Not the Faintest Trace

by Wendy M Wilson

  “Best to avoid the bush paths now anyway,” he said. “Our friend from the other day, the piglet thief, is apparently hanging around up behind the mill. One of the…someone I spoke to the other day saw him there.”

  She sighed. “I must stay in the clearing always, I suppose. That will make for a dull life.” Her hand pushed absently at the washing, trying to make it go away, causing to water to turn pink. If he could, he would kill the bastard who’d violated her.

  “Tell me about the boys,” he said after a while. “Paul and Jens. I’m trying to discover what happened to them, for Hans Christian and Pieter.”

  She stopped pushing at the washing.

  “They were happy boys, full of life. Jens – he’s my cousin, or at least the cousin of my cousin. He’s like a brother to me. Paul was his friend. They did everything together, but Paul was the leader. They came from Schleswig last year, Paul first so he’s learned more English. They built themselves a raupo whare up near the logging camp and they lived…to tell the truth they lived like two pigs. But happy pigs.” She smiled slightly at her own joke.

  “What do you think has happened to them?” Frank asked, not mentioning he had been to the boy’s whare.

  “Sometimes I think they must have drowned, but then I know they could swim a little, or at least Paul could, and it seems strange that they would both drown. I wonder sometimes if someone killed them and hid them away. Like perhaps the Hauhauwho tried to take my piglet.”

  “If he was a Hauhau, which he may not be,” said Frank. “More likely a deserter who’s been living in the bush for years. He’d face a disciplinary hearing if he came out. Hanging, possibly.”

  She put her hand to her throat.

  “What a terrible punishment for someone who doesn’t want to fight. Is it right, do you think, to hang someone who runs away from the fighting?”

  He was torn for a moment, and then found himself telling her the story he’d told Hop Li.

  “My own brother deserted,” he said. “He was in the 57th, the Die-Hards, with me, but the discipline was too much for him and he went across the river to the enemy camp.”

  She put her hand over her mouth, staring at him.

  “And they – your soldiers – brought him back and hanged him?”

  He shook his head.

  “It was worse than that. He deserted to the enemy—the Hauhau you are so afraid of—and they killed him.”

  “Then I’m right to be afraid,” she said. “Did they shoot him?”

  Frank looked away, wondering how much he could tell her.

  “They cut off his head and displayed it to us, from across the river. On a pole.”

  She reached her hand out towards him, as if to comfort him.

  “I’m very sorry. If they’ve done that to Paul and Jens, then I’ll kill them with my own hands.”

  He shook his head, unable to speak for a minute.

  “The beheadings and the cannibalism mostly happened during the wars, and it was already part of the culture. They’re more political now. You shouldn’t worry about Hauhau.” He thought about the man the Armed Constabulary were chasing. Could he be a Hauhau? Why would he be killing soldiers now, so many years after the Tito pursuit. Mette was sure she’d seen a Māori, but he still believed the man was a deserter.

  Mette interrupted his thoughts.

  “But you think they’re dead, don’t you, the boys?”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry, but I do.”

  “And will you find them? Find the bodies? We would all be happier if you could. It’s not knowing that’s so difficult.”

  “I’m trying,” he said. “But there’s not much to go on. I found a bottle…maybe you recognize it…”

  He handed her the bottle he’d found caught in the branches of the willow tree. She turned it over in her hands.

  “It’s one of Knud’s, I think,” she said finally. “See these letters? HO – for the House of Oldenburg, the royal family of our country…our real country,” she added.

  “Why would Knud need bottles like these?” he asked.

  Mette blushed. “If I tell you, you can’t say anything to Pieter or Hans Christian.”

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “At our church, we aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. But Knud, he makes beer from the matai tree in his tent across the river. That’s why he stays there sometimes…why he was there when they went across.”

  An illicit still. He should have thought of that. And the foolish boys had gone across to buy cheap booze from him, and been drunk when they came back…

  “You know about this, but Sorensen and Nissen don’t?” he asked.

  “Knud is my cousin,” she explained. “Not on the same side as Jens, who was also his cousin. Jens and I are…were not cousins. As I said before, Jens is the cousin of my cousin, and that cousin is Knud.”

  He smiled. “I think I’m following this…”

  She smiled back self-consciously. “Well, one of the older woman told me Knud was making alcohol from matai and asked me to say something to him, and I did once, at church. He didn’t deny he was making it, but told me not to tell Pieter or Hans Christian. I said I wouldn’t if he didn’t sell it to any to the younger men as they aren’t used to alcohol at all. A neighbour of mine back at home made himself sick by drinking…what do you call it?”

  “Cheap grog?” said Frank. “Booze?”

  She nodded. “Yes, booze. I didn’t want the younger men to start drinking booze. Perhaps he didn’t think Jens and Paul were—are—younger men.”

  “Do you think Knud would talk to me honestly about it?”

  “Probably not…but I could talk to him. We could go to him together…”

  “Now?”

  She looked up at him, her face more animated than it had been since he arrived.

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  Her sister Maren had come from the cottage, Hamlet on her hip, walking awkwardly with a belly swollen from a second child on the way.

  “What would you like?” she said sharply. She had a round golden-pink face surrounded by a halo of white blond curls and, unlike her sister, bright blue eyes. A pretty woman, undoubtedly, thought Frank, but not as interesting and intelligent-looking as her sister. Rather bland in fact, now he saw her up close.

  “Sergeant Hardy has asked me to…go down to the river to see what I think about how Paul and Jens went across,” improvised Mette.

  Maren glared at Frank and then at Mette. “Pieter would not like you going off with this man,” she said.

  He saw a long look pass between the sisters, a look he found impossible to read. Finally, Maren said reluctantly, “If he asks, I’ll say you went into town to fetch some seeds from Snelson’s. He won’t like that either…but better than saying you went off with Sergeant Hardy.” She gave Frank a hard look. “You will take care of my sister please.”

  He nodded. “Of course, I will. I will protect her from the Hau…”

  He saw Mette shake her head slightly and stopped. “From bushwhackers and murderers and wild pigs, and any dangerous creatures lurking in the bush. I swear.” He put his hand on his heart and grinned at Maren to show her he was making a joke. Maren’s frown faded slowly. She shook her head and turned to go back inside the house, shooting one last calculating look at Frank.

  Mette wrung out her washing and hung it over the scrub.

  “You’d think she was my big sister instead of my little sister,” she said. His horse had wandered over to where they were standing, and pushed its head against Frank, ready to leave.

  “Would you like to ride?” he asked Mette.

  “I haven’t been on a horse before,” she said nervously. “Except for…she won’t jump up and down, will she?”

  “I’ll walk beside you and make sure she doesn’t try to throw you off,” he said, and was surprised to see a quick look of disappointment flit across her face. Did she want to ride with him? “Now I’ll make a step for you with my hands, an
d you can hold the saddle and pull yourself up.” She managed to get herself into the saddle, after initially falling backwards and grabbing him around the neck, laughing heartily at her own clumsiness, which he rather enjoyed.

  The river was over a mile away and he strode along in silence, thinking about what Mette had suffered, and wondering what he could do about it that didn’t end with him in the lockup. When they reached the spot where the track joined the path from the logging camp they could see Knud Jensen’s tent on the far side of the river. Jensen was busy working on something out the back.

  “This is where they must have crossed,” he said. “Can you get down, or would you like a hand?”

  She slid her leg awkwardly across the saddle, looked at the ground, and then at him. “I don’t know how to get off.”

  “Hang on.” He stood facing her. “Put your hands on my shoulders and fall forward. I’ll catch…”

  She grabbed his shoulders and jumped. He staggered back, barely able to keep himself upright, and found himself holding her in his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so clumsy.” She let him go and straightened her skirt, not looking at him.

  He covered his embarrassment by taking the reins of the horse and walking further along the riverbank. “There’s no place here where a fallen log could span the river. The water’s down today, but it was high the day they went missing. They must have floated across on to a log.”

  Mette joined him and looked up and down the river, her face pink but composed.

  “If I was going to use a log to float across,” she said, “I would push it in right here and try to land on that gravel down there.”

  “Good suggestion. The curve in the river would throw you over to that side and you’d be swept right to the gravel. What about coming back though?”

  “We can’t see from here,” said Mette. “Perhaps there’s another gravel patch they could aim for further down, if they started at that one.”

  “No, I checked down that way. Once the river goes around this bend it carries on straight down to the Pa.”

  She frowned. “The Pa is near here? Are there Hauhauin this Pa?”

  Frank sighed. No, there were no Hauhauin the Pa. They were traders, bringing fresh fish and vegetables up the river from Foxton in their waka, their dugout canoes. The town would starve without them. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s just a Pa, with people going about their business like you and me. I’m going to talk with them soon. You can come along if you like.”

  “Perhaps,” she said nervously. “If Pieter…”

  “I’ll clear it with Pieter if you like,” he said. “But we’re here to see Knud. We’d better cross on Copenhagen…sorry I made you climb down in the mud…”

  “Copenhagen? Your horse’s name is Copenhagen, from my country? What a peculiar name for a horse,” said Mette. “Why have you given her that name?”

  “After the Old Duke’s horse,” said Frank. “Nothing to do with Denmark. I should have realized you’d… the Duke rode a war horse named Copenhagen at the Battle of Waterloo. I thought the name would be a positive influence on this horse, even though she’s not a war horse.”

  Mette patted the horse’s nose tentatively. “She seems like a nice horse…are you sure she can carry us both across? Won’t we fall off and get swept away?”

  “Don’t worry, the water’s barely up to the horse’s stirrups. It would take more water than this to move her.”

  She grabbed hold of the saddle and pulled herself up as if she’d ridden all her life. “Come on up then,” she said. “I hope we don’t fall in and get swept away…I can’t swim.”

  He eased the horse into the water, and she leaned sideways to watch the water as it rose slowly up towards the stirrups. After a few minutes, it began to recede.

  “The water didn’t even reach my feet,” she said. He was holding her firmly around the waist, but she didn’t seem to notice. On the other side, the horse stopped and shook its mane, showering them both with droplets of water.

  “See?” said Frank to Mette, who was laughing softly, her hand over her mouth. “She wouldn’t make a good war horse—she isn’t smart enough. I’ll tie her up here to reconsider her actions while we visit your cousin Knud.”

  “Yes, that’s my bottle,” said Knud. “Where did you find it?” He was sitting by a large kettle of boiling water with leaves and branches floating on the surface. He was older than Mette, in his thirties Frank thought, his hair darker than his cousin, a gingery red colour, with heavy eyebrows that joined in the centre and hung over light blue eyes. Deep vertical lines gouged his cheeks, giving him a hangdog look.

  “It was caught in the branches of the willow tree hanging over into the river, down that way” said Frank. “I was wondering if the boys could have dropped it. Did they have a bottle from you when they left here?”

  Knud’s eyes shifted away from Frank’s gaze, then returned.

  “No,” he said without conviction. “They were boys. I wouldn’t sell them my, my tea.”

  “Warten Sie ein minute, Knud,” said Mette. “Wir beide, I mean to say both of us know you do not sell tea. Did you sell alcohol to the boys, when I specifically said not to do it? How could you do that?”

  Knud scratched himself under his arm pit and said nothing, refusing to meet her eyes.

  She glanced at Frank. “Well, perhaps it makes no difference now, but knowing they were drinking might help us find them, or at least give us a reason for them to have drowned. Their families want to know, Knud. You must understand that.”

  Knud looked downcast. “I’m sorry Mette. I gave them a bottle, yes, I did give them a bottle – maybe that one there, which is certainly mine. What was I to do? They were cold when they arrived at my tent. They came across the river holding on to a log and the water was freezing. I could hear Paul’s teeth chattering.”

  “You mean you gave them a drink before they crossed back?” Asked Mette. “Surely that was not a good idea because …”

  Frank interrupted her. “You say they were in the river when they crossed it? They didn’t walk across on a log?”

  Knud shrugged. “As I said, they were wet.”

  “But you didn’t tell Hans Christian this,” asked Frank. “That they were in the water and not walking across a log?”

  “He didn’t ask. I assumed he knew what I meant.”

  Mette was frowning at her cousin.

  “You gave the boys a drink and then you let them cross the river holding on to a log, knowing only Paul could swim?”

  Knud looked uncomfortable.

  “How was I to know they couldn’t swim,” he said, his voice rising. “Anyway, I cross the river all the time. The river is calm and shallow here.”

  “Not that day,” said Frank. “So, you gave them a drink, and a bottle to take with them?”

  Knud nodded, looking more miserable by the minute.

  “And the stopper was missing, so if this is the bottle you gave them, they had opened it and drunk more—possibly all—of it.”

  Knud was practically shrinking into his own body, staring at the brew in the kettle, no longer stirring it.

  “I…I suppose that’s true,” he said.

  Frank looked at Mette.

  “So,” he said. “We have two young boys who were not used to drinking alcohol, with a couple of drinks in their bellies, jumping into the river to float across on a log. They came across and landed on the gravel spit down there, as you guessed, and when they tried to go back, half tanked at that point, they had nowhere to land and were swept downstream.”

  Mette sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “That Māorichap was watching them when they came across,” said Knud suddenly, evidently thinking that he could redeem himself with the information. “Thought I couldn’t see him skulking on the other bank, but I could. Not the only time he was here, neither. He came back the next day as well. I saw him twice…”

  Frank and
Mette both stared at him.

  “He had a tomahawk too,” added Knud. “On his hip. Not that I was worried about him, but he could’ve helped them if they got into trouble. Don’t know why he wouldn’t.”

  “You’re sure he was a Māori?” Frank asked. “What did he look like?”

  “I thought he was. Kind of looks like you, come to think of it. Big like you, but with blue moko on his face so I could tell he were a Māori.”

  “The Hauhau,” exclaimed Mette. “Perhaps he saw them in the river and went in and killed them.”

  Frank frowned. He wasn’t ready to give up on the idea that the man was a deserter, and the presence of moko did not necessarily make him a Māori.

  “It seems rather too much to think they were drinking and possibly in trouble, and then someone tried to kill them,” he said.

  “I suppose so,” said Mette. “But Sergeant Hardy, how do you explain that the search party couldn’t find their bodies. Something must have happened—something more than drowning. Someone found the bodies and hid them, at least that much must have happened.”

  “Mette, you may call me Frank,” he said, as if Knud was not there. “Sergeant Hardy sounds very formal and makes me feel as if I’m still in the army.”

  Knud watched them, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. That will set the cat amongst the pigeons, thought Frank. Now they’ll have us married off before you know it. Once the idea was in his head, though, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “Of course,” he said, trying to undo the situation, “you could always call me Mr. Hardy.”

  Mette laughed loudly and it made him feel better than he had for a long time.

  “I’ll call you Sergeant Frank,” she said. “A, what do you call it, a compromise.”

  He avoided looking at her, feeling an emotion he hadn’t felt for years, and afraid it would show on his face, and said to Knud, “If the boys were swept downstream, where might they be?”

  Knud spat into the dirt and stood up. “Likely down by the Papaioea Pa,” he said, gesturing downstream. “Down that way. Course, if they found them down there they would’ve told Constable Price. Or at least, one of the Native constables woulda told him. Nothing in it for them to hide a couple of bodies. Not like they were carrying money or anything.”