The Moa Cave (4 page)

The moon was low in the sky when Tyler arrived at the cave the next morning. It was cold but not the freezing cold of the morning before.

He was surprised to find he was nervous as he crawled into the opening. During the night he had thought about lots of things including the little penguin. He wasn’t so sure that it was as healthy as it had made out. Maybe they should have looked after it a bit longer; perhaps had a vet check it over.

Both birds were squatting on the nest, and both seemed healthy. He moved to the side of the cave closest to the birds and rested the torch on a rock, pointed at the birds. From his pocket he took his Game Boy with the camera attachment. He crept forward taking photos every few steps. The birds watched but didn’t seem worried. When he was a few metres away he sat on the sand to study them. He could now see differences between them. The one that had stayed behind on the nest had some head feathers out of place that looked like a dish mop. He decided to call her Mopsie. The name of the other one was easy: he had to be Hopi. As if to prove the point, Hopi rose from the nest and limped towards the opening.

He stopped and looked back at his partner. Tyler could almost read his thoughts. ‘Hey Mopsie, I don’t feel too good
today. Maybe you should go fishing instead.’ He went back to the nest. To the boy it seemed as if his limp had suddenly got worse. Hopi stopped and started making high-pitched croaking noises.

But Mopsie wouldn’t budge. She nestled down tighter on her eggs. ‘No, Hopi. We had an agreement. Week on and week off. It’s only three days since I last went.’

‘But I’m injured. Can’t you see that?’ Then he played his ace card. He moved forward and rubbed her head with his beak, messing her mop even more. ‘If I’m not fully fit I could get killed. There are sharks out there, you know. They’ll see my injured foot and say, “Hey, that penguin looks like an easy meal.” And I would be too. So how do you think you’ll feel if I never came back?’

It took a few minutes and a lot of head rubbing before Mopsie finally gave in. She moved from the nest giving Tyler a quick glimpse of two white eggs before Hopi shuffled into place. She waddled to the opening. Before going out, she looked back at her mate. ‘Remember Hopi, it’s only for today. Then we get back to normal. Okay?’ But Hopi had already gone back to sleep.

The opening was a smudge of light when Tyler began to explore the cave in detail. There was a sandy circular floor in the middle with a ledge on all sides except by the opening. The ledge was deeper at the back where the roof was lower and he had to crouch to avoid bumping his head.

There were several places where the side of the cave disappeared into a crack. He explored a couple, but neither of them led anywhere. He assumed they would all be the same: it was a simple cave with only one chamber.

The ledge was wider between the nest and the opening. Towards the back he could make out something like a large stone, lighter in colour to the rest of the rock. Yet when he got closer he saw it wasn’t a stone—it had squiggly lines and was too smooth. With rising excitement, he moved to look from the other side.

Now he could clearly see what it was. Two empty eye sockets stared at him. It was a skull—a human skull. He moved his torch and there, laid out on the rock, was the rest of the skeleton.

For a moment he was scared. He’d seen plenty of pictures of skeletons but never a real one. Then his curiosity took over. Obviously he wasn’t the first person to find the cave; there had been at least one other. But how long ago was that? He knelt to study it better. The bones were brown and in places seemed as if they were joined to the rock. The first stages of changing into a fossil had begun. These were very old bones.

Crawling alongside the skeleton, he could now see it was lying on its side. ‘About my size too,’ he said, and the thought sent a shiver down his spine.

In amongst the skeleton was a much larger bone that seemed out of place and yet familiar. Looking closer he saw the hokey pokey holes of a moa bone like the one he’d found the day before. The person had been holding or cuddling a moa bone. He traced the bones of the arms down to the hands. Sure enough, one of the hands was close to the middle of the bone. The other hand was nearby and it too seemed to be holding something that was hidden by a pile of dust.

He knew he shouldn’t touch anything but who would know? He leaned over and dug into the dust with his fingers. Beneath were pebbles. Soon he had uncovered a mound of them ranging in diameter up to about the size of his thumb.
He picked one up to study it closer. Then he smiled to himself. He knew what it was. Even after all these years the shiny, polished surface was a giveaway. It was a gizzard stone. He knew lots of birds took stones into their gizzards to help grind their food. But the only bird around here that could swallow stones this big was a moa, and they had been extinct for about four hundred years.

Tyler moved back onto the sand to think. He had no doubts that he’d discovered the skeleton of a moa hunter, a major find because it was so well preserved. Things like this were found only very rarely. Bone people dreamed about making discoveries like this. He wouldn’t be able to keep it secret. Yet once he told others they would take over and stop him coming back to his cave. Maybe he didn’t have to tell them just yet. He had two more days of holiday. He could enjoy his cave for that time before telling the rest of the world. That too would be exciting. But in the meantime he would get his excitement by just being here, by himself and thinking.

During the night Tyler had done a lot of thinking about the girls and how they wrecked almost everything. He had decided to go on the attack. It was his turn for a dare and he would use that to get his own back. He would choose something they would never do. If he kept on beating them in the game, they’d soon stop laughing at him.

Today’s trip was to Jacks Bay, then Catlins State Forest Park and back to the farm to go searching for seals.

It was late morning before they arrived at Jacks Bay. Clouds now covered the sky, yet the day was calm and it seemed that rain was still a long way off.

Jacks Bay was an arc of sand protected by rocky cliffs at either end. A gravel road separated the beach from a line of small cribs built on the flat land in front of a backdrop of rolling hills. The water in the bay was calm with only a few gentle waves reaching the top of the shore.

The attraction of Jacks Bay was the nearby blowhole, which, according to the guide book, performed best at high tide. It was a thirty-minute walk across farmland.

Tyler was keen to get going, hoping that he would soon find something for his dare. However, the other three had all brought their cellphones in the hope of making contact with home. After asking a couple of locals they found the magic
spot on a bluff at the southern end of the beach. Then Tyler was forced to hang around while the others pushed buttons and stared at screens. He thought how stupid they looked standing on a hilltop fiddling with their little machines.

Mandy and Hine looked happy with the results of their messages, but Alice clearly was not. In fact she didn’t look good at all. She had hardly spoken since they’d got in the car and Tyler wondered if she was becoming ill. He hoped not. He didn’t want anything that could cause the trip to be cut short. He wanted as long as he could to visit his cave.

Eventually Alice came over and said they could go to the blowhole by themselves. She was going to wait around for a reply.

‘You sure?’ asked Hine. ‘We can stay a while if you like.’

‘No, you go. Just follow the orange posts and you’ll find it easily enough.’

There was a track, but it was far too muddy to use, so they stuck to the grass of the paddock. The orange posts were located at the top of hills or by gateways, and sometimes it took a minute or two to find the next.

At one place they came close to the edge of a cliff where a patch of bush had been fenced off from the cattle. A waterproof notice with a skull and crossbones in one corner was tacked to a fence post. Tyler knelt to read it.

‘What does it say?’ asked Hine.

‘ “Warning! Feratox poison baits are laid for possums in this area. The baits are cyanide in blue paper bags.” Then there is a whole lot of do’s and don’ts about touching dead animals and keeping dogs and children out of the area.’ He stood. ‘I wonder where they are?’

They searched the bush. There were a lot of small birds indicating that the poison was having some effect, but no sign of any blue paper bags.

‘Maybe they’ve taken them away,’ said Hine.

‘Maybe,’ said Tyler climbing the fence. ‘I’ll take a closer look.’

The trees weren’t big, but the undergrowth was thick and difficult to walk through. He walked parallel to the fence and was beginning to think the baits weren’t there, when he spotted something blue attached to the trunk of a tree.

‘I’ve found one,’ he called to the others. ‘If you move along a bit you’ll see it.’

‘Is there anything in it?’ asked Hine.

He peered inside. There were half a dozen small pellets.

‘Yeah! It’s got stuff in it. I guess that’s the cyanide. It doesn’t look all that dangerous.’ A while later he climbed back over the fence.

‘When are you going to give your dare, Tyler?’ asked Mandy as they headed for the next marker post.

‘We could eat that cyanide,’ he replied, laughing.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘But remember, you have to do it first.’

He stopped and looked at her. She wasn’t smiling. Instead, there was fire in her eyes.

‘It was a joke, Mandy.’

‘Sounded like a dare to me. What do you think, Hine?’ Hine shrugged, plainly wanting no part in the argument.

‘I can’t eat that. Nobody would eat that. That’s why it was a joke.’

‘Then you lose a life.’

This time there was no warning to the anger. It was there, raging in his head, pressing to get out. His hands balled into fists and he stepped towards Mandy.

Hine called, ‘Tyler!’ There was something about her voice that caused him to turn. Her hands were open, pleading with him. Her face showed real concern. ‘No Tyler, don’t,’ she said softly.

He stared for a moment and then ran. He had to get away from them. It was the only way. He hated getting angry and he never wanted people to see him like that. The anger was a curse—a horrible curse that couldn’t be beaten. The only way was to run and hope that you left it behind.

At first his running was without direction. Then as he calmed he started going uphill towards the next blowhole marker. He never looked back. At the start he heard voices behind and sensed there was some sort of quarrel, but soon he was out of earshot.

From the top, the track headed down a steeper slope towards a bushy area. Here the paddock was sloshy with mud. It was hard to walk through, and running was impossible. Soon he was covered with mud from falling over. There was only one thing to do: make a game of it. He took a few quick steps and threw himself onto his belly sliding twenty metres or so. There was never any thought that he might hit a broken bottle or something: at this moment he just didn’t care about anything. He did it again and again, slipping and sliding all the way down the hill.

He was muddy from top to toe when he reached the stile over the fence into the blowhole area. Yet he felt much better—it had been fun. He looked back up the hill to see the two girls carefully picking their way down while trying to hold on to the fence. Now he knew what his dare was—or would have been. It was to slide down the hill on your belly. Neither of the girls would have wanted to get their beautiful clothes dirty and he would easily have won. Instead…he climbed from the stile and headed in the direction of the booming
sound that had to be the blowhole. It was no use thinking about what might have been. He would only get angry again and he didn’t want that.

A sign said the blowhole was 55 metres deep and 200 metres from the shore. He could hear explosions from below but as yet could see nothing. He continued along the track, catching glimpses of a vast hole through the bushes.

The wooden viewing platform was at the end furthest from the sea. It poked out over the water. The hole was huge: 68 metres wide by 144 metres, so the sign said. He could see water surging out of a black opening at the other end and then feel it crashing into the wall below him.

Cautiously, he leaned on the wooden rail to look down. The walls were straight up and down. There were no rocks sticking out of the water or anything that a person could hold on to. The water was white with swirling foam. If you fell down, there would be no way back up. Anyway, you would soon be pounded to death by the waves. He stepped back, frightened that for some reason the platform might collapse. He sat on a bench by the path waiting for the others to come.

Hine arrived first. She looked angry, but not the uncontrolled anger that he suffered: she looked determined and fully in control. Mandy didn’t look too happy either. He gathered there had been some sort of fight, probably about him.

The two glanced at his clothes and gave a questioning look, but said nothing. They moved onto the platform, standing and staring for a while. Then Mandy turned and said, ‘Right. It’s my dare now and here it is.’

Before anybody had a chance to say anything, she turned and climbed up onto the rail. Slowly she raised her body until she was standing facing the hole. Then she gracefully swivelled around towards them. She gave a false smile and a tilt of the head. ‘There,’ she said, holding out her arms. ‘That’s all
you have to do.’ She gave a little victory wiggle before nimbly jumping down.

Tyler knew that Hine was going to try it before she moved. ‘No, Hine,’ he called. ‘It’s not worth it.’ She turned and gave him a keep-out-of-this look.

She moved to the corner of the platform where the join in the rail made it a bit easier. Slowly and clumsily she began to climb. It was clear that she was nowhere near as agile as Mandy. Tyler moved onto the platform hoping he could stop her.

‘No helping her,’ snarled Mandy. Hine waved him back with a flip of her hand. He stayed where he was. At least he could try to save her if she fell—that’s if she fell this way. His heart thumped and his gut tightened into knots. It was impossible; she was having trouble just getting up onto the rail.

The worst moment came as she tried to stand. Her body wobbled and her arms circled wildly. Tyler held his breath, as if even breathing would be enough to topple her.

When she made it, she stared defiantly down at Mandy. ‘Will that do?’ Then she jumped down using Tyler’s hands to cushion the landing.

‘You were meant to face the other way,’ replied Mandy. ‘But I’ll accept it.’ She turned to Tyler. ‘Your turn now. Or don’t you have the guts to do it?’

Tyler just glared at her.

‘Was that a no? Then you have only one life left, and Hine and I have three. Very soon you’ll be history, Tyler Matthews.’ She sneered at him for a moment before prancing off the platform and on down the path.

‘Don’t worry,’ Hine whispered, squeezing his hands. ‘I’ll find a way to get her. She’s not going to win if I have any say in it.’ Then their hands parted and they too went down the path.