In the Land of the Long White Cloud (92 page)

George Greenwood shrugged. “Leave him. At least he’s not shooting while he’s crying. Just don’t do anything to agitate him further. If
he says it was self-defense, then that’s what it was. What you tell the officer tomorrow is another matter.”

Paul eventually got a hold of himself and allowed the doctor to examine his grandfather. With a last glimmer of hope, he watched as Dr. Miller listened for the old man’s heartbeat.

Dr. Miller shook his head. “I’m sorry, Paul, there’s nothing to be done. Fractured skull. He struck the table’s edge. The blow to the chin didn’t kill him; it was the unlucky fall. It was an accident, boy. I’m sorry.” He patted Paul comfortingly on the shoulder. George wondered whether he knew that the boy had shot Howard.

“Let’s take these two to the mortician. Hanson can look at them tomorrow,” said the doctor. “Is there someone who can take the boy home?”

The citizens of Haldon appeared reluctant, so George Greenwood offered himself. People were not accustomed to shootings here; even bar fights were a rarity. Normally they would have separated the belligerents right away, but in this case the exchange between Gerald and Howard had been too riveting. Every man there was probably already looking forward to telling his wife what had been said. Tomorrow, George thought, sighing, it would be the talk of the town. But that was irrelevant. A Warden in a murder trial? Everything in George resisted the thought. There had to be some other way to settle the matter.

Gwyneira normally slept through Gerald and Paul’s return from the pub. The last few months she had been even more exhausted in the evening than usual because, aside from the work on the farm, she was now responsible for the housework as well. Gerald had perforce consented to hiring white farm laborers, but not house servants. Thus only Marama still lent her a hand—and a rather clumsy one at that. Though the girl had helped her mother, Kiri, around the house since she was little, she had no talent for the work. Her skills lay in the artistic sphere; she was already regarded as a little
tohunga
by her tribe,
instructing other girls in singing and dancing and telling imaginative blends of her people’s sagas and the
pakeha
’s fairy tales. She could manage a Maori household, making fires and cooking meals on hot stones or in embers. However, she was not suited to polishing furniture, beating rugs, and serving dishes with discretion. Since the kitchen nevertheless remained important to Gerald, in order not to anger him Gwyneira and Marama had been attempting the late Barbara Warden’s recipes themselves. Fortunately, Marama could read English fluently, so the Bible was no longer necessary in the kitchen.

That evening, however, Paul and Gerald had eaten in Haldon. Marama and Gwyneira had settled for bread and fruit for themselves. Afterward they sat together by the fire as a reward.

Gwyneira asked whether the Maori held her strike-breaking against her. Marama said they did not.

“Naturally, Tonga is mad,” she said in her songlike voice. “He wants everyone to do as he says. But that’s not our custom. We decide for ourselves, and I have not yet lain with him in the meeting hall, even though he thinks I will someday.”

“Don’t your mother and father have some say?” Gwyneira asked, still not entirely clear on the Maori custom. She simply could not comprehend that the girls chose their husbands themselves and often changed husbands several times.

Marama shook her head. “No. Mother only says that it would be strange if I were to lie with Paul because we were nursed at the same breast. It would be indecent if he were one of us, but he is
pakeha
and very different…he is certainly no member of the tribe.”

Gwyneira almost choked on her sherry when Marama spoke so naturally of sleeping with her seventeen-year-old son. However, the suspicion now dawned on her that this was why Paul reacted so aggressively to the Maori. He wanted to be kicked out. So that he might sleep with Marama someday? Or simply no longer to have the reputation as “different” among the
pakeha
as well?

“So you like Paul better than Tonga?” Gwyneira asked carefully.

Marama nodded. “I love Paul,” she said sincerely. “Like
rangi
loved
papa
.”

“Why?” The question crossed Gwyneira’s lips before she could stop it. Her cheeks reddened. She had finally admitted that she could not find anything to love in her own son. “I mean,” she softened her tone, “Paul is difficult and…”

Marama nodded again. “Love is not simple either,” she declared. “Paul is like a roaring river you have to wade through to get to the best fishing grounds. But it is a river of tears, miss. It must be calmed with love. Only then can he…can he become human.”

Gwyneira had thought about the girl’s words for a long time. As she so often was, she was ashamed of what she had done to Paul by not loving him. But of course she had little reason to be. While she tossed and turned in bed, Friday began to bark—which was strange. True, she heard men’s voices coming from the ground floor, but normally the dog did not react to Gerald and Paul’s return home. Had they brought a guest?

Gwyneira threw on a dressing gown and left her room. It was not yet late; perhaps the men were still sober enough to inform her of their success in finding sheep shearers. And if they had returned with some drinking companion, then at least she would know what awaited her in the morning.

In order that she might retreat without being seen if the men looked inclined to be troublesome, she crept noiselessly down the stairs—and was astonished to discover George Greenwood in the salon. He was just leading an exhausted-looking Paul into Gerald’s study and lighting the lamps. Gwyneira followed them.

“Good evening, George…Paul,” she announced herself. “Where’s Gerald hiding? Has something happened?”

George Greenwood did not return her greeting. He had purposefully opened the display case and pulled out a bottle of brandy, which he preferred to the omnipresent whiskey, and filled three glasses.

“Here, drink, Paul. And you, Mrs. Warden, will also need a glass.” He handed one to her. “Gerald is dead, Gwyneira. Howard O’Keefe beat him to death. And Paul killed Howard O’Keefe.”

Gwyneira needed some time to take it all in. She drank her brandy slowly while George described to her what had happened.

“It was self-defense!” Paul declared again. He vacillated between sobbing and being stubbornly defensive.

Gwyneira looked inquiringly at George.

“You could look at it that way,” George said hesitantly. “There’s no doubt that O’Keefe was reaching for his weapon. But in reality it would have taken ages for him to raise the thing, release the safety, and pull the trigger. By then the other men would have long since disarmed him. Paul could have stopped him with a well aimed punch, or at least taken the gun from him. I’m afraid the witnesses will describe it that way as well.”

“Then it was revenge!” Paul crowed, gulping down his brandy. “He drew blood first.”

“There a difference between a punch with unfortunate consequences and a shot aimed at a man’s chest,” George replied, now a little riled up himself. He confiscated the brandy bottle before Paul could pour himself more. “O’Keefe would have been charged with manslaughter at most. If he was charged at all. Most of the people in the pub would testify that Gerald’s death was an accident.”

“And as far as I know, there’s no such thing as the right to revenge.” Gwyneira sighed. “What you’ve done, Paul, is taken the law into your own hands—and that’s punishable.”

“They can’t lock me up!” Paul’s voice cracked.

George nodded. “Oh yes they can. And I’m afraid that’s exactly what the officer is going to do when he arrives tomorrow.”

Gwyneira held her glass out to him for more. She could not remember ever having more than a sip of brandy, but tonight she needed it. “So, what now, George? Is there anything we can do?”

“I’m not staying here!” Paul announced. “I’ll flee; I’ll go into the highlands. I can live like the Maori! No one will ever find me.”

“Don’t talk such rot, Paul!” Gwyneira yelled at him.

George Greenwood turned his glass in his hands.

“Maybe he’s not all that wrong, Gwyneira,” he said. “There’s probably nothing better for him to do than disappear, at least until a little grass has grown over the whole thing. In a year or so, the boys in the pub will have forgotten the incident. And between us, I hardly think that Helen O’Keefe will pursue the business with much vigor. When Paul returns, the whole thing will naturally come to trial. But then he can plead self-defense more credibly. You know how these people are, Gwyneira. Tomorrow, people will still remember that the one only had an old rifle and the other a revolver. In three months’ time, they’ll probably be saying they were both armed with canons.”

Gwyneira nodded. “At least we’ll save ourselves the commotion of a trial while this delicate business with the Maori is still going on. Tonga will have a field day with all of this…please pour me another brandy, George. I can’t believe any of this. We’re sitting here talking about what makes the most strategic sense, and two men have died!”

While George was filling her glass, Friday started barking again.

“The police!” Paul reached for his revolver, but George grabbed his arm.

“For God’s sake, don’t make things worse, boy! If you shoot someone else—or even threaten Hanson—they will hang you, Paul Warden. And even your name and all your fortune won’t save you then.”

“It can’t be the police anyway,” Gwyneira said, swaying slightly as she raised herself up. Even if the people in Haldon had sent a messenger to Lyttelton by night, Hanson could not have arrived before the next afternoon.

Instead, Helen O’Keefe stood in the doorway leading from the kitchen to the salon, shaking and soaked through by the rain. Confused
by the voices in the study, she had not dared enter—and now looked uncertainly from Gwyneira to George Greenwood.

“George…what are you doing…? Never mind, Gwyn, you have to put me up somewhere tonight. I could even sleep in the stables if you just give me a few dry things. I’m soaked to the bone. Nepumuk is not very fast.”

“But what are you doing here?” Gwyneira asked, putting her arm around her friend. Helen had never been to Kiward Station before.

“I…Howard found Ruben’s letters…he threw them all over the house and smashed the dishes…Gwyn, if he comes home drunk tonight, he’ll kill me!”

As Gwyneira told her friend about Howard’s death, Helen displayed a great deal of calm. The tears she shed were for all the pain and suffering she had experienced and seen. Her love for her husband had faded long ago. She appeared more concerned that Paul could be put on trial for murder.

Gwyneira gathered all the money she could find in the house and directed Paul to go upstairs and pack his things. She knew that she should help him with that—the boy was confused and tired to the bone, and there was no way he could still think straight. As he stumbled up the steps, however, Marama came from the other direction with a bundle of items.

“I need your saddlebags, Paul,” she said gently. “And then we need to go to the kitchen; we should take some provisions with us, don’t you think?”