Rich Man's Coffin (45 page)

 
The lady looked around. “It’s certainly drier. We had a good go at Erina. She just wasn’t the kindest piece of earth for farming. Who knew that this beautiful tract was sitting here unclaimed the entire time, Major.”

“Please darling, call me Winston. After thirty years in the military, I am well retired, my love.
 
But you are right, signing for these five thousand acres looks like a good decision. The magistrate’s lips were completely sealed about the history of the area. He said a good hunting friend of his had told him about it just recently. What shall we call it?”

“It’s a bit early.
 
I am thinking of naming it in honor of my father’s estate back home.”

“Very nice.
 
Very fitting for such a fine wife, Mrs. Baillie. First, though, let’s find out about this American Negro fellow that the drunk old Maori guide in town told me so much about. Says he was a warrior whaler or some such nonsense.”

“He doesn’t seem to be around.
 
I don’t want to wait for some black Yank to give us permission to start our new life, Winston.
 
Let the boys start unpacking, all right?”

“Yes, dear.”

Arriving on the scene near sunset, Black Jack did his best to hide his exhaustion and put on his friendliest face. "Stopping to rest for the night?
 
How far down the valley ya goin'?"
 
He scanned his mental map for the scarce areas that remained unclaimed.

The man said, "Ah, you must be the famous Black Jack White.
 
I have heard so much about you.
 
I'm Major Baillie, and this is my family and our servants."

The word 'servants' pierced Black Jack's side like a cold blade.
 
"Likewise, Mr. Baillie.
 
Yes, Sir, I’ve been here for years and years.
 
I used to be a whaler.
 
Now I deliver the mail and supplies occasionally.
 
Plus I help people settle in here around the valley.
 
I could help you all, if you like."

The Major said, "No, no.
 
You take your time.
 
We’ve got plenty of help of our own.
 
You just let me know if we can be of any help to
you
."

"Help
me
?
 
How do you mean, Sir?"

The Major smiled smugly. "Well, you know, when the army has found you new quarters to relocate to.
 
Let us know how we can make your move all the less difficult."

Black Jack’s hair bristled and his scalp crawled with cold sweat. "Relocate?
 
Sir, I'm not going anywhere.
 
Now, you can stay here for the night, but I think it'll be best for everyone if you be off in the morning."

"Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear.
 
My apologies if I have angered you.
 
This is
our
home now.
 
We were awarded all of this land, and we will be here making improvements from this time forth."

Black Jack felt ill. "
Awarded
this land?
 
I didn't know about any contest going on.
 
As far as I know, this land belongs to me."

The Major, turning away from the curious eyes and craning neck of his young wife, spoke lowly to Black Jack. "Now sir, I can understand your displeasure.
 
I know that it is an unfortunate event that you are not a subject of the Crown.
 
Believe me, I am prepared to make things comfortable for a fellow serviceman. That is, if you would be willing to stay and work for us."

Tears of anger and disgust welled in Black Jack’s eyes. "Goddamn, ain't there nothin' in this world that the white man won't take?
 
Hell, I was here before you was born!
 
Don't that count for anything?
 
I got to think about this one.
 
I'll be back."
 
He stormed off into his dim hut, leaving the Major holding his hat and looking at the ground sheepishly.
 
As he stood there in the purple dusk, tins of flour suddenly began to land around him. They discharged clouds of white dust as the pressure from the impact forced their round lids to pop off loudly from the square olive-colored cubes. The sounds of impact and release of pressure reminded the Major of falling canister bombs on the battlefield.

Baillie and his team had brought their experience at clearing difficult land from Erina to Para.
 
His workmen soon converted it to arable soil, with the trees being sold to the sawmiller.
 
With money rolling in and little work to do, the Major's interests turned toward local politics.
 
Despite his earlier failures, he was courted and recruited on the grounds of his exceptional land management skills. He won convincingly the seat of Superintendent of Picton in 1861.
 
Baillie was a scrupulous and generous leader.
 
He poured funds into public works and local projects, mainly roads and bridges.
 
The area from Picton to Tua Marina benefited greatly from his managerial foresight, becoming a shining example of British ingenuity and engineering in New Zealand.
 
Baillie could not foresee one thing, however, despite his overwhelming popularity; and that was the great flood of 1862.
 
By
great
, it can be said that water overran or washed away every newly-built road and bridge, covering the land and the first story of every building from White’s Bay down to the river at Beaver Town; essentially, the entire northeast corner of the South Island of New Zealand was under water.
 
It was as if the entire valley was merely a vestigial inland inlet for the ocean to reclaim as it saw fit.
 
It also claimed the political career of Major Baillie.
 
How he could come to be blamed for an act of God is enlightening testament to the nature of the early colonial political climate.

Sparks of another kind flew in the valley, however, when the first telegraph lines were installed in 1863.
 
It effectively put a welcome end to Black Jack’s mail-carrying days; and ironically, was the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States of America.
 
That fact would not be discovered by Black Jack, however, until he heard it from some American gold miners the following year.

Disheartened by the loss of his 'sovereignty' over Para, and now fully retired from his former service, Black Jack was willing fodder for the fire that swept the area in 1864:
 
Gold Fever.
 
Having already become seasoned veterans, the '49ers from America led the way in making and working claims for the new gold in New Zealand.
 
Miners came from all over the world, determined not to miss out on the next big rush, as many of them had done in the States.

The strikes in New Zealand were rich.
 
Men could become wealthy in a matter of months even from small claims; or they could, as in most cases, lose everything that they had left behind to unsuccessfully chase the elusive nugget.
 
Men frequently fought and died in drunken brawls in conditions very similar to the old whaling stations.
 
Once the abundant alluvial gold -- the loose stuff lying in the river that was the most visible and romanticized -- was depleted, then the glamorous job of gold prospecting became a treacherous and dreary daily routine of drudgery and dredging.
 
Men stood in cold, muddy water waist-deep shoveling gravel and dirt into sluices which washed the rocks and precipitated the gold dust, yielding only a few dollars a day.
 
People could make more money in wages while shoveling manure back home; and yet the allure and the mystique of the metal invariably dragged out the insufferable idiot and perpetual loser from the best of men.
 
Within weeks, Black Jack had been wise enough to wistfully watch his worthless pan being whisked by whitewater downstream as he waded away toward home.
 
Returning to Para, now overgrown with workers' cottages all around his old shack, he humbly begged the Major for his old job and the hut.
 

         
Around the same time, a plague of sorts ended the gold rush in wool.
 
The dreaded 'scab' disease virtually eliminated sheep from New Zealand in 1865, the same year that the thirteenth amendment was ratified in the U.S.A.
 
From that point on, it was illegal to own human beings in his home country. Black Jack never got the news.

In 1867, the felling of the trees sold from around the Baillie estate began.
 
They went quickly. Nearly 300,000 acres of wood disappeared.
 
What had once been dense forest and scrub brush was now smooth and barren, save for the patches of grass the white man converted to planting fields.
 
Houses were the most popular crop. Major Baillie kept up with the times.
 
He had a fourteen-room house built, eight of which were bedrooms.
 
Constructed from wood cut and milled right on the grounds, it affectionately became known as the 'Big House.’ Mrs. Baillie had it and the surrounding land officially christened ‘Kennington’ in keeping with her wish to honor her father back home. It was the New Zealand equivalent of an English squire's mansion.

Major Baillie’s foresight paid off in 1868.
 
He had placed the porch of his palace above the previous flood plain.
 
Another great flood came that year, and a shimmering lake spread out before the manor house. It served as a hospitable ark for the cottagers whose shacks now showed only shingles.
 
One rare guest, the hare, was readily added to the list of refugees. Unbeknownst to anyone until that point, the four rabbits had reproduced rampantly in recent years.
 
They overran the ramparts by the thousands when the river rose.
 
Black Jack thought that perhaps the sly red fox could provide the remedy for the silver bunnies, once the water receded.
 
Had he thought to return to the United States that year, he would have been granted citizenship in his mother country, regardless of his color.

Flaxmilling began on a large scale in 1869, with several plants springing into operation throughout the valley.
 
Black Jack leant his expertise to all of them, being intimate with the wild filamentous fiber that thrived in the local bogs.
 
The Industrial Revolution had brought machines and automation to the mills, and with them came the monotony of the humdrum factory job. Black Jack still preferred to work alone, but his time spent spinning flax in the mills was not without interesting incident.
 
As it happened, one of the most popular products of the mills was rope.

One day, Black Jack overheard many men talking while on their morning meal break.
 
He heard things such as “Not me, not for all the money in the world.” Then, “Well who are they gonna get to do it?” Lastly, “Why us? Just because we make the rope doesn't mean we tie the noose!”
 
His supervisor approached Black Jack and told him that there was a pressing errand in Picton, and to please ride over there pronto.
 

Black Jack, upon arriving at the center of town with the best rope available, was whisked behind a stage, given a hood and a pair of gardening gloves, and told what to do.
 
Once on the platform with the bound and blindfolded murderer, he simply said, “Do not be afraid, my friend.
 
You are going to a better place.” He tightened the knot and pulled the lever.
Bloody Jack, you’ll never change,
he thought.
Unless you find yourself love and happiness again.

Greenstone ground to powder with an iron whetstone, placed into white flour and wet to a paste.
 
It was Black Jack's secret silver polish.
 
Ironically, he discovered it quite by accident when he tried to sharpen Robulla’s pounamu. The old mere went back on the shelf in his hut, but fine green glass flecks had gone everywhere and irritated his eyes and skin for days.
 
Upon touching the aging flour tins with sparkling fingertips, he found that a gleam arose where once there was merely a dusting of rust and a thin, dull tarnish.
 
He became obsessive about the shine of the metal, and he began to buff everything.
 
He would stand and polish the entire set of the Major’s silver for hours on end some days, staring into the smooth, gleaming surfaces.
 
Such was his fascination that he had started making suggestions. “Sir, you could make your silver into coins and start your own country.” Or, “Sir, you could make a kind of money for the Maori and Pakeha alike and unify the land.” The Major would listen and then laugh at him in a loud, fatherly tone that he seemed to reserve only for Black Jack and his comments.