Tommo & Hawk (38 page)

I push past them and run into the hut. One of the old women stands holding a small bundle what is squalling. Our baby! But Makareta is lying on a flaxen mat with much blood around her. She is breathing heavy and a rasping noise comes from her chest. Her lips is cracked and she is in a lather o' sweat, with tiny bubbles coming from her nostrils.

'Makareta?' I whispers, crouching down beside her. 'Makareta, it's Tommo! Tommo's come home.' There is no sound from her lips, only the rasping of her chest. I take up her hand and hold it in my own. 'Makareta, it's Tommo! Can you hear me? It's your Tommo, come home from the war!'

'She is dying,' the woman says. 'You have a daughter.'

I do not hear her at first. Then slowly it sinks in that she is talking to me as if Makareta be already gone. The pain in me heart starts to grow, not all at once but quick enough. It climbs up into me throat where it fills me 'til I know I'll choke with it. 'Oh God! Please don't let her die!' I hears meself say, though whether it be inside my head or out I don't know, for me fear and pain is blocking everything out.

I put my arms 'round Makareta, who is on fire to the touch. I bring her hand to my lips, and then crouches down and holds her in my arms. I rock her gently until my fear begins to fade, and I can breathe and speak once more. 'Please, Makareta, please don't die! I needs you! If you live I will stay here. I'll stay with you forever. Please don't die! Don't let the mongrels get ya, me darling!'

I feel Makareta's hand come up slow and touch mine. Her mouth moves painfully and she whispers once, 'Tommo!' She is too weak to say more, but I can see she is trying to speak. Her lips open, then close again, then open. She is trying hard to gather breath.

'What is it? I love you, Makareta!' I sob.

I feel her squeeze my hand again. There is no strength left and it is less than a child's hand putting pressure to mine. Then a tear falls from her left eye. Another follows from the right, rollin' ever so slow down her beautiful, sweet face. They roll across her cheeks and over her chin. In a whisper I can hardly hear, she says, 'Tommo, it is a girl. I am sorry.' Then she opens her eyes and looks at me, and I sees the love she feels. 'Tommo, will you forgive me?'

'Makareta! It doesn't matter! Please, please live, me darling!' I am sobbing, shrieking, unable to hold back any longer. 'Please?' I am now begging her. But she gives a small sigh, and the life goes from her.

I weep and weep. I do not hear the midwife leave with the infant. I cradle Makareta in me arms and rock her, as though if I should hold on tight enough she may live again. Everything is still. Outside the women are keening. It is like a pack o' dogs baying at the moon. The mongrels have won again. Me head aches something fierce. My tears are frozen to the back o' my eyes, like shards of glass. Tommo needs a drink! Yours truly needs the black bottle!

Hawk

The Land of the Long White Cloud

July 1860

Tommo has gone. He left before dawn's light. I retire from Tamihana's feast at sunrise, too weary to think, and am immediately met by the old woman who is Makareta's mother.

'Makareta is dead!' she announces the moment I appear.

'Dead?' I cannot comprehend what I hear. 'Dead?' I repeat. Death through violence has been around me for so long that a death unrelated to war seems somehow impossible.

'She died in childbirth,' her mother adds.

Now I am suddenly alert and cry out in alarm. 'Tommo! Where is Tommo?' I should think first of dear Makareta, but it is concern for my twin which comes crowding into my head.

Makareta's mother shrugs. 'He is gone. I have not seen him.'

I try to gather my wits. Tommo gone? He cannot go without me. He is grieving, I feel sure, and cannot be far away.

'I shall send some young boys to find him,' I say to her. 'What of the child?'

'It is a girl. We have found her a wet nurse and taken her away. She is small but healthy.'

I nod, and the old woman sighs and moves away.

So Tommo has a daughter. But his child has cost him the woman he loves. Why must my brother always suffer such misfortune? The mongrels, as he calls them, seem to abound in his life.

I have not slept for nigh on twenty-four hours and think the same must be true for my twin. Perhaps he has gone into the forest and sleeps there. I send several young lads to find him, though God knows how they will do so if he is in among the tall trees.

'Do not wake him if he is asleep, but come back to tell me where he may be found,' I instruct them, and the lads run off, anxious to do my bidding. Weariness overcomes me. After I have slept a little I must attend to Makareta and ask the elders and the tohunga to arrange the funeral rites.

When I awake shortly before noon, the young lads are waiting outside my hut. 'Have you seen him?' I ask anxiously.

'We have searched everywhere, Black Hawk. He is not to be found. Some of the women who rise early say they saw him leave the village before daylight and take the path north.'

'The track to Auckland?' My heart sinks.

'It is the same.'

'Thank you,' I say. 'Let me know if you see or hear anything more.' They chorus that they will do as I ask.

Slowly my suspicions begin to grow. The demon black bottle. Tommo has been pushed over the edge. My brother is back in the wilderness and wishes to escape into the oblivion of grog.

I must speak to Chief Tamihana, but he is still asleep and I must wait. I pace outside his hut impatiently, then go to sit under a shady totara tree. But I am too anxious to remain seated and soon resume my restless vigil by his door. It is mid-afternoon before he emerges.

'Why do you disturb me from my slumber, Black Hawk?' Tamihana frowns slightly.

I apologise and explain what has happened. Then I beg leave to depart at once, explaining that I fear that Tommo has gone to Auckland.

'Why?' Tamihana asks. 'Why would he do such a thing? He is rangatira now. He will have a good life with us.'

'It is a matter of the heart,' I explain. 'My brother will grieve much over Makareta's death and will think not to show this to the Maori.'

'Why can he not grieve here? We will understand. We are not savages, Black Hawk.'

'With the pakeha it is sometimes different. They wish to drink spirits to forget their grief.'

'And Tommo has gone to obtain spirits so that he may forget?' I nod and Tamihana continues, 'We will send a message to our people, they will soon find him and bring him back.'

'No, I must go myself. He is of my blood.'

Chief Tamihana laughs at this. 'You, the man they want most, would walk straight into the enemy's camp? The pakeha will murder you. You cannot go, Black Hawk. I forbid it.'

'Tommo will not go to Kororareka, where they might recognise us,' I say.

'My friend, they know who you are everywhere! Kororareka, Auckland, even in Wellington they know of you! They know of the American Indian, Chief Blackhawk, who fights for the Maori.'

'But I do not look like an American Indian! The townsfolk will think me just another Maori. They do not know me by sight.'

'Ha! There are no Maori who are so black and stand so tall as you.'

'Nevertheless, I must go. I must find Tommo before he comes to harm.'

'Sit,' Tamihana now commands, indicating a bench.

I sit, and a woman brings us food and drink. The chief's food and mine are the same, but are served separately as it is tapu to eat from the same dish as Tamihana. 'Eat, Black Hawk,' he says. 'I wish to talk to you as a friend. It is most foolish to go to find your brother. You must stay here and I will send others to find Tommo and bring him back to us.'

It is then that I tell Chief Tamihana that Tommo and I have decided to leave New Zealand and, with his help, return to Australia.

He is silent a long while before he replies. 'A man cannot be held against his will, but we will miss you greatly, my friend. We have come to look upon you as a Maori. Your blood is our blood.' He pauses. 'You have brought great honour to our people, Black Hawk.'

I struggle to reply. 'I have only used what I knew, that is all.'

'No, beyond that,' Tamihana says. 'There is one thing you have taught us we shall always remember. Do you know what it is, Black Hawk?'

I shake my head.

'Do you not remember when you lifted War Chief Hapurona's aide by the neck, after he called you a coward?'

I look up, shocked that he knows of this. 'I am greatly ashamed to have done such a thing. He is a brave man.'

'A brave man perhaps, but also a foolish one!' Wiremu Tamihana replies. 'What he did was a thing of tradition. What you did changed this tradition forever.'

'I do not understand. What did I do? It was over in but a moment and I thank God I did not kill him.'

'Let me explain. If you had not spoken against staying in the pa, no one else would have. When Tamati Kapene called you a coward, he was following tradition. To talk of defeat is to be thought of forever as a coward and no Maori would have had the courage to do so. There is even a tapu against expressing such a thought.

'When you lifted Tamati into the air with your bare hands, you challenged the tapu. If you had killed him, as any Maori would have done, the tapu would have remained fixed. When you threw him to the floor and said not a single word, all who watched knew then that it is not cowardly to think about defeat and to live to fight another day. They knew that the tapu had broken itself.'

Wiremu Tamihana spreads his hands. 'The victory the Maori have enjoyed against the British in this last battle was because you helped defeat this great tapu, the strongest of them all. We are in your debt, General.'

I am astonished at these words. 'But it is to your people that my brother and I owe everything. When we first came, we were hunted by the law and you gave us your protection and shelter.'

Tamihana smiles. 'You will always be welcome among the Maori, my friend. But it is too soon for you to join our ancestors. If you go to find Tommo now, you will not last one day before the pakeha have your life. This time they will not wait to put you in gaol so that they might hang you later. They will shoot you like a dog.' He looks directly into my eyes. 'Please, give us seven days to find your brother. I shall send Hammerhead Jack by ketch. He will reach Auckland before Tommo.'

It takes three or four days to walk to Auckland. By boat, it will take Hammerhead Jack less than half this time. It is a sensible idea. 'If after this time there is no news, I must try to find him myself,' I reply.

Tamihana nods. 'We shall find Tommo and put him on a ship to Australia!'

I am horrified at this. 'He cannot go without me!'

'No, of course not,' reassures the chief. 'We shall take you to join him and smuggle you on board at night. We will find a captain who may need our friendship should he ever return to New Zealand.' Tamihana points to the dish of yam and pork. 'Now eat a little. All will be well, you shall see.'

I take some yam and wonder for a moment how Ikey is getting along with the Maori ancestors, who are said to feast on unlimited amounts of roasted pork every day!

Then I pluck up my courage once more. 'I have a great favour to ask you, Chief Tamihana. It concerns Tommo's woman and the name of their girl child.'

'Name? What can it matter what she is called? A girl's name is not important.'

'I understand and would not usually make such a request. But when we leave, and with the child's mother dead, I would wish for this girl to be well cared for. Her grandmother's hut is tapu and has been burnt down as is the tradition. The old woman too is tapu, having been associated with the dead mother, and might not live much longer. Last night you made Tommo rangatira. I would not wish for his daughter to be forgotten.'

Chief Tamihana dismisses this idea with a wave of his hand. 'She will come into my household,' he declares. 'We will care for her. The old woman cannot come but we will see she is fed until her tapu is lifted, then she can join the child again. You need not worry, the infant shall be brought up as nobility.' I thank Wiremu Tamihana profusely, but again he waves this away.

'What do you wish her to be named?' he continues. 'We shall give her a Maori name, or is it a pakeha name you want?'

'It is a Maori name, but it is not an unimportant one.'

'What is it?' Tamihana asks, curious now.

'Hinetitama,' I say, preparing for the scowl to come.

Chief Tamihana keeps his expression blank, but it is some time before he responds. 'Do you know that this is a name we can only give to a princess? How can I justify giving Tommo's girl child the name of the Dawn Maiden, daughter of Woman Made From Earth? In our belief, to call a commoner or even rangatira thus would be blasphemy -unless she were, in her own right, a princess.'

'I beg your forgiveness, Chief Tamihana. I did not wish to blaspheme against the ancestors.'

Now the chief looks at me hard. 'You knew this was not possible, Black Hawk, didn't you? Why then did you ask me?'

'It was a most foolish thing. I had no right,' I say, feeling myself suitably chastised.

'My friend, you are young, but you are not foolish. Is it because of the widow who came to you in the night?'

'You know?' My face grows warm.

Tamihana nods slowly, then explains. 'Wiremu Kingi asked me why you seemed reluctant to take a woman. If you were to be killed, he did not wish you transported to your ancestors still a virgin. I told him I wished the Maori woman you took to be from the Ngati Haua but he said that while he was responsible for you, she should be from the Ati Awa.' Tamihana laughs, then shrugs. 'Ever the peacemaker, I suggested that she be from another Maori tribe, so that we need not quarrel. To this, the old chief agreed. But we wanted to be sure that this woman from another tribe was no less worthy than our own wahine, so we asked for a certain princess who is the young widow of a great warrior. She was ready to enter life again, to be made noa.'

I try to conceal my anxiety at my next question. 'If I should wish to find her again, would you tell me how?'