Deer Keeper

By Geoffrey Waring

The West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand is a land of dense bush, rushing rivers, and a coastline of spectacular beauty in the shadow of the Southern Alps. It is wild wet country, a pioneering land that breed’s resilient people.

Three generations have wrested a farm from virgin bush and the McCorkindales share a remote valley with the wild deer that Hamish McCorkindale hunted in his youth and now farms in a nascent deer farming industry.

Hamish is duty bound to carry on his legacy.... until fate intervenes. A powerful corporation wants the land that holds his heart and a police Armed Offenders Squad want him for murder. Even for those born on the ‘Coast’ resilience may not be enough.

Memorable characters contribute to the events that follow; a Vietnam vet helicopter meat hunter, a vindictive policeman, a fisherman home from Antarctic seas, and a lawyer whose connections go to the very top in New Zealand's capital city.

This is a quintessential New Zealand story. No other place can bring together the unique strands of this saga. It is a gripping pioneer adventure, a love story of a man for his wife and the rugged land that formed him, and a tale of his fight against arrogant power defending the legacy entrusted to him. Here, both hunted man and wild stag, merge with the world of raw nature that bred them both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoffrey Waring
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781927215746

Geoffrey Waring

A product of small town New Zealand, Geoffrey went to sea at sixteen. After ten years wandering a wider world on NZ and Norwegian cargo ships he returned to NZ for deck officers examinations, but faster travel appealed and he gained a Commercial Pilot’s licence in 1967. Over thirty years he's flown bi-planes to wide body jetliners. He’s lived and worked in places diverse as Port Moresby, Port of Spain, Jeddah and Johannesburg during his travels. After 40 expatriate years he returned home in 1997 to farm deer. He now lives on a lifestyle property where he indulges urges to write and talk to animals.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1962

The Southern Alps of New Zealand

The spiker first sensed pressure waves in the crisp alpine air. Its keen eyes searched the flats downwind then it lifted its muzzle to scent the drift from the valley head, finding only living beech and hinds with their young grazing further up the flats. It’s pricked ears detected sound reflecting off the scree slopes above. The animal craned its neck seeking to establish the origin of the growing sound, then, from over the ridge in a burst of clattering noise, the helicopter appeared.

From the pilot’s seat, Tony ‘Lucky’ Lovell, quickly checked the river flats bursting into view and edged the cyclic stick forward. The Hiller began a smooth descent to the valley floor.

‘There they are,’ he shouted over the roar of engine and wind rush. At the door the shooter gripped his Armalite rifle. ‘There’s a bunch in the clear at the top. I’ll come down on them first.’

‘Righto.’

The descent rate increased as Lovell manoeuvred the Hiller for a clear shot. The shooter swung his legs out onto the skid and lifted his rifle. As the helicopter swept low between the bush line and the string of fleeing animals, he began firing.

‘Nam surged back; the smell of sun-hot plastic, cordite, hydraulic fluid, sweat, and the cloying decay of Mekong paddies under the Huey. The cyclic pulsed gently in one hand as his other twisted the throttle open a little further. The turbine whine and grind of the gearbox grew as airspeed increased. The sounds and vibrations flowed and merged with his blood and brain. The sensations were as real as the hot oil coursing through the hydraulics, as real as the flow of electrons in the cable runs, the gasping inrush of air into the compressor, and the pulsing thud of the fifty-foot rotor merging with the beat of his heart. Rodriguez saw them first.

‘Charlie! Ten o’clock, on the leveé! We’ve got the mothers.’

‘Going in.’

In the sights, little men in black pyjamas breaking cover and fleeing; toggle the switch and the rockets streak away, then the yammer, acrid scent, and vibration of the M60’s – pyjama men scurrying, twisting, as the white fingers reached for them, and the pyjama men jerked and spun amongst the flowers of dust and fountains of yellow water.

In measured shots, animal after animal fell. At the sound of shots, the spiker’s uneasiness turned to alarm. First it froze, and then circled before breaking into full panicked flight. It splashed across the river shallows towards the sanctuary of trees crowding the far bank. The sound increased. With a flick of its hindquarters the spiker changed direction and raced upriver. The helicopter pursued the remaining hinds into their bush refuge, and denied, turned to head down the valley.

‘There were a couple further down. See them?’

‘I’m out, hang on a minute.’

Lovell edged the machine lower and flew down the right bank, skimming the long grass and jinking around the clumps of logs and scrub dotting the shingle islands. The shooter snapped a fresh magazine into the Armalite and raised it again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw, too late, the spiker dashing upstream in the shallows. No chance of a shot.

‘Got the spiker?’

‘Yep, hang on.’

Lovell increased power and eased pedal pressure allowing torque to spin the helicopter upriver. The spiker reacted to the growing volume of sound as the helicopter gained. Racing, twisting, stretching, its hooves barely brushed the ground as it hurtled up a low bank and dashed for the nearest thicket of scrub. It tunnelled under the foliage and dropped instinctively to its last defence; the stillness of a threatened fawn rigid in fear. The helicopter came to a hover.

‘See it?’

‘I’ll flush ‘im.’

Lovell eased the Hiller down. As he searched amongst the thrashing foliage for its rust-red coat the spiker hunched motionless, senses in overload. A minute passed.

‘Can’t see it,’ shouted Lovell.

‘Ah forget it. We’ll start on the others.’

‘Okay. I’ll go get Scuzzy. He’ll be finished by now.’

The Hiller climbed again and flew unhurriedly up the valley to where the hinds lay crumpled along the river flat. Lovell brought the machine to a hover. The shooter jumped, and watched as the helicopter climbed out to the site of the morning’s first kills. He stretched, filled his lungs with the purity of the alpine morning, leant his rifle against a sapling and went to the nearest carcass. He unsheathed his knife, and whistling tunelessly, commenced work.

Sun warmed eddies brought the scent to the spiker. It remained crouched, ears searching for untoward sound as its muzzle gave warning of man. The sun climbed and the helicopter returned. The valley once again echoed to its clatter as it dropped the gutter and lifted out the first load on the strop swinging under the machine. Later still it returned to uplift the last carcasses and the men who’d prepared them for the hook.

As the roar of the helicopter faded above the peaks, a silence of cowed living things fell in the valley; only the perpetual river chattering its way seaward disturbed the stillness. The sun-line crept across the valley floor and birdsong returned. Keas, their courage restored by the absence of the bigger, noisier bird, screeched and fought as they picked out the eyes of the severed heads beside the river.

At sunset, high cloud drifted in blinding the first of the evening stars. It began to rain. The familiar rhythm of its fall eased the animal’s fear until, in the comfort and gloom of the night, it warily worked its way to the edge of its sanctuary, then down from the hanging valley to the lower foothills, away from fear and the stench of death.

Part One

1901–1962

The Early Years

The McCorkindales

The queue outside the Lands and Survey office stretched along boards to the corner of the gravelled street. Roderick McCorkindale pulled his cap down and wound his scarf tighter to blunt the icy wind spilling from the gorge where the Grey river flowed through to the sea. Despite the cutting wind McCorkindale counted himself fortunate. He and his brother-in-law were amongst the first dozen men queuing with hopes of leasing Crown Land under the Land for Settlement Act. They’d left their Rununga cottage in the morning dark and walked to Greymouth, arriving early enough to secure places near the front of the queue. A ride on a dray had eased the last few miles.

‘There’ll no be a great tonnage on this days shift.’ Roderick coughed noisily and spat black phlegm. Andrew Sandison agreed.

‘Aye, half our gang is here,’ said the bearded Shetlander. He turned up his jacket collar. ‘The bluidy Barber is going right through me, I’ll no be sorry to see the end of this place if we get a block.’

The queue edged forward and the two men gained the shelter of the entrance where they could see into the office. A wooden counter covered in survey maps ran the breadth of the room. Behind it clerks entered applicant details into ledgers.

‘Next.’

McCorkindale and Sandison stepped up. The clerk turned a page and dipped his pen.

‘Name and age?’

‘Roderick Angus McCorkindale, twenty eight years.’

‘Birthplace?’

‘Scotland. Oban in Argyllshire.’

‘Are you married Mr McCorkindale?’

‘Aye I am.’

‘And you lad, are you applying as well?’ The clerk waited, pen at the ready.

‘We’re applying as a partnership for two blocks,’ said Andrew Sandison.

‘Aye, that’s correct.’ Roderick stepped aside.

‘Well, let’s have your name then.’

‘Andrew Olaf Sandison, twenty six, Lerwick, bachelor.’ They watched as the clerk entered the details.

‘And where are you residing.’

‘We’re in the mine cottages at Rununga.’

‘Your mail will go to the Commercial Hotel then?’

‘Aye, we pick it up there.’

‘Do you have any farming experience?’

‘We do,’ said Roderick. ‘My family has a holding near Kurow. I’ve worked there wi’ cattle and sheep but as ye know farming’s only coming right these last few years and a man has to earn a living. The mines are full of bankrupt farmers; I’m no’ in the mines from choice.’ The clerk wrote again.

‘I assume you both know the terms of the leases. Do you have the fee?’

‘We saw it in the Argus. Here’s the money.’

‘Well then, which blocks are you applying for?’ The clerk pushed the ledger aside and indicated the map. Roderick saw the coloured patches marching south along the coast from Greymouth, around and past the port at Hokitika, thinning as they stretched south. Roderick’s finger fell on an area where river valleys ran from the Alps to the sea.

‘These blocks, here and here.’

‘Blocks six and seven, Deposited Plan 3965,’ murmured the clerk. ‘It’s a long way out. Most are applying up the Hokitika River. Are you sure that’s where you want to go? No one else has applied for that area.’

‘Aye, that’s where we want to go.’ With formalities completed they found themselves in the street and biting wind.

‘Well it’s done. We’ll have a dram for luck before we go back Andy. It’s no’ every day a man enters a game of chance wi’ his future.’

‘That’s a grand idea Roddy. You’re excellin’ yeself today.’

Roderick McCorkindale was pleased to hear others didn’t consider the area desirable. In the summer of 1896, newly arrived from Otago, he’d fossicked for gold in the alluvial gravel of the beaches and high river terraces near Ross. Pickings were slim and his search for better colour had taken him south and inland up the river valleys that drained alpine snows to the sea.

It was there, in a wide valley above an escarpment, he discovered a large area of flattish river terraces with patches of lowland bush, not yet clear-felled by rapacious loggers or destroyed by sluicing scars of sixties gold fever. After a week with little to show for his efforts and food running low, he descended to the coast and sandflies. He followed the river down to where it turned southwards around the end of a prominent ridge there forming a lagoon behind a spit impeding its further progress. At the lagoon’s southern end, another larger river entered, and the combined flows had cut their way through the spit and over a bar to the Tasman Sea.

Near sunset Roderick came to the track linking the isolated timber camps scattered along the coast. He trudged north looking for dry ground and clean water, until a man and a Maori woman astride a plodding cob overtook him. Bare feet protruded from the woman’s calico breeches and bulging flax kits hung from the horse’s withers. The horse pulled alongside.

‘Where are you making for?’

‘Good evening to you, it’s Greymouth, when I get there,’ said Roderick.

The woman remained silent. Her chin had the markings of moko and youthful beauty lingered. A beard fell to the man’s waist and coal black eyes regarded him enquiringly from under a sailor’s cap.

‘Night’s coming on. By the looks of it you could do with a dry berth. You can bunk on the deck in the whare if you’re of a mind to.’

The man heeled the horse into motion and Roderick followed as they turned off onto a path through thinning manuka scrub. A clearing appeared running to the edge of a lagoon. In it stood a rough-sawn shiplap plank cottage with a split beech shingle roof and iron chimney. A dinghy was drawn up on the shore and nets hung from nearby trees.

The man had unloaded the horse and turned it out into a rude pen of palings by the time he caught up. The woman was nowhere in sight as his host hung the kits of fish from a nearby tree. The man was short and strong, easily lifting the heavy kits. Roderick thought he was well into his fifties.

‘Throw your swag in the whare and come to the house. The woman will cook for us. Do you have any flour? We’re low.’

They made their way to the whare next to the cottage. It was a smaller construction of manuka poles driven into the ground and sealed with clay under a thatched toe-toe roof. Canvas flaps made do at window openings and carved doorposts decorated the entrance.

Roderick spread his bedroll on the rammed earth floor and took his tin of remaining flour to the one-roomed cottage. A bed of pig fern over grain sacks occupied one end and a stone fireplace at the other. The woman had taken the flour without speaking and now busied herself cooking over the fire. The men talked. The man’s name was Feaney, an Irish seaman who’d jumped his barque in Nelson to try his luck on the gold fields at Kumara twelve years before. He drew on his pipe and inspected Roderick over the scrubbed planks of the table.

‘What’s a bucko like yourself doing with a pan and bluey? Where’ve you been?’

‘I was up the river that runs into the lagoon.’

‘That’s the Kaiawaiti. There’s nothing there; I know. All the easy gold is gone and you need capital now. Only companies get the gold nowadays.

‘Aye, I ken that. I’ve only made enough to cover provisions these last few months. I’ll have to get work in Greymouth, in the mines or the mills if I can find it. There’s nae work where I came from.’

‘Where’s your home port?’

‘The family has a sheep run near Oamaru but it can no’ provide for us all wi’ the collapse in prices and the banks wanting their mortgage flesh.’

Feaney’s laugh was sympathetic.

‘I’ve spoken to many such as yourself having to eat your woolly assets.’ He grimaced. ‘Times are bad alright, but you’ll not make a living panning the rivers. That’s why I’m fishing the lagoon. They pay good money in Ross and the camps for fresh or smoked catch. It keeps me and the woman with full bellies and baccy. The woman placed bowls of fish stew and pieces of camp bread before them then returned to the fireside. She pulled a blanket about her shoulders and picked from the pot. Feaney spoke roughly in Maori to her and she stoked the fire and pulled a billy over the flames. Roderick attacked his first substantial hot meal in weeks with pleasure. As they sipped mugs of sweet billy tea Feaney leant forward confidentially.

‘She’s a good woman, but a man needs the company of his own kind sometimes.’ Roderick said nothing and glanced at the woman who regarded them in silence between draws on a small pipe. Feaney leant back. ‘I’m taking fish to a mill camp in the morning and picking up provisions from Ross later. We can share the road for a while.’

‘You’ll take to the drink in Ross before you leave,’ said the woman loudly, ‘and you won’t have enough to buy flour again.’ Roderick turned in surprise. She glowered at Feaney.

‘A drink or two is a man’s comfort,’ said Feaney. He turned to Roderick with an uncomfortable grin. ‘Isn’t that right?’ Roderick, not wanting involvement in his hosts’ domestic matters, rose to leave.

‘I thank you for your grand hospitality and I’m indebted to you, but I’ll bid ye goodnight.’ The woman took Roderick’s flour tin from the mantle and held it out. ‘Please keep the flour – er –’

‘I am Aronui.’

‘I’ll get some in Ross tomorrow Mrs Feaney.’

Aronui emptied the remaining flour into a jar and handed the tin to Roderick. Feaney waited at the door.

‘We’re not wed and pay her no mind on a man’s drink. Her tribe are from the Waimea and she wants to go back, but the constables will probably have me if we do.’

Roderick woke before dawn. After a plate of oatmeal and a mug of tea Feaney and Roderick set off at sunrise on the track taking them northwards. Two hours later they halted.

‘The mill camp is up here, so I’ll leave you now.’ Roderick shook the proffered hand. ‘Don’t waste your time chasing gold me bucko. It’s a fools game now for a fools end. You’re too young to end up hard aground like me.’

Roderick watched until the bush took the squat shapes of Feaney and his horse, and continued on along the rutted track to Greymouth.

It was the end of a long day as Roderick led the packhorse into the clearing. Andy followed driving the heavily loaded cart pulled by the Clydesdale. They had left Rununga three days previously and had made their way south carrying the tools and supplies needed for their ballot block. They were laden too, with the burden of the loan from Roderick’s father. The loan had paid for the horses and equipment and would purchase their breeding stock. Everything they owned, and owed, was in the cart and on the horses back. Feaney hadn’t changed much in five years. His beard was flecked with more grey and his nose had taken on a darker hue of red than Roderick remembered.

‘I thought it was you. I heard a McCorkindale had taken a back block up the river. Do you want the whare again?’ He waved to the building and Roderick saw its manuka pole walls had been replaced with shiplap boards and glass instead of canvas occupied the windows.

‘Yes, if you’re no pressed for the use of it we’d be much obliged. It would save us setting up camp until we make access to our block. We’ll pay a fair rent.’ Andy climbed down from the cart as Roderick took the reins. ‘Meet Andy Sandison, my brother in law.’

Feaney grunted and shook Andy’s hand.

‘So you’ve got yeself spliced too.’ Feaney said. ‘She’ll need to be a keen woman. It’ll be no place for ringlets and petticoats.’

‘That she is, aye. Once we get a decent hut up she’ll be joining us. And may I ask after Mrs Feaney?’

‘We’re still not wed. Here she comes now.’

He recognised the approaching woman and was surprised to see a child clinging to her dress. The woman had filled out; smooth red cheeks glowed under her honey-dark skin.

‘Tena koe,’ Aronui greeted him. ‘Are you staying again?’ With a smile she picked up the child and set it to her hip. Feaney shuffled his feet.

‘It’s my daughter Wiki. She’s a bright young thing but the woman spoils her. I don’t know where it will all end.’ He spoke gruffly but they heard affection in his voice. The child stared at the strangers.

‘I’ll make tea,’ said Aronui. The cottage had been extended and a verandah ran the length of the frontage. A railing had been decorated with sennet and Turks-head rope work. A bell with an ornately plaited bell rope hung from the eaves and the iron chimney had been replaced by one of river stone. In the evening Feaney told how he and Aronui still supplied the mill camps, and increasingly the Public Works road camps and settlements along the coast road, as new blocks were taken up by settlers.

‘The district's growing,’ he said. We need a bigger boat to get out beyond the bar; we sell everything we catch. There’s a future here for fishermen. I hear farming folk, the O’Connors and Otways, have taken up blocks below yours. The Roads Board has been down and surveyed an access road, but you’ll have to cut your way in if you want to get your cart up there.’

‘Yes, we’ll take the cart as far as we can and then pack the stores in until we clear a track. It’ll be an early start for us tomorrow,’ said Andy.

After six long days the two men stood knee deep amongst soft ferns at the bush edge near the top of the escarpment. Behind them lay a track of sorts, hacked two miles through the matted detritus of rainforest and around massive moss covered boulders that’d barred their way. They led the packhorse laden with tools, building materials and rolls of canvas to a lightly wooded spur protruding from the heavy bush. There, at the edge of a rimu copse they erected a fly tent over a pole frame with a floor of ferns and soft foliage. In the twilight they sat over a cook fire, weary, yet pleased with progress.

‘Tomorrow I’ll start felling clean timber while you bring up the rest of the stores and the other horse. The sooner we start on the hut the sooner Mary can join us.’

‘Cannae be soon enough for me,’ said Andy, ‘There was only one piece of meat in my stovies; you’re surely nae cook.’ Roderick grinned.

‘I’m of a mind to go to Ross and telegraph Mary to come down to Feaney’s. She can stay in the whare until we finish the hut and we’re ready to move up here.’

‘Aye, that’s a grand solution for us all.’

Later that month Roderick returned from the railhead at Ross with Mary. She’d been pleased to leave her neighbour’s cramped cottage, yet apprehensive about the new life that lay ahead. Her trunk of clothes and the last of their Greymouth furniture, had, together with stores Roderick purchased from the merchants, laden the cart heavily for the return to the lagoon. Aronui watched from the verandah as Roderick assisted Mary down from the cart. There was no sign of Feaney or the dinghy.

‘Your brother won’t be back until nightfall. Come and meet Aronui.’

‘Is this where we’ll live?’ Mary asked, looking over the bare earth surrounding the whare and its carved doorposts.

‘Yes,’ said Roderick, ‘but not for long. The hut’s nearly finished but we’ve been snug here.’

He led her to the bottom of the steps where Aronui waited. ‘Aronui, this is my wife, Mary.’

Mary, uncertain of how to respond to the approaching barefooted woman with the tattooed chin, tentatively extended her hand. Aronui took it and placing her left hand on her shoulder drew Mary’s face towards her own and pressed her nose either side of Mary’s.

‘Haere mai, haere mai,’ Aronui murmured. Mary jerked away in surprise and moved closer to her husband.

‘What did she say?’ she asked.

‘I said welcome,’ responded Aronui. The corners of her mouth lifted in a shy smile. ‘It is hariru and hongi, for you, our manuhiri, our visitors.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I have no Maori.’ Mary’s embarrassment spilled into heavily rolled ‘R’s’. ‘Thank you for your kindness – your greeting – I fear I have many things to learn.’

‘It is our custom to have tea too, like you Pakeha. Come to my whare.’ Aronui’s face crinkled mischievously and this time she offered her hand. Mary looked doubtfully to her husband. Roderick couldn’t help grinning.

‘Go with Aronui while I unload, she will show you where you can make your toilet.’ He watched as the women went up into the cottage. His grin grew wider at his wife’s retreating back. ‘Aronui’s English has less accent than yours ye ken!’ he called.

The hut was finished but for milled boards needed to close in the back wall. Autumn was approaching but had not yet chased away the late summer days. Mary pestered the men to be taken to the valley and Roderick relented.

‘Aye, the roof is weather-proof and with that new malthoid under the wall it’ll be tight too.’

Mary rode the cob, sharing its broad back with rolls of waterproof paper while the men led the Clydesdale in the shafts of the cart until they reached the point where the track became impassable for wheeled vehicles. Half the planks were off-loaded onto the Clydesdale’s packsaddle and they proceeded on foot, climbing to the treacherous section near the top of the escarpment.

‘Come on, move!’ shouted Roderick as he shouldered the broad rump of the Clydesdale struggling to find footing on moss-slimed rocks. At the animal’s head Andy heaved on its bridle. Behind them Mary held the cob and waited for the men to coax the packhorse between two great boulders. Roderick’s boots slipped, he fell, and then rolled clear as the horse slid backwards, feathered hooves flailing. The animal found firmer footing and stood with heaving flanks.

‘The horses are tired and so am I,’ Mary stated. She sat on a rotting log, unbuttoned her bodice and looked with dismay at her hem thick with mud. ‘We’ll rest.’

‘Aye,’ said Andy, ‘We’ll have to find a different route or split the packhorse load.’ Roderick filled his hat from a creek and watered the weary animals. After a short rest the men hacked a new track through rampant understorey and were able to lead the horses to the easier section exiting onto the flats. As they neared the edge of the bush dappled sun reached through and Mary’s excitement grew. ‘Take the horse!’ she cried and tossed the reins to her brother. ‘I want to see.’

She scrambled to the head of the procession, plunged through the saplings out into brightness, and stopped to drink in her first view of the valley.

‘Is all this ours?’ she called back to her husband.

‘Aye, all of it.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ she breathed, as her eyes swept over the shining river and the valley climbing to the peaks behind. A vision of the future swam before her; broad pastures, lowing cattle, and a red-roofed house filled with children’s laughter. The air shimmered and she breathed deeply, revelling in the tang and taste of it, a taste untainted by the stink of banked coal fires that had stung her eyes and lungs in Rununga.

‘Where’s the hut?’ she called.

‘Just below that copse up there.’

Thus, in the afternoon of an April day in 1904 they came to the land they named Te Whare, the house, their house, on their land.

‘Sometimes I think ten hours at the coal face was a better way for a man to pass his days,’ grumbled Roderick, dragging the chain over to the log they’d sawn from the totara trunk. He snigged the chain-end fast and turned to Andy holding the Clydesdale.

‘You dinna ken when ye’re well off man. There’s nae coal dust in your guts these days. Its god-given clean air that brought ye here. It’s free – and so is the mud,’ laughed Andy. Roderick smiled ruefully at his boots sunk ankle deep in the swampy ground.

‘If ye’d be so kind, would you ask your horsy friend there to earn his feed?’ Andy tugged at the halter. The animal leant to its collar and dragged the log to the stack of fence posts that’d been split that morning.

‘Smoko. That’ll be enough to go on with this afternoon,’ called Roderick.

The men sat on the posts amidst the sweet tang of sap, their drying sweat and the smell of cold mutton. They chewed their meat and bread and washed it down with water from a creek. A lane of felled trees stretched above them ready for the fence line they were pushing up the slope to where the terrain steepened and the bush became impenetrable. To the west, the three room cottage and lean-to stable surrounded by the white spots of Mary’s sheep could be seen across four paddocks thick with the black teeth of cutover and burnt stumps. On the lower river terrace cattle grazed amongst the bleached logs of flood-strewn trees and clumps of flax. Andy sighed.

‘It’ll be a bonny farm when its finished – if we ever do.’

Roderick glanced at Andy then and lay back over the stack. In the four years the men had shared, words had become largely unnecessary. Respect for his brother-in-law had grown as they shared the brutal labour of slashing, felling and sawing. They shared the long sweat-filled days in the summer sun, and shorter ones when snapping frosts froze the mud underfoot and their exhalations hung in white clouds as they drew the long crosscut saws across the fallen trees.

There were, too, sodden days, when they woke in the belly of grey-black cloud, and the rain seemed never ending. They sat in the cottage listening to its pounding on the iron roof and cursed it, knowing rushing creeks were tearing at weeks of work and washing out newly sown seed in the burnt-over paddocks. As the bush grudgingly gave up to pasture the men accepted nature would win some battles and a form of equilibrium, a truce, was achieved. The most violent creeks were left unbridged, the steepest faces remained in impenetrable bush, the deepest bogs left undrained, and the farm tracks took longer drier routes avoiding fords impossible to cross when the skies opened. And in this time there was the unspoken satisfaction of answering only to themselves, of being their own men. Roderick stirred.

‘You’re blathering man, ye must be due another visit to Ross.’ Andy had set his cap at Agnes Challis, a publican’s daughter in Ross. Mary had hinted it was time her brother married, saying the farm could support two families. But Roderick knew concern for her brother’s happiness also masked her loneliness and dearth of feminine company. She sought escape from lonely days when the men and horses went out at dawn and wearily returned with night drawing in.

‘We need to take those steers to the sale yards soon,’ prompted Andy.

‘Aye, once the agent has a look at them and the price is right. Then ye’ll be in the market for a wee heifer nae doubt.’ Andy hefted his axe in mock attack and Roderick swayed back with a laugh. ‘Save your energy for the lassie.’

The day grew darker as cloud heaped against the foothills and sun patches grew fewer. In sheets of rain they led the horse back to the cottage. Through the falling torrent a horseman appeared at the edge of the escarpment and picked his way up the track towards them.

‘It’s Alford. Someone in Ross must have heard you,’ said Roderick. Andy checked the Clydesdale as the rider approached.

‘Good evening to you Roderick, Andrew. You’ll be having some clean cattle for me then.’ The florid face of the stock agent grinned down at them through the water cascading off his hat.

‘Aye, we will that. Bring your horse and stable it. Ye’ll not be going away this night.’

Mary brought a lantern and after settling the horses they went inside to eat around the long table, luxuriating in the heat of the range at one end of the room and the open fire at the other. She cleared the plates, set bottle and glasses in front of the men, and then waited for the news and gossip that Alford always brought. Roderick poured him a generous tot. Alford leant back and stretched his boots to the fire, savouring the warmth of the whisky and a captive audience.

‘Prices are good,’ he said at length. His audience breathed out as one. Mary’s smile was relieved.

‘We thought that. With beef being railed to Greymouth now the mill camps are finding it hard to get provisions,’ said Roderick. Alford continued.

‘The Roads Board is putting more gangs on the main road and I hear they’re going to start on this road shortly, at least as far as the bottom ridge. Your neighbours have been complaining about the road again; seems it has some effect this time. Another year and Mary will be able to take a trap to Ross and you could get a dray up here to get some of that totara out. It’s too good for fence posts.’

Andy and Roderick had spent laborious hours hacking the first packhorse track along the survey road leading to their blocks before newcomers shared the load. Later, there were the innumerable cartloads of river gravel they’d laid down the escarpment track to keep it passable in the wet.

‘We’ve a lot to thank King Dick for, but by God we’ve earned it,’ said Roderick looking to his smiling wife and sharing her delight at the prospect of easier access to the comforts and companionship of the outside world. He felt a massive wave of affection for the placid blue-eyed woman with the square shoulders and blond plaits. Her chapped hands, red from the scrubbing board, kindling axe, and darning needle rested in her lap, and impulsively, Roderick took them in his. ‘It’ll be a grand day when you can go to the township by yourself and visit the Feaneys whenever you’re in want of a woman’s company.’ Mary smiled at the prospect.

‘To business,’ said Alford. ‘How many head do you have?’ Andy inspected the ledger.

‘Sixteen steers and two cull cows, but we’ll be needing more breeding stock.’

‘There’s some well bred heifers at Kowhitirangi. The Marchants have sour land and he’s overstocked.’

‘We’ll pay a fair price for good stock. We can take fifteen.’

‘Well that’s settled then.’ Alford held his glass out.

The steers were driven to the sale at Ross, bidding was keen and they fetched a good price. Andy went off to court Agnes Challis and Roderick rode with Alford to Kowhitirangi where a relieved John Marchant accepted cash for eighteen light animals. Two days later the heifers grazed quietly on a lower terrace of rich grass at Te Whare.

In the night they were woken by drumming on the roof. As dawn struggled to break the rain continued, blanking all but the nearest objects from view. As the men took their breakfasts, one or the other would rise and look out. They saw only despondent horses under the lean-to with rivulets streaming around their hooves. The black outline of trees showed dimly through the grey wall of water.

‘It’s set in Roddy.’ Concern furrowed Andy’s face. ‘The river will be up the now; we’d better get the heifers out of the river paddock.’

‘You’re right man, this is nae normal rain.’ Brilliant blue light filled the room, jars rattled, and an enormous percussion clapped their eardrums.

‘The horses!’ cried Mary. Through the window