Toward the Sea of Freedom (60 page)

“Where is Mrs. Coltrane?” he called to the women still sitting in front of the tents, washing vegetables.

“Did you two fight?” the chandler’s wife asked.

Peter did not bother to answer. “Where is she?”

“She just came past, pale as if she’d seen a ghost, and she ran to the stables. Has something happened, Reverend?” The wife of the postman asked.

Peter left his team standing there, leaped from the box, and followed Kathleen into the stables. A busy Scotsman rented spaces for horses here, earning more than most of the prospectors. Kathleen was frantically yoking her horses.

“I, I have to go,” she stammered when she saw Peter.

“But Kathleen, so suddenly? Do tell me what’s happened. Did I do something?”

Peter wanted to take her in his arms, or at least soothe her enough that she would look at him, but Kathleen did not stop.

“You? No, no, of course not. Peter, you must find Sean, or wait until the boys and Heather come back. But then tell him they must come straight home, will you? They shouldn’t wait, just head out, even if it’s at night. Maybe you can find someone to accompany the children. I’ll pay. But we, we have to . . .”

Kathleen did not finish her sentence. She leaped onto the box and directed her team out of the stables.

“I’m sorry, Peter. I’m truly sorry.”

Kathleen had the horses break into a trot as soon as they exited the stables. She steered them toward the road to Dunedin.

Peter remained behind, stunned.

The women were talking excitedly about how Kathleen had left without retrieving her belongings or waiting for her children. They gave him looks that were not especially flattering, but he paid no attention to them. He went back to his wagon instead. Whatever had happened, he had to pick up the wood before someone else took it. After that was done, he would look for this man and his boy, whose sight had frightened Kathleen to death.

Loading the wagon with the lumber was no quick task, and it was hours before Peter could head back to the church. But it was still light out when he passed the spot where Kathleen had fallen into a panic. He saw the man with whom the dark-haired fellow had been arguing and pulled up on the reins.

“Evening, Terrence. So, good day today?”

The miner shook his head. “Evening, Reverend. Poor one, actually. Didn’t find much except a lot of trouble.”

“I saw you were arguing with someone. New neighbors?”

“I just managed to keep them away. What goes through people’s heads? A fellow needs a little room to breathe—and Lord knows there’s plenty of space around here to pitch a tent. Maybe not so centrally.”

That was true. The new tent spaces were farther away from the shops and taverns than Terrence’s spot.

“And the fool wanted to make a trade to boot! Besides prospecting for gold, he wanted to straight pawn the two mules he had with him off on me.”

Peter frowned. “What was his name? Did he introduce himself?”

Terrence shook his head. “Nah, didn’t get that far in the pleasantries. Why? You want to buy a mule? Yours ain’t the youngest no more. But that fellow’s critters ain’t, either, although he’d polish’d ’em to a shine.”

“Do you have any idea where the two went off to?” asked Peter.

Terrence shrugged. “To the new tent places, I imagine. Or to make a stink somewhere else. The fellow reeks of trouble, Reverend. Better keep away from him.”

Before looking any more, Peter decided to take the wagon back to the stables. There, he saddled the mule Kathleen had given him before he’d left Dunedin and made his way through the camp. On his mount, he was more mobile and might have better luck finding them. Besides, he could claim he wanted to trade the mule—the fastest means of conversing with a horse swindler.

The fellow reeks of trouble.
Peter decided to trust Terrence’s instincts and turned toward the nearest tavern first.

“Evening, people,” he greeted everyone. “Heard there’s a horse trader who wants to settle here. Anyone got an idea where he’s at?”

“Fat, dark-haired fellow?” asked the barkeeper. “He was here before. Wanted to set up right next to here. But I got there in time. Now he’s next to Janey’s whorehouse. Janey can’t say no, you know.”

“Next to a brothel?” the reverend wondered aloud. “I heard he had a boy with him.”

“Apparently not a soft one.” The barkeeper grinned, and the men laughed. “Want a whiskey, Reverend?”

Peter was too curious for a drink, and Janey’s Dollhouse was right around the corner. The man and his boy were carrying things from their wagon to their newly pitched tent. Their mules grazed, hitched to long halters over which Janey’s drunk patrons would doubtlessly trip in later hours.

Peter contemplated how he should begin the conversation, but the man became aware of him on his own. With alert and hard eyes, he looked over at Peter’s mule, first routinely, then obviously interested.

“Nice mule you got there,” said the man. “Where’d you get it?”

Peter Burton was taken aback. If the man was a horse trader, he had to know where people bought mules. He decided to be wary.

“Bought it somewhere near Christchurch,” he said. “But I’m thinking about getting rid of it. It drags a leg sometimes.”

The big man grinned. “Saw that right away. Aye, someone swindled you, Mr.”—he noticed the priest’s collar and bowed—“oh, Father . . .”

“Reverend,” Peter corrected him. “Reverend Peter Burton.”

The man laughed. “Well, would you look at that? One expects Sodom and Gomorrah, and what do you know, my first business here is with the church. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reverend. And it’ll be my honor to sell you the best mule you’ll find between Invercargill and Auckland.” He held his hand out to Peter. “If I might introduce myself: Ian Coltrane.”

Kathleen’s flight from her marriage had struck Ian hard—though he had not particularly missed his wife; it was more the work she did. His business required someone at the farm to care for the animals he wasn’t leading across the country. Though Colin would doubtlessly have done anything for his father, he was a child. Even Ian had known that he could not leave a barely nine-year-old boy in charge of the farm, or home alone, for that matter. Thus, Colin had gotten his greatest wish: Ian no longer sent him to school but instead took him on his sales trips.

At first, Ian had tried to keep the journeys short, but his years of swindling had come back to bite him: in Christchurch and its surroundings, his reputation was ruined. People would rather travel a long way just to purchase animals elsewhere. Ian had tried finding a partner who would work the farm while he traveled. However, even in this, only dubious men had agreed to work with him. The first herded off a flock of sheep and sold them for his own profit while Ian was away. The second was dead drunk whenever Ian returned. The third caused trouble when Ian tried to cheat him on his share of a horse sale. With the fourth, things limped along for a while, but the man left as soon as gold was found in Otago.

So Ian was forced to limit his travels again—although he really should have been expanding them, since it wasn’t long before even the smallest farmer in Canterbury had no need for Ian’s faulty stock. The gold miners’ demand for provisions earned the farmers enough to enhance their own flocks and improve their quality with sheep acquired from the bigger livestock breeders. Many sheep barons bred horses for their own pleasure or mules for work. With these, too, they helped their smaller neighbors out, for a price.

“Why don’t you just work your farm?” asked Ron Meyers, the new owner of the Edmundses’ farm and Ian’s drinking buddy, when Ian had complained to him. “Mine runs like a dream.”

Meyers raised cattle.

“Why don’t we go look for gold?” Colin asked his father.

Ian had weighed his options and decided on the latter.

He had sold the horses and then the farm to Ron Meyers, who made him a rather good offer. After that, he had set off on the way to the gold mines with Colin and a team of two mules.

Ian Coltrane.

Peter Burton breathed deep. That was Kathleen’s secret; no wonder she had been so horrified. Had she really believed her husband dead? That seemed unlikely. Her behavior over the years hinted that she had fled him, and Peter had often suspected her husband was still alive. And the boy? The reverend eyed him inconspicuously. Really, the similarities should have stood out at once: the boy was Kathleen’s son, without a doubt. He looked more like her than her dear Sean.

“And my son, Colin,” Ian introduced him. “Colin, show the reverend the gray mare. He’s thinking of trading his old mule.”

Colin looked at Peter’s mount. The reverend noticed that the boy had Kathleen’s features, but the expression with which he looked over the mule was his father’s. Like his father, he seemed to recognize the animal; Kathleen must have had it when she escaped from the marriage. From the years that had passed since he’d first met Kathleen, Peter judged that the boy couldn’t have been more than nine when his mother had fled. He wondered if Colin would blurt something out, but the boy said nothing.

“Should I ride the gray mule over?” Ian asked.

Peter decided to break off the proceedings.

“No, thank you. Not today, Mr. Coltrane. It’s already getting dark. I can hardly see a thing. Hardly the right time to trade for a mule.”

Ian Coltrane furrowed his brow. “Reverend, now you’re insulting me. As if I would cheat you, you or the church, by day or by night. What I’m offering you, you could buy blind, Reverend. This gray one is a beauty. And not a day over eight. That’s right. Yours, on the other hand, I’d say she’s twenty.”

Peter nodded. “And she’s served faithfully just as long,” he said, taking up the smug tone with which Ian had spoken to him. “Now that I think about it, it would be exceedingly ungracious of me to simply sell her in trade. No. This animal should grow old honorably in the service of the church. Many thanks, Mr. Coltrane. I hope to see you in church soon. Oh yes, and you in the school, Colin. We begin at eight. I’ll be expecting you.”

Colin pouted. Apparently, he didn’t intend to do much more for his education.

Peter decided to play a trick of his own. He smiled encouragingly from the son to the father.

“You could also bring that gray mule around tomorrow when you come, Colin. Maybe I’ll take a look at it in the light.”

At least the next morning, Ian Coltrane would send his son to school.

Chapter 7

Lizzie could not give a complete
pepeha
because for the Maori, a proper personal introductory speech contained the recounting of one’s ancestors, and Lizzie simply lacked that knowledge. She did her best though, giving her name and her origins in England and describing London as concretely as possible, as well as her meanderings through Van Diemen’s Land, formerly Tasmania. She mentioned the ship on which she had come to Aotearoa and her travels on the North Island. In so doing, she gave James Busby’s name, but it meant nothing to the Ngai Tahu. Lizzie knew that none of their chieftains had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, but most of the tribes had at least heard of it by then. That did not apply to her new friends, whose tribe was small and lived mostly in seclusion.