Heartland (3 page)

As soon as the peas and carrots are done, she whips them into the heated bowl and tucks them down in the pram with the roast. On wet nights like this she covers the blanket with a square of black polythene. For some reason she's dressed up
a bit — wears her mother's garnet earrings, and her woollen greatcoat instead of the usual oilskin. To celebrate the entry, perhaps, or cheer Bull up, if he needs cheering.

Seeing the roast chicken, Bull opens a bottle of wine. The whisky-coffee at the end of the meal is not really needed, but they have it anyway.

Vera's cheeks are pink, she can feel them. ‘Come on, Bull,' she says. Her voice comes out too girly. ‘What did the old dragon say? I know it was something.'

Bull leans back, unbuttons his jacket, much more at ease. ‘She did say something. I've been thinking about it.'

Vera waits. Push Bull too fast and you can forget about hearing a word.

‘I walked into the hall,' says Bull at last. ‘The two ladies are right at the stage end facing you — it's like walking up to a firing squad. You can bet Di Masefield planned it that way. Anyway, I stump over the bare boards towards them, and they lean back a bit, you know? Surprised. “My entry!” I say. I unwrap the tissue, spread the cloth and wait. Old Stonycroft twitters and chirps over the lace as well she might, her stuff has never been worth a prize anywhere in the world. She must have invented it.'

‘Don't get stuck on lace now, Bull, you're telling a story.'

‘Well. Di sits like a stunned mullet reading my entry form, or staring at it anyway. That witch would turn the All Blacks to stone at fifty paces. Good thing I'm battle hardened, Vera. She turns those whitey eyes full on me, and I'll swear the hairs on her head were standing straight out like the Gorgon's snakes.'

‘It's just vigorous hair, you know that, always has been.'

‘Vigorous is right. Sell it for barbed wire.
So
.'

Bull pours more whisky into his coffee, which is unusual. He takes a breath.

‘
So
. She looks at me down the barrel and says in a voice that could be rat poison, “Not you too!” I don't know what she's talking about — no other lacemaking men in the district as far as I know. “Me too, what?” I say. “You're queer,” she says. “Bent,
homo
-sexual!”'

Vera clears her throat.

Bull charges on. The expression on his great weathered slab of a face is more puzzled than anything.

‘I still couldn't see what she was getting at. “What do you mean? Are
you
gay then?” I say, and she rises slowly. I get ready to run, it looks like she's finally gone over the edge, you've always said she would, Vera.'

Vera raises a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.'

‘Her voice comes out all cold and distant, not like her usual forthright brisk way of running the world. Says that she's a married woman with three damned children. That her daughter has been a dirty lesbian since age fourteen, one son going into the priesthood, everyone knows these days what that means, and now her last son — the one who accused Donny, Vera, you know the one — has announced to the whole world he's gay. That's her grandchildren down the drain, she whispers, and now they're taking over lacemaking! Then she stops abruptly, complete change of tone, slaps my form down on the table and says my entry is accepted! Just like that! I hopped it fast.'

‘She's mad,' says Vera.

‘I suppose so,' says Bull, ‘but it's got me thinking. Do you think I'm gay, Vera?'

‘Well, don't ask
me
,' says Vera. She fiddles with an earring.

Bull picks up a bobbin he's been carving — cow bone, tiny and boat-shaped, with a Celtic knot engraved at one end. Every one of his eighty-four bobbins has a different pattern so his fingers know.

‘Maybe she's right,' says Bull. ‘How would you tell?'

‘Bull,' says Vera, all patience, ‘have you been with a man?'

‘Come off it, Vera, what do you take me for?'

‘Well, do you fancy them then? Their bodies?'

Bull thinks for a bit. ‘I like to see a good fit body on the field. Man who keeps himself in trim. You know …'

‘Well, so does everyone. So do I.'

‘You're a woman,' says Bull.

Vera tops up her whisky too. ‘Well, have you been with women, then?'

‘Once I did,' says Bull. He screws up his eyes for a moment as if something has suddenly pained him. ‘It was a terrible mistake.'

‘But do you
think
about them?' says Vera, looking him in the eye. ‘Have you ever, well, fancied
me
, for example?'

Bull laughs. ‘Of course I do, Vera.'

‘But I mean — you know … in that other way?'

Bull taps the table with his bobbin, tap, tap, tap, the little bone incongruous in the meaty fist. ‘Listen to us!' he says at last. ‘You'd think we were teenagers!' And laughs. ‘All that stuff.'

Vera grunts. The sound could mean anything. She lets go
the earring and rises. ‘Yes well. I suppose. I'll be off then.' Her nod is friendly enough.

Bull sighs. He rises, unhooks Vera's old greatcoat and drapes it around her shoulders. He startles her then by leaning over and clumsily planting a kiss somewhere near her ear.

‘Thanks,' he mumbles.

For what, she's not sure. She presses a finger over the place on her cheek, not trusting her voice to behave itself.

The Easter Hunt

Donny’s big trouble with the law (after a string of minor offences) had come during last year’s Easter Hunt, a time-honoured tradition in Ohakune. The Virgin, pregnant and working at Hoppy’s Takeaways, remembered the Hunt as a time of horror — like some dark and vivid nightmare. The smell, the carcasses, the strutting men, the kids running and screaming, their arms full of dead possums. More than once the bloody scene made her retch and run for the toilet. All weekend, men were out in the bush, hunting. The competition was for the best and biggest of every wild and huntable animal in the district (fish included as a less manly extra to make up the third item in the trifecta with deer and pigs). On the Sunday, the carcasses arrived at the ‘fair ground’ — the car park behind the pub — where they were weighed, tagged with the shooter’s number and hung up on display. Red deer and fallows hung on racks on the back of a truck, feet trussed, heads dangling. Antlered heads of stags stared out from their rows on the ground. There were fly-ridden piles of pig — kunekune, tuskers, Captain Cookers; a trailer full of possums and another
of rabbits (here the competition was to shoot or trap the most, not the biggest). Eels dangled from a clothing rack borrowed from the second-hand shop. Why eels, the Virgin wondered, surely they didn’t shoot them? She especially hated that black and slimy display, some of the eels still wriggling feebly.

She saw a woman with a dog on a lead approaching. The dog, a young ridgeback, suddenly planted its feet, nose in the air, whining. He’d caught the scent. They were a block away but the dog went rigid. Wouldn’t move no matter how vigorously the woman tugged. Obviously the overpowering stink, so different from a faint trail in the bush, was terrifying. Its tail was tucked tightly under its belly. With a sudden jerk, the dog pulled free of its collar, turned tail and went haring off, anywhere but the Easter Hunt display.

That year Fitz Smart from Manawa, nicknamed Notso for his many failed money-making schemes, had a stall selling roasted huhu grubs and pork crackling. Somehow he got the cooking process wrong — both grubs and crackling were flabby. More than one intrepid townie spat out the evil mixture, adding to the general rich stench behind the pub.

The worst event, from the Virgin Tracey’s point of view, was the Pig Run alongside the river. A large boar carcass lay on the ground by the starting line. Anyone who fancied his strength — rugby front-rowers and sturdy farmers mainly — would try to carry the bloody boar on his shoulders, running over and under various obstacles, turning at the far end and running back to the cheers of the crowd, and then dumping it back on the ground. The aim was to be the fastest. As the day wore on, the stink of the carcass ripened, the boar’s head and
slit throat lolled behind the runner’s shoulder more obscenely, flies gathered in droves. Often the runner stumbled and fell, the horrible beast on top or below, while the crowd cheered and jeered. A dark scene out of the Middle Ages.

Donny was part of the hunt, though the Virgin wouldn’t have recognised him back then. She wasn’t living rough at that time but renting a tiny room in Ohakune. Donny had been taught to shoot by his granddad, the two of them riding the old motorbike up over abandoned milling roads into the bush behind Manawa. He was a good shot and a fearless tracker, hunting for food rather than competition, but last Easter George Kingi had invited Donny to hunt with him. It would be good for the lad to get away from those louts down in ’Kune who were a bad influence on him.

‘Hop aboard, lad!’ he shouted, his ute idling outside Donny’s in the frosty early morning dark. ‘We’ll head up Rangipo way. There’s a couple of herds of red up by the old power-station road. Should be some decent stags gathering there.’

Donny, though bleary eyed from a night at the pub, was willing enough. He slung some warm gear and ammunition into his pack.

‘Bring your granddad’s old cow horn,’ said George, his weathered face alight with the excitement already, ‘and we’ll roar them out.’

Together they headed towards Waiouru and then along the Desert Road, the top of the mountain just beginning to glow rosy with the dawn. A beautiful morning. At Kaimanawa Road they turned off towards the Rangipo power station and then up a rough logging road, lurching over rocks and through an undergrowth of young scrub. When George found his spot, they shouldered packs and rifles and headed up into the bush. George reckoned he’d seen a twelve-pointer not far from the Urchin Track. They’d try there.

At first Donny was sulky and slow, but as the booze wore off and his natural hunting instincts took over he climbed with a will, George puffing to keep up. From time to time Donny blew on the old cow horn. He could do a pretty good imitation of a stag’s roar and once heard a distant response. George thought it could be another hunter on the other side of the valley.

‘Too many human bloody stags,’ he muttered.

Now and then they heard shots in the distance. Plenty of people out in the bush this weekend, looking for the big one. All day they searched, but nothing came of it.

‘We’ll sleep in the bush and have a crack really early,’ said George. ‘Get a step ahead of the others.’

They rolled out sleeping bags and rigged a fly. Ate slabs of pork between thick wedges of bread. ‘Bull’s worried about you,’ said George as they tucked down for the night. ‘So are we all. Ethan Masefield and Tama and Stewie. Not the best company, Donny Mac. Time to give them the flick.’

‘Yeah, I reckon,’ Donny mumbled, but George doubted his advice would stick. Donny was unhappy and lonely. He missed his granddad. His life was adrift.

‘You’ve got friends in Manawa and the rugby club, Donny.’

But Donny was too drowsy to respond, and anyway George had used up his small store of conversation. They slept, comfortable on a bed of soft beech litter, the great trees spreading above them.

It was Donny who sighted the stag. It stood on a rocky outcrop a good hundred metres away, wisps of ground mist drifting below in the bush, its impressive antlers silhouetted against the palest early morning light. Head up, he roared his challenge. Donny was about to respond with the cow horn, but George put out his hand to stay him. ‘We need to lure him further down, near the truck,’ he whispered. ‘If we shoot him up here we won’t have a snowball’s of getting him out whole.’

They crept down the slope, watching where they placed their feet, always keeping the stag in sight. Then Donny blew a beautiful roar, adding a little bursting snort at the end that almost had George giggling. The stag replied. A few more steps down the slope, Donny roared again, and the response sounded closer this time.

‘We got him!’ breathed Donny, but George shook his head and pointed down the hill. He wanted to take the shot lower down.

A little further, in a small clearing, they found a wallow, freshly used. Surely this belonged to their stag. Not far below they could just make out the cut of an old forestry road, fresh green growth sprouting all along it — perfect grazing for a hungry stag in season. Donny blew again, and back came the roar of the stag. It was closing in. Now they waited to one side of the wallow, and George signed to load. Donny lifted his
granddad’s beautiful old two-two-three and sighted through the scope. And there it was, pushing down through the bush, its spreading antlers sending little shivers through the foliage. You could smell its musty rankness. It paused, sensing something.

‘Easy,’ breathed George. He lined up the shot, ready as back-up, but hoping Donny could manage. Which he did, the single shot dropping the stag immediately. Down it slumped, feet jerking, down into the wallow.

‘Whoo hoo!’ Donny whispered, awed at his good luck.

George hadn’t seen him so lit up for months. He clapped the boy on the shoulder. ‘You’re going to win, man! A brute like that. He’s a rare one.’

They slit its throat quickly, and then removed the head and cape and carried it down to the track, taking care not to break any tines. There, in the more open ground, they examined the set: the three lower points — brow, bez and tez — all intact, and then three perfect top points which would hold a glass of whisky, so they say! A royal! The antlers with black pearling and white tips. Neither could believe such good luck. A beaut twelve-pointer in perfect condition. Surely it would win the Douglas Score. They returned for the carcass. George cut three saplings and lashed them together so they could sledge their catch down to the leafy old road.

‘Wait here, Donny boy, while I get the ute.’ George was already on his way but called back quietly, ‘Keep your head down and your big mouth shut.’

Back in Ohakune, the stag was tagged with Donny’s number and hung up on the back of the truck, ready for the weigh-in. Plenty of back-slapping and admiration. George left
Donny in town — he had carrot fields to hoe. They’d have to wait until the end of the day to see if anyone could do better.

Luke Masefield, home from the seminary, his brother, Ethan, and Tama Price were hunting as a team —
Hot Shots
— for the trifecta: heaviest deer, boar and fish. With fish and boar already weighed, they were trailing a couple of other teams, so needed a really heavy stag to win, but by Sunday midday Ethan, who was doing the deer leg of the trifecta, had not shown.

Donny showed off his trophy to the other two.

‘Not bad,’ said Luke Masefield, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into Donny’s face, ‘but bet you five dollars we’ll do better.’ He winked at Tama. And off they drove, whooping and whistling at the girls, their souped-up Camino roaring off down the road. How that Masefield boy could have ended up in a seminary was a much-discussed wonder to the people of Ohakune. Donny stayed, drinking beer, having a go at the Pig Run, no one much taking notice of him. It all seemed a bit of a let-down after the excitement in the bush.

When the Masefields returned, with only one hour of the hunt remaining, everything came unstuck for Donny. Sure enough they had a big red stag, a twin, almost, of Donny’s, but not quite as heavy, Donny reckoned. Looked like the trifecta would not go to the Masefields after all. He grinned at Ethan, gave him the thumbs-down. Ethan’s narrow face scowled; he called his team mates close and whispered instructions.

For a few minutes — crucial ones — just before the weighing, everyone’s attention was diverted to a wildly screaming woman. Dressed in the height of Remuera country
fashion — immaculate camel-hair coat, possum-fur hat, designer gumboots — she had received a dead possum full in the face. Splat. The finals of the children’s event, Throw the Possum, was in its last round. A young finalist had whirled his possum by the tail too enthusiastically above his head, then, losing his grip, had hurled it into the crowd. The hilarity of the onlookers only added fuel to the woman’s horror.

After the excitement had died down, Luke Masefield, standing on the tray of the truck displaying stags, whistled loudly for attention.

‘Hey! Come over here! Look at this!’

When a small crowd had gathered, he pointed to the stag which bore Donny’s tag. ‘That’s a farmed deer. That’s off Entwhistle’s farm up Horopito.’ He pointed to a scrape down the flank. ‘Bet you that scraped patch would have had the Entwhistle brand. Donny Mac’s a bloody cheat.’

The event judge climbed up on to the truck. Inspected the beast. Gave Luke a hard look. ‘How would you know that it came off Entwhistle’s then?’

Luke shrugged his shoulders. ‘Looks like farmed deer, eh. Too fat.’

By now people in the crowd were murmuring. There’d been a bout of cheating last year, losses from deer farms reported. No one wanted a return of that sort of behaviour. Donny, standing at the back of the crowd, beer can in hand, was jostled, subjected to a bit of abuse.

‘I never did!’ roared Donny, angry and frightened by this turn of events. ‘I shot him out in the bush!’ He pushed forward, climbed up on the truck with the judge and Luke.

‘Cheat!’ yelled Luke into his face.

Donny looked at his tag; looked at Luke’s. He knew what had happened but, what with the beer and his natural slowness, couldn’t get the words out. Enraged, he lashed out at Luke, and hit the judge, who stumbled against the hanging carcasses and set them swinging as if in a mad chorus dance. Down fell the judge, down amongst deer, slipping on blood and ending up awkwardly, painfully, against the truck’s canopy. Donny, bellowing that he was not a cheat, went for Luke again, smashing at the sneer and the cruel words, breaking Luke’s teeth and nose, and sending him crashing off the flat-top into the crowd below.