Isle of Tears (2 page)

They were happy at Braeburn, although Donal and Agnes and the older children missed the rugged coastlines, moors and mist-shrouded mountains of Skye, and Agnes sometimes wept at night for the souls of the first, doomed, baby she had borne, buried in Skye soil, and the child she had left behind in an Irish graveyard. She schooled her children herself, teaching them a little arithmetic and how to read and write using catechisms from the family Bible, and made them practise their Scottish Gaelic so they wouldn’t forget who they were—except that Niel now spent more time on the land with his father than bent over his copy book.

And occasionally the McKinnons saw other settler families in the area, although they had no close neighbours. A year ago they had visited a family called McBride who lived several miles away, but because the McKinnons were Church of Scotland and the McBrides were Irish Catholics, the visit, in Agnes’s view, hadn’t been a resounding success and they hadn’t been back. They rarely saw Mr Tulloch, their rather peculiar neighbour on the other side, who was from Suffolk, England, had an ailing wife and no children, and kept himself to himself. It was a very different way of life from the close-knit villages of crofting families on Skye, but here in New Zealand a man was at least his own boss, and if he failed in his endeavours then he had no one else to blame.

‘I’ve good news as well,’ Agnes announced with a small, proud smile.

Donal helped himself to more meat. ‘Oh aye, and what’s that?’

‘Oor Isla has become a woman.’

‘Ah, Mam!’ Isla groaned, blushing wildly.

Donal raised his eyebrows. ‘Hoots! We should be celebratin’, then.’

Jamie and Jean exchanged mystified glances.

‘She disnae look any different tae us,’ Jamie said, perplexed. He turned to Isla. ‘Why are ye a woman?’

She hesitated, then shot a desperate, pleading look at her mother.

‘A body changes as it grows older,’ Agnes replied vaguely, now regretting her announcement. ‘And oor Isla’s has, er…done that.’

‘But
how?’
Jean demanded. ‘She’s got a pimple on her chin. Is that what ye mean?’

‘Aye!’ Agnes said with relief.

‘Well, I’m no’ goin’ tae be a woman if it means big red pimples on ma face,’ Jean declared.
‘And
she’s been awful crabbit as well.’

‘I have no’,’ Isla snapped.

Jean made a see-what-I-mean face.

But Niel caught Isla’s eye, and nodded in acknowledgement. He had shot up four inches himself in the past four months, was sporting wispy hairs in some very private places, and had a vague idea of what had happened to Isla, although he wasn’t going to mention it aloud, and certainly not at the table.

Isla smiled gratefully and turned her attention back to her dinner, hoping that Jamie and Jean had lost interest in the subject of her ‘womanhood’.

In case they hadn’t, Agnes changed the subject. ‘I couldnae
find Rosie this morning. Ye didnae see her when ye were oot and aboot?’

The twins shook their heads.

Donal wiped a piece of bread around his plate to collect the last of the gravy. ‘She’s probably wandered off up the hill again. Or gone doon the other side intae the glen. I think she likes the grass doon there.’

‘Well, I’d like ye all tae go and find her after dinner,’ Agnes said. ‘She’ll be wanting milking by now.’

‘I’m helping Da,’ Niel said quickly.

Donal countered, ‘Aye, well, I’m only replacing those loose shingles on the roof this afternoon. And I dinnae want Isla and the weans oot and aboot by themselves, so ye can go and keep an eye on them, eh?’

Although he didn’t really want to traipse around after the twins, Niel tried not to look too pleased with himself. His brother and sisters were unlikely to get lost as they were only going up the hill, but there was a possibility that they might encounter, say, a Maori scouting party, so this was a real show of faith from his father, especially as the threat of danger was very real.

There had been unrest last year over the coveted Peka Peka Block at Waitara, north of New Plymouth, six hundred acres of prime land straddling the Waitara River and owned by the local Maori tribe, Te Ati Awa. When a minor chief, Te Teira, had tried to sell the block to the government, his elder and supporter of the new Maori King movement, Wiremu Kingi, opposed the sale and occupied the land in protest.

As a result, government surveyors had been denied access, and two weeks ago martial law had been declared in Taranaki. Two companies of the 58th and 65th Regiments already in the area were now on full alert, the Volunteer Rifles had been stood to arms, and the militia called up. But not Donal McKinnon, much to Agnes’s relief; because Braeburn was more than twenty-five miles from the New Plymouth police office, Donal was exempt. New Plymouth itself was preparing for a siege.

More alarming still were the rumours that local Maori were readying for war and building fighting pa. A passing traveller last week had said that many settler families were moving into town, too frightened to stay on their isolated blocks of land and perhaps face the marauding Maori on their own. Apparently, the McBrides had already gone. The level of panic in New Plymouth was intense, because the town was so cut off from other European settlements. If the imperial troops of the British army failed to stop the Maori, who would rescue the settlers? Who would stop their homes from being torched and their stock being stolen? Most importantly, who would save them from certain, terrible death at the hands of the bloodthirsty natives?

Niel himself was frightened of the Maori, with their fierce dark faces and strange language, but his father had said many times that Braeburn, which wasn’t part of the Peka Peka Block, had been bought fair and square and therefore wasn’t subject to dispute. This hadn’t eased Niel’s fears at all, but if his father thought he was up to confronting trespassers on McKinnon land, even disgruntled Maori ones, then he would.

‘Can I take the rifle?’ he asked.

‘Aye. But be verra careful wi’ it.’

‘Aye, I will.’ Pretending nonchalance, Niel nevertheless experienced an uncomfortable flutter of nerves in his belly at the responsibility of it all.

After dinner, Isla and Jean cleared the table, then Agnes took the washing basin down from a shelf and followed the children outside.

At the pump in the yard, she said, ‘Now, be careful, aye? If ye see anyone—anyone at all—you’re tae run back tae the hoose as fast as ye can. And Rosie will just have tae make her own way home.’

Their anticipation of an adventure tempered by the obvious concern in their mother’s voice, the children all nodded gravely.

Donal came out then, his rifled musket balanced easily in his hand. It was an Enfield, a military weapon only a few years old and purchased from a shady character in the Red House Hotel in New Plymouth. He passed it, along with a pouch containing the paper cartridges, to Niel. ‘It’s no’ loaded, so if ye hear anything, dinnae forget.’

Niel took the rifle and set the butt on the ground, the end of the barrel reaching his shoulder. Donal suppressed a smile at the look of pride his son couldn’t quite keep off his face.

‘Be canny, now,’ he warned as his children turned to go.

Followed by a bounding and excited Laddie, Isla led the way until she reached the trees at the base of the big hill that rose behind the house. There, she turned and lifted her hand to her
parents, who were standing very still by the pump, her father’s hand resting companionably on her mother’s shoulder. They looked as though they were posing for the man who operated the photographic parlour in New Plymouth.

‘Look oot for them, Isla!’ her father called.

‘I’m tired,’ Jean whined to Niel. ‘Will ye carry me?’

‘No, we’re no’ even halfway up yet.’

‘But I’m
tired!’

‘Well, ye shouldnae have come, then!’

Isla moved up beside Jean and took her hand. ‘Shall I pull ye?’

Grumpily, Jean acquiesced and allowed Isla to drag her up through the ferns and scrub covering the hill.

‘Rosie!’
Jamie shouted yet again, his voice cracking with the effort. ‘Where in hell
is
she?’

Jean’s eyes widened. ‘Ooh, I’m tellin’ Mam ye said that.’

Jamie ignored her because his da said it all the time and no one told him off, and went on looking behind slender tree trunks and low bushes, as though fat, lumbering Rosie could somehow have concealed herself behind them.

It was cool in the shade of the taller ferns and trees, and Isla enjoyed the feeling of warmth on her head and arms whenever she emerged into the sunlight. She was puffing gently, and a lone bead of sweat trickled down her scalp through her hair. The dull, tugging sensation in her belly had subsided slightly during
dinner, but now that she was exerting herself it had started again. Stopping for a moment, she glanced over her shoulder, but they weren’t high enough yet to afford a view of their house down on the flat. She loved seeing it from here—it looked so like a little doll’s house that she always wanted to laugh. The hill wasn’t high enough for them to see the sea, but she always knew it was there, beyond the horizon; she could feel it.

‘Well, she wis here no’ so long ago,’ Niel noted, looking down: at his feet was a fresh cow pat. Laddie sniffed at it interestedly.

‘How d’ye ken it’s Rosie’s?’ Jamie asked, the toe of his boot seeming to move of its own accord towards the splatter of cow shit.

Isla hissed and pulled him sharply back by his sleeve. ‘Dinnae stand in it, ye mucky lad!’

Jamie and Jean both giggled.

‘The herd’s in the back paddocks, that’s how I ken,’ Niel said testily. ‘None o’ them have been up here for weeks.’

‘They might have crept up here,’ Jean suggested. ‘One night. In the dark. When we wasnae looking.’

Niel gave her a withering look and set off again, thrusting springy stems of supplejack out of his way as he went.

Twenty minutes later, all red-faced and sweaty now, they reached the top of the hill. Isla looked down at the house, delighted as always with the tiny tendril of smoke drifting from the chimney, the miniature washing line and outhouse and the barest smudge of garden. And there was no sound at all, except for the faint noise of the bush. Once or twice when she had been up here, Isla had
heard her mother singing while she worked in the house. She’d asked her father about it, about why she could hear Agnes’s voice from so far away, and he’d said that sometimes the wind would take a person’s words and carry them straight to the ears of someone they loved, as a special little gift.

‘That’s no’ true!’ Isla had said at the time. ‘Is it?’

‘Aye, it is!’ Donal had replied. ‘Go up the hill, and if the wind’s in the right mood, ye’ll hear all o’ us.’

And so Isla had. But all she’d heard that day was her mother shouting at Jamie and Jean for something, and her father laughing his big, hearty laugh. It had been nice, though, knowing that even high up on the hill she was still connected to her family.

But today there was nothing, so she turned away and crossed the bald summit to stand beside Niel.

‘There. D’ye see her?’ he asked, pointing with the rifle down at the narrow valley below them.

Isla squinted. ‘Aye, I can.’ Half-hidden behind a stand of toetoe, Rosie was stuffing her face with coarse, lush grass and no doubt giving herself colic.

‘Rosie!’
Jamie bellowed.

Isla raised a warning hand. ‘Wheesht! She’ll hear us and run away.’

‘No’ if she wants her teats pullin’, and she will by now,’ Niel said, slapping at a sandfly. ‘Come on.’

The four of them slipped and slid down the long, steep slope until they reached the bottom, where their boots squelched among the short rushes that masked a tiny stream running through the
valley. Rosie watched as they approached, calmly and rhythmically chewing a mouthful of grass and ignoring Laddie as he trotted around and dropped to the ground behind her.

‘You’re a bad beastie, Rosie,’ Jean reprimanded crossly.

Rosie didn’t appear to care what Jean thought of her, and tore up more grass.

Niel gave a low whistle and Laddie crept close to Rosie, his belly barely off the ground. She turned her head and gazed at him mournfully, then conceded to walk forward a few paces before she succumbed to greed and snatched up another mouthful of grass.

Isla shook her head in reproach. ‘Get her oot o’ there, Niel, before she makes herself sick.’

Niel whistled again and Laddie darted up behind Rosie and nipped her fetlock. She started indignantly, then trotted smartly across the rushes and headed up the hill, her swollen udder swinging ponderously between her legs.

Jean announced, ‘I want tae ride Rosie up the hill.’

‘Well, ye cannae, ye’ll get knocked off under the trees,’ Isla replied.

‘No, I’ll make masel’
really
wee, like this. See?’ Jean crouched and folded herself into a small ball.

‘Oh, hurry up,’ Niel said testily, stepping around her.

Isla held out her hand. ‘Come on, mo leannan, ye’ll get left behind.’

And then they heard it—a loud, flat, echoing
craaack.

Like a gunshot.

T
hey immediately froze, staring wide-eyed at each other. All except Jamie, who said confidently, ‘That was Da, shooting something for the pot.’

‘No, it wasnae,’ Niel replied stiffly, and slowly held out his father’s rifle.

Jamie’s face paled visibly. Laddie’s ears went back and a low growl rumbled from his throat.

Then they were slipping and sliding and scrambling up the hill, a thoroughly disconcerted Rosie bolting ahead of them. At the top, gasping and clutching at the stitch in her side, Isla gazed down at their house, which looked exactly as it had less than an hour ago. But something was horribly wrong. She could feel it, and so could Laddie because now he was barking wildly.

She exchanged a panic-stricken glance with Niel then they were off again, Laddie streaking ahead through the undergrowth.

Then a second shot echoed up the hill, and Isla cried out as a great wave of fear crashed over her, dragging her under and rolling her over and over, knocking the breath out of her.

Jean squealed ‘Mam!’ and promptly fell over, her outstretched hands ploughing small furrows in the leaf litter.

Isla snatched her up by the back of her pinafore and set her on her feet, ignoring the wailing. She desperately wanted to be able to see the house, but now they were too low on the hill, so she stumbled on after Niel down through the bush. A few minutes later, another shot sounded, closer now, and suddenly they emerged onto the cleared land behind the house.

And there, they all stopped.

Ashen-faced, Niel held up his hand. ‘Listen!’

But there was nothing to hear, except for the call of a lone bellbird somewhere in the trees.

Niel took a firmer grip on the rifle, although Isla could see that his hands were shaking badly, and began to make his way stealthily towards the rear of the house. She hesitated for a moment, then followed, pressing her own trembling finger to her lips and gesturing for Jean and Jamie to stay behind her.

They paused behind the privy: Niel peered around it very cautiously, then set off towards the verandah at the back of the house: Isla heard the boards creak as he stepped onto them.

And then she heard him cry out.

Without even thinking, she darted out from the shelter of the privy, raced across the yard and pushed past him through the open back door.

Except for a single fly buzzing somewhere, the house was silent and still. Several chairs had fallen over, and fixings for the evening’s supper were scattered everywhere: Isla recalled abstractedly that it was going to be stovies, made from the dinner leftovers.

Her father was lying on his side on the floor, quite close to the hearth, a great pool of dark blood staining the bare boards beneath him. Her mother was on her back a short distance away, her skirts up around her waist and her sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. She had been shot in the head. Blood had run along the grooves between the floorboards beside her and pooled around her left hand, transforming her wedding ring from gold to rust. They were both very still, and Isla knew straight away that they were dead.

Somebody made a noise, and Isla noticed with a kind of detached dismay that Jean and Jamie had followed her and were standing just inside the door.

‘Mam?’ Jean whimpered, but her voice sounded funny, very flat and far away.

Without knowing she was going to do it, Isla crossed the room to crouch beside her mother. Agnes’s drawers were askew and Isla pulled her skirts down and smoothed the fabric over her still-warm legs. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she knew deep in her belly that something ghastly had been done to her mother. Something so awful that her father had died trying to stop it. Something that would make her vomit then scream until her throat burst if she let herself think about it.

‘Who did this?’ Niel whispered disbelievingly. He had come to
stand behind Isla, and his face was so drained of blood that she wondered if he might be on the verge of passing out. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, although whether from fear or rage Isla couldn’t tell.

Nobody said anything for what felt like a very long time. The silence expanded ringingly until Isla thought her head might explode from it, and she stood quickly to make it go away, then squatted again as she felt faint and stars danced across her vision.

‘I dinnae ken,’ she said eventually, although it came out more as a dry little croak than proper words.

Jean whined, ‘Where’s Laddie?’ Then added in a perplexed tone a moment later, ‘Is Da dead?’

Niel made a strange face, as though he couldn’t decide whether to yawn or cry. Then he said, ‘Did they kill Laddie, too?’ and sat down on the floor, hard, the butt of the rifle making a sharp rapping noise.

Jean turned and looked out through the door. ‘Someone’s coming,’ she said dreamily, and her eyes fluttered as though she wanted to go to sleep. ‘Some Maori men. They’ve got guns.’

Isla stared at Jean for a long, horrible moment while her mind struggled to make sense of what Jean had said, then she lunged across the room and knocked her little sister out of the open doorway.

Behind her, Niel scrabbled wildly beneath the table for the latch that opened the trapdoor to the cellar. He wrenched the door up, skidded across the room and grabbed Jamie, who flopped
uselessly, and shoved him down the ladder. Isla came next, carrying a whimpering Jean under her arm, and half-climbed, half-fell down the ladder into the darkness. Niel swung in last with the rifle, and quickly closed the trapdoor after himself, ramming the bolt home.

They crouched in the total blackness of the cellar, holding their breaths, each convinced that their pounding hearts would surely be heard above ground. Isla began to feel light-headed again, and slowly let out her breath so she could take another before she fainted. She had barked her shin on the ladder and could feel a trickle of warm blood seeping into her woollen sock above her boot. Her face was wet, too, from tears she hadn’t even realized she’d cried.

Above them the floorboards creaked as someone entered the house. Isla wanted to ask Jean how many Maori she had seen, but dared not open her mouth. She couldn’t discern anything in the darkness, but she knew that all four of them were staring blindly upwards, waiting for the trapdoor to be jerked open and their hiding place revealed. She felt a small hand creep into hers and squeezed it, not knowing whether it belonged to Jamie or Jean.

The creaking ceased, then resumed two-fold as someone else came into the house. Isla could hear and feel feet treading almost directly above the cellar. Not booted feet, but bare feet. The footsteps halted where she knew the bodies of her parents lay, then came the muted crack of a knee as someone squatted. Oh Lord, what else were they going to do to her poor mother and father? A tiny amount of light filtered down through the floorboards
now, reflected in three sets of very round eyes gazing, as she had guessed, heavenward in terror.

After a moment, a deep voice spoke in what she knew to be the Maori tongue, then another voice sounded, followed by a scuffling noise, as though something was being dragged across the floorboards. This was repeated a few minutes later, then silence descended once again.

Isla desperately wanted to ask Niel what they should do, but what if the Maori were still in the house, or even outside on the verandah, biding their time, waiting for them to make a single, tiny noise and give themselves away? But then hope blossomed brightly as it occurred to her that there was no reason the intruders should assume that anyone was hiding in the house at all, so perhaps they really had gone. Then she recalled Jean’s doll sitting in its miniature chair, and all the children’s clothes hanging on the washing line, and her heart plummeted again, settling like a cold, lead weight in her chest.

The minutes ticked by, and after a while cramp crept agonizingly into Isla’s calves. She tried to flex her muscles without moving her legs, but finally had to ease herself from a crouch into an awkward slump, her back pressing against the rough-sawn boards lining the small cellar. She thought irrelevantly how lucky they were that it was the height of summer, as it usually became damp down here during the winter. Her father had been meaning to line the hole with brick and mortar, but had never found the time.

And now he never would.

Isla mentally slammed her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t
have to hear herself think such a terrible, unbelievable thought, and slowly she let her head drop so that her chin was almost on her chest. She was so tired, and her head felt as though it were stuffed with wadded cotton. The minutes stretched out and, amazingly, she almost dozed off, as did Jamie, whose hand she was holding. When he nodded into sleep, she felt it loosen, then slide out of hers. A minute later—or it could have been an hour—she gave a start, wondering if she herself had actually gone to sleep.

Jean whispered, ‘Have they gone, Isla? Can we climb oot?’ Her breath was sour, tainted by fear.

Aghast, Isla pressed her hand over Jean’s mouth and vigorously shook her head, the headache that was growing there bouncing from one side of her skull to the other.

But it was too late. Overhead, the floorboards creaked ominously as footsteps slowly neared the trapdoor, then stopped: Jean had been heard. A scraping noise came as the table was moved.

‘How many o’ them were there?’ Isla whispered as quietly as she could, even though there was probably no need for silence now.

‘Five?’ Jean suggested far too loudly, obviously not sure.

Isla closed her eyes in sick dismay. Five was too many. If there had only been two, they might have escaped, but not from five grown men.

A rattling noise ensued as someone fiddled with the latch on the trapdoor. Isla glanced at the faces of her brothers and sister, wondering if hers looked as terrified as theirs.

Something was forced between the trapdoor and the floorboards, the nails securing the bolt gave, then, very slowly, the trapdoor
lifted, letting in a piercing shaft of light. Isla blinked and shielded her eyes.

Niel immediately raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened, and in the harsh light Isla could see the expression of disbelief on her brother’s face as he realized he hadn’t loaded the Enfield.

A brown arm reached into the cellar and deftly plucked the rifle out of Niel’s hands; then a moment later, a man peered down at them. He wore a short beard and his face was tattooed with the swirling patterns the Maori favoured, topped with a shock of black hair touched with grey at the temples. He said something in his native tongue—a question?—but when no response was forthcoming, he reached in, grasped Niel’s bony shoulders and pulled him out. Niel, his legs kicking madly, disappeared from view. Isla drew Jamie and Jean close and wrapped her arms around them, protecting them as best she could. She squeezed her eyes shut, certain she was about to feel the sharp blow of a Maori club driving into her skull at any second.

But again nothing happened. Hesitantly, Isla opened her eyes; the Maori had his hand out to her, as if expecting her to take it. ‘Kia tere mai,’ he said.

Isla slapped angrily at his forearm, but he ignored it and scooped up Jamie and lifted him out of the cellar, then did the same with Jean. Both children seemed frozen with terror. Finally, the man leaned in and hauled Isla out, depositing her on her feet. She looked wildly around for the others, and saw that they were huddled near the front door, another dark-faced man watching
over them. The bodies of her mother and father were nowhere to be seen, although their smeared blood, congealed and now an ugly brown colour, remained on the floor. Remembering the dreadful stories about how Maori sometimes ate the people they killed, Isla felt another wave of faintness wash over her.

The man who had dragged her from the cellar gestured for her to join her brothers and sister. For an instant, she considered dashing in the opposite direction and out through the back door, but realized just as quickly that there would be no point; if there really were five men, the rest were probably outside. Anyway, Niel, Jamie and Jean would still be inside, and it was them she needed to look out for. Her father had said so. So she meekly crossed the room. Niel glanced at her, but quickly dropped his gaze, the shame of his error with the Enfield still evident on his face.

They were then herded out onto the verandah, the bearded man firmly pushing Isla ahead of him. He said something to his companion, who turned and barked an order, at which three more men appeared. These were dressed in similar fashion to the first two, in an eclectic assortment of European garments, although all were barefoot.

Isla felt an insistent hand on her back and stepped off the verandah. When she looked to her right, along the side of the house, she saw two heaps of fresh earth, side by side under a tree. They looked like graves. Then, with a shock that ripped the breath from her, she realized that they were: somehow, the twin mounds of soil were more real, more
comprehensible,
than the sight of her parents bleeding on the floor. Her face rigid with
emotion, she glanced at the man behind her. He returned her look impassively.

She waited until he had turned away, then whispered urgently to Niel, ‘But who buried them?’

‘Wheesht, they’ll hear ye!’

Isla glanced at their captors. ‘But they dinnae speak English. Do they?’

Drawing together the tatters of his confidence, Niel turned to face the men and said loudly and with deliberate emphasis, ‘I’m gonnae kill ye filthy mudderin’ shites as soon as I get the chance, every bloody one o’ ye!’

Isla stifled a gasp. One of the men brushed at a fly hovering about his face, but other than that there was no response.

Satisfied that he hadn’t been understood, Niel gave an inward sigh of heartfelt relief. He couldn’t imagine anyone tolerating such an insult, especially not from a thirteen-year-old boy.

Jean started to cry, and for some reason that galvanized the Maori. They surrounded the children and began to shepherd them across the stump-studded paddock that stretched away from the house. Isla turned for what she knew in her heart would be her last glimpse of their home, because surely they were going to their deaths, but one of the men stepped smartly behind her and blocked her view. Still, she was struck by how sad and abandoned the homestead already looked, with the two forlorn graves beneath the tree, and the washing hanging limply on the line as though it too were dead.