Isle of Tears (31 page)

‘Aye.’

‘And you cut it off because…
?’

Isla saw no reason to lie. ‘I lost ma husband. I wis in mourning.’

Te Kanene nodded, the single dip of his head evidence that he understood the emotion behind the action, and the importance of the hair to Isla. ‘This could fetch a very good price, you know. Some fat, balding Pakeha woman would pay a lot for a wig made from this.’

Isla had not known; it had never occurred to her.

Te Kanene laid the hair across his knee. ‘Do you have anything else?’

There was her wedding ring—her
mother’s
wedding ring—but Isla was not prepared to give that away, not even for a passage to Taranaki, and her right hand crept over her left to hide it from view. But she was too late.

Te Kanene pointed. ‘Let me see that ring.’

‘It’s auld and worn. It’s no’ o’ any value.’

‘Let me see it,’ Te Kanene repeated. ‘My ship sails very soon,’ he added quietly. Slyly.

She slid the gold band off her finger and gave it to him. He bit it, then held it up so the sun glinted off it. ‘It’s good gold,’ he remarked. Then he sighed deeply, as though he had just made a decision of monumental significance. ‘But I will not take it from you. As you say, it isn’t worth much. You’ve already lost your man. You might as well keep the ring.’ He handed it back. ‘Yes, I will take you to Taranaki.’

Isla glanced at Raiti, whose eyebrows had shot up in blatant astonishment. Clearly compassion from this man was a rare thing indeed.

‘I will take the hair, though,’ he said. ‘And I expect you not to fraternize with my crew, and to remain on board whenever we put in to port until we reach Mokau. That’s as far as I’m prepared to take you. And keep your animals under control, both of them.’

Isla did as she had been told, and stayed inside the tiny cabin Te Kanene had given her. His ship, a very tidy top-sail schooner with a long and elegant bowsprit, anchored in Tauranga Harbour for one night, the Waitemata for the next two, and the Bay of Islands the following night. She didn’t know what allegiances Te Kanene had made—none, except to himself, she suspected—but he seemed to be able to sail with impunity into waters occupied by the Royal Marines and the Naval Brigade. They sailed for two days and a night after that, around the very tip of the North Island and down as far as Kaipara Harbour on the western side, where they anchored overnight while Te Kanene’s men ferried a
range of goods ashore and picked up a shipment of kauri gum bound for Wellington.

The following day they continued south until they crossed the treacherous bar into Manukau Harbour and dropped anchor at the port of Onehunga. Two days later, as Isla grew more and more impatient, they set sail for Kawhia Harbour, and, finally, on the tenth day of the voyage, they anchored off the black dunes and steep, windswept hills of the Mokau Heads. Poor Prince was winched into the sea, and Isla begged Te Kanene’s crewmen to row alongside him as he made his way, head high, eyes rolling and nostrils flaring, to shore. Leaving her, Laddie and a shivering Prince on a cold and windy beach on the southern aspect of the heads, they bade her farewell and continued on into the mouth of the Mokau River towards the little settlement.

Isla let Prince settle for an hour before she saddled him and headed off: there were three or four hours of sunlight left, and she wanted to waste none of it. Te Kanene had grudgingly drawn her a rough map of the area, and one of his crew who had lived on the west coast for several years had given her more specific directions, but she was still wary of becoming lost. She knew she could ride south along the beaches much of the time, except for where the cliffs dropped straight into the sea, but at some point she would have to veer inland, and when she did, she wanted to be sure that she wasted no time riding around in circles.

Her plan was to leave the coast before she reached Waitara, probably at the place Te Kanene had named on his map as Pukearuhe, then turn inland and head directly south. That route
would take her past, and some sixty or seventy miles due east of, Waikaraka; but there was something she had to do first before she could return home. Before she could see Jean and Jamie again. Before she could put the past five years behind her. Before she could finally relax and let down her guard.

For the next two days, she rode while the sun was up, and slept when darkness fell, hunting as she went and sharing her food with Laddie. Water was plentiful, as hundreds of small streams trickled out of the hilly inland terrain, and she let Prince stop and drink often. Away from the coastal breezes, the air was close and humid.

While she had been travelling, she had been able to put Tai’s death out her mind, sometimes for hours at a time, but now that she was so close to home, the pain was back, turning her bones to lead and her heart to ashes.

And she thought about all those who had helped her, only because they were kind-hearted. The Ngati Awa women, and Raiti from Te Whakatohea. Even Hukapapa, although she had had the kindness burnt out of her by her cruel husband. And poor, infatuated Robert Yale, and Doctor Sillitoe, and Eleanor, Hope and Prudence Fairweather. These last had been English, whom Isla had always distrusted, and their kindness had confused her, for she had not been able to think of a single reason why they would want to help her, other than that they were decent people.

And she thought of those who had meant her harm—Maori and Pakeha alike—and saw now that not everything in life was as tidily defined as she had once so staunchly chosen to believe.

On the morning of the third day, she began to recognize the land through which she was travelling. To her left, in the distance, was a hill, almost a mountain, that she knew. And the
feel
of the land was familiar—its smell and its sound and the way the wind played through the bush.

She was getting closer. She was coming home.

Isla sat between the graves of her mother and father, talking to them, weeping and pulling at the weeds that had overgrown the humps of soil beneath which they lay.

The house was as she remembered it. Even the tattered remnants of the washing remained on the line. No one appeared to have been there, and nothing was missing, except for the things she had asked the Ngati Pono to fetch for her. She was surprised; she had been sure that the place would have been ransacked.

Then she went inside, found a couple of preserving jars, filled them with water from the pump and arranged in each a posy of red rata, white puawananga and some of her mother’s late roses, growing wild now. She placed them on the graves and said a prayer for her mother and father, then left, her heart feeling unexpectedly lighter, even though she still had one final matter to attend to.

Isla gazed down at the little house she had seen only once before,
almost six years ago when her mother had sent her and Niel to pay a courtesy visit with a towel-wrapped bundle of bannocks fresh from the oven. She remembered it clearly because she had traipsed for an hour through bush and across newly cleared land, trying her best to keep the bannocks warm, only to be met at the door by an ungrateful man and a glimpse of his faded, wispy wife hovering behind him. He had mumbled something about not taking charity, then shut the door in her face.

Now, as it had then, the property looked unkempt and ill-tended. More so, in fact. The pens were empty of livestock, the bush was creeping close, and the house itself looked derelict. But smoke rose lazily from somewhere behind it.

She dismounted, looped Prince’s reins over a branch, and withdrew the shotgun from its holster: it was already loaded, as it had been since she had disembarked at Mokau. She made her way towards the house, making no particular effort to conceal herself.

As she drew closer, she saw the true state of the disrepair into which the little place had fallen. A verandah ran along the front, but two of the supporting poles had broken and the patched iron roof sagged badly at one end. One window still retained its glass, but the other was blind, oilcloth tacked over its frame. The door hung ajar, creaking slightly in the wind, but offering no glimpse of what might lie beyond.

Telling Laddie to wait, Isla stepped onto the verandah, avoiding a hole where the boards had rotted, and tapped on the door. She waited, but there was no reply, no voice from inside, no indication
that anyone was there. She waited another minute, then pushed the door open. Immediately a sour, dry, musty smell assaulted her and she jerked her head back, but not before she had seen that the small room was empty.

Almost empty.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside and blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was a bed against the far wall, a few other rudimentary domestic bits and pieces and a heap of soiled blankets on the floor. Stepping around these, she trod cautiously across the room and peered down at what lay in the bed.

She had witnessed terrible sights before, of course, but this was perhaps the strangest, most disturbingly poignant thing she had ever seen.

A skeleton lay in the bed. The bones had turned sepia-brown, the teeth only a shade lighter. In places, where it was not covered by the faded comforter, shreds of dried, parchment-like skin hung stiffly from delicate wrist and neck bones. It was wearing a yellowing wedding dress, and a small headpiece of artificial orange blossom lay on the hanks of dusty hair that had slid from the skull onto the pillow. The skeleton had been there for years, and Isla knew that she was looking at the remains of Tulloch’s wife. She turned away and left the poor, haunted thing in peace.

Outside, she made her way around the side of the house to what had once been the back yard. Now, fern and weeds overran the vegetable garden, and grass and bracken carpeted the ground.

He was sitting on a wooden box, and did not look up when she
called out his name. He wore a filthy shirt and cracked, laceless boots, but his legs were bare. His hair and long, ragged beard were as white as sea foam; his face grimed with dirt. A musket lay on the ground nearby and a small fire burned at his feet. Isla saw that he was gnawing on the charred body of some small animal, the grease from it clotting his beard.

‘Tulloch,’ she said again.

And he did look up then, and grunted, his fist still tight around whatever it was he had roasted.

She raised her gun, pointed it at his head and demanded, ‘Tulloch, d’ye ken me? I’m Isla McKinnon. D’ye remember what ye did five years ago? What ye did tae ma mother and father?’

But in her heart, she knew that this had been a waste of time. That what she had dreamed of for years—the
revenge
she had planned to claim—was never going to be hers. For he was mad: she saw it in the blankness of his eyes and the child-like quiver of his sore-encrusted lips.

‘The bees didn’t come,’ he said petulantly, in a voice rusty from the silence of years. He stared vacantly for a moment longer, then went back to his meal.

Isla watched him, then lowered the shotgun and turned and walked away.

But only seconds later she heard, close behind her, the heavy, muted click of a hammer being cocked.

Swinging up her own gun she whirled and fired, but too late. The ball from Tulloch’s musket slammed into her chest, hitting her like a punch from the fist of a giant. She lurched backwards
and fell, but not before she saw that Tulloch had also gone down, his arms and legs flung wide and his face a raw, bleeding hole.

Laddie raced over to her, whining and frantically nudging at her with his nose. Gasping and almost choking, Isla reached out to touch him, taking comfort from the feel of his rough hair. But already she knew that she had been badly wounded. One side of her chest felt numb, as if it simply weren’t there any more. She fumbled at the buttons of her shirt and strained to see, her already racing heart thudding even more violently as she took in the shocking dent just below and to the left of her left breast where her ribs had shattered, and a hole she could have put her finger into. Dark blood flowed from it, soaking into her clothes and the ground beneath her. She felt for an exit wound in her back, but encountered nothing: the ball must still be in her chest.

And now the pain was starting, a deep burn that sent out bright flashes of agony whenever she tried to breathe in. She flicked a glance at Tulloch, motionless in a pool of blood, and realized he must surely be dead.

She let her head rest on the ground and breathed shallowly, struggling to gather her strength. But it seemed that the more she tried to draw breath, the less she was able, as if some very heavy weight were pressing relentlessly down on her chest. Beside her, Laddie whined and pawed anxiously at her arm.

Very slowly, stars sparkling across her vision, she sat up, her weight resting on her right hand and her left forearm pressed against her wound. Blood still bubbled from it, flowing over her wrist and into her lap.

She counted to ten, then, with a grunt, manoeuvred herself onto her knees, grimacing as the effort sent spears of fire through her chest. Again, she waited until the stars before her receded, then lurched to her feet, crying out in pain. For several seconds she was sure she was going to faint, then she managed to take a shuffling step forward, then another. Bent almost double, she made her way across the yard to Prince and collapsed against him, her forehead pressed to his neck and one hand hanging grimly onto his mane. She realized with dismay that she had left the shotgun on the ground, but couldn’t summon the energy to go back for it.

She could not walk far, she knew that, and the effort required to climb up into the saddle seemed unimaginable. But still, she tried. None of the muscles in her left side seemed to be responding properly, so she lifted her left leg with her right hand and placed her foot in the stirrup, where she rested for more than a minute, sweating trickling down her neck and blood still dribbling from the hole in her chest. Then, somehow, she managed to heave herself up into the saddle, where she slumped forward, her face almost touching Prince’s mane. Weakly, she tapped her heels and he moved off, reins dangling. Not for long, however, as he didn’t know where his mistress wanted him to go, and soon stopped.