Read Toward the Sea of Freedom Online
Authors: Sarah Lark
Lizzie had hiked two days into the mountains. She would never have tracked down the Maori on her own, but on the second day, two young hunters joined her while she caught fish with a weir according to Maori custom. The
pakeha
woman who knew traditional fishing methods interested the youths, and when she answered their questions in Maori, they brought her to the village. There she was given a complete
powhiri
greeting ceremony, and the Maori were exceedingly impressed when she answered formally with her
pepeha
. Her presents, too, were happily received—although Lizzie quickly realized there was no urgent need for the things she had brought.
It was astounding, but in this out-of-the-way village, there was nearly everything the Maori desired from the
pakeha
: the women used cast-iron pots and wrapped their children in warm wool blankets. The tribe possessed a flock of high-quality sheep, and its fields were ready for planting, a team of draft oxen having helped. Many of the people wore Western clothing, not just the chieftain and his family. Apparently, anyone here could have
pakeha
dresses or pants. The tribe was rich by Maori measures. This confirmed Lizzie’s suspicion that the natives knew exactly where the gold that the
pakeha
wanted was. Yet they protected this knowledge, which Lizzie thought sensible. So she formulated her questions on the topic carefully as she helped the chieftain’s sister and the other women to prepare the meal.
“My friends and I live near the new gold miners’ camp on the Tuapeka River. But we were considering spreading our search for gold into your area. I’ve come here to ask if we are welcome.”
“How many friends do you have?” the chieftain’s sister asked. “Two thousand? Three thousand? And do you intend to leave our land like the riverbed they call Gabriel’s Gully?”
Lizzie shook her head. “I have two friends,” she said. “And one of them is sick. He can no longer work but has a wife and two children in Wales—that is next to England, where many
pakeha
come from. If he finds no gold, his family will starve.”
“The woman can come here and care for her husband,” said one of the younger women. “She could work the land.”
“They would have to buy the land first,” said Lizzie. “And there it becomes difficult. Does the tribe sell land?”
The women laughed. “If we tried, there would be war,” the chieftain’s sister said drily. “The
pakeha
would say the land here doesn’t belong to us. We’re a tribe that wanders, sometimes here, sometimes there.”
“But you do have a region in which you wander?” Lizzie asked, confused.
The woman snorted. “It contained Gabriel’s Gully. And the land on which the Tuapeka River camp was built. If we wanted to hold it, our warriors would have to defend it. We have twenty warriors. Should they take the field with their twenty weapons against the five thousand rifles in your
pakeha
camp?”
Lizzie sighed. “It’s not right.”
The Maori woman nodded. “But you and your two friends, you three are welcome,” she said generously. “Our men have watched you. You know how to make a fire and catch fish. You leave the land as you found it. If your friends promise to do that, too, we’ll live in peace with each other. You need not dig up all the land.”
Lizzie nervously licked her lips before she made another attempt.
“It, it would all be easier if we knew where we should dig.”
The women laughed again.
“You’re clever,
pakeha wahine
,” said an old woman who had joined the conversation. During the
powhiri
, she had let out the
karanga
, a cry meant to establish the spiritual connection between tribe and visitor. Doubtless she was the tribe’s
tohunga
. “You want us to lead you to the gold stuff so valuable to you. But what guarantee do we have that you won’t take more than you need?”
Lizzie sighed. “From the
pakeha
perspective, you can’t have enough gold,” she said. “But it really is just the three of us—in truth only two, Michael and I. Our third, Chris, is much too weak to dig here in the mountains. There’s only so much gold we could take.”
“So you say,” the chieftain’s sister retorted sternly, “but can you speak for the man? Is he your husband?”
Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. Again, this was a question for which there was no simple answer.
“He’s not mine,” she finally said cautiously. “I’m not married to him. Although I have, in a way, lain with him in the meeting house. On a ship, I mean. There were many people there who witnessed that we were together. But later . . . Oh, it’s hard to explain.”
These last words spoke for all her sorrow. She could not express in English or in Maori what bothered her, but the old
tohunga
looked at her sympathetically. Lizzie had the feeling the woman’s gaze saw straight to her heart.
“Your spirits are close to each other,” she said briefly. “But as you say, it’s not easy. Still”—the
tohunga
turned to her tribe—“he will not betray her. It would turn her against him, and he knows that. He must know that. Nor will the woman betray us. She will swear to us. By the gods whose help she needs.”
“She does not even believe in our gods,” said the chieftain’s sister.
The
tohunga
shrugged her shoulders. “But the gods believe in her. She’s bound to us.”
“I can swear by my god,” said Lizzie, “or by this one here.” From below her neckline, she drew out her
hei-tiki
, the small jade pendant Ruiha had given her. “Whenever you want.”
The
tohunga
nodded casually. The tribe discussed the matter energetically, speaking much too quickly for Lizzie’s language abilities. However, she thought she understood that most of the women supported her. A few men had objections. The old
tohunga
listened to everything calmly. Then the judgment was made.
“My granddaughter will show you the stream tomorrow,” she said before standing.
The chief nodded reluctantly and then turned formally to Lizzie. “You brought us presents. Custom—
tikanga
—dictates that we give you something too.”
The
tohunga
shook her head. “
Tikanga
,” she said slowly, “dictates that we give her something valuable. The gold is not precious. Wait.” She stepped into one of the houses, which were no more elaborate or sturdy than the gold miners’ huts. When she emerged, she carried a war club of pounamu jade and placed it in Lizzie’s hand. “With that, my ancestor defended the land. I pass it on to you now.”
The club was decorated with beautiful, elaborate ornaments. It was valuable—and not just to the Maori. Lizzie, a bit overwhelmed by the gift, thanked her.
The
tohunga
’s present dissolved the brief tension between the tribe and its visitor. Now dinner was ready, and the women served it. Lizzie had brought whiskey with her, which the Maori drank gladly. Soon, the bottle was making the rounds, songs were being sung, and the
tohunga
began in
whaikorero
, beautiful speech, to tell the strange, endless stories of Aotearoa’s past. Lizzie never fully understood them, though she enjoyed their sound.
Lizzie slept with the others in the meeting house, which she considered an honor, and prepared flatbread with the women in the morning. Then the
tohunga
’s granddaughter, a short, serious girl named Aputa, led her to a nearby waterfall that landed in a pond, from which the water flowed out in a lively stream.
“The water carries the yellow stones out of the mountains,” the little girl explained in fluent English as she climbed up the slope to reach the stream that fed the waterfall. “You can catch them in pans, like the men in camp. But you can also dig. Here.”
She pointed to a shallow spot on the side of the stream and reached for a large rock. Then she murmured something, likely an apology to the stream’s spirits whose peace she was disturbing, and pushed the gravel and sand aside. It was simple; Lizzie supposed they had dug there often. The obvious wealth of the tribe likely resulted from this very source.
“Do you have a bowl?” asked the girl.
Lizzie shook her head. At that, Aputa pulled out an old pewter plate she had stowed in the folds of her dress. She wore a simple
pakeha
dress, unadorned but warmer than the traditional Maori clothing. She had tied up its skirt before wading into the stream.
Now she held the plate in the water and scooped some earth into it. She shook the container briefly and poured out water and sand. Lizzie could hardly believe her eyes when she looked at the plate.
“Just take it,” the girl encouraged her. “Do you want to try?”
In less than an hour, the two of them panned roughly two ounces of gold from the stream—more than the usual monthly earnings for the gold miners on the Tuapeka River.
“It shines prettily,” Aputa said, pleased, when Lizzie placed their yield in a bag. “What do you do with it?”
Lizzie smiled at her. “Various things,” she answered. “But from this gold here, we’ll have a pendant made for you. Then it’ll bring you luck like my
hei-tiki
has for me.”
Lizzie’s departure from the tribe took almost as formal a form as her arrival. She promised to return soon and to bring Michael as well.
“You can sleep with him in the meeting house,” said Aputa, giggling. “Then he’ll really be your husband.”
The strange relationship between Lizzie and Michael seemed to have become everyone’s favorite subject. Lizzie sighed. That, at least, was something that the Maori and
pakeha
had in common.
Lizzie returned to the gold source before directing her horse home. She had memorized the location, which was not difficult—the place in question was an exceptionally beautiful piece of land. The waterfall and the pond were surrounded on the shore by five pointed rocks that rose high toward the sky. It was an unusual formation. According to Aputa, demigods had once thrown their spears there in a competition. Only one hit the target, creating the pond beneath the waterfall. The missed throws of the others could be seen in the form of the rock stacks.
By the time she was done, Lizzie estimated she’d panned seven ounces of gold—as much as Gabriel Read had brought to Dunedin after his first time in the gold mines on the Tuapeka River. She intoxicated herself by imagining the joy and surprise of the men when she returned to their cabin. With the money from the gold, Chris could send for his wife, and by the time Ann Timlock arrived, they would surely have enough money for a business together. Lizzie had in mind hardware or groceries, perhaps even construction materials or dyes, in Dunedin or somewhere where the climate was better. Chris would probably have preferred a farm to a shop, but Lizzie didn’t believe he was strong enough, and Ann surely was not coming from Wales to work herself to death on a farm in New Zealand. Lizzie hoped she was a halfway good businesswoman, and, especially, that she could be a friend.
After Lizzie restored the streambed to the way she had found it, she said a sincere prayer to the spirits of the stream. Perhaps that was not pleasing to God, but Lizzie felt the Maori gods had done more for her in the last few days than the Trinity had in the past thirty years.
Chapter 8
Michael Drury met Ian Coltrane in Tuapeka at the branch location of Dunloe Bank.
Lizzie was still visiting her Maori friends, and while Chris really wasn’t well enough to be left alone, he was feeling better. He had encouraged Michael to ride to Tuapeka to pick up some supplies and to redeem their meager gold finds for money. As Michael walked into the bank, he noticed a blond youth was holding a mule team in front of the building. Somehow the boy seemed familiar. Perhaps he reminded Michael of children’s faces in Ireland. Kathleen’s siblings? Or his own? The boy smirked when he caught Michael looking at him.
Michael turned his gaze away, entered the bank, and suddenly found himself across from Ian Coltrane. The horse trader had grown bloated and red-faced, but Michael recognized him immediately—there was something about his bearing, something predatory in his facial expression, perhaps the obvious similarity to his father too. Ian Coltrane was unmistakable.
Nor was there any hesitation on Ian’s part, the less so because Michael had hardly changed. Ian looked at him, taken aback, but then a smug smile spread across his face, similar to the smirk on the boy just outside the bank. Michael’s heart constricted.
“Coltrane?” he asked flatly.
Ian grinned widely. “Well, look here: Michael Drury. Didn’t they haul you in chains to the other end of the world?”
Michael tried to contain himself. “This is the other end of the world,” he said with effort. “And as for chains, you can throw them off. But you . . . Father O’Brien told me you, you and Kathleen, you were overseas. I had thought New York.”
Ian Coltrane’s laugh boomed. “Oh? Well, you thought wrong about New York.”
Michael clenched his fists to keep himself from punching Ian in the face. He needed to fight back his jealousy so he could speak reasonably with Ian.
Oh God, Kathleen could be in Tuapeka.
Michael flashed hot and cold, his heart racing.
As calmly as possible, he gestured toward the front of the building. “Is that my son out there?” he asked.
Ian shook his head, the provoking smirk still on his face.
“Oh no, Mr. Drury, that one’s mine. And I know that for sure. I didn’t let dear Mary Kathleen out of sight after she was empty again and ripe for me.”
Michael bit his lip and struggled again against the anger welling within him. What way was this for a man to speak of his wife? To speak of Mary Kathleen? And yet Michael felt almost relieved. He had not liked something about the boy out front, even if he unmistakably bore Kathleen’s features.
“And where is she now?” Michael blurted out. “And where is my, where is the other . . .”
Ian became serious and a shadow crossed his face, which shocked Michael and filled him with dread.