Wisps of Cloud (19 page)

"Oh she got rid of your bastard child, Murray-me-lad. Got the DNA from the embryo that will prove you fathered it, though. Luckily for you, Chrissy doesn't want to go though the hassle of testifying against you at a rape trial." He grinned. "We have our own method of dealing with predators like you."

The man nodded and Murray heard more high-pitched sounds as his car's paintwork was scratched. Another window was smashed and safety glass showered around him.

"You will treat your young teacher with respect," the bikie continued. "If we hear of her being hassled we will return." The man looked across at where a shaking, crying Sherrie was still being held by the woman. "Great looking wife you have there. Pity you couldn't save your tool just for her." He grabbed Murray again by the throat and hauled him close. "Next time it will be her who is scratched up, not just you and the car. Get it?"

Another fist buckled him up and he retched blood and vomit onto the grass. Another boot kicked his ribs and he remembered no more until he woke up in a moving vehicle and heard a siren going. Through the pain he realised he was travelling in an ambulance. Through puffed eyes he noticed someone sitting beside him. It was Sherrie his wife who reached out and squeezed his hand.

*

Chrissy was apprehensive about going back to Tui Park but took Karla's advice about holding her head high. Also, the news about the attack on Murray and Karla's admission that she just may have had something to do with it made her even more determined to put the matter behind her. The school staff w
ere abuzz with rumours about why Murray had been attacked and wouldn't be back for the first week of the new term. They were wild and speculative but again on Karla's advice, Chrissy enlightened nobody. On the first day back the school had a teacher's only day that consisted of time for the teachers to prepare for the new year, get their classrooms up and running and the morning with detailed instructions about how the new system of just operating a senior and junior school would operate. In Murray's absence, Gillian lead the discussion but Val managed to intervene throughout the staff meeting.

During the afternoon, Chrissy who was in the senior school and hence in Gillian's syndicate, had the last two hours in her room to prepare work, sort out children's files, arrange desks and so forth ready for her new class the next day She was engrossed on her computer when she heard a cough and glanced up.

Sherrie Narwood stood there carrying a bunch of flowers. She looked hesitant and Chrissy herself felt the same.

"A peace offering," the principal's wife whispered and handed her the flowers.

"Why thank you," Chrissy replied. "But what have I done to deserve these."

"You know and so do I
," Sherrie replied. "The attack on Murray was no random act and it didn't take too much effort to find out about that particular motorbike gang. They came from Masterton where you spent a week visiting Karla Spicer."

Chrissy gulped. "I never expected…"

"Don't be. It's probably the best thing that happened to him." She glanced at the floor. "I also heard about your visit to Masterton hospital."

"What?" Chrissy gasped.

"Small town and I have friends there. Murray's was it?"

Chrissy flushed but nodded. "He drugged and raped me, Sherrie. I couldn't bare the stress of a trial if I went to the police and Karla said she would help. I don't think even she expected Murray to receive such a brutal bashing." She looked up. "He deserved it, though. I also did some research and found out that he did it a few years back with one of the staff."

"And with me," Sherrie whispered. "Twenty years ago he did exactly the same thing with me. He was the principal of a tiny two-teacher school and I was his junior assistant. It ended differently, though. I practically forced him to leave his first wife and two years later we were married. By then, Lisa my eldest was a year old and I was pregnant again. Oh I love my three children and Murray and myself have had quite a good marriage, that is because I've turned a blind eye to his extramarital affairs and deviant behaviour with mainly assistant teachers."

"I'm sorry, Sherrie, I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. Some were affairs with women who were quite willing to participate while others were like you. I know of two but suspected others. Also, as far as I know you were the first who was actually impregnated by him." She shrugged. "The shame of this situation makes most girls just keep quiet or blame themselves and, until now he just got away with it."

"And you've put up with this for twenty years?"

"Yes. My youngest is thirteen now and I have almost walked away several times." She grimaced. "Just perhaps this beating will make him see that he just can't continue. That and being sixty next year. Perhaps men do mellow with age. Anyway, the flowers are my way of apologising to you about my husband's behaviour and to offer my explanation. If it helps even just a little, my visit has been worthwhile."

Chrissy smiled, gave Sherrie a brief hug before she stood back. "Thank you, but can we keep everything confidential? Nobody except Karla knows what happened and I'd like to keep it that way."

"I have spoken to nobody. Well, I finally had it out with Murray and told him I knew about you, he deserved the beating and if he strayed again I would be leaving him. I think he got the message." She grimaced and didn't look as confident as her words sounded.

"And how is Murray?"

"Bit cut up, black eye but mainly hurt pride. The car is in the panel beaters and he'll be back at work next week."

After Sherrie left, Chrissy phoned Karla on her mobile. "Oh hi, Karla, Chrissy here. You will never guess who arrived today
to bring me a bunch of flowers and what else I found out?"

*

Like at Tui Park, Top Plateau School had the first day of the new term, pupil free. By lunchtime, Karla had done nearly everything and glanced around the new classroom. The building was functional inside but the playground still needed fixing with the new courts yet to be sealed and several dirt covered drains cut across the grassed area.

As she had been told, two Riversdale families and five children were added to the roll so she would begin with seventeen. As well, two five-year-olds would be coming later in the year. The roll was quite healthy.

*

School started a little late on Tuesday morning. By the time the new parents and children were met and other parents came in to take a grand tour of the new school block and chat to each other, it was nine thirty before the adults left and she rang the bell.

Karla smiled at the seventeen children sitting on the carpet or on beanbags listening to every word she said. The three new boys and two girls, who ranged in age from five to ten, were all quiet but appeared to mix in well with the other children. Lorena attached herself to Jessica a ten-year-old girl while Jason didn't seem to mind being the only senior boy in the school.

"So that's it for now," she concluded. "We'll get your exercise books sorted by tomorrow but today I want you all to start your booklet about
 the theme for this week, 'Fun in the Sun' for the juniors or one of those choices I listed on the whiteboard for you seniors."

She had listed several topics that she knew Jason and Lorena would like and a couple of general ones that should suit the new pupils. Unexpectedly, Jason picked
 the topic designed for Lorena, rather than the fictional topic about being a detective that she had designed for him.

He grinned at her and began the topic, 'Our New School. How we can make it even better.'

"Can I go out and take some photos on the iPad for my theme, Karla?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "You know the rules, Jason."

He chuckled. "Yes. I need to write my draft copy before finding pictures or taking photos for the published version."

As she walked away she grinned when she heard him talking to one of the new boys.

"She's a great teacher, Sean but don't try to cross her. If she tells you not do something, you don't. Okay?"

She never heard the nine-year-old's reply but turned to see him staring at her in awe as if he thought that if his gigantic classmate did what he was told, he'd better do the same.

The new school year had begun.

*

One of the big seasonal jobs on Top Plateau Station was over as hundreds of newly shorn sheep were returned to the higher hills and the shearing gang that had been with them for several days, moved on.  Ryan quite enjoyed helping in the woolshed and even took a turn at shearing himself. Though slower than the professionals, he still retained the skill he had learned as a teenager but after a couple of hours was glad to return to the more mundane duties in the shed.

It was mid-afternoon and Clive and himself were following the top ridge to inspect the boundary fence. It only took a small slip or broken wire to leave a gap. Sheep would get through and disappear into the bush land beyond. Ryan grinned as he thought about the three sheep they had recovered earlier from the reserve. They had missed the previous shear and had massive matted coats of wool and the shearers cursed having to take twice the usual time to remove the fleeces.

After an hour spent tightening wires in one stretch of fence, they decided to inspect one last section before having a break or smoko time as Clive still called it. Gone were the days when practically every farmer and farm worker would sit down before a small fire and roll their own cigarettes while the billy, a large tin, boiled up water to make the tea that was drunk in gigantic mugs either black or with raw milk from the morning's house cow and scoop of sugar. Now Ryan preferred instant coffee while Clive had a tea bag that he added to his thermos mug of hot water. The biscuits that they dunked in the hot drinks were the traditional ones but now came in supermarket plastic wrapping.

"Not like the old days," Clive said as he placed a handful of dog pellets out for Flossie, the sheep dog to eat. "I remember when…" He gazed out of the far valley and spun a story about something that had happened forty years earlier. "The years just roll by, Ryan. When you're just a lad you think you are immortal but suddenly you have kids and grandkids, you can't sling a fence post over your shoulder any longer and your knees ache after a few hours." He grinned. "I still like it out here away from all those do-gooders who moan about and oppose everything. Why only yesterday I heard…"

Ryan grinned as Clive moaned on about protestors outside The Beehive, New Zealand's parliament building in Wellington.

"Make the buggers spend a couple of days in the woolshed rather than the tattoo parlour or smoking pot." Clive stopped and stared down the far valley. "Talking of pot, I wonder how that marijuana plantation is getting on. Must be close to harvesting time."

Ryan frowned. "And who are they? Big Red reckoned it wasn't any of the local gangs growing marijuana there. Who else could it be?"

"Gangs from Wellington, criminals or even businessmen trying to make a quick buck," Clive shrugged. "Half of them are little more than criminals anyway."

"True," Ryan sighed and turned the conversation to farm matters.

*

They had just begun working on the fence again when he heard a distant engine sound. A helicopter rose out of the valley below.

"It's the Eurocopter Squirrel. It's them!" Clive muttered. "I'm not surprised. With this year's hot summer they'll have a huge marijuana crop and are probably harvesting it now." He glanced at Ryan. "Let's go and have a look?"

He looked keen and Ryan was interested in finding out more, too. "Okay, but we need to be careful."

"Of course," Clive replied. "Flossie will warn us if anyone is still around. Won't you, Girl?"

The dog stood on all fours and wagged her tail as she stared at Clive with intelligent eyes.

Twenty minutes later they were in thick bush east of the cabin wher
e the helicopter had flown out. Clive's estimated that this was where the main crop was situated.

"Smell it?" Clive said.

They pushed through the undergrowth on a track that Ryan could barely make out beneath the trees. Without Clive and Flossie he would be hopelessly lost. He stopped and sniffed. There was a sweet smell different from the usual bush one of soil and leaves.

"Not far now," Clive continued and patted the dog. "Is anyone around, Flossie?"

The sheep dog stopped and stood still with her nose in the air. She walked several metres forward with her nose to the ground before returning. She sat down, looked up at her master and wagged her tail.

"Nobody is here now," Clive said. "But they've been here. Flossie can smell their footprints." He patted her head. "Show us where they were, Girl but don't get us lost. Okay!"

"Woof!" Flossie retraced her original steps and shot off to the left. There was no real undergrowth but above, the massive trees cut out the sunlight and the ground was damp. Ryan couldn't smell that sweet tang now but the aroma of damp earth and of the trees themselves was quite strong and could have hidden any other smells. Flossie ran to the left, changed direction to run the opposite way and waited for them to catch up. Afterwards, she headed uphill, along and back down again.