The Bone Tiki (6 page)

A calloused hand tucked a tin water-bottle into the crook of his arm.

‘That’s for tomorrow, laddie. You have a nice wee kip, now,’ he heard Wally say, and then everything floated away.

T
he first thing that came back was taste. His mouth felt dry and sour, as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth for days. Maybe he hadn’t. Then came smell. Sea air, and wet concrete. He opened his eyes to a bright glare. His body ached everywhere. He was wrapped in his coat, propped against the side of one of the gun emplacements, in the approach path to the airport. A gull landed beside him and shrieked in annoyance. He shook his head groggily, and the memories of yesterday flooded back. The gull flew away.

The tiki…Dad, Riki…
Puarata
! He crouched beside the emplacement, and looked cautiously around. The highway was humming with Saturday morning traffic. He glanced at his watch—7.11 a.m… the sun was well up. The beach was empty but for an old woman strolling a few hundred metres to the north.

I’m going to the mouth of the Esk River, then I’m going to cut inland along the river banks, and hitch a ride to Taupo…I’ve got to see Mum…and go to Maungatautari Pa and see some tohunga.

Seriously weird.

He looked around him. He had a dim memory of two men wrapping him in blankets, but there was only his kitbag and coat. He picked the coat up and a plastic water-bottle fell out. He frowned at it, picked it up. It was full, and still had the plastic seal around it. But he remembered Wally tucking an old army-issue water-bottle there. He almost left it, but then he shrugged to himself, broke the seal, and had a drink. Then he brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth with some more of the water, re-packed, and set off north.

The old woman he’d seen in the distance peered curiously at him as he passed by. She was Pakeha, with a woollen shawl and straggly grey hair. She wished him good morning, and peered thoughtfully after him as he passed. Gulls whirled above, swooping into the waves. Once an aircraft roared overhead, coming in for landing at the airport. Then he was level with the first houses of Bay View. He went past a Maori man fishing, trudging on as the day heated, and the wind grew stronger. The sea breeze was chilly and he was glad of the coat, despite the sunshine. By lunchtime, his belly was growling, and he wished he had the food Riki had taken in his pack. That set him to wondering what Riki was doing, and where his father was. Had anyone phoned his mother? Maybe if he knocked on someone’s door, he could ring her? He felt a sudden surge of apprehension at the thought, and
dropped the idea almost immediately. It felt
wrong,
and he decided he needed to trust his instincts.

By noon, he had left Bay View behind. There was a strip of beach houses to his left, and he met a few more old people, walking dogs. All of them stared, and one asked his name. ‘Riki,’ he lied, without knowing why, and hurried on.

He reached the river mouth. The Esk was more stream than river, but he remembered some good swimming holes. Here at the coast the river cut through mounds of smooth shingle and flowed into the waves. He drank some more water—it was half-empty now, but the river water would be drinkable—and began to walk upstream.

It became impossible to stay dry, without getting tangled in willows, or running into fences. An hour of splashing and wading saw him crossing a bridge under the highway. He approached it cautiously, but there was no black car sitting in wait, no suited men leaning on the parapet smoking. He’d reached a fork in the highway—the bridge was the route for those going north, past the pulp mill, to Wairoa or Gisborne. A few metres short of the bridge was the turn-off to Taupo, but Mat didn’t go that way. He knew the river followed the Taupo road, paralleling it through the Esk Valley basin, and it seemed safer to join the highway somewhere away from the fork.

In the broad area beside the bridge, a car was parked, and a family picnic laid out. His stomach rumbled. A large group of Asian adults and children watched him curiously, but said nothing. He walked on past the vineyards, feeling hotter now that he’d left the coast. Sandflies buzzed about,
and a fantail began to follow him, snapping at the insects he’d disturbed. He wished he had something so plentiful to eat. The air carried the scent of growing things, but it was too early for grapes. He settled for drinking more, and refilled the bottle from the river. The river water carried a silt tang, but was cool and sweet.

Once out of sight of the bridge, it was as if he’d left the world of people. The willows muffled the distant sounds of cars on the highway, which moved away from the river, until hundreds of metres separated Mat from the road. The land between was filled with grapevines and high grass, but the banks on the river steepened and soon he forgot about the outside world. He was trudging and sloshing down a winding corridor of willow, the
sky
was a narrow bank of blue above and the only noise was the splash and chortle of the stream, and the song of birds and cicadas in the trees. Dragonflies darted about him, and the breeze ruffled his hair gently. It was hard to remember he was being hunted.

He made slower time than he’d thought he would, with fallen logs, tangled willow that occasionally overhung the stream, and deep pools, all slowing him down. He fell more than once, so that he was constantly wet below the waist. Several times stones slid into his trainers, and he had to stop and shake them out. He grew tired, and sick of the effort.

He heard the strange whispering just once. His name, whispered hungrily, barely audible yet chilling.
‘Mat…Mat…where are you? Answer me, boy…or it will go badly for you and your parents…’

Suppressing a brief tremor, he pulled out his koru, pictured a baby in front of him, shushed it, and the whispering went away. He shook his head, to dispel the faint echo of that hissing voice, and then it was gone. A sense of unreality momentarily overtook him. Nothing made any sense any more…and yet it did…Puarata was real, and so was Pania. What she had told him had worked, and
he
had done it. With his own imagination, he made the voice go away. He felt a small surge of satisfaction. Feeling better for this small triumph, he pushed onward, and was beginning to think about where to leave the river and chance the road when he heard a dog bark, and seconds later someone called out to him.

‘Hey!’

Mat stopped, cringing. The voice came from a sunny-faced girl, maybe eighteen years old, slightly plump with short red hair, in a dirty blue T-shirt and shorts. Her skin was pink from the sun and her nose freckled. At her side was a big golden-brown Labrador with bright eyes and a drooling tongue. It barked again, tail wagging.

‘Hey, you OK?’ the girl called again.

He felt a small pang of worry, wondered how best to answer.

‘Yeah,’ he replied, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Just, y’know, hiking.’

The girl leaned against a tree trunk. She had a water-bottle in her hand. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Mat asked, wishing he sounded more casual. ‘This isn’t private land is it?’

The girl shook her head. ‘Nah.’ She tossed a glance back over her shoulder. ‘Eskdale Park.’

‘Oh.’ He was further into the valley than he thought. He looked at his watch. Nearly half-three. ‘Well, better get going,’ he said, turning away.

‘Wait!’ the girl called.

His heart began a slow painful beat, and he felt new beads of sweat forming on his forehead. ‘What?’
I wonder what she’d do if I just ran?

‘I just wondered if you wanted a bite to eat. And to see the fair.’

‘What fair?’

‘There’s a fair back in the park.’ She indicated the area back through the trees behind her again.

‘No thanks.’ He turned again, took a few steps.

‘Are you that runaway kid?’

He froze, and then began to think seriously about running. ‘What runaway kid?’ he called over his shoulder.

‘The one on the radio. Wiremu someone…that you?’

Uh-oh. ‘No.’ His voice sounded squeaky.

The girl took a step toward him and he took three quick ones back. She stopped, raised both hands quickly, palms out. ‘Don’t worry!’ she said quickly. ‘It’s OK, y’know. I used to run away from my folks heaps when I was your age.’

He stopped backing up, and stood there, wondering what to do. The Labrador trotted up to him and nuzzled his hand, as though trying to persuade him to like the girl.

She had a friendly face—none of Puarata’s oily power, or Donna’s hardness. She looked like someone who laughed a
lot, and her T-shirt had a clown on the front, which decided him. Bad guys didn’t wear clown T-shirts.

‘OK, maybe I am.’

She hesitated, then said ‘Umm…I’m Kelly.’

‘Mat.’

‘Hi Mat…not Wiremu then?’

He shook his head. ‘That’s my first name—but I prefer Mat.’

Kelly nodded. ‘I’ll call you Mat, then. You hungry?’

Mat nodded.

‘I’ve got some food in the car. Nothing healthy, just chippies and stuff. That OK? You want to wait here, and I’ll bring it down.’

‘OK.’

Mat watched her out of sight, then splashed to the bank and sat on a fallen log.

The Labrador nuzzled him again, wagging its tail. He ruffled the dog’s neck, and looked up as Kelly reappeared from the trees, her hands full of packets.

‘Hey, Dog,’ she called, and the Labrador bounded toward her, barking happily. She laughed as it shouldered her legs, nearly knocking her over. ‘Don’t know whose it is, the silly mutt. Showed up this morning when I arrived for the fair, and no one seems to own it. Seems to want me to adopt it.’

‘You going to?’

‘Nah, I’ll leave it behind when it’s time to go.’

The Labrador looked at her with such a hurt expression that they both laughed, and Mat felt a sudden lifting of tension, though he still watched the girl cautiously.

As if trying to entertain them both, the Labrador barked happily and cavorted about.

‘I think
he’s
adopted
you
!’ laughed Mat.

‘He’s certainly turning on the charm, aren’t you, boy?’ Kelly sat down beside Mat, just out of arm’s reach, and put a pack of chippies on the log. Chicken-flavoured. Mat’s stomach rumbled.

‘I’m out of fizzy, sorry,’ said Kelly apologetically.

Mat reached out cautiously and took the chippies. The Labrador nuzzled his hands, and he gently pushed him away.

‘Mine, doggy,’ he told it, opened the packet, took a handful and stuffed them into his mouth hungrily. Kelly pulled out a small mirror, and some pots of face paint, from her waist pack.

He munched chippies, which tasted as good as any meal he’d ever had, and watched her apply a pale foundation to her face.

‘Whatcha doing?’ he asked between mouthfuls.

‘My make-up. I’m a clown. I’m on again shortly at the fair.’ She grinned. ‘Kelly the Magic Clown, that’s me. I do magic tricks and silly klutzy clown stuff. Cool huh?’ Mat twisted his mouth dubiously, but nodded.

‘I think the dog wants to be in show-biz too.’

‘Has he joined in your act yet?’

‘Nah…in my lunch-time show he was more interested in chasing an old woman’s poodle!’ She laughed, an infectious laugh, and Mat felt himself relax.

‘What’s the fair?’ he asked.

‘Just a country fair they have out here sometimes over spring and summer. Food stalls, crafts, and sideshow freaks like me. Its pretty low-key.’

Mat nodded.

‘So,’ asked Kelly, looking more closely at him. ‘How come you’re on the road, Mat?’

Mat considered a moment. ‘Just gotta get away, y’know,’ he said, hoping she wouldn’t press him too much.

Kelly nodded slowly. ‘OK. Don’t need to know. Where you going, Mat?’

Mat frowned, shrugged.

Kelly nodded again, and then pulled out a tiny transistor radio from her bag, and turned it on. They listened to a commercial, then right on half-three a news bulletin. At the end of it, there was an extra announcement.

‘Napier Police ask the public to be on the lookout for Wiremu Matiu Douglas, of Napier South. He is fifteen, part-Maori, around one hundred and fifty-five centimetres, of slim build, with black hair. He is believed to be travelling north, perhaps on the Napier-Taupo Road. Please report any sightings to Napier Police Station.’

Mat felt the colour drain from his face.

Kelly watched him, then slowly reached down and turned off the transistor.

‘Where are you going, Mat?’ she asked again.

‘Taupo.’

Kelly looked down and patted the Labrador. ‘I used to run away, two or three times a year. Mum and Dad used to get drunk all the time. Got sick of it.’

‘My parents have split. Dad got custody.’

Kelly nodded. ‘Your mum live in Taupo?’

‘Yeah.’

They sat silent for a while, while the dog nuzzled among the empty chippie wrappers, tail wagging hopefully.

‘So…you wanna ride to Taupo after the show? I’m going that way.’

Mat stared at her. He felt suspicions rise, but then subside. No reason to believe her, to accept her offer without questions…but it
felt
right. ‘Why would you help me?’

‘Because I’ve been where you are,’ she said softly, her eyes faraway. ‘If a kid needs to see his mother, nothing in the world should stand in their way.’

Mat hugged his stomach and thought about that. She sounded OK, he should be safe. ‘OK. I’ll come with you. Thank you.’

‘Thanks yourself,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘For trusting me.’ She stood up. ‘Wanna see a magic show?’

Mat hesitated. There would be people there…

‘They’ll be looking for someone on their own, not someone with friends,’ Kelly said. ‘Just leave your kit in my car, and tell anyone who asks that you’re my brother. It’ll give you a chance to grab some more food. Some of the stalls still have sausages.’

The Labrador barked happily at the word ‘sausages’, and it was as though someone has wafted a sizzling sausage under Mat’s nose.

‘OK,’ he said, swallowing saliva.

The fair was pretty low-key, about twenty stalls, mostly doing food, and the craft displays had been pretty much cleaned out. Most of the hundred or so people who were there were sitting on rugs enjoying the sunshine, while kids ran around squealing. Kelly’s car was a genuine old Volkswagen Beetle. ‘Used to be Dad’s,’ she told him. ‘I had it repainted.’ Mat had guessed that already, because it was purple, and each lurid green door had a cartoon clown. Kelly tossed him some coins to buy a sausage, then put Mat’s kit in the back. She settled in front of her mirror to finish her make-up. A fat man with a megaphone waddled up and peered at her, then went away bellowing that Kelly the Magic Clown was nearly ready for her last show.