On the outskirts of town, the chapel bell stopped ringing. The Reverend Hadfield coughed as he waited for the Luxton family to shuffle into their pew. Then he stood to lead the first hymn.
Outside, a dozen horses tethered to carts nodded in the warm morning sun.
A few children, playing outside in their Sunday best, looked up as Doctor Smith came into view on horseback, riding fast, gripping his Calisher and Terry.
He stopped and waited, impatient, for Henry and Rama, also on horseback. “Show me where!” he shouted.
Henry, panting from the ride, glanced at Rama, who was once again hidden under hat and scarf. “Can’t we leave this to the sergeant?” he pleaded.
“No,” Smith snapped. “He’s made his position quite clear.”
Reluctantly, Henry kicked Duke and led the way. They galloped on, past the chapel and the sound of fervent singing.
They passed the cemetery, and Henry glimpsed his father’s grave.
Finally, they entered the forest and slowed to a walk. Branches reached out as if attempting to drag them into the shadows.
They reached Pritchard’s Glade, and Henry looked about, on edge. The empty windows of the deserted cottage stared back. The three riders trotted into the forest again.
Henry had been wondering all this time, Am I doing the right thing?
His mother had a saying: “Out of the frying pan, into the fire.” Henry knew things were going to get worse, and he would be right at the centre of it all.
There might be blood. There would certainly be danger.
At least he was spending more time near Rama.
They reached the spot where Henry had been ambushed by Burgess. Henry stopped, embarrassed to see his broken eggs and tomatoes scattered on the ground. They were now swarming with ants and flies.
Rama looked at the eggs, then at Henry, and raised her eyebrows. She slipped from her horse to study the ground.
“The fire’s over there,” Henry told them.
Smith dismounted and walked to the campfire embers. Rama looked up.
“Four men,” she said with certainty.
This impressed Henry. He knew about the American Indian trackers in the Wild West, but he had never heard of a Māori tracker right here in New Zealand.
Without warning, Smith leapt back on his horse. “Stay here. Out of sight.” He galloped off.
Henry was taken aback. “Where’s he going?”
Rama walked her horse off the track and into the trees. Henry watched her tether her horse under the umbrella of a giant kahikatea, and then looked back at the retreating doctor.
“I have to go,” he said. He leapt on Duke and galloped off up the track.
He caught up with Doctor Smith not far away, near the Maungatapu Rock, but stayed out of sight in the shadow of the trees.
He watched as Doctor Smith walked his horse past the rock, his eyes flicking from tree to bush, peering into the shadows and sniffing the air.
A movement on the crest of the hill drew Henry’s eye. A group of travellers had appeared, their horses laden with heavy bags. They looked more like businessmen than outlaws, but Smith was interested in them anyway.
The travellers huddled together as he approached, and one man pulled out his rifle.
Smith halted at a distance. “Greetings,” he called.
A thin man with a pencil moustache answered. “Bonjour, m’sieur?”
“Ah. Bonjour, messieurs.”
Like all educated Englishmen, Smith had learnt French, but he was rusty. “Je m’appelle Smith. Je cherche des hommes – trois hommes.” He struggled for the words. “Des hommes ‘mauvais’. Bad men?”
The travellers shared anxious looks and shook their heads. “Non, monsieur. Désolé.” Two of the men dismounted to adjust their saddles, keeping a wary eye on Smith.
Duke snorted as a light breeze chased dry leaves across the ground. The breeze whipped some of the leaves into the air around Smith, as if taunting him.
Smith flicked the reins and galloped to the top of the ridge. Henry watched him disappear, then turned to go back to Rama.
He found her squatting on the muscular roots of the kahikatea, and tethered his horse next to hers. “I love this place,” he said.
“Where is Doctor Smith?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He’s gone further on.”
He flattened a fern and sat down a respectable distance from Rama.
“Doctor Smith has many worries,” she said.
She removed her sandal and took out a twig. Henry was transfixed. He had seen many bare feet, naturally, but … this was Rama’s foot.
She looked up.
He turned away.
They were alone, with nothing else to do, so Henry asked the question that had been on his mind for hours. “Why do you pretend to be a man?”
Rama looked deeply into his eyes before answering. “It saves a lot of questions,” she said.
Henry frowned. To him, it didn’t save any questions at all.
Rama sat next to him and touched his wrist. “Henry. You are a good man. Please tell no one.”
Henry studied the hand that lay lightly on his wrist. How could he possibly say no? She called me a man, not a boy.
“My name is not Rama,” she said. “It is Miriama. ‘Drop of the sea’.”
Henry knew he had been entrusted with a secret. “Miriama,” he repeated. That’s a beautiful name.
“Horses!” she whispered.
The two of them crouched low and listened to the approaching sounds. Lying in the bracken, Henry was only a handspan from Miriama’s face. He savoured the moment. She is … so beautiful.
The thud of horses’ hooves on hard ground got closer, along with mumbled conversation. On the track just yards from where Miriama and Henry lay, the Frenchmen came into view.
As they trotted past, the thin man peered into the bushes, and Henry was certain they would be seen. But no. Which was just as well, because the man cradling the rifle in his arms was jittery.
Miriama looked into Henry’s eyes.
I want to say something to her. But what? His face reddened, and he turned away.
When the Frenchmen had gone, the pair sat up. There was a pause. Henry fumbled with his saddle bag.
Miriama walked away a short distance, and Henry observed her: a slender willow next to a large beech tree. From his saddle bag he took a sketch book and pencil. It had been a long time since he had drawn anything other than cowboys and guns.
Pretending to study the trees, he began to draw Miriama.