Into the River (2 page)

“He’ll snap the string if we do.”

“Tie it to that log then. If he bites the bait he can tow it along behind him and we can grab it.”

Te Arepa didn’t like the idea. You didn’t catch eels by wandering off, but the mystery of what lay farther upstream, plus
Wiremu’s
fidgeting, helped persuade him.

They picked their way slowly upstream, glancing back every now and then, only partly conscious of their nakedness. Wiremu led the way. They didn’t speak, each lost in his own thoughts. They reached another clearing where suddenly they were bathed in strong sun. Here, any noise they made was buried in the throbbing racket of cicadas.

Te Arepa thought about his ancestors, making their way up this river a hundred years earlier, desperately seeking refuge from a Ngapuhi war party. With a start he remembered the dark old story, about the rivers of blood and the lifetime rahui. The place pulsed with angry ghosts.

Farther up, the bush closed in on the river and the boys, as if sensing the threat, moved together and continued side by side. Neither of them voiced their fear, but Te Arepa noticed Wiremu was continually looking back over his shoulder, and irritatingly, this made him do the same.

Then they came to a place where the land reared up ten metres before them. The river had a cliff on one side and was flat on the other, as if the two banks had been separated by some huge underground push. There was a new noise ahead, a deep noise, more felt than heard. It was growing louder with every step. Another two bends in the river and suddenly there it was: a waterfall, the full force of the river rushing off the cliff top and tumbling into a deep black pool. The two boys stood in the billowing spray, and stared into its swirling surface.

It seemed a special place. Dark and dangerous. A place of death. There was no way of continuing. The cliffs on each side were sheer and made of crumbly yellow clay.

“I’m cold, man,” said Wiremu, his arms across his chest.

Te Arepa looked at his own body. It too was covered in goose bumps.

“I wonder how you get up there.” He pointed to where the river surged over the cliff.

“Want to go back. This place gives me the creeps.”

“There’ll be a way up. Let’s just go a bit further into the bush, see if we can find it.” Te Arepa turned and said proudly, “This is where our people ran from the Ngapuhi, they must have got up somewhere.”

“Who cares, let’s go back.”

But Te Arepa, sensing that he was in charge now, made his way deeper into the bush: Wiremu had no choice but to follow.

Away from the river it was different. The cicada noise dropped to a distant buzz as they broached a stippled world of shadows and thin shafts of light. There was little to slow them now, except fallen branches. It was soft under foot, just mosses and a carpet of damp leaves. Then they found it: a break in the cliff where hundreds of years ago some earthquake or landslide had brought it all down.

“This is the place!” said Te Arepa triumphantly.

Wiremu said nothing for a moment: he was staring off into the bush.

“Yeah, but what’s that?”

About a hundred metres farther on a flat shape jutted up from the forest floor. It was hard to see in the gloom, but something about the angles looked wrong, man-made. For a moment they stood where they were, not knowing what to do, torn between going on, going back, or exploring the thing. Without discussion, they cautiously approached.

As they got closer it began to reveal itself. Only the straight
ridge gave it away from the natural forms that surrounded it: even this was softened by years of fallen leaves and a thick coat of moss. You could tell that before long it would melt back into the forest.

The boys stalked nearer, low and tense, as if it were some sleeping monster about to jump at them. Circling carefully, they found the front, gaping at them like the mouth of a cave. The interior was so dark that only when they had crept within a few metres could they see that it was full of shadowy forms. They loitered just outside, each waiting for the other to make the first move, both caught in a pulsing silence. The air became colder and the goosebumps stood out on their arms. Te Arepa nodded at the entrance. “You,” he whispered.

Wiremu shook his head and looked determined. This whole thing wasn’t his idea. Yet the doorway beckoned, as though begging them to come inside, to squeeze within its mossy confines, into the underworld. Te Arepa thought of Hine Nui te Po and glanced about for the massive, crushing thighs. The mesh of stories that held him back was finally burned away; he was maddened and desperate with curiosity.

Leaving Wiremu wide-eyed and frozen, he crept inside.

As his eyes struggled with the darkness, familiar objects took shape. A huge old metal bed, the fireplace, the table, a chair lying on its side, the faded pictures on the wall, something hanging from the roof … and then, some dark bulk at the back that muttered, and struggled to stand up. Te Arepa’s mouth opened to scream but no sound came. For a moment his movements were so slow he thought he would never reach the gleaming square of doorway. He had the terrifying thought that he was trapped now, in this dark place with the ‘thing’. But slowly, with feet fighting to gain purchase, he barged out the entrance.

As he burst from the little cabin, he collided with Wiremu, who had just stepped up. A moment later both boys were tumbling and
rolling among the leaves and twigs outside. Without a word or sideways look they picked themselves up and charged off through the trees, dodging creepers and leaping over rotting trunks. They ran and ran until their lungs burned and they could go no farther. When Te Arepa dropped to the bed of leaves that littered the forest floor, Wiremu threw himself down beside him, so close he was almost touching.

“What was it?”

“An old, old man, wearing white clothes.”

“True?”

“And he was angry. He had this look, eh?”

“What look?”

“Like this.” He gave Wiremu a fierce stare

“Eeee, I knew it was dumb to go there. Let’s go home now. I’ve had enough of this. It’s boring.”

Te Arepa longed to return for one fleeting look. But it was no good. Without Wiremu, he couldn’t do it. This would be a mystery that would itch away at him like a mosquito bite on the toe.

Back at the clear pool not a word was exchanged. They both dived deep and surfaced only to dive again, trying for the very bottom. The water was still stingingly cold. Perfect to calm their electric skin. To wash away the fear.

Five minutes later they were out again: it was way too cold. They stretched out on the big rock to dry off before putting their clothes back on. The sun was strong now and beat down on their backs.

“Good chance to tan our white arses,” said Wiremu.

“Yours is pretty brown already.”

“It’s just my colour, eh? You must have some Pakeha in you.”

“Yeah, course. Santos, eh. Not a Maori name. That’s where I get the white arse from. And the green eyes.”

“Is that the Diego guy?”

Te Arepa nodded.

“My grandma says he was a horny dude, a fence jumper. He
seems to have got into everyone’s whakapapa.”

“True. Ra says there was a big shortage of men after the wars, and Diego was a keen fulla. Lady killer.”

“He killed ladies?”

“No you dumb Maori, it’s just a saying. It’s like he was a stud.”

“Ahh.”

They lay there for a while, thinking it all through, mellowed by the sun’s heat beating down and the rock’s warmth seeping up. After a while they had to jump back in to cool off. It was a cycle that repeated itself several times before Wiremu finally began to put his clothes on and made to head back.

“Hey! What about the eel?”

Te Arepa had forgotten all about it and hurried into his clothes.

Wiremu got there first and called out. “It’s gone! It’s gone!”

It was true. The line had gone. Snapped. All that was left was the bit of broom handle and the log that it had been wrapped around.

“Great idea leaving it, Wiremu! Now I’ve lost Ra’s eel line. He’s had it for years. He’ll be giving me a kick.”

He unwound the handle and the remainder of the string and they started back along the river. Something had gone from their adventure. Instead of returning full of the stories of discovery and conquest it was all clouded by the loss of Ra’s line. Te Arepa hadn’t even asked to borrow it.

They made their way gloomily along the bank, not talking now: somehow there had been enough talk. When they got to the final bend, the river bed became mud and was covered in weed. They hadn’t noticed it on the way in. It swayed gently in the current like long, green hair. They were standing on the bank, staring at it without comment, when Wiremu pointed.

“What’s that?”

There was one strand longer than the others. The recognition
came to them both at the same time.

“The line!”

It seemed to come from the thick grass growing from the bank.

“It might have an eel on the end!” said Wiremu. “It might be the big one. That taniwha eel.”

The thought had already occurred to Te Arepa. He was thinking about how he was going to get the end of the line without going in the water. He had had enough brushes with monsters today and just wanted to retrieve Ra’s property and go home.

Farther on there was a stand of scrappy manuka, some of their long, thin trunks almost silver. Sure enough, there was one that snapped off at ground level, giving Te Arepa nearly four metres of branchless stick. From the bank he could reach the point where the end of the eel line flicked playfully in the current. He could touch it, but not quite lift it clear. With Wiremu holding his left hand, he leaned out over the stream and carefully lifted the line on the stick. When it came to the surface its weight and the current tugged it back down again. After a few more feeble attempts it was clear that this was not going to work. Someone was going to have to wade in. And that was not going to be Wiremu.

Te Arepa rolled up his shorts. Slowly and carefully he stepped down onto the creek bed. It was different here from the smooth, stony bed farther up. His feet sank into the soft floor, creating a little cloud of muddy slipstream. Below the soft surface there were sharp things, leaves or sticks. There was no chance of a quick exit from this place; each footstep took a new level of commitment. The water above his feet was still marvellously clear and much deeper than it looked from the bank. Soon it was lapping at his rolled up shorts. For a moment he thought he would get out and try again, bare arsed. It was no good. Once back on the bank he knew he wouldn’t get back in, especially if it meant exposing his poor cock to the ferocious jaws of an angry eel.

With another step the water was about his waist and he was
able to grab the dangling line and wrap it around his hand. He gave a pull and immediately felt the dead weight of a snag.

What a relief, no eel to contend with.

He had had enough of eels and rivers; in fact he had had enough of the day altogether, and wanted only to go home. He gave another yank, harder and from a different angle. This time his yank was answered. A surge came down the line as the eel broke cover. A sick feeling flooded Te Arepa’s gut as he struggled to get free, and struggled to stay up, but it was no good. The line was tightly wound three times around his hand. The boy, line and eel had become one unit. He plunged forward, dragged into the churned-up water.

The realisation came to him as he gasped for air. They came to catch an eel, but here he was, caught by an eel himself. At the same moment, Wiremu screamed from the bank. “It’s the eel, he’s coming for you. He’s even bigger than I thought.”

Once Te Arepa lost his footing, it was difficult to get up again. The shock of being dragged under was added to by the knowledge that the eel was heading for deeper water. He took a mouthful and came up coughing. Wiremu was yelling something. The eel stopped again and went under the grassy bank on the deep side of the river. While every instinct made him want to escape, to swim towards Wiremu and safety, something inside told him he couldn’t. His only chance was to think it through. He remembered Ra saying that once a big eel made the reeds, the only way to get them out was with a spear. Eels wrapped themselves around the reeds and couldn’t be moved.

Te Arepa floated across the current until he was hard against the soft reedy bank. It was high above him and offered nothing solid to pull himself out with. He grabbed a handful of toitoi with his left hand. His right hand was stuck out in front of him, taut and puffy in the tangle of string. He tried to pull himself forward into the current: anything to take the tension off. It was no good; every
inch he yielded was taken up by the eel. The eel was playing him like a fish!

Wiremu was nowhere to be seen.

He had run off, the bastard! Now what?

The hand holding the toitoi was dribbling blood: he had forgotten that it was cutty grass. But if he let go, and put the bleeding hand in the water all the other eels would smell him. He would be eaten for sure. He had no choice but to hold on.

The current pinned him hard against the bank and somewhere in its mushy side he felt something solid … well, almost solid. His feet clawed at it and finally found purchase under water. He tried to climb up but found he couldn’t. The tug of the current and the softness of the mud made sure of that. There was no way his left arm would be strong enough to pull him out. How long could he hold on before he gave up and slid under to drown?

He floated, water lapping around his chin, caught between the unclimbable bank and the relentless tug of the eel. Slowly his thoughts returned to the place they always went when there was nowhere else to go.

He thought of Diego.

Diego, chained in a cabin.

Diego, about to be killed by pirates.

Diego, heading for the gallows in Wellington.

Diego, jumping into what Ra called ‘the wine dark sea’.

Diego, who had lost everything, except for one last instinct.

The desire to live. To stay alive. To be free.

“Liberación!” Diego had yelled as he jumped into the black water. “Liberación!”