Bulibasha, p.20
Bulibasha, page 20
‘Our father’s knee,’ he gulped.
It was like the Mahana version of the rallying cry at the Alamo. As soon as the scrum went down it was obvious to the Hukareka players that Mahana had gone into top gear.
‘Neke neke!’ the scrum roared. ‘Neke neke!’
My God they were thrilling – like an ancient warrior war party. They pushed the Hukareka players before them, dribbling the ball as they went.
‘Neke neke! Neke neke!’
Hukareka players came charging from all sides. No way could they get into that solid force and extricate the ball. On and on they went, until –
‘Anei!’ old Pera cried.
The scrum had pushed over Hukareka’s goal line. Another try.
With a cry, Uncle Matiu held the football aloft – ‘This one’s for you, Bulibasha!’ And slammed it into touch.
When Dad kicked that ball at the goal to convert the try there was no way he would miss. In one minute flat, Mahana had gone ahead 10 to 5.
At that point the focus on the part of Mahana for vengeance and attempts at resistance by Hukareka unleashed the old blood lust. When play resumed and the scrum went down, the curses and accusations from both sides about women, sisters and mothers could be heard in the grandstand. When the ball came flying out and the backs had already taken play halfway down the field –
Huh? Fists were flying back at the scrum.
‘Break it up!’ the ref yelled. ‘Break it up!’
Tempers flared all over the field. Uncle Ruka and Titus Poata had their own private battle going – they butted and punched each other at every opportunity as if, by some process of attrition, one would knock the stuffing out of the other. Caesar Poata tackled Uncle Matiu. While Uncle was still on the ground, Caesar grabbed his balls and gave a strong twist. A few minutes later Caesar happened to be lying on the ground and Uncle Matiu happened to be trotting back onside. Oh dear, Uncle couldn’t have seen Caesar because he ran over his thighs, stomach and chest in his sprigged boots –
‘Oops, sorry chief, I didn’t see you down there.’
Players were eyeing their assailants and taking every opportunity to pay back. They gave the bugger a shove as they went past. They brought their elbow up into his face. They chopped accidentally on purpose at his windpipe when the ref wasn’t looking. Then my father Joshua scored a brilliant try. He ran from way back, joined the back line as extra man as it surged forward and dived over for our third try of the game. When he converted it, Mahana was 15–5 in the lead.
Then Mahana suffered its first casualty. At the next scrum, when the play moved on, Uncle Ruka remained on the ground, clutching his stomach in agony. The Mahana men went after Titus Poata, the bastard who had done it, and next minute three players had fists up and were brawling. Another two men hit the dust.
‘That’s enough!’ the ref yelled, blowing his whistle. ‘Quit it or I’m stopping the game.’ Didn’t anybody tell him that blowing his whistle wasn’t going to stop a massacre? By the end of that little sortie, four players were being carted off the field and two reserves from each side were being called on.
Only one reserve trotted on for Waituhi. Where was Charlie Whatu? The ref wasn’t waiting around. He blew the whistle to resume play. We were one man down. Hukareka scored and converted. Now Hukareka were only five points behind.
Uncle Matiu roared at me, ‘Tell that fucking Charlie Whatu to get his arse out here!’
Andrew and I ran into the dressing room. St John’s Ambulance men were treating the wounded. We found Charlie Whatu vomiting his guts out in the toilets.
‘I’ve eaten some bad fish, boys. Real bad.’
Just then we heard a volley of booing from the Waituhi side of the stand. There was a drumming of outraged feet, and dust started to fall through the ceiling.
‘What the hell’s happening!’ an ambulance man asked. ‘Is that an earthquake?’
The door opened and Uncle Maaka appeared, swearing and cursing. He had been ordered off for a flying tackle. Our team was down to thirteen men. Oh shit.
Glory would have said, Do something.
Outside, I heard the Hukareka supporters screaming again as Alexander Poata, taking advantage of our misfortune, went over. 15-all.
I looked at Andrew. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Take off your jersey,’ I told Charlie.
Adults sometimes make the mistake of thinking that a fifteen-year-old boy is just a kid. If you’re the fifteen-year-old in question, you know that you are a man – and most often you look like a man.
The ref saw me coming out of the dressing room wearing the Mahana jersey. He nodded, waited for play to go into touch and then waved me on.
‘Are you crazy?’ Mohi said. ‘You’ll get trounced out here.’
My father Joshua came up and said, ‘Get off the field, son.’ Blood was pouring from a cut on his forehead.
‘I’m not your son,’ I told him. ‘I’m Charlie Whatu.’
Uncle Matiu understood. ‘Ka tika, Simeon,’ he said. ‘Well, even Goliath was felled by David, ne? You don’t happen to have a slingshot do you?’ He laughed. ‘You play at left wing. Any time you get the ball, kick. Or pass it to somebody else. Never mind about being a hero.’
I wasn’t planning to be a hero. But in my own way I thought that my being on the field and making our side up to fourteen might make a difference. Even so I prayed to God, Please Lord keep the play on the other side of the field.
Boy, did He lay His bundle on me.
All the scrums seemed to be on my side of the field. Poor Mohi didn’t know what to do. Whenever our scrum won the ball, he would pass it straight to the second five-eighths rather than me. Then, accidentally, he forgot I was there and shot the ball my way.
‘Oh no,’ he groaned, hiding his eyes.
He knew I was the worst kicker in the entire western world. What he had forgotten was that I was jack rabbit scared. No way was I going to be smashed to smithereens by those Hukareka men.
I saw a gap.
I went through with my eyes closed.
I took Hukareka by surprise and found myself in the clear.
Oh shit, what now?
Mohi was there. ‘Pass it out!’ he yelled. ‘Pass it out!’
Believe me, I would gladly have done that, except Alexander Poata was marking him.
‘Pass it out, you stupid fucker!’ Mohi yelled again.
‘Don’t call me stupid, arsehole!’
I waited. Oh no. Now another two Hukareka players were zeroing in on me.
Come on, Alexander, come to me too. Now I knew what kamikaze fighter pilots felt like. But I’d done it. Alexander Poata joined the other two Hukareka players in chasing after me. Just before they slammed into me I let the ball go –
‘All yours, Mo-’
It was no compensation to hear the roar as Mohi took the ball under his arm and, ten yards later, went over.
When the final whistle blew, Mahana had beaten Hukareka by 18 to 15. Grandfather came down to the dressing room to offer his congratulations personally. He was pretty sprightly for a man who had collapsed at the sideline. He patted Mohi’s back for his try.
Then, just as Grandfather was turning to leave, Pani called out, ‘And what do you think of our little champ here?’
Grandfather paused. He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. ‘That was a stupid thing to do, boy. We could have been disqualified for the rest of the season.’
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
‘Go easy on Simeon,’ my father Joshua ventured.
‘No, it’s okay,’ I jibed. ‘I only went out there for the family. Not for anybody else. The family always comes first.’
The dressing room went quiet. I had gone too far again.
Just then, old Pera came hopping into the dressing room.
‘Kei te pai, boys,’ he wheezed. ‘Good on you! Those Hukareka people are all having a good cry out there.’ Then he saw me. ‘E Himiona! That was a nice little run you had.’
He turned to Grandfather. ‘Reminds me of the time when you were his age, eh? When you jumped in to help out a senior team. Just like him, eh –’
Wheeze, cough, splutter.
‘Just like him.’
Afterwards, I said to my father Joshua, ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I don’t want to come between you and Grandfather Tamihana.’
He put a reassuring arm around me. His voice was thoughtful. ‘You’re not, son,’ he said. ‘He’s coming between me and my son.’
My father was growing up too. We turned to leave the dressing room, and there, suddenly, was Rupeni Poata. He looked amused.
‘Well done, Charlie Whatu,’ he said.
Chapter 37
Shortly after the rugby game against Hukareka the weather cracked down with a vengeance. Gone were the colours of autumn; clouds brooded greyly over our landscape. Torrential rain came across the hills behind Waituhi, wave after wave of unforgiving assault. The rain funnelled down from the backcountry, following the contours of the land towards the Waituhi Valley. There, with a whoosh of landslips and erosion, the water poured into the Waipaoa.
‘Wail-e-ree, I can hear the river call –’
My sister Glory and I would stand on the river bank, our faces whipped by the stinging rain. We had taken to singing the song from a western movie called River of No Return about a surly hero, a good-time girl and a young boy, and their adventures on a broad rolling river that roared across the screen from left to right. We felt the story had been about our river.
‘If you listen you can hear it call, sometimes it’s peaceful and sometimes wild and free –’
Mud so thick that you could walk across it surged and roared past us. Within its depths were logs as big as steamships. Trees as tall as two-storeyed houses cracked and yawed past in the yellow avalanche. Sometimes a dead sheep or horse, swollen like an obscene balloon, dipped and rolled within the water as if being basted in mud. The very ground we stood on thrummed with the turbulence of the Waipaoa. We knew that the river could be unforgiving. People trying to cross on horseback had drowned in the Waipaoa. A car had missed a bend, careered over and into its depths. Neither the car nor its driver was ever seen again. A rahui, a temporary prohibition, was placed on the river.
‘I’ve lost my love on the river, gone, gone forever down the river of no return –’
We were a young boy and his younger sister standing on the river bank, in love with the river.
One morning, Red was missing from our herd of milking cows. When Glory found her, she was down the river bank. The front part of her body was out of the water, but the back half was stuck in the mud. The river raged around her, trying to suck her in.
‘You’ve done this on purpose!’ I yelled at Red. ‘Just to make my day.’
Leaving Glory on guard, I ran back to the quarters, hitched up our stallion Pancho Villa and brought him to the river bank. I took a rope down to Red and tied it around her midriff.
‘You stupid bitch!’ I screamed at her.
‘Mooo,’ she answered unconcernedly.
To get the rope around, I had to get into the water itself. Suddenly a log or something hit me from behind. Glory screamed. Then Mum was there. She had seen me and Glory from the window of the quarters. She scrambled down the bank and joined me in the river.
‘Here,’ she cried. She had brought the whip with her.
‘Glory,’ I yelled, ‘kick Pancho Villa to pull us out now.’
Glory jumped on to Pancho Villa’s slippery back. ‘Hup!’ she screamed. ‘Hup!’
Pancho Villa whinnied and strained and pulled too quickly. The rope thwanged and Pancho Villa reared in fright.
‘Hold on, Glory!’ I thought my sister would fly off and be gone, gone to the river. But Glory caught at Pancho Villa’s mane and tried again.
‘Hup! Hup!’ My mother and I pushed Red from behind. Pancho Villa began to slip. I had to use the whip.
Dear God, direct the lash.
I laid the whip out and suddenly made it curl toward Pancho Villa’s flank. The sting was enough to make him jerk. The mud gave a slow, slurping motion as Red’s hind legs came free. She started to use her front legs to help herself out and up the bank, dragging Mum and me with her.
In all that time, not once did my mother say to let the cow go. Red was an important part of our lives. We depended on her for her good rich milk. Nor, when my mother and I emerged caked with silt and mud, was there any sentimental embrace. We had simply done our job.
My mother went back to the quarters and Glory and I carried on with the milking. Half way through, I found Glory shaking like a leaf.
‘You won’t ever leave me, will you, Simeon?’
‘No.’
I thought of her, so small, kicking Pancho Villa and no doubt saving our lives.
‘Ever ever ever?’
I held her in my arms. ‘I promise,’ I said.
Did Red thank us? Are you kidding? As I was milking her she arched her back and did a huge cowpat.
‘Next time, you drown,’ I said.
Later I went down to the river and gave a prayer of thanks to it for not taking us. Glory joined me.
‘Wail-e-ree –’
As Dad predicted, our savings dwindled fast. With Grandfather’s permission Dad left all the work at the homestead to me and went looking for work around the district.
My father was one of many men looking for itinerant work and he found knocking on doors a dispiriting business. Sometimes in the past he had been able to count on doing some fencing or horse breaking or mustering – always the worst stretch of fencing or the most vicious horses to break or the most difficult slopes to muster on – and he hoped that the quality of his work would be remembered. One night he came back with the news that he had managed to secure a one-man contract to cut scrub up the back of beyond.
The work was a six-week contract, and Dad decided to camp up there in a lean-to tent. Mum didn’t like the idea, but there was no option. Dad saddled Pancho Villa and, pulling a packhorse with all his equipment and provisions, set off into the back country. During the first two weekends Mum and I joined him in the scrubcutting, taking up with us the provisions that would continue to support him.
The third weekend Mum and I arrived in the middle of torrential rain to find the lean-to vacant and the packhorse standing by with Dad’s slasher and other equipment still tied to the saddle. My mother knew immediately that something was wrong. We rode down the track to the river.
‘Joshua? Joshu-aaa!’
My mother gave a cry. She pointed through the rain. I couldn’t make out what I was meant to be looking at. Then I saw that the track on the other side of the river had fallen away. I followed the slip and, there, at the bottom, was a small figure trapped beneath a fallen horse.
The swingbridge was down but that was no deterrent to my mother. She spurred her horse forward and into the torrent. ‘Joshua! Kei te haere atu ahau ki a koe!’ Of course I had to follow the crazy woman.
‘Hang on, Huria!’ my father cried. ‘Let the horse bring you across.’
By that time I was busy trying to keep my head above water too. I saw a bend coming up and yelled at Mum, pointing it out to her. She nodded and started to urge her horse towards a place where the water was not running so strong. We both touched ground.
‘You could have been killed,’ Dad said.
‘Well I wasn’t,’ she answered.
Two days before, Dad had been riding up to the scrub on Pancho Villa, pulling the packhorse after him. The rain was so heavy he didn’t notice the unstable track, and the ground crumbled from under him. With a whinny of fear Pancho Villa tumbled down with the landslide. Dad tried to pull the horse’s head around so that it pointed down. He thought he might be able to ride the stallion all the way to the bottom. But a sharp tree stump pierced Pancho Villa’s stomach, ripping his guts out. Bawling, Pancho Villa spun and fell, pinioning Dad beneath its weight.
Pancho Villa was still alive. Huge blowflies were buzzing and maggots were already hatching in the dark stomach wound.
‘I think my right leg is broken,’ Dad said.
We set his leg with two branches and bound it tightly. Even so, he screamed and lost consciousness when we levered him out from under Pancho Villa.
‘We only have two horses,’ I said to Mum. ‘We’ll strap Dad onto my horse. You take him back to Waituhi. It’s too dangerous for the three of us to cross the river together.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll come back for you tomorrow,’ she said.
Just as they were leaving, my father’s eyes flickered. His lips were quivering.
‘I couldn’t reach the –’ He motioned to the rifle, still in its pouch, strapped to Pancho Villa’s flank. ‘Thank you, son,’ he said.
He had loved Pancho Villa.
I watched until Mum had forded the river safely, pulling Dad’s horse after her. On the other side my father motioned Mum to stop, as if he was waiting for something.
I went down to Pancho Villa, put the rifle to his head and pulled the trigger. The sound echoed around the hills.
My father’s leg was fractured in three places. The doctor put a plaster cast on it to help the bone to knit, but Dad was worried about finishing the scrubcutting. We needed the money.
‘I’ll have to hand the job over to Pani,’ he said. ‘We’ll share the contract money with him.’ He and Mum were whispering in the bedroom.
‘How many more weeks before the job’s finished?’ Mum asked.
Faith and Hope, followed by Glory, came to join me and listened through the wall.
‘Three weeks, might be four.’
‘Then I’ll do it,’ Mum said. ‘I’m as good as you at scrubcutting. Four weeks is not long.’
‘Kaore,’ Dad answered. They began to argue.
Glory looked at me: Do something. I knew what she had in mind.
I took my sisters by the hand and we knocked on Mum and Dad’s bedroom door.
‘You should all be in bed,’ Mum growled.
