Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  Linda knew he would bring up Chris and Cat and, as he had done before, would approach the most sensitive subjects without any warning. But she couldn’t be angry at him. To the contrary. She would tell him everything—probably more than she had even told Ida and Karl. Linda longed to talk about it, to feel Fitz’s undivided interest, sympathy, and understanding.

  But there was no time for that now. She had to take care of the shearers. Confused, she tried to break Fitz’s spell on her.

  “What brings you here, Mr. Fitzpatrick?” she asked. “Are you part of the shearing brigade? Did you learn that at Oxford too?”

  Fitz laughed. “No, you could say I learned it at mother’s knee. I went to college, but I was born on a farm. Horses, sheep . . . I know my way around them all.”

  “Then you’ll have to join in our little contest,” Linda said. “We honor the fastest shearer every year, and we throw a party—” Her forced smile faded as Fitz furrowed his brow.

  “Can’t imagine you feel like celebrating. I heard about the shipwreck, Miss Linda. But take heart. Sometimes survivors are found after months, or even years.”

  Linda felt as though a stone had been lifted off her heart. No one, not a single other person who’d heard about their loss, had been so optimistic or hopeful. Linda felt her walls crumbling, just as she’d feared they would.

  “I want to believe that,” she whispered. “It’s just so hard sometimes.” She lowered her eyes.

  Joe Fitzpatrick reached out and gently lifted her chin with one finger. “Things are only as difficult as we make them,” he said kindly. “Look around you! We’re in a beautiful country on a beautiful day, and the sun is shining.”

  Linda stared at him, and suddenly the shadows that had been dimming her view of the world since the shipwreck became softer. She noticed the brilliant red blossoms of the rata bushes again, the blue sky, and the snow on the peaks of the distant mountains. She noticed her mare, Brianna, who was standing in the pasture looking at her curiously, and saw her little dog jump up on Joe Fitzpatrick delightedly. Fitz bent down and picked up the puppy. He laughed as Amy licked his face.

  Linda felt the corners of her mouth tilting upward and her eyes begin to glow. It was the first honest smile she’d allowed herself since Chris and Cat had disappeared.

  “You’re right,” she said in amazement.

  “I’m always right,” he said.

  Chapter 23

  Linda was convinced that Joe Fitzpatrick had been sent to her by the angels. There was no problem that he didn’t find a simple, quick solution for.

  It began on the first day. While Carol rounded up the sheep with Fancy and helped drive them into the pens, the shearing brigade had distributed themselves around the shed, and Linda again had the feeling that there had to be at least two of her. Traditionally, it was her duty to supervise the shearing; at the same time, though, the ingredients for the stew for the men’s evening meal were sitting in the kitchen. She thought the sheep were more important, so she spent the day with the creatures. In the evening, Linda almost broke into tears when she came back to the house, completely exhausted from her efforts. In front of her still lay the monumental task of turning a huge pile of vegetables and meat into a stew. Quickly. The men only took a short time to wash after work, and then expected to be served their meal. Joe Fitzpatrick found Linda in the kitchen, just as she had unhappily begun to peel the first potato.

  “Miss Linda! I wondered where you’d gone. I thought we could sit around the fire and talk about old times.” He smiled at her mischievously. “Already working again. Can I help somehow?”

  Linda looked up at him with tired eyes. “If you can peel potatoes . . . ,” she said dejectedly. “Carol will be here in a moment, but she’s still in the sheep pen.”

  “My pleasure!” Fitz replied cheerfully, reaching for his pocketknife. He picked up a kumara and peeled it in no time at all. “But don’t you still have to wash all the vegetables, Miss Linda? Then it will be hours until everything is on the table. And you’ll fall asleep while you’re working, tired as you must be. No, there must be a better way. Do you have palm trees in the garden?”

  Within minutes, Fitz had packed meat, potatoes, and sweet potatoes into a large basket. He carried it outside to the shearers and shepherds, who had already started campfires in the meadow in front of the house. The men always slept under the open sky if it didn’t rain. After heavy work in the shearing shed, a little whiskey was all it took to put them to sleep.

  “Listen up, lads!” Fitz jumped up onto a bale of hay. “Miss Linda is treating us all to a Maori barbecue! We call it hangi. Come here, you can all help. We need big palm leaves, and raupo leaves will work too. We need four volunteers to cook at each fire.”

  Linda gave Fitz a baffled look. In the Canterbury Plains, there was none of the volcanic activity to heat the traditional ovens made of hot stones buried in the earth. What was more, digging and using earth ovens would take far more work than preparing a stew. But Fitz beamed at the shearers, as though inviting them to join the fun. As the men collected the leaves, he poked and banked the campfires until there were enough coals. Then he separated the meat into portions and dexterously wrapped them in palm and raupo leaves, confidently adding spices and herbs that Linda couldn’t have mixed better herself, and instructed the men to cover the little packages well with coals. He did the same thing with the vegetables. All the while he offered fanciful explanations of what he was doing. He waxed lyrical about the exotic spices from the kitchen of Catherine Rata, who was known to have lived with the Maori for many years.

  Linda watched him, speechless. Fitz’s method had nothing in common with Maori cooking. The children of Rata Station knew this technique as a “potato fire.” Every autumn during the potato harvest, Karl had lit a fire to burn the old potato leaves, and he’d roast the fresh roots in the coals. On those evenings, Karl and Ida had reminisced about their childhoods in Raben Steinfeld and had laughed a lot because the autumn potato fires were among their few happy early memories.

  She was sure that some of the shearers knew the tradition, but no one objected. After all, the Maori could have also had the idea to roast root vegetables that way. The idea of meat wrapped in leaves was new to her, and she could only hope that it was successful. But Fitz seemed to have no doubts. For every bundle of meat, he came up with a different combination of spices. Sometimes he soaked the pieces of mutton with beer and whiskey, and said that it made the spirits of the fire happy.

  “The spirits will make the food delicious. To celebrate the hangi, we should also sing special songs. They’re called karakia, aren’t they, Miss Linda?”

  The men, who’d already begun to drink on empty stomachs, were soon bellowing English and Irish drinking songs. Linda was worried that they would all be totally drunk by the time the food was ready. But the mood was festive, and when the meat was finally unpacked, everyone thought it tasted good. Some of the meat and vegetables were burned on the outside and half-raw on the inside, but the men didn’t seem to mind, after Fitz told them that was how it was supposed to be.

  “The Indians over in America burn very specific woods to give food flavor, and stir ashes into maple syrup. It’s supposed to be very good for your health.”

  The men pulled the peels off the half-roasted potatoes and laughed about their sooty hands. When Fitz playfully touched Linda’s nose with a blackened finger and left a cute spot, the shearers began to paint Maori-style “tattoos” on each other’s faces. The evening turned out to be great fun, and Linda finally began to relax and enjoy it, with great feelings of relief. Carol didn’t refuse when the men passed the whiskey bottle her way as it went around the fire. But Linda declined each time.

  Fitz looked at her worriedly. “You should feel free to have a drink, Miss Linda, ease your nerves. Of course you’re worried about Miss Cat and Mr. Chris, but Miss Cat wouldn’t want to see you so unhappy.”

  Linda smiled sadly. “Whiskey makes me sick to my stomach
. But I do like a little wine every now and then.”

  Fitz grinned. “That’s more ladylike, anyway,” he said. “But should we beg, borrow, or steal? Or do you have a secret stash?”

  Linda bit her lip. “Stealing would work,” she said uneasily.

  Fitz furrowed his brow as she told him about Cat’s personal reserve. “That’s not stealing, Miss Linda!” he said. “You don’t call it stealing when you harvest Miss Cat’s sweet potatoes or eat her chickens’ eggs. No, you don’t need to feel guilty about that. We should get a bottle of wine now and drink to Miss Cat’s health!”

  Linda felt bad as she fetched the bottle from the pantry. But when Fitz opened it in the style of the smug wine steward at the White Hart, tasting it delicately and declaring that it had a “marvelous bouquet” and “the sweetness of burnt cherries,” she had to laugh. After the first sip, her heart immediately felt lighter, and when she fell into her bed later, tired but relaxed, she slept without nightmares, and without being woken at dawn by dismal thoughts.

  The next morning, Fitz helped fry eggs and bacon for the shearers. He took over the kitchen in the stone house like a professional.

  “I’ve been a cook before,” he confided as Linda realized with embarrassment that half of the work had already been done before she’d even gotten dressed. “I had a café in Oxford.”

  “I thought you rowed in Oxford,” Carol said with grudging admiration.

  She had found Joe’s “Maori barbecue” cavalier and showy, and she’d been truly annoyed when he’d talked Linda into opening a bottle of wine. Cat’s stash had been holy to her. Linda should have at least asked Carol if she thought it was all right to take a bottle. But now Fitz was undoubtedly making himself useful. And, Carol reflected, perhaps the barbecue hadn’t been so bad. The sisters hadn’t had to wash any dishes.

  “Weren’t you studying?” Linda asked.

  Fitz shrugged. “It’s not mutually exclusive with working,” he replied, and shot her another winning smile. “Just sit down now, both of you, and eat some eggs. You’ll soon be back in the shearing shed. Don’t worry about the cooking! I have everything under control.”

  Linda and Carol ate with the men, but Carol’s enthusiasm for Fitz’s help waned quickly when she had to spend an entire hour cleaning up after him before she could go back to her duties in the shearing shed. When she finally came out of the kitchen, she watched Fitz as he sheared a sheep. He was quite skilled, she had to admit. He wasn’t the fastest, but his jokes and optimistic outlook put the men in a good mood. The head shearer obviously wasn’t terribly impressed, and rebuked him regularly. Fitz let the criticism roll off his back.

  Toward noon, he proved to be useful again. Linda’s mare threw a shoe, and she cursed in an unladylike manner when she realized what had happened. The only farrier at Rata Station was also a shepherd who happened to be busy herding sheep in the farthest pastures. Linda either had to go get him and lose a lot of time or put Brianna in her stall and saddle another horse. But then Fitz stepped in.

  “If I can find a hammer and some nails here, I’ll have that shoe back on in a jiffy,” he offered.

  Fitz calmed Brianna with a few kind words, astounding Linda. The horse wasn’t always easy to deal with, especially if something like a thrown shoe had made her nervous. Fitz got her to stand still while he took her hoof between his knees and reattached the horseshoe with quick, sure strokes.

  “Here, as good as new!” He smiled and passed Linda the mare’s bridle. “It’s not perfect, but it should hold for a day or two.”

  “You learned how to do that in Oxford too?” Linda asked in surprise.

  “No, Ireland. My uncle was a blacksmith,” Fitz replied. “Happy to be able to help!” Then he went back to the sheep.

  Linda could hardly contain herself when she told Carol about it that evening. “The man is the answer to my prayers!”

  Carol was less impressed. “So what? I could have put a horseshoe back on that way too,” she said. “Robby will have to fix it. And the mess he left in the kitchen this morning! I might as well have fried the eggs myself.”

  “At least he’s doing something,” Linda said pointedly.

  She was referring to the reason that her sister was in such a bad mood. Oliver Butler had stopped by that afternoon to see Carol and ask when the shearers would be ready to move on to Butler Station. Of course, Carol had no time to spend with him, unless he wanted to work at her side. But the thought didn’t seem to occur to him. So he just rode home in a bad mood.

  Over the next few days, Linda’s increasing enthusiasm for Fitz made Carol more curious about the young man—and piqued her own vexation. She observed Fitz carefully and finally asked the foreman of the shearing brigade about him. Linda became annoyed when her sister told her what she’d learned.

  “His boss isn’t at all satisfied with him,” she told her sister, who had just been praising the man for repairing a saddle when he was supposed to be in the shearing shed. “Fitz is not exactly an efficient worker. He talks more than he shears, and keeps the others from their work.”

  “Not efficient?” Linda said, scoffing. “He won third place in the contest yesterday!”

  The breeders awarded a little prize almost every day for the fastest shearer, or held a friendly competition between shearers from different brigades. That sped up the shearing and kept the men in a good mood.

  Carol rolled her eyes. “Of course he can do it if he wants to. Competition excites him. He also rowed like a devil when it mattered. The man is a gambler.”

  It was true, Fitz enjoyed card games. In the evenings, the shearers played poker with the shepherds. On the third day of shearing, Fitz relieved two Maori shepherds of an entire month’s pay. The two complained to Te Haitara, who then turned to Linda. She reluctantly brought up the subject with Fitz.

  “The Maori don’t understand how it works. We don’t allow gambling here. The men were shocked when they suddenly owed you ten pounds.”

  “I won that money fair and square!” Fitz crowed triumphantly, but then backpedaled. “Excuse me, Miss Lindy . . .”

  Fitz had recently started to use the familiar form of Linda’s name, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it. Only family members called her Lindy. And “Miss Lindy” somehow felt much more intimate to her than if he’d just called her “Linda.” She didn’t want to complain; she had called him by his nickname as well. Of course, in front of Carol and the others, they were both quite formal.

  “I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Of course I’ll give the money back.”

  Linda nodded, relieved. “That’s very kind of you. I hope you understand, we have a good relationship with the Maori, and I don’t want to endanger that in any way—”

  Fitz looked her in the eye. “Miss Lindy, I would never purposely do anything that would make your life more difficult. To the contrary. I only want to help. Just tell me what I can do for you.”

  “I want him to stay.”

  In the farmyard, it smelled deliciously of roasting meat, and Linda and Carol had brought out bowls of vegetables and a basket of bread to where the shearers were eating outside at long tables. The shearing at Rata Station was complete. The shearers were celebrating their traditional farewell before they left to work in the Maori village and then continued to the Redwoods and the Butlers. Linda couldn’t wait any longer to tell Carol about the decision she’d made.

  “I offered Joe Fitzpatrick a job as foreman of Rata Station.”

  Carol set a bowl of rice on the table. “Linda, do we have to talk here in the middle of everyone? It would be better to discuss this in private.”

  “It’s my job to hire people,” Linda said.

  Carol nodded. “Of course,” she said as the sisters walked back toward the kitchen. They stepped in and closed the door. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I know you’ll have to run the farm on your own soon. But as foreman? You’ll be stepping on the toes of people who have been working for us for years.” />
  “But as you say,” Linda said as she filled a bowl with sauce, “I have to run the farm alone. I need someone at my side I can trust.”

  “You don’t trust Robby, David, Tane, or Hemi?” Carol asked.

  Linda turned to face her. “Yes, of course I do. It’s just that I need someone I can talk to. Someone who thinks like me, who understands me. A—a friend.”

  Carol pressed her lips together. “You can’t hire someone as a friend, Linda. Stop pretending. You’re head over heels in love with the man. That’s why you want to keep him here. And let me guess: Mr. Fitz refuses to stay as a normal farmhand.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Linda’s face turned bright red. “We’re not in love. We just understand each other very well. And if he were just a farmhand, Fitz would get much lower pay than he does as a member of the shearing brigade.”

  Carol gave her sister a long look. “That wouldn’t have bothered a friend,” she said softly.

  “My sister is afraid that the other workers might not respect you,” Linda told Fitz the next day.

  She had led him around the farm again and introduced him to the shepherds and farmhands in his new role as foreman. As Carol had feared, they had reacted with perplexed silence.

  Fitz shrugged. He strolled across the pastures with Linda, gazing at the thick grass, the freshly shorn sheep, and the shearing shed in the distance. He radiated a great sense of calm. As usual in the young man’s presence, Linda felt more relaxed, self-assured, and less vulnerable.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll win them over.” Fitz stopped, turned to her, and sought her eyes. “All I care about is that you respect me, Miss Lindy.”

  Linda looked away. “I—of course I respect you. I gave you this job—”

  The familiar mischievous grin spread over Fitz’s face. “More’s the pity, Miss Lindy,” he said, “if there’s nothing between us but respect. Because I’m a little bit afraid to do something like this with a woman I respect so much . . .”