Toward the Sea of Freedom (72 page)

Lizzie smiled. She had forgotten how witty he could be—and how irresistibly
pakeha
. In the last few weeks since Michael had gone, she had missed this repartee. As a people, the Maori seemed not particularly witty to her. Their humor was bawdier and more straightforward than that of the whites. Though she still hadn’t mastered their language. Perhaps subtleties escaped her.

“Since when does Kahu Heke repeat the
pakeha
’s words?” She teased Kahu. “Wouldn’t you prefer to throw them out of Aotearoa?”

Kahu shrugged. “There are just too many, and my people don’t see the danger they present. But now, tell me about yourself and the gods. They tell me you have a fiancé?”

Lizzie nodded, but her eyes were sad. “I hope so, but he’s away.” Why should she make a secret of it? Kahu would hear everything the Ngai Tahu knew about her relationship with Michael anyway. “In fact, he meant to buy a house for us, but now . . .”

“Will Kupe come back?” Kahu gave her a mocking smile.

That was the Maori expression for “You might have seen the last of him.” The saying referred to Kupe, the first settler of New Zealand. He had promised his friends on Hawaiki he would come back—but he never did.

Lizzie began to brood. She had just started to feel more comfortable in Kahu’s company. The other tribesmen were making music again and dancing and, at least apparently, paying less attention to Lizzie and the future chieftain.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked mistrustfully. “You’re always talking to me about Kupe and Kura-maro-tini.” Apparently she did not know the saying, even though her Maori had gotten much better.

Kahu laughed. “Because every time I see you, I feel the urge to run off with you,” he teased her.

According to the legend, Kura-maro-tini had belonged to another, and Kupe had killed her husband and abducted her. It was on their flight that they discovered New Zealand—Aotearoa.

“Well, we don’t see each other all that often,” Lizzie said, taking a drink from the bottle Kahu handed her.

He had brought two bottles supposed to contain whiskey, and the Ngai Tahu passed them around. Until then, Lizzie hadn’t had any—whiskey always reminded her of Michael. Only the spirits knew where this had been distilled.

“Tell me how you’ve been, Kahu Heke. Do you have a wife—or several? Any children?”

Kahu shook his head. “I’ve been working for the
pakeha
. For Mr. Busby first, in fact.”

Lizzie’s eyes lit up when Kahu talked about winemaking. For an enchanted hour, he had her eager attention.

“I tried once or twice to ask him whether other grape varieties would do better in our soil. But Mr. Busby was stubborn. He said that Riesling grew in Europe under very similar conditions to those in New Zealand. He only meant the weather. As for everything else, Hainga would say Mr. Busby doesn’t listen to the whispering of the spirits.”

Kahu smiled—and Lizzie noticed that his tattoos suddenly no longer bothered her.

“I may have become more
pakeha
over the years,” said Kahu Heke. “But you’re much more Maori. You hear the whispering of the spirits. I thought of a kiss when I tasted truly good wine.”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows high. “A kiss? That must have been rather rich wine—red wine, right? It’s true that Bordeaux sits on the tongue like, like a caress.” She blushed. “I have one last bottle left in my tent,” she continued drily. “But it’s a lighter white wine, from Italy. We can drink it together. We’ll see what you taste. I taste peach, maybe a little honey.”

Again, Lizzie took on that dreamy expression that Kahu had only ever seen on her face when the subject was wine. Really, thinking about her man should provoke this response. Yet her supposed fiancé seemed to be more worrisome than anything. Kahu was determined to seize this opportunity.

“We’ll see. I’d be happy to drink it with you. By the way, can you still catch fish,
pakeha wahine
, like we showed you?” Kahu brushed her hand lightly, as if by accident.

Lizzie laughed but drew her fingers away—not in shock, more unsure. Not a clear no. Kahu waited for an answer.

“That’s not something you forget,” she said. “On the contrary. I, I have much more practice now.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he teased her. “Would you like to show me tomorrow? In this stream where you pan for gold?”

A shadow crossed Lizzie’s face. It wasn’t just where she had panned for gold; it was where she had been happy with Michael. And now Kahu wanted to go there with her. Kahu, who apparently felt something for her. After all, he had been flirting with her since he sat down. Lizzie did not know if she was ready to show another man her prospect, but she could hardly say no. Kahu Heke was an old friend and an honored guest of the tribe.

“We could take your wine.”

Lizzie stiffened. “Not, there,” she stammered. “The, the way up is difficult. We shouldn’t get drunk there.”

Kahu hardly thought half a bottle of wine would get them drunk, but it wasn’t important. She had agreed to spend the next day with him. Whether at her prospect or somewhere else, with wine or not, he did not really care. The main thing was, he would have her to himself.

“Fine, no wine and no whiskey.” He smiled. “If the gods want us intoxicated, Elizabeth, we won’t need drinks.”

The day before, at the celebrations, Lizzie had looked like a Maori girl to Kahu. But now that he was alone with her, she had put on her
pakeha
clothes again and hidden her hair beneath her straw hat. Instead of dancing with swaying hips like the girls of the tribe, she moved with hurried steps past the river and then the stream. She did not say much as they went. Kahu followed in silence.

After a two-hour march, they reached the needle-shaped rocks and Kahu let himself fall into the grass. Lizzie remained standing.

“Do you want to fish now?” she asked.

Kahu shook his head. “Let’s pan for gold first,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find a giant nugget and become rich in an instant.”

Lizzie smiled. “I did not realize you were so in need. Is the chief of the Ngati Pau destitute? I do need to give you back the money you lent me long ago. How much interest do you want?”

Kahu made a dismissive gesture. “It was a present. Think no more of it. As for my people: the Ngati Pau have been selling land; they have everything they need. I think that a mistake, however. If you make me rich today, we’ll take the land back.”

He slid closer to her. She knew he was no longer speaking of gold; there were other riches. The gold pan seemed to vibrate in her hand. If she was going to be at the rocks, then she wanted to work.

“Have you done this before?” she asked.

Kahu shook his head and admitted he had never held a gold pan before. Lizzie sighed. She would have to show him and would hardly get to work, herself.

He was so clumsy with the pan that he almost fell in the stream. Lizzie had to laugh. She took the pan from his hands, shook it with a practiced flick of the wrist—and enjoyed his wide-eyed expression when bits of gold appeared.

“Aye, that’s how I felt too,” she said. “Gold, even on the first try. It’s not like that everywhere, Kahu. On the contrary. For this much gold, people down at the camp often have to pan or dig all day.”

“And you two did this here all summer, huh?” asked Kahu. “So, you must be rich.”

Lizzie shrugged. “I gave Michael all the gold,” she admitted. “For the house—or for a church.” She sighed.

“For a church?” Kahu inquired, confused. “Is he a cleric?”

Lizzie laughed, distressed. “Forget it. In any case, he has the gold, and I hope he comes back with it someday—or with something worth as much.”

Kahu smiled comfortingly. “If not, you can always pan for more,” he said, at ease. “If I help, it’ll go fast.” He looked more closely at the small, pinprick traces of gold. “It’s pretty, this gold of yours. It glitters. Like your hair in the sunlight.”

Cautiously, Kahu reached into the pan, took a few gold flecks out, removed Lizzie’s straw hat and threw it onto the bank, and sprinkled the flecks into her hair.

“Are you mad?” Lizzie laughed. “Do you know how much that’s worth?”

“Not as much as a single strand of your hair,” he said softly. “That hair is sacred, Elizabeth. In the chieftain’s hair lives the god Rauru.”

“Oh?” she teased. “Has he already moved in with you? You must be careful not to comb him out. Or do chieftains not comb their hair?”

Kahu left that open. “If I comb him out, then I have to breathe him in again,” he explained. “That goes like this.” He stroked her hair and then audibly sniffed at his fingers.

Lizzie giggled. “Do you want to pan for more gold or catch fish?” she asked.

“Do you want to be rich or full?”

She pretended to think it over. “Rich.”

He rolled his eyes. “A
pakeha
, a typical
pakeha
. What am I even doing here?”

“Catching fish,” laughed Lizzie. “Get going. You make us full, and I’ll make us rich.”

After Kahu fished, he roasted the catch, along with vegetables they’d brought along, on a fire he built. He used his gold pan as a grill, which amused Lizzie again. Now they sat, full and tired, beside the fire and were almost as close to each other as when they had spent day and night together in the canoe. Lizzie felt instinctively that Kahu’s promise back then still held. He would not touch her if she did not want it.

“Michael didn’t like that,” she suddenly said.

“What did he not like?” Kahu asked without looking at her.

“That I was the one who made us rich. First with the tavern and then with the gold. He would have preferred to do it himself, and I, I was supposed to cook and manage the house. Only we wouldn’t have had a house. Michael, he doesn’t have much luck.”

Kahu furrowed his brow. “Luck?” he asked. “A
pakeha
saying comes to mind instead, but I’d better not say it, or I’ll risk your being mad at me.”

“It’s not that he’s lazy. Only, he’s, he’s very honorable, very straightforward. Yes, that’s it: straightforward. And I, well, once he said I have a crooked way of thinking.”

“In any case, he has a problem with a woman who has a great deal of
mana
. That happens often,” said Kahu.

“You think I have a great deal of
mana
?” Lizzie asked, taken aback. The thought had never occurred to her.

“Like any queen, Elizabeth.” Kahu laughed. “Seriously, Erihapeti, it can’t have escaped you that they celebrate you as a warrior. You have the
mana
of a
tohunga
, and your beloved cannot bear that. Like so many men—Maori or
pakeha
, makes no difference.”

“But it would not bother you, at all,” Lizzie said suspiciously. “That’s what you mean to say with that, isn’t it?”

Kahu grew serious. “With me,” he said, cautiously feeling his way with what he wanted to convey, “it’s somewhat different.”

Lizzie thought briefly. “Of course,” she said. “Because you’ll be chief. Naturally, you’d marry a woman with a great deal of
mana
.”

Though Lizzie knew nothing about dynastic marriages in Maori tribes, she imagined that the nobility married among themselves just as in England.

“Not quite.” Kahu bit his lip. He should now talk about the way chieftains lived with their wives—or rather, how they did not. A chieftain of the Ngati Pau was always alone. His wife was only permitted to enter his house after special ceremonies. If he told Lizzie that, she would ask more questions and would never go with him or agree to be his wife. “It’s just that the life of a chieftain with his wife takes a different form.”

Lizzie furrowed her brow. Then she smiled. “Right, because the Maori are careful to divide the labor of men and women. Like the Busbys did. Mr. Busby had his work, and Mrs. Busby exercised her
mana
on the servants and children. Michael and I could divide things up that way too.” She laughed. “Thank you, Kahu. I already feel better. I would never have thought that the problem was my
mana
. I always thought it was Mary Kathleen.”

Though this was not the turn Kahu Heke had hoped the conversation would take, it at least distracted Lizzie from asking uncomfortable questions.

The rest of the day passed harmoniously. Kahu showed Lizzie how to make traps for birds, and she taught him more about the art of panning for gold. In the evening, she lit another fire, and they roasted the red-feathered bird called a weka. They did not return to the village until after dark, and when they did, the tribe members teased them about spending their day doing more than talking.

Kahu was pleased with how the day had gone. Most of all, it made him happy that Lizzie seemed no longer to shrink back from his face. If she no longer feared the
moko
, he would manage to win her over. As long as this Michael fellow did not return.

Chapter 4

Michael did not return to Otago. Not in autumn and not as autumn turned into winter. Lizzie was hurt, of course, but Kahu Heke’s presence consoled her some. The future chief of the Ngati Pau was now courting her expressly, and he made it clear to her every day how much he respected her
mana
. Kahu gave her presents, and he brought her the game he hunted so she could prepare it for the tribe.