In the Land of the Long White Cloud (68 page)

“You’re going to regret this, Mrs. Warden. It’s shaping up into a fortune. Your children…”

“My children already have a fortune. They’re the heirs of Kiward Station, and my daughter does not have the slightest interest in art. We don’t need the money, but this boy here was Lucas’s pupil. A…soul mate, so to speak. He needs the money, he knows to cherish it, and he will have it! Here, David, you need to sign. With your full name, that’s important.”

Steinbjörn’s breath caught when he saw the sum in the account. But Gwyneira only nodded at him kindly. “Well, go ahead and sign. I need to get back to my shearing shed to increase my children’s fortune. And you’d do best to look into this gallery yourself. So that they don’t swindle you when you sell the rest of the pictures. You are now more or less the manager of Lucas’s artistic inheritance. So make something of it!”

Steinbjörn Sigleifson no longer hesitated but signed his name to the document.

Lucas’s “David” had found his gold mine.

C
ANTERBURY
P
LAINS
—O
TAGO
1870–1877

“P
aul, Paul, where are you hiding this time?”

Helen called after the most rebellious of her pupils, though she knew for a fact that the boy could hardly hear her. Paul Warden was certainly not playing peacefully with the Maori children in the immediate vicinity of their makeshift schoolhouse. When he disappeared, it meant trouble in no uncertain terms—whether he was duking it out somewhere with his archenemy Tonga, the son of the chief of the Maori tribe dwelling on Kiward Station, or he was lying in wait for Ruben and Fleurette in order to play some kind of prank on them. His gags were not always funny. Ruben had gotten rather upset recently when Paul had poured an inkwell out on his newest book. That had been aggravating not only because the boy had wanted this law compendium for a long time and only just received it from England thanks to George Greenwood, but also because the book was exceptionally valuable. Although Gwyneira had reimbursed him for it, she was just as shocked by her son’s deed as Helen.

“He’s not all that young anymore!” she exclaimed, working herself into a state while the eleven-year-old Paul stood, unremorseful, nearby. “Paul, you knew what that book was worth! And that was no accident. Do you think money grows on trees at Kiward Station?”

“Nah, but it does on the sheep,” retorted Paul, not entirely wrong. “We could afford to buy a stupid, dusty old book like that every week if we wanted.” He glared spitefully at Ruben. The boy knew exactly what the economic situation in the Canterbury Plains was. True, Howard O’Keefe was doing much better under the aegis of Greenwood Enterprises, but he was still a long way from Gerald’s honorary title of sheep baron. The flocks and the wealth of Kiward
Station had also grown over the past ten years, and for Paul Warden, hardly a wish went unfulfilled. He had little interest in books. Paul would rather have the fastest pony, loved toy weapons like pistols, and would surely already have had an air rifle if George Greenwood had not “forgotten” it every time he placed orders to England. Helen observed Paul’s development with concern. In her opinion, no one set enough boundaries for the boy. Both Gwyneira and Gerald bought him expensive presents but otherwise hardly concerned themselves with him. By this time, Paul had largely outgrown the influence of his “adopted mother,” Kiri, as well. He had long since adopted his grandfather’s opinion that the white race was superior to the Maori. That was also the cause of his endless fights with Tonga. The chieftain’s son was just as self-assured as the sheep baron’s heir, and the boys fought bitterly over to whom the land on which both Tonga’s people and the Wardens lived belonged. That too disconcerted Helen. Tonga would most likely take over as his father’s successor, just as Paul would inherit from his grandfather. If their enmity lasted, then things might become difficult. And every bloody nose that one of the boys went home with deepened the rift between them.

At least there was Marama, who reassured Helen somewhat. Kiri’s daughter, Paul’s “adopted sister,” had a sort of sixth sense for the boys’ confrontations and tended to show up at every battleground to arbitrate. If she was there, innocently playing hopscotch with a few friends, then Paul and Tonga avoided trouble. Marama then gave Helen a conspiratorial smile. She was a charming child, at least by Helen’s standards. Her face was narrower than that of most Maori girls, and her velvety complexion was the color of chocolate. She did not have any tattoos yet and probably never would be decorated according to custom. The Maori had increasingly abandoned the ritual and rarely even wore traditional clothing anymore. They were obviously making efforts to fit in with the
pakeha
—which delighted Helen in some ways, but which also occasionally filled her with a vague feeling of regret.

“Where’s Paul, Marama?” Helen now turned directly to the girl. Paul and Marama usually came to class together from Kiward Station.
If Paul had gotten upset about something and ridden home early, she would know it.

“He rode away, miss. He’s on the trail of a mystery,” Marama revealed in a clear, loud voice. The little girl was a good singer, a talent treasured by her people.

Helen sighed. They had just read a few books about pirates and treasure hunts, hidden countries and secret gardens, and now all the girls were looking for enchanted rose gardens while the boys excitedly drew treasure maps. Ruben and Fleur had done the same thing at this age, but when it came to Paul, she knew that the secrets might not be so innocent. He had recently driven Fleurette into a frenzy of worry by leading her beloved horse Minette, a daughter of the mare Minty and the stud Madoc, away and hiding it in Kiward Station’s rose garden. Since Lucas’s death, that part of the garden was hardly kept up, and no one thought to look for the horse there. Besides, Minette had not been taken from her stall but from the O’Keefes’ yard. Helen was frantic at the thought that Gerald would hold her husband responsible for the loss of his valuable animal. Minette had finally drawn attention to herself by whinnying and galloping around the yard. That did not happen, however, until hours later, after she had enjoyed her fill of the grass in the overgrown square, during which a desperate Fleurette wrongly believed her horse to be lost in the highlands or stolen by horse thieves.

Thieves and rustlers in general…this was a subject that had been disquieting farmers in the Canterbury Plains for a few years now. Although the New Zealanders had prided themselves only a decade earlier on not being the descendants of convicts like the Australians, instead building a society of virtuous colonists, criminal elements were beginning to surface here. It was nothing surprising—the abundant livestock count of farms like Kiward Station and the steadily growing fortune of their owners aroused covetousness. In addition, climbing the social ladder was no longer so simple for new immigrants. The first families were already established, land was no longer to be had for free or close to it, and the whale and seal grounds were largely
exhausted. There was still the occasional spectacular gold find, so it was still possible to go from rags to riches—just not in the Canterbury Plains. But the great livestock barons’ foothills, flocks, and herds had become the center of operations and the barons themselves victims of brutal thieves and rustlers. It had all begun with one man, an old acquaintance of Helen and the Wardens: James McKenzie.

At first Helen had not believed it when Howard had come home from the pub cursing Gerald’s former foreman by name.

“Heaven only knows why Warden gave him the boot, but now we’re all paying the price. The workers talk about him as if he were a hero. He steals only the best animals, they say, ones from the money-bags. He leaves the small farmers alone. What nonsense! How’s he supposed to know the difference? But they take a devilish delight in it. Wouldn’t surprise me if the fellow gathered himself a band of thieves.”

“Like Robin Hood,” had been Helen’s first thought, but then she reproved herself for the romantic lapse. The romanticization of the rustler was nothing more than people’s imagination at work.

“How is one man supposed to manage all of that?” she remarked to Gwyneira. “Herding the sheep together, culling them, taking them over the mountains…you’d need a whole gang.”

“Or a dog like Cleo,” Gwyneira suggested uneasily, thinking of the puppy she had given James in parting. James McKenzie was a particularly gifted dog trainer. No doubt Friday was no longer second to her mother anymore—more likely she had since lapped her. Cleo had grown very old by this time and mostly deaf. She still stuck to Gwyneira like her shadow, but she no longer served as a work dog.

It wasn’t long before the odes to James McKenzie began including his brilliant sheepdog. Gwyneira’s suspicions were confirmed when Friday’s name was dropped for the first time.

Fortunately, Gerald made no comment on James’s abilities as a shepherd or the missing pup, whose absence he must have noticed at the time. However, Gerald and Gwyneira had had other things on their minds during that fateful year. The sheep baron had probably simply forgotten about the little dog. In any event, he lost several head of livestock a year to McKenzie—as did Howard, the Beasleys, and
all the other larger sheep breeders. Helen would have liked to know what Gwyneira thought about it, but her friend never mentioned James McKenzie if she could help it.

Helen had by now had enough of her senseless search for Paul. She would begin class whether he showed up or not. Chances were pretty good that he would turn up eventually. Paul respected Helen; she might have been the only person he ever listened to. Sometimes she believed that his constant attacks on Ruben, Fleurette, and Tonga might be motivated by jealousy. The bright and attentive chieftain’s son was among her favorite students, and Ruben and Fleurette held a special place in her heart, of course. Paul, though certainly not stupid, was not exceptionally scholarly, preferring to play the class clown—and thus made Helen’s life difficult, as well as his own.

That day, however, there was no chance that Paul would reach school during class. The boy was too far away for that; as soon as he had noticed Ruben turn conspiratorially to Paul’s sister, Fleur, he had glued himself to the two older children’s heels. Secrets, he knew very well, almost always involved something forbidden, and for Paul there was nothing better than catching his sister at some petty infraction. He had no compunctions about tattling, even if the results rarely proved satisfactory. Kiri never punished the adolescents, and even Paul’s mother displayed lenience when she caught Fleurette telling fibs or a glass or vase broke during one of her wild games. Paul rarely experienced such mishaps. He was naturally deft, and besides, he had practically grown up among the Maori. He had adopted their fluid hunter’s gait, their ability to sneak up on prey all but silently—just like his rival, Tonga. The Maori men made no distinction between the little
pakeha
and their own offspring. If there were children there, people cared for them, and it was among the hunters’ duties to instruct the youths in their art, just as the women taught the girls. Paul had always been among their most gifted students, and now those skills enabled him to sneak up behind Fleurette and Ruben unnoticed. It
was a shame that their whispering was probably about one of the young O’Keefe’s secrets instead of some wrongdoing by his sister. No doubt Miss O’Keefe’s punishment for anything her son had done would not prove harsh enough to warrant his having to listen to her harangue about tattle-telling. He would have achieved better results by telling on the boy to his father, but Paul didn’t trust himself around Howard O’Keefe. He knew that Helen’s husband and his grandfather did not get along, and Paul would not collaborate with Gerald’s enemies; it was a question of honor. Paul only hoped his grandfather appreciated it. He made every effort to impress his grandfather, but the older Warden took little notice of him. Paul did not hold that against him. His grandfather had more important things to do than play with young boys—on Kiward Station, Gerald Warden was almost like God himself. But eventually, Paul would do something noteworthy, and then Gerald would have to notice him. The boy wanted nothing more than his grandfather’s praise.

As for Ruben and Fleurette—what might they have to conceal? Paul had become suspicious when Ruben had not taken his own horse but instead settled in front of Fleurette on Minette. Minette did not have a saddle on so there was room for both riders on her back. What a strange way to ride. Ruben took the reins while Fleurette sat behind him, pressing her upper body against him with her cheek tight against his back and her eyes closed. Her curly, red-golden hair fell loosely to her shoulders—Paul remembered that one of the shepherds had said she looked good enough to eat. That must have meant that the guy wanted to do it with her—though Paul still only had a vague idea what that involved. One thing was certain: Fleurette was the last person he would ever think of for that. Paul couldn’t imagine the word beauty ever being used in connection with his sister. Why was she snuggling up so to Ruben? Was she afraid of falling down? Not very likely—Fleurette was an extremely confident rider.