Toward the Sea of Freedom (23 page)

Only three weeks later, Ian had realized his intent, and Kathleen conceived again. She gave birth to her second son, Colin, just a little more than ten months after her arrival in her new country. But while she had carried Sean without complications, her second pregnancy had its share of challenges. Kathleen struggled against weakness and nausea and, on top of that, she had to quickly wean Sean because her milk was running dry. The baby was outraged at this. He cried constantly, and Kathleen could not keep him quiet when Ian came home.

Fortunately, Ian was often away. His business was doing well, and it often took him to the Canterbury Plains for several days at a time. There were not yet any livestock markets in New Zealand like the ones in England and Ireland. Ian had to ply his trade as a sort of traveling salesman. He would buy a few horses, sheep, or cattle; herd them across the countryside; and offer to sell them to the next farmer. Of course, this worked better with horses, mules, and donkeys than with grazing animals, the moving of which demanded herders and dogs. This was especially true for trade between the settlers of Port Cooper and the farmers in the plains. It was almost impossible to lead non-haltered animals over the steep, rough pass that separated the harbor from the interior. So in Port Cooper itself, Ian focused on the horse trade—and he quickly managed to make his new neighbors distrust him.

Kathleen thought about all this as she climbed up the hill, the ungainly toddler Sean on one hand and baby Colin bound to her back in a sling. In her other hand she hauled her purchases: vegetables from the harbor market, milk, and milled grain to bake bread and make porridge for the children. As if all that weren’t enough, she pulled a cumbersome sack of wool behind her. It needed to be washed, teased, and spun. Kathleen was skillful with such things, and Linda, the exuberant miller’s wife, liked to take advantage of this. She had grown up on a farm and kept a few animals in stalls near the mill. While she readily sheared her five sheep herself, handiwork like spinning or weaving didn’t come easily for her.

Once, Kathleen had the bitter thought that Linda or her husband could have brought the material to her door in their wagon. But their horse was dragging its leg again, and even if Linda did not come out and say it, Kathleen thought they were punishing her for Ian’s deception about the horse.

“Just what was your husband thinking, selling my Carl that old nag?” Linda said. “Sure, our other mare was a little peculiar—she would come home without Carl.” A stifled giggle slipped into Linda’s voice. She came from the country; her husband, from a suburb of London. He was an excellent baker and miller, but he had no talent for animals. “But still, it would move. This new one, though . . . I’d bet it’s hauling at least twenty years on its back.”

“Can’t you tell?” Kathleen objected shyly. “By the teeth?”

“Oh, there are ways,” said John, the smith. He was just entering the mill to look at the horse’s leg again. “You rub this and that off the teeth; horse traders are creative.”

“But, but Ian would never . . .” Kathleen defended her husband.

John rolled his eyes.

“I’ve yet to meet a horse trader who’s not a rascal,” he said. “But, of course, I agree with you, Mrs. Coltrane. You shouldn’t sell your neighbor a lame nag. That comes back around to you. So let’s just assume your husband simply knew nothing about the previous owner’s schemes.”

Kathleen would have liked to believe that, but there was already too much talk in the little town for it to be the case. Almost no one was satisfied with the animals Ian had sold them—only George Hancock, one of the farmers, was happy at first with a gorgeous dark-black broodmare. But she still had not birthed a foal, and Hancock had just learned that its previous owner had sold it for that very reason. The argument that Ian had not known didn’t work this time. The previous owner swore he had revealed the reason he was selling it.

“Had no reason to lie, either,” said an excited George Hancock at a picnic after the prayer meeting one Sunday. “Penny’s a fine horse, just not for breeding. And Ian Coltrane—forgive me, Mrs. Coltrane, but that fellow lies as naturally as you or I breathe.”

Kathleen had pretended she did not hear—after all, Colin was working himself up to cry as loud as he could, and she had to prevent Sean from joining him. Still, what they were saying hurt, and it poisoned her newly formed friendships. Ian preferred it that way, naturally. He never stopped torturing Kathleen with his jealousy and had grown angry because she did not get pregnant immediately after Colin was born. By now, he, too, had realized that Port Cooper was not the ideal place for him to settle.

Shortly after the Coltranes’ arrival in New Zealand, the Canterbury Association in England had formed an organization of faithful Anglicans determined to establish a large settlement in the new colony. They had acquired land a day’s march from Port Cooper for a new city—Christchurch, finally a diocese on the English model. A road would be built across the mountains in the near future.

People would need animals for transportation and work. The new citizens of Christchurch would assuredly not be buying those in Port Cooper if there were closer alternatives. So Ian was contemplating a move, while just the thought of leaving her new friends made Kathleen fearful and uncertain. When Ian once again unleashed his anger on her and accused her of infidelity, she contradicted him for the first time.

“You of all people accuse me of cheating! Who here cheats his customers? I can hardly still look people in the eye, the way people curse the old, lame, or barren nags you’ve sold them. And you don’t really think it will be any different if we move to Christchurch, do you? Or are you suddenly going to turn into an honest trader?”

“As honest a trader as you are a wife,” Ian roared at Kathleen, hitting her and throwing her on the bed.

Lately, he had started to insist on his marital rights at unexpected times. Apparently, he feared she would do something to prevent a pregnancy if he did not take her by surprise. And the struggle for sex seemed to excite him, so he increasingly forced himself on Kathleen while Colin cried and Sean was in danger of falling into the fireplace or some other horror.

Kathleen could never relax. What Ian insisted on had nothing in common with the joys of love she had shared with Michael in the fields by the river. Kathleen asked God to forgive her, but she began to hate Ian.

That day in spring, Ian’s problems with the neighbors escalated. Kathleen had just carried her sons and her supplies past John Seeker’s smith shop and considered whether she ought to take a rest. Sean was already whining; the climb was long for him, too, and the weather was unusually warm for the spring month of November. Surely Pere would have a glass of water for Kathleen and milk for the little ones. The Maori woman was the only one who still treated Kathleen as kindly as when she had first arrived. Knowing the secret of Sean’s paternity, Pere, of all people, had reason to scorn her. But apparently the Maori thought about things differently.

“Every child reason for joy, every child property of tribe, every woman mother, every old woman grandmother,” Pere had soothed Kathleen. She told her repeatedly about the customs of her people, among whom even a child out of wedlock was no reason to feel ashamed. “If a man knows woman is fertile, she valued much more.”

Even little Sean pulled her toward the house. He liked to visit Pere because she told him fairy tales and spoiled him with sugary treats. The Maori loved sugar—and Pere enjoyed that, as the wife of a
pakeha
, she could get all the sugar she wanted. She baked bonbons, candy canes, and sweet cakes she generously gave to all the neighborhood children.

But as Kathleen was still considering whether she wanted to knock or go straight home and start working on the wool, she heard a loud argument coming from the smithy. One of the voices was Ian’s, and indeed his horse, a strong chestnut, was hitched in front of the house.

Kathleen’s first impulse was not only to go home but to run there. If Ian saw her here, he would accuse her of wanting to see John or fetching some means of preventing a pregnancy from Pere. It would be far better if she were at home washing and teasing the wool. But then what she heard from inside the shop made her too curious to leave. Kathleen ordered Sean to quit his whining and listened by the door of the smithy.

“What do you mean you won’t do it?” Ian asked. “Come, I’m just asking you to hammer in the nails a little higher. The seller gave me the horse because its shoes wouldn’t hold.”

John snorted like an angry horse. “Don’t tell me your tales, Coltrane. If the shoes don’t hold, you change smiths, not horses. The man sold his horse because it’s unsteady. Something’s wrong with the left back leg; bad hipbone, I take it. And now you want me to hammer the nails so tight the shoes pinch? Then both legs will hurt, and he won’t drag that one, eh? But I won’t do it, Ian Coltrane. It goes against my professional honor.”

“Bah. What’s honor, John? Now do it. I’ll pay three pence more.” Ian’s voice sounded relaxed. “If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself, but I can’t get the nails in a neat row. People notice that.”

Kathleen was startled when John tore open the gate to the smithy and commanded Ian to leave. “I believe you, boy, that you don’t know what honor is. But I do know, so get lost with your lame nag, and shame on you.”

The powerful smith rushed Ian outside with a shove. Ian tripped and fell. The horse, which he held by the reins, shied. Kathleen hoped she could still flee unnoticed, but Ian had already seen her.

“You, you little whore,” Ian seized her arm and shook her. “Caught you in the act, huh? You were listening at the door to see if everything was quiet and you could get to your lover.”

Kathleen shook her head desperately. The children began to scream.

John Seeker opened the door to his smithy again. “Be gone, Coltrane,” he growled. “On my land you’ll neither cheat your customers nor beat your wife. The poor thing, she’s really done nothing to deserve an ass like you. Leave her alone, ride home, and calm yourself. And woe to you if tomorrow I see you’ve hit your wife. Are you all right, Kathleen?”

Kathleen nodded, her face red with shame. So now the neighbors knew Ian beat her too. And worse still, in his rush to defend her, John had called her by her first name. Ian would hold that against her. Normally her friends’ husbands respectfully called her Mrs. Coltrane, especially in Ian’s presence.

Ian shoved Kathleen rudely toward home. “Get out of here,” he whispered to her. “You’ve caused me enough trouble. Now get home; I’ll see you there. And this time, I’m giving you a new baby.”

Indeed, Kathleen was pregnant when Ian sold their house in Port Cooper two months later. John Seeker had talked about the scene at the smithy all over town, and since then, everyone had avoided Ian Coltrane. Kathleen received no more invitations to Bible study or the prayer meetings on Sundays at which the settlers of all faiths met. So far, there were neither Catholic nor Anglican pastors in Port Cooper, so they had to fend for themselves. Kathleen, who could sing or read from the Bible with a full, sweet voice, had been a welcome addition. But Ian had spoiled that for her too. On the other side of the mountains, he explained, there would be no neighbors with whom she could flirt. Ian had bought a farm on the Avon River, not far from the new settlement, Christchurch, but still too far to offer Kathleen any opportunities for socializing.