out.

  Climbing on his bike, Zac followed the track leading inland towards the voice. The calling continued and when he stopped to listen once more, he realized why he couldn’t make out the words. They were in another language that would never make any sense to him. Except for one word. One that was repeated more than any other.

  Tasha.

  Chapter Six

  The calling had stopped and for a while the only sound Zac could hear was the whistling of a skylark high above the valley. Then another whistle joined the bird’s song, this one from the ground and closer. Something about it was familiar.

  The tune became more obvious when the skylark stopped singing. It was coming from a nearby gully and Zac was certain he’d heard it before. But before he could identify it, a large body appeared out of the bushes, no more than ten metres away.

  The man stopped and stared. Another man joined him. He, too, stopped to glare at Zac. Both had short, round, powerful bodies, just what you would expect from security guards. But what Zac hadn’t been expecting was the rifle carried by the second man — and it was pointed dangerously close to his direction.

  ‘Why you here?’ demanded the one without the rifle.

  While Zac was thinking of a reply, the other let loose a string of foreign words. The first speaker nodded. ‘Da,’ he said, ‘Da!’ His face softened a little. He even tried a smile. Except it didn’t work — a large scar beside his mouth turned his grin into a grimace.

  ‘How you get here?’ he asked.

  ‘Around the coast,’ replied Zac.

  ‘How you pass security?’

  Zac shrugged. ‘There was no security.’

  ‘At the stream!’ yelled the man. ‘Security! Karori Stream!’

  That made more sense. ‘I came from a house between here and there.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the man. ‘You live here?’

  Zac nodded, deciding it was simpler to agree than explain.

  Another rapid burst of words from the rifle-man started a lively conversation. Although Zac couldn’t understand a word, he could see they were arguing.

  When it finished the English speaker moved forward, offering his hand. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I am Ivan.’

  Zac introduced himself, turning to the other man expecting him to do the same. He didn’t. Instead, he looked away, exposing a huge cauliflower ear that seemed to cover half the side of his head. The man had once been a rugby player, or maybe a fighter.

  ‘You find the wreck?’ asked Ivan.

  Again it was simpler to agree. Zac nodded.

  Ivan nodded in return.

  ‘Why were you calling out?’ asked Zac.

  ‘Calling?’ Ivan looked puzzled. He turned to the rifle-man and spoke quickly. After a short conversation Ivan turned back to Zac. ‘We hunt pigs.’ He pointed back up the gully. ‘There are pigs. Good food.’

  ‘You call to the pigs?’

  ‘Da. Da,’ replied Ivan, smiling and nodding furiously. ‘It is the way in Russia.’

  ‘Is “Tasha” the word for pig in Russian?’

  The smile instantly disappeared. ‘What you know about Tasha?’ Ivan demanded.

  ‘That’s what I heard you calling.’

  Rifle-man stepped forward and pointed at Zac’s backpack. He fired a stream of Russian at the boy.

  Ivan pulled his partner back. ‘Nyet!’ he shouted. Rifle-man retreated.

  Turning to Zac, Ivan asked, ‘You find things in the wreck?’ He pointed to the bay.

  ‘Only rubbish,’ said Zac.

  Ivan glared at him. ‘How you know about Tasha?’

  Zac opened his arms. ‘I just heard you calling that name.’

  ‘How you know it is name?’

  ‘It just sounded like one.’

  Again Rifle-man pointed at Zac’s backpack, this time with the rifle. Ivan nodded. ‘We look in bag, please,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ said Zac, moving the bike so that it was between him and the men.

  ‘Da!’ said Ivan, taking a step forward. Rifle-man raised the gun.

  Zac was thinking of making a run for it when a loud blast from a horn made them all jump. A truck was coasting down the valley. In it were Will and Jess. Rifle-man lowered his gun and Ivan took a step back.

  The truck stopped alongside Zac. Will wound down the window. ‘Gidday!’ he said.

  ‘Hi, Zac,’ said Jess, giving him a little wave.

  Either they hadn’t seen the confrontation or they were putting on a great act.

  ‘You two must be from the salvage company,’ said Will to the men. ‘I’m Will McGonagall, and this is my daughter, Jess. We do the fences on Terawhiti.’

  Both men nodded.

  ‘You looking for anything in particular?’

  The men stared at each other. Ivan stepped forward. ‘You were here yesterday?’

  ‘Yeah. Me and Jess were here.’

  ‘You find anything?’

  ‘Such as?’ asked Will.

  ‘A music toy,’ said Ivan.

  ‘Is it something important?’

  Ivan shrugged. ‘My boss, Mikhail, he likes it.’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  The Russian made a shape with his hands. ‘It is this big. Black. Makes music and moves.’

  Will shook his head. ‘Nah. Didn’t see anything like that. Probably at the bottom of the sea now.’

  Ivan didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Why the rifle?’ asked Will.

  ‘Security,’ said Ivan. ‘We have permit.’

  Will nodded, as if that was perfectly normal. ‘How long you gonna be working here?’

  ‘When the sea gets calm, we look under the water. Then we go.’

  ‘Should be calm tomorrow,’ said Will. �
��You might find that music thing on the bottom of the bay.’

  ‘Da,’ said Ivan.

  ‘You mind if we park in the bay and have lunch?’ asked Will. ‘We do most days.’

  The Russians just looked at each other.

  ‘Good!’ said Will. He turned to Zac, ‘You want to join us?’ He climbed out of the cab. ‘Here, I’ll give you a hand to put your bike in the back.’

  The Russians watched without comment as Will lifted the bike onto the tray. He then stood by the truck until Zac had moved around to the other side and climbed in. Only then did Will get back in.

  ‘See ya,’ he said, as he started the engine. ‘Have a nice day.’

  ‘If you take that backpack off,’ said Will when they got to the bay, ‘I’ll toss it over the back of the seat.’

  Zac wasn’t keen to lose control of the backpack; however, it would appear stupid to sit in the cab with it on. Anyway, he had to get his lunch out. With Jess’s help he got the thing off and, after removing his lunch, passed the backpack to Will.

  ‘Jeez, Zac! What you got inside here? A block of gold?’

  Close, thought Zac. ‘Tools in case my bike breaks down,’ he said.

  Will chuckled. ‘Enough tools to change the engine on this thing, by the weight of it.’ The bag was thrown behind the seat. It made a suitable clang as it hit something, almost as if it really did contain big tools.

  They sat quietly for a while, munching their lunches. There was plenty of room for three on the bench seat, yet Jess seemed to be sitting closer to Zac than her father. Uncomfortably close. Zac went to an all-boy primary school in Auckland and the only regular contact he’d had with any girl had been with his older sister. This was entirely different.

  ‘Hello,’ said Will, looking in his rear-view mirror. ‘Ivan and Yuri have made it back.’

  ‘Is that the other one’s name?’ asked Zac.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Will, with a laugh. ‘But it sounds about right.’

  ‘Dad’s always making up names for people he doesn’t like,’ said Jess. ‘Some of them are quite rude.’

  ‘Yeah, and I thought of something rude for that guy too, but didn’t think I should say it. He looks like a nasty piece of work.’ Will turned to Zac. ‘What were those two Neanderthals doing when we arrived? Yuri looked like he was about to shoot you.’

  ‘They wanted to look in my bag. They thought I had the Roldee.’

  ‘Must be important to them, to hold somebody at gunpoint.’

  ‘I can’t see how it can be of any use to them,’ said Jess. ‘All it does is play the same stupid tune over and over — I can’t make it do anything else.’ She sounded frustrated.

  ‘Did you take it home?’ asked Zac.

  ‘No.’ Jess pointed to the glove box. ‘It’s in there.’

  ‘I might be able to fix it.’

  ‘Take it,’ said Jess, stretching forward.

  ‘Not now,’ said Will, quickly. ‘The Neanderthals are coming.’

  They ate their lunch in silence as the two Russians crossed in front of the truck, moving towards the shore.

  ‘That gun looks a bit strange,’ said Will, when they were well out of hearing.

  ‘There’s another one in the ute,’ said Zac. ‘A pistol.’

  ‘Two guns! What are they expecting? An armed invasion?’

  ‘They said they were pig hunting.’

  Will snorted. ‘Rubbish! More likely they were looking for some other sort of animal. The dog they had on that yacht.’

  For a fleeting moment Zac thought of telling them about Tasha. Instead, he asked, ‘Could they hunt pigs around here?’

  ‘Sure could,’ said Will. ‘There are heaps of them.’

  ‘And goats and possums,’ added Jess.

  ‘Pigs, goats and possums are all major pests on the property,’ said Will. ‘We’ve killed more than four hundred pigs in the last few years and still there’s more.’

  ‘So people can come and shoot them?’ asked Zac.

  ‘No way,’ said Will. ‘Pig hunters from the city just add to the problem. They try not to kill all the pigs because then they’d run out of things to shoot. Instead, they only take the boars and leave the sows to breed. Some stupid idiots even try to bring pigs onto the property to add to the breeding stock! Jim only allows shooters he knows, who’ll shoot everything.’

  ‘Would there be pigs around where we’re staying?’

  ‘Sure to be. There’s some up the Waiariki Valley. And it’s easy for the hunters to get in there from the shore. I’ve seen their vehicles parked by the stream.’

  ‘That’s where that dog will go,’ said Jess.

  ‘Could be one of the places,’ added Will.

  ‘The Terawhiti Ghost,’ said Jess. ‘That’s what Dad called it.’

  Will nudged her. ‘Enough of that, Jess. We don’t even know there is a dog for sure, let alone giving it a name. That’s how rumours start.’

  ‘Dad told me about the Terawhiti Ghost, last night,’ said Zac.

  Will chuckled. ‘So he knows about the wild dogs. I was only a nipper at the time, but I remember it well.’

  They spent the rest of lunchtime talking about wild dogs and other things that had happened on Terawhiti Station in the past. Will could tell a story much better than Crawford. Maybe that was because Will had a stronger attachment to the place. McGonagalls had worked the property on and off for more than a hundred years. It was clear to Zac that, even though Will might joke about the Terawhiti Ghost, beneath the surface he was worried that history was about to repeat itself.

  Chapter Seven

  After dinner that night Zac sat on his bed with the Roldee, trying to make it work. The only tools he had were those for his bike and utensils from the kitchen. They were next to useless. When he finally managed to remove the waterproof seals and get at the locking screws, he found they needed a special screwdriver. Short of smashing the toy with a hammer, he’d never get it open.

  The thing was operated by six waterproof buttons, with an LCD showing the status. Except the display was mostly black where the liquid crystals had leaked. He’d downloaded an operating manual which gave the button sequences to choose the various options, but only one worked — the one that played music. And even this didn’t seem to operate properly: there was just one tune that played over and over. Already he was sick of balalaika music.

  In the end he gave up and climbed into bed. But the tune wouldn’t let him sleep. Instead, he began working through the events of the day, particularly the encounter with the Russians — or Neanderthals, as Will called them. It was a good name: Zac could imagine them wearing bearskins and living in a cave. They could be called Ug and Og instead of Ivan and Yuri …

  Again the tune interrupted his thoughts. Where else had he heard it that day? Then it came to him. It was the whistling he’d heard coming from the gully. Somehow that tune was linked to Tasha. He now had no doubts that the two men were looking for her: they had called her name, whistled the tune, and reacted guiltily when he’d asked why they’d been calling out. Maybe the tune was important in finding her.

  But making that link still didn’t allow him to sleep. The tune playing in his head was replaced by a whole lot of questions. Why the gun? Surely they wouldn’t want to kill Tasha? Wouldn’t their boss, Mikhail Popanov, want her kept alive? And why the secrecy? Was there something illegal about the animal?

  After an hour of these questions demanding his attention, Zac gave up any further attempt to get to sleep. He got up, went to his computer, and began to search the net for answers. A search for ‘dogs on yachts New Zealand’ yielded a possible answer to the secrecy question:

  Any animals must be secured on board, preferably below decks. If you are arriving with a dog or cat on board, contact the MAF inspector at port of arrival before coming alongside.

  Maybe Tasha had never been declared when the Anastasia first arrived …

  Then, on a different site, Zac found:

  The foll
owing four breeds cannot be imported into New Zealand: American pit bull terrier, dogo Argentino, Brazilian fila, and Japanese tosa.

  This was another possibility. Although he knew the animal he’d seen wasn’t a pit bull, maybe it was one of the others. After a brief search he narrowed it down to the dogo Argentino — the only breed that was white. One of the images even showed one with shadowy spots, just like he’d seen on Tasha.

  The problem was he couldn’t say for sure that what he’d seen was a dog. It could have been some other animal. He thought of dog-sized animals he knew that had paws: bears, cats, otters, badgers, wolverines … None of them was white, unless albino. A short time later he found a website that showed a big range of albino mammals, and there he found an animal that could have been what he’d seen. The colour and spots were perfect, except the body seemed a bit too thick. A younger one would, of course, be smaller. If he was right, then Mikhail Popanov would have plenty of reasons for keeping Tasha secret.

  It could also explain the gun. Will had commented on the gun looking strange. Maybe it didn’t shoot bullets. Zac’s next search was for ‘tranquilizer gun’. Three clicks later he was looking at the rifle Yuri had been carrying. Now it all slipped into place: Tasha was not your usual pet, and the Neanderthals had been given the job of capturing her. A dart gun was needed because she’d be frightened by the unfamiliar surroundings. Possibly, she had never lived in the wild before.

  Satisfied with his solution, Zac went back to bed and quickly fell asleep.

  In the early hours of the morning, Zac woke to a noise coming from outside.

  Somebody’s out there!

  He lay on his back, scarcely breathing, waiting for the sound to come again. When five minutes of silence had passed he moved to the window and peeked through a gap in the curtains. There was enough light to see dark shapes but he couldn’t make out details. Nothing seemed to be moving. Still, it would be best to check with a torch.