Cry of the Taniwha (8 page)

It was mid-morning when Matt climbed out of bed the next day. He’d had trouble getting to sleep because of worrying; not so much about what had already happened, but about what might happen in the future, especially with Jackson and the burglary.

Hone had left for work, leaving Nan baking in the kitchen. She gave Matt a big smile as he walked in. ‘Good morning, Matt. Have a look at the paper. You’re famous.’

Matt looked at the newspaper on the table, expecting to see a small article on an inside page. Instead, he saw that most of the front page was devoted to the skeleton found in the forest. Right in the centre was a large photo of him scanning the ground with his metal detector. The article alongside made a big feature of the handcuffs and the gold coins, suggesting that it was a robbery gone wrong. The reporter had quotes from Dr Ian McMillan saying that the person had died during the eruption. From that, she proposed that the robber had been caught, but in the chaos of the eruption had somehow managed to escape. Then, when he was picking the locks of the handcuffs, he’d got buried by the steam explosion.

‘What do you think of that?’ asked Nan, proudly, putting a plate of food in front of him.

‘It’s OK,’ he replied.

‘OK? It’s more than OK: I think it’s great.’ Then she smiled at him. ‘But I suppose you have your photo in the paper every day.’

Matt shrugged.
Not every day,
he thought. But it had happened before. Last time was when he had found the time capsule at school. That had led to a lot of teasing from some of the older students. Having your photograph in the paper was not always good news. Maybe this time would be the same.

There was no sign of Jackson by the time Matt left the house. But Diz was around, waiting just along the road.

‘Where’s the diamonds, Bogan?’ he asked.

Matt studied his shoes. ‘I’ll never find them,’ he complained. ‘We don’t even know that they’re there.’

‘You better find something ’cos Skulla’s getting angry.’ Without warning, Diz threw a fist at Matt’s face, stopping it just before it made contact. Then he laughed as Matt pulled back, raising his arm to protect himself. ‘That’s just a reminder of what’ll happen if you don’t. Now get to work before I start hitting you for real.’

Matt didn’t need to be told twice. He scurried off in the direction of the forest, feeling Diz’s eyes watching him all the way.

Before he’d got anywhere near the mud pool, Matt was aware that the newspaper publicity had changed things. There were cars parked on the grass by the netting fence, along with the sound of voices filtering through the trees.

There were about a dozen people in the clearing. Some were gathered around the hole where the skeleton had been found; another lot were studying the plopping mud; two of them were waving metal detectors about.

Matt wasn’t going to look for diamonds with all that
lot about, so he went into the forest and skirted around the mud pool before crossing the stream and approaching the other clearing. For a while he stayed in the bushes, listening for voices. There were none, so he walked in and began scanning.

In a way, he was just going through the motions. If the gang expected him to search for things, then that is what he would do. He glanced up to the lookout and saw that he was being spied on again. At least Diz would get the message that he was looking for things.

After half an hour, he’d had enough. There was nothing, not even rubbish. It seemed like the clearing was clean. Then, just as he had that thought, the machine started squealing like a stuck pig. Matt dropped to his knees and began digging. It only took a moment of scraping and he had it: a coin of some sort.

With growing excitement he rubbed it against his shirt, before holding it up to the light. It was definitely old. A bit of spit and another rub and he knew it was also gold. He could see the shield identical to the sovereign that Burty and Lew had shown him.

‘Old and gold. Old and gold,’ he chanted to himself, thrilled with the find. Now he would have a true memento of his find. The candleholder could go to the—

A flash of light from the lookout made him look up. The watcher had binoculars trained on him, watching every move. His heart sank. There would be no golden memento. The gang would take it off him. Nothing he found was his anymore.

He put the sovereign to one side and checked the ground once more with the detector. It squealed almost as loudly
as it had before. A moment later, there were two sovereigns sitting on the ground. Then a while after that there were four. By the time the machine fell silent, Matt had a pile of nine sovereigns—more than two thousand dollars’ worth.

As he packed up the detector, he wondered whether that would be enough to satisfy the gang. Probably not, but it might be enough for them to put off the robbery, which would give him longer to work out something for Jackson.

Before he left for the day, his bowel—which had been competing with the natural smells of Whakarewarewa for the past hour—insisted that it be emptied. He went into the bushes. While he was enjoying the relief of the action, a movement in the clearing caught his eyes. Someone was there and they were right beside the sovereigns and the detector.

By the time he’d finished and was able to move out of the scrub, the person had the detector in his hands and was running towards the bushes on the other side.

‘Hey!’ yelled Matt. ‘Give that back!’

There was no reply other than the breaking of branches as the thief crashed through the scrub. Matt raced after him. ‘Hey!’ he yelled again.

The path that the thief had taken was easy to follow, but Matt sensed he was well behind. Soon they moved onto a formed track, which gave Matt a glimpse of the thief disappearing into the distance.

The track went on and on, twisting in and out of the trees. All the time, the sounds coming from the front were getting more distant. If something didn’t happen, the thief would get clean away.

Then they moved onto one of the forestry roads and Matt
got a clear look at him. It was The Gawk, wearing the same short shorts and tropical shirt as the day before. He was now a thief as well as a spy.

Unfortunately, The Gawk’s long legs gave him an advantage and the gap widened still more. Yet Matt figured that, sooner or later, the detector would slow him down, so he kept up the chase.

It was all downhill for a while until they reached the flat near the back of the forest research centre. Now there were people about. ‘Stop him!’ yelled Matt. ‘Stop him! He’s stolen my detector.’

While everyone turned and stared, no one made a move to help. Soon The Gawk was into the car park. He went straight for a bike that was leaning against a tree. For a moment he fumbled with a chain around the back wheel. Matt sprinted forward, thinking that this was his chance. ‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘Stop!’

But The Gawk didn’t stop. Just as Matt was about to close in on him, he swung his leg over the seat and took off down the road.

‘Stop!’ screamed Matt. ‘Please stop!’ The Gawk didn’t even look back, and soon he was out of sight around a bend, leaving Matt holding his head in his hands, wondering what on earth he would do now.

Back in the clearing, it took Matt only a moment to confirm what he had feared: the sovereigns had also been taken.

He sat on the ground, trying to come to grips with the situation. Now he was worse off than before. He had no treasure to give to Skulla, and no way of ever finding any.

As he was thinking this, the heron glided into the clearing to land just a few metres away. It didn’t even look at him. Instead, it had its sights fixed on an insect. Ever so slowly it crept forward, always moving, but not so much that it would catch your eye. It continued until it was within striking distance, where it stopped and took aim. There was a blur of movement, followed by the raucous buzz of a cicada. For a while the heron allowed the cicada to call, before closing its beak, muffling the sound until it stopped. Next he raised his neck into the air, opened his mouth, and two chomps later the cicada was gone.

Only then did he turn to look at Matt.
‘Craarrk!’
he belched, loudly.

Matt laughed, happy to have some relief from his misery. ‘Did you enjoy that, Tani?’

‘Craarrk!’
replied the heron. Then he took off and climbed back up to his perch in the tree, where he hopped along the branch towards the nest. The head of his mate appeared, and for a while they rubbed beaks, before Tani moved back to his perch to resume his guard duties.

Matt was touched by the show of affection. For some reason, it made him think of Eve, and suddenly he knew what he should do: ring Eve and tell her what had happened. She might not solve his problem, but sharing his concerns would be a good start.

His call was answered almost immediately.

‘Hi, Matt,’ whispered Eve. ‘Just a minute.’ There was the sound of movement for a while before she spoke again. ‘That’s better,’ she said more loudly. ‘I’m at the library. Everyone stared at me angrily when the phone went, so I’ve shifted to the stairs. You’ll never guess what I’ve found. It’s a
paper called
The Auckland Bulletin.
It only came out weekly, but it had all this gossip from way back, and Mary Basham’s in there. Apparently she was a collector of stuff, and she organized an afternoon tea for all these rich women to come and find out about her wonderful collection. This was on—’

Matt smiled. This girl was certainly enthusiastic about her work.

‘Here it is,’ continued Eve. ‘That was on the twenty-eighth of May, 1886. It mentions her husband, Edward, but says he was not at the afternoon tea. But there was a man there. A…’—more shuffling of papers—‘…a Jack Boult. The reporter plainly didn’t like this man, for he is described as “a small, smirking man, who did nothing but stare with shifty eyes”. But listen to this: Mrs Basham is reported to have been wearing a monstrous diamond pendant, which nobody could take their eyes off, especially Mr Boult.

‘Then in the following week’s edition’—more rustling of paper—‘under the travel news it is reported that Mr and Mrs Edward Basham travelled by coach to Ohinemutu, which is right here in Rotorua. But guess who their travelling companion was? It was the shifty-eyed Jack Boult! What do you think of that?’ This time she took a break, waiting for Matt’s response.

‘Hi, Eve,’ he said, chuckling. ‘It’s good to hear that you’re enjoying yourself.’

‘Oh, I am. But what do you think of this Jack Boult? Do you think he could be the skeleton?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I reckon it’s him, because…’—a pause as more papers were shifted—‘because Mr and Mrs Edward Basham returned to Auckland on the eleventh of June, but Jack Boult
was not with them. I reckon that’s because he was dead. He followed them to Ohinemutu, robbed them, got caught by the police, and then escaped. But after that he got killed by the eruption.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Matt. ‘Did you see the paper this morning?’

‘No.’

‘Well, there’s a front-page piece on the body. The reporter gives that same theory, but doesn’t name the robber.’

‘Was the reporter a woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it must be right. Us women have a nose for this sort of thing. Jack Boult was the robber, and Jack Boult is the skeleton. Now that we’ve sorted that out, what have you got to tell me? Have you found any other stuff?’

‘Yes, but…’ He took a deep breath before bringing her up to date with what had happened.

Eve was as good a listener as she was a talker. She let Matt tell his story without interruption. Only when he asked did she offer her opinion.

‘You’ve got to tell the police,’ she said with feeling. ‘Otherwise that gang will really hurt you. Those gangs are really horrible people.’

‘But won’t I be in more trouble if I go to the police?’ he replied.

‘No! They’ll protect you.’

Matt thought about that. He wasn’t sure how much protection the police would give, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. But I’ll tell Hone first, see what he thinks.’

‘He’ll say the same thing. If you don’t speak up, how will people know you’re in trouble?’

Soon after that, they said their goodbyes.

Matt continued sitting after they’d disconnected, sorting out his ideas. When he finally went to get up, he noticed that the ground beneath his backside was warm. He felt around with his hand, and found that in some places the surface was quite hot. He looked over to the steam rising from the nearby thermal field. There had to be some underground connection between there and here. That would explain why the clearing existed: the ground was too hot for plants to grow. He left, wondering whether the mud-pool clearing had looked much the same before the explosion. For the first time, he felt a little frightened of the place.

Eve was right. Hone did say the same thing, and with a lot more force. He was angry. Angry at the gang; angry at Jackson for getting involved; angry at Matt for not speaking up sooner; and angry at himself for initiating the friendship that had led to the contact with the gang.

‘You can’t let them control you like this, Matt,’ he said. ‘They’ll take over your life, and soon you’ll be as bad as they are.’

Matt nodded. ‘They’ve already taken over Jackson,’ he said miserably.

‘Not if I have any say in it, they haven’t,’ replied Hone, forcefully. Then, more quietly, he added, ‘That Skulla has got a lot to answer for.’

Lots more was said along this theme before the patrol car pulled into the drive. It was Burty and Lew, looking much more serious than they had on each of their other visits. However, that didn’t stop Burty mounting an attack on Nan’s restocked cake tins.

Lew took Matt through his statement, recording the information in his notebook. When they’d finished, he looked at Matt and asked, ‘Did they hit you at any stage?’

‘No! But I know they’ve attacked Jackson.’ Matt then described what he’d seen on the first morning.

‘That’s typical of the gangs,’ said Lew. ‘They start with intimidation and then offer gang membership for doing a job. Once the first job is done, they’ve got them.’

‘Then we’ve got to stop Jackson doing this job,’ said Hone.

‘Yes,’ replied Lew. ‘We’ll have a chat to Jackson, but that’s unlikely to change things. The important thing is to keep an eye on Skulla and his mates. If we can make it hot enough for them, then Jackson should be OK.’

‘What about the theft of Matt’s metal detector?’ asked Hone.

‘You’d better give us a description of this guy,’ Lew replied.

Matt gave him the details, which were duly written down.

‘Sounds real gawky to me,’ said Burty, picking at his teeth.

‘He is,’ said Matt.

‘Then we’ll keep a lookout for gawks. We can’t have you losing your machine when there’s still treasure to be found.’

‘What about that metal box you mentioned?’ asked Lew.

Matt went and got the strongbox minus the candleholder. As they studied the locket and notebook, he explained how he’d taken the rocks and water to Ian McMillan.

‘That’s fine,’ said Lew. ‘You did the right thing there. Tell you what: you hold on to all of this and take it to the museum within the next couple of days. I’m sure the curator would want to talk to you about it all.’

Matt agreed.

‘All right,’ said Lew getting to his feet. ‘We’ll go pick up Jackson and have a talk with him.’

‘He’s real scared,’ said Matt. ‘He thinks they’ll kill him if he doesn’t do the job.’

Lew nodded. ‘We’ll keep that in mind.’

Burty asked, ‘Are you scared, too?’

Matt nodded.

‘Don’t be. We’ll be watching them. If they do anything
wrong then we’ll lock them up, and with their records they’re likely to stay there for a long time.’

Hone took the next day off work, and the first thing he did was to go over to Jackson’s and ‘invite’ him over for breakfast.

It was soon clear to Matt that the boy hadn’t come willingly. His head was down, with his mouth twisted in a sneer. When he saw Matt, he made a rude sign with his fingers. ‘You snitched to the feds!’

‘No, he didn’t.’ said Hone. ‘I did. Now, sit down. There’re some things we need to talk about.’

Jackson sat, but side-on to the table with his head facing away.

‘OK,’ continued Hone. ‘First, I’ll have my say, then each of you can give your point of view. If you’ve got something to say, then say it. Do you understand that? Matt?’ Matt nodded. ‘Jackson?’ Jackson’s head moved fractionally in what might’ve been a nod.

Hone then explained why he’d called the police, his views on honesty, and what he thought about people who resorted to violence. There was no anger in his voice, yet there was no doubting that he held those views strongly. ‘I know both of you are scared of what the WXK gang will do to you. I can’t stop you being scared, but I can give you some pointers on how to deal with it. You two need to stick together. Now’s
not
the time to start fighting each other. Stick together and you’ll be stronger.’

He turned to Matt. ‘Make sure you’ve got your phone with you at all times, and don’t be afraid to dial one-one-one
if something goes wrong. And Jackson, keep away from the other gang members, and away from where they hang out. If there’re any problems, tell me or Matt. I think that’s the most important message I can give you: tell people. The more of us who know what’s happening, the more of us there are to help. And, lastly, I’m going to get a couple of bikes so that you’re more mobile. It means you can go to more places, but also they’ll help you get away if there’s any trouble.’

After that, Matt told Jackson about The Gawk stealing the detector and sovereigns, and why he had told Hone. By the time he’d finished, Jackson was sitting at the table normally, with his head up, nodding as he listened.

However, when it came to his turn, he had little to say. He just mumbled an apology to Matt and said that he didn’t blame him for telling Hone.

‘Have you had any contact from Skulla?’ asked Hone.

Jackson shook his head. ‘Nah! They might’ve cancelled the job.’

‘Good! Then you should be all right.’

Matt nodded, but Jackson was clearly unconvinced.

‘Right then,’ said Hone with forced cheerfulness. ‘Let’s have breakfast—and then I’ll take you on an expedition into the dim, dark ages of my past. Who knows what we might find there.’

The journey into Hone’s past was along the road south towards Taupo. When he was young, he’d lived near the Wai-o-tapu thermal area.

‘My mum was a guide for many years. That was back
when they were planting all the forests. There was a prison nearby and the prisoners had to plant the trees. At times, they would hang around the tearooms at Wai-o-tapu. The person who ran the place had a pet dog called Wai and a magpie called Tapu. The prisoners taught the magpie to swear. After that, whenever tourists arrived, Tapu would greet them with a string of swear words worse than anything they’d ever heard before. Yet they didn’t seem to mind. If a human had said the same words, they would’ve been terribly upset. But when an animal said them, it was funny.’

‘Is the prison still there?’ asked Jackson.

‘No, it closed many years ago. It was an open prison: it didn’t have fences or anything like that—it worked on a sort of honesty system.’

‘Honest prisoners,’ said Matt, incredulously.

‘Yeah! They existed. I think they still do. Some people get caught up in wrong things and don’t know what to do. Probably the prison here was full of people like that.’

Shortly afterwards, they turned onto a side road, which after a few kilometres led to the tourist area. For the next couple of hours they explored the thermal wonderland. Hone was a good guide, telling them stories about how things had changed since he was a kid. He took them to the Lady Knox Geyser, which played when soap powder was poured down the vent—something that the prisoners had discovered many years before.

Later, they took a different route back to the main road. Hone stopped alongside a block of land dotted with some large cedar trees. ‘This is where we used to live,’ he said. ‘C’mon and I’ll show you.’

All that was left of the house were a couple of concrete
slabs and some steps. ‘We didn’t have electricity or anything like that. The stove used wood, and when we needed light we used candles.’

He led them down a slope to a steaming stream. ‘This was our bathroom. We never ran out of hot water. Put your hand in and feel it.’

Matt did and found that it was pleasantly warm, although he didn’t think he’d want to swim in it. The water was dark grey with a faint smell of sulphur.

‘You had to keep a good lookout though,’ said Hone with a smile. ‘Or the water rats would bite your private bits.’

‘Water rats!’ said Jackson and Matt together.

‘Yeah. Rats love the warm streams around here, especially in winter.’ He picked up a stick. ‘Maybe there’s still some around.’ He carefully worked his way around to where the bank was bare. The face of it was riddled with holes. He slapped the stick on the top of the bank. Immediately three rats appeared, diving out of the holes and straight into the water.

Matt was amazed at how fast they could move. Within seconds they’d made it to the other bank where they disappeared into the weeds. ‘I wouldn’t swim in there,’ he said.

Hone smiled at him. ‘You would if there was no other place. The alternative was to stay dirty and get covered in sores.’

As Hone climbed back he suddenly stopped, put his hand to his chest and grimaced with pain.

‘You all right, Hone?’ asked Jackson.

Slowly, Hone stood upright, rubbing his chest. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘You sure?’ said Matt, helping him up the bank.

In answer, Hone let out a long, loud belch. ‘Ah! That’s better.’ He smiled in relief. ‘It was only indigestion.’

Jackson looked at him with concern. ‘I thought you were having a heart attack.’

‘If I was, would you know what to do?’

Jackson shook his head. ‘Don’t you have to do that blowing in the mouth thing?’

‘CPR,’ said Matt. ‘I can do it.’ Then he chuckled. ‘Well, at least I can do it on a dummy. We learnt it at school.’

‘Good!’ said Hone. ‘Sounds like a sensible school. Some of us old fellas might need somebody like you around.’

‘You’re not really old,’ said Jackson.

Hone laughed. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I feel ancient when I come back here. It seems such a long time since I was running around as a kid.’ His eyes lost focus for a moment as he remembered. Then he gave a little shake of the head. ‘C’mon. There’s something we must do before we go.’

He led them to a grass patch which, judging by the old apple trees, was once an orchard. ‘When we were young we used to find four-leaved clovers in here. They’re meant to bring good luck. So let’s see who’s the first to find one.’

Soon they were all on their hands and knees, searching for the lucky charms. Jackson found the first one, and then another, and another. He had four before Matt found his first. By the end, Jackson had eight and Matt and Hone had three each. If they truly did bring good luck, then the future for each of them looked very bright—especially for Jackson.

Unfortunately, the joy of the day was spoiled when they
arrived back in Rotorua. As the car turned into the road where they lived, Jackson suddenly flattened himself down on the back seat. Three youths were swaggering along the footpath. Matt recognized one of them as a member of the WXK. None of them looked at the car as it passed, but he found his gut tightening and his pulse quickening. He opened his hand to look at the wilting four-leaved clovers, and wondered if perhaps they’d already lost their power.