Into the River

S
OME RIVERS SHOULD NOT BE SWUM IN.

S
OME RIVERS HOLD SECRETS THAT CAN NEVER BE TOLD.

When Te Arepa Santos is dragged into the river by a giant eel, something happens that will change the course of his whole life. The boy who struggles to the bank is not the same one who plunged in, moments earlier. He has brushed against the spirit world, and there is a price to be paid; an utu to be exacted.

Years later, far from the protection of whanau and ancestral land he finds new enemies. This time, with no-one to save him, there is a decision to be made… he can wait on the bank, or leap forward into the river.

This is a prequel to
Ted Dawe’s award winning
novel ‘Thunder Road’.

To Jane Ridall, without whom never a word would be written.

To Emma Neale, so much more than ‘just an editor’.

To Penelope Todd, for proofing and taming that wild syntax.

To Ian McLeod and Alison McCallum for mopping up the widows and orphans.

To Barbara Larson, for ploughing through the 800 page early version.

To David (Nguyen Duc Minh), Jane and Rachel for the brilliant cover.

To Renee, for the layout and keying in.

To Oliver, for his smokin’ website.

To all those came before, leaving their foot prints on that windswept realm; my memory.

There was a tap on the window.

Te Arepa sat up.

It was Wiremu!

He had forgotten. After thinking about nothing else for days, he had forgotten.

And he had slept in, he could tell from the light.

“Wait there! I’ll be right down.”

He pulled on his shorts and checked shirt then made for the back door. The house was quiet: Ra had taken his sister Rawinia to visit his mother at the hospital. It took most of the day, this trip, especially if they went to Aunty’s to see Aroha on the way back. Te Arepa would go next time and Rawinia would get minded. That was their system. The hospital was strict: only two visitors per patient, no exceptions.

He went out the back and let Wiremu in.

“Take your shoes off, man.”

Their joke. Neither of them wore shoes.

“Hungry?”

Wiremu nodded. He was always hungry.

Te Arepa cut four big slabs off the loaf on the bench.

“Vegemite or just butter?”

“Vegemite, and thick too.”

The two boys sat in the kitchen, their mouths too stuffed to talk for the moment. Te Arepa put his line on the table. Forty feet of green fishing string wrapped round the stub of a broomstick, with a big hook and an old cog for a sinker. Wiremu reached across and felt the tip of the hook: it was sharp all right.

“Where’s Ra?”

“Visiting my ma.”

“When’s she coming home?”

Te Arepa shrugged.

Te Arepa got up and walked to the fridge. He didn’t want Wiremu to see his face. After the slow study of the fridge’s contents he pulled a chunk of meat off the side of last night’s mutton roast, wrapped it in a piece of newspaper and put it in his pocket.

“Let’s go.” Te Arepa’s voice was a little higher than he expected.

When they reached the bridge over the Pokaiwhenua they climbed up onto the concrete barricade. From here they had a clear view upriver. It was grey overhead and the water looked dark and dangerous. There was a series of willow-fringed pools where the stream changed direction. Each one of these contained a taniwha. Everyone knew that. This meant that they couldn’t swim here unless the day was bright. ‘It’s just not worth the risk.’ Wiremu’s catchcry.

They eased themselves off the barrier and then stepped over the remains of the little fence that kept any wandering cattle from taking a detour. After clambering down they worked their way up the river until they were well away from the road. At each place where the water spilled over boulders they both climbed in and began turning over the larger rocks. It wasn’t long before Wiremu yelled “Bootlace!” and Te Arepa saw a thin eel about as long as his foot racing over the shallow rocks. The trick was to flick it onto the bank and hit it with rocks.

The tiny eel kept changing its mind: at first trying to hide under a boulder and then heading downstream after all, with the boys stumbling after it over the sliding rocks. With only a metre to go before it reached the safety of the deep pool, Wiremu managed to get a hand under its slimy body and flick it high in the air. They watched it bounce once on the bank and then fall back into the deep water.

“Good one, Wiremu, I had it, man!”

“You bumped me, man. Anyway, it was mine, eh? You get your own one.”

After a while they came to the barbed wire fence where the Pakeha Goldsmith’s farm started. They weren’t allowed to go any farther. The word was he shot at people on his land. Hemi Davis said his brother had been shot at, and all he was doing was just leaning on the fence. It was some time later that Manu Wihongi told them that Hemi’s brother had been stealing a farm bike at the time. Manu knew these things: his mother answered the phones at the police station.

The water upstream was slower and deeper. The sort of place where the big ones lived. About a hundred metres in was a stand of bush where the bank reared up high and the stream snaked in a series of deep pools.

This was the place. This was where the big ones lurked. No bootlaces here. They’d all get eaten. You wouldn’t want to swim here either. Who knew what was lurking in the reeds under the banks? The big ones could live for fifty or sixty years: this was where they grew old and clever.

The boys crouched by the fence. Goldsmith’s farmhouse, although two hundred metres away, was in clear view. They would be spotted as soon as they put their foot up onto the first wire. Without saying a word, Wiremu flattened out and slid underneath. Te Arepa followed. They slithered, eel-like, close to the water. It was slow. They must not raise their heads: Goldsmith would get a clear shot. They wouldn’t have a chance.

Halfway to the trees there was a place where the cattle had come down to drink. The ground was cut up and there was no way to stop the stinking mud clinging to them. In some places their fists sank deep into the hissing mud before it became solid enough to push forward. Every now and then Wiremu rolled over to check that Te Arepa was keeping up. With about forty feet to go they were tired. Tired and foul with mud. It took all their willpower not to get up and run the remaining distance. But they didn’t. They
had come too far for that.

When Wiremu finally reached the fenced-off bush he wriggled under the last wire and sat up, panting. Te Arepa lay still in the mud looking at the older boy enviously. The last ten feet yawned before him.

“Come on! Come on Reps, nearly there!”

And so he was. Moments later he was through and sitting in the dense bush, next to his friend. They both looked back at how far they had come. It was an achievement. Not everyone could have done that. This must surely be the beginning of something special.

The bush had been fenced off and left for years. It towered above them, the broad leaves only letting through chinks of light. There was no wind here, and the only sound was the murmur of the water and the warble and cackle of some distant tui. Neither boy spoke now, aware of something powerful here, a presence that needed to be respected. The forest floor was damp and soft under their feet. No stones: just dead leaves and rotting branches. The trees were huge and it was impossible to see any distance ahead through the tangle of creepers and spindly koromiko. Te Arepa could see the tension on Wiremu’s face: it was as if he was holding his breath. They both knew they were in a danger zone.

When they emerged in front of the clay cliffs, the sun came out and poured down into the rocky clearing. The water was deep here and took on the rich translucence of pounamu. Wiremu climbed breathless onto a car-sized grey boulder. He pulled Te Arepa up after him. Together they sat, lost in the beauty of the scene. High on one of the ancient matai, Te Arepa could see a bees’ nest. The constant swarming traffic lit up in the sunlight reminded him of a firework called Golden Rain.

After a while they lay back, closing their eyes, and let the tension of the long crawl seep from their bodies.

“Eee, you’re paru, man!” said Te Arepa, his voice breaking the spell.

“You’re paru yourself, man!”

And it was true. In the hot sun their mud-caked clothes and bodies had begun to stink.

Wiremu suggested that they wash their clothes in the river and drape them over the rocks to dry. They climbed out along a log which hung some way over the depths of the pool. From this place they waited for the other to go first, the faint fear of taniwha clouding their thoughts. Wiremu slowly leaned forward, grinning at Te Arepa, then, just when he reached the point of no return, he grabbed the other’s shirt and they both crashed into the water. It was deep and they had to splutter their way back to where they could stand up. They rubbed their arms and legs vigorously, the brown mud bleeding out into the current. It seemed to Te Arepa that it was wrong to muddy the crystal clarity of the pool. The thought perched in his mind for a moment, like a fantail on a twig, then was gone.

Next they took their clothes off, slowly, item by item, and rubbed them back and forth in their hands in the shallow water. When each garment was clean it was thrown up high on the bank. This done, the boys climbed out and stretched their clothes carefully over the warm boulders to dry. Wiremu bolted back and plunged far from the bank into the centre of the pool. When he eventually surfaced, he was gasping for air.

“Come in, Reps! It’s really deep!”

He tipped forward like a duck, and there was a flash of bum as he dived for the bottom. When Te Arepa could bear it no longer: he dived as far as he could from the rocky bank. They met down on the river bed where they fought their buoyancy by holding onto heavy rocks. Wiremu’s hair floated above his head, waving slowly like a dark flag and small bubbles leaked from his nose. High above them, the surface was a green glow. Both boys fought to stay down longer than the other, until Te Arepa pointed at
Wiremu’s
cock, his face trying to indicate something wrong. After a few moments of Wiremu’s watery incomprehension, they exploded
into bubbles of laughter and made for the surface.

When they reached the shallow water Te Arepa pointed again.

“Hey look! What’s happened to that? Got shrunk in the water?”

Wiremu pointed back. “Look! Same! Eel bitten it off?”

They both seemed to shrink even further at the thought.

“Let’s look for some, eh? I bet there’s some big old ones here. No one can get at them.”

For a while they turned over boulders around the edge of the big pool, but found nothing except a few cockabullies that flashed away as soon as they were exposed. The pool was surprisingly lifeless. After a while, Wiremu said “There’s nothing here, nowhere to hide. Let’s search further down.”

They found sticks and went down below the pool where there were grassy places along the bank. Places where eels could lurk. They waded slowly down the river, jabbing gingerly at the waving weeds that grew from the bank. Fear as much as concentration kept them quiet. Each jab urged the other on but at the same time Wiremu’s suggestion that an eel might bite their cocks off kept Te Arepa’s spare hand firmly between his legs.

Then it happened. Te Arepa’s stick hit something solid, but not quite.

“Wiremu!” he hissed. “Something slimy and hard.”

They watched the spot where Te Arepa’s stick disappeared into the fringe of floating grass. Something stirred. A huge grey head peered languidly out from the swirling weeds. It had the vague slowness of a sleeper who had been woken.

They had never seen such an eel, nor even known that eels grew that big. It revealed itself slowly; mouth slightly open showing rough grey lips, little tubes coming from each nostril. Around its pitiless eyes there were deep, white scars. All this was taken in, in a moment, before the boys bounded for the far bank.

By the time they were on dry land the eel was gone again, but somehow it lingered in their terrified heads.

Wiremu struggled to regain his composure then he blurted out, “Big!”

Te Arepa nodded. “That’s why there were no little eels back there; this one’s eaten them all!”

“Let’s go back, I don’t like it here,” said Wiremu.

They made their way back to the main pool. Te Arepa swam out into the middle but now nothing he said could persuade Wiremu to follow him. He sat on the boulder watching Te Arepa dive for the bottom, float on his back, do everything he could to demonstrate the safety of the pool, but Wiremu was immoveable. He’d had enough of swimming.

“Come on, man!” called Te Arepa, “He won’t come here.”

It was no good. Despite all his entreaties, the chicken noises, the clowning, it seemed that Wiremu was stuck on the bank for the day.

“I can see there’s only one way I can get you back in the water.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve got to catch the bugger!”

Wiremu made a contemptuous noise and rolled his eyes.

Te Arepa picked up the line and the little package of meat. “That’s why we brought this, man. We didn’t come to catch bootlaces!”

“That monster … he’d pull you in, he’d eat you up. You’d be the bait, man.”

Te Arepa shook his head. “Watch me, Wiremu. Watch the man who knows.”

He carefully unwrapped the line, checking the knots that held on the sinker and the hook. Then he checked the sharpness of the hook with his thumb. It needed a refresh. Down at the edge of the stream he selected a wet stone, as he’d seen his grandfather do. He carefully drew the hook across the surface, gradually producing a shine on all its faces.

“Now it needs one more thing.”

“What’s that?” replied Wiremu.

“Blood. Our blood. Come on. Give me some!”

“Bullshit! You’re not getting my blood. Who told you that anyway?”

“That’s old as, man. Te ika o Maui, man. Now let’s have it.”

“You first.”

“No worries!”

Te Arepa pricked his thumb with the hook and a dark bead of blood bulged to the surface. He painted all sides of the hook with it.

“Now you!”

“No way, one’s enough!”

“It’s got to be both of us, otherwise it won’t work.”

“I’m not gonna jab myself with a hook.”

“I’ll do it!”

“No way! Give it here then!”

He squeezed a boil on his leg and rubbed pus onto it.

“Yuk! That doesn’t count, man.”

“Yes it does! Pus is a kind of blood, the doctor told me.”

Te Arepa shook his head, he didn’t like this bending of the rules, but he baited the hook nevertheless and headed back to where the eel lurked.

This time they waded across earlier so before long they could stand directly over the place where they had seen it.

“Is this the spot?” Wiremu whispered. “I thought it was a bit further down.”

“We keep upstream, so he can smell it. Now we gotta wait.” They sat on the bank trying to be patient, waiting for something to happen. Te Arepa claimed that they had to keep very still because Ra said if eels can feel footsteps on the bank then they won’t move.

Wiremu jiggled his leg, fidgeted, rolled around, until it was clear he could not remain on the bank a minute longer.

“Let’s tie the line to a tree and then head upstream. Have an
explore.”

It was easy to see that he didn’t believe there was any chance of catching the big one.