Friday in Summer

We came to a fork in the river. The river continued on, but to follow it we would have to cross the tributary ahead of us. We were out in the open and had been for quite some time. It therefore did not surprise me when a voice called out from behind us. Horrify? Yes. Surprise? No. The main river continued on out in the open, but the tributary very quickly disappeared from the view of the two men we could see behind us.

‘Follow the stream.’ I decided. Hamish didn’t argue, but he started at a quicker pace up the bank of the smaller stream. Out of view of the men, we could hear the sound of a waterfall. The bank had been eaten away by the river. Hamish was in the lead, so he made for the river bed. We made our way down into the water, and then picked our way through the rocky bed. It should have been icy, but I felt no shock of cold in my feet and ankles. After a short while and another bend in the stream, we could see a series of three waterfalls just ahead, the water falling from a good eight metres above the pool we were standing in.

‘Do we climb?’ I asked Hamish, but the answer came from the stream itself.

There is a cave behind the second fall. You will be hidden.

We looked at each other. ‘Do we want to meet these guys?’ I asked Hamish.

‘Browne would be ok. But the other man is Coles. I don’t want him meeting you here.’ Warm fuzzy feeling. ‘You hide. I’ll lay a false trail.’ With this Hamish took to the right bank and started climbing up beside the waterfall, making unmistakable signs of passage in the mud. I kept to the bed of the stream and climbed without too much drama to the second stage of the falls. I wouldn’t have given the ledge behind the white water the name ‘cave’, but there was enough room for two people squatting very close and very still to be hidden from sight.

It seemed hardly any time before I heard, above the sound of the waterfall, a man yelling: ‘I told you that was a girl’s footprint at the bridge.’ The other voice was indistinct in reply. ‘Buggered if I know. Get her out of here is the first step, anyway.’ They were coming closer. Hamish wouldn’t be able to get back now. Fear for him and for me, kept me very still.

‘Where’d they go from here? You check that bank. I’ll go up the fall.’ From what Hamish had said, I was sure this was Coles coming up the river. I hoped that because I couldn’t see him clearly through the water which seemed to me to be flowing more strongly, he couldn’t see me.

Coles muttered his way up to the first level. There was more water. Coles was climbing in running water at least a metre away from where I had been able to stand on bare rocks. The pool below the ledge I was sitting on seemed a good few centimetres higher as well. Nevertheless, I was glad to hear a call from the bank above where I was hiding.

‘They’ve come this way, Trevor.’ Coles turned away from the last step to the second stage and made his way, still muttering, to the right bank. I could hear him progressing up the muddy bank beside the waterfall. Then came what I had dreaded hearing. The other man called ahead to a figure that must have been at the top of the waterfall: ‘Hey, McKenzie! Hold on.’ Then I could hear the men increasing the rate at which they were climbing.

I was on the verge of standing up when the Valley spoke. He will be fine. Stay where you are. So I stayed. I stayed exactly where I was, curled up, sitting on a rock ledge behind a thinning sheet of water. And I cried. The dog told me to stay, and I stayed. A boy told me to stay, and I stayed. The river told me to stay, and I stayed. And now I was alone. I put my head back against the rock behind me and the reduced flow of water drizzled down my face, mixing with my tears. I let the water find its way into my mouth, and the taste of my tears was diluted.

‘Janice?’ The voice was tentative, but familiar. I sat forward; the waterfall now massaged my back, taking the tension from the muscles in my neck. He was standing at the edge of the pool below with the dog beside him. His eyes, kind and focussed, stayed on me as he climbed up and sat on the ledge beside me, throwing his legs over the edge of the shelf. He put his arm around me and drew my head onto his shoulder. We leaned back against the rock under the flow of water and I turned into his arm, putting my free hand up on to his other shoulder. One hand on my shoulder, one on my waist, he rested his head on mine. ‘I missed you.’ So we sat in the waterfall and time passed. I cried myself out. Jasper lay down beside the pool looking back towards the main river.

‘We’ll have to go soon, Janice.’ We sat forward, separate. The water fell on our backs.

“I want to wait for Hamish.’ He was silent. ‘He has to come back here. If I go, he won’t know where we are.’ I ignored what the river was saying, but the Dodger heard it as well as I did.

‘We should get back to the main river and follow it to its source. Before the light goes.’ Jasper lifted his head and glanced up the waterfall at me, then he looked over to the left side of the stream.

Hamish burst out of the trees, and stopped, looking at the Dodger and me sitting cosy and wet in the water. There was no time for rapturous reunions as he called, ‘Come on. They won’t be far behind.’ Then he tore off down the creek bank again.
I looked shamefacedly at the Dodger, and then scrambled across to the bank. It felt good to run down the hill, dodging the trees, slipping on the moist soil, laughing because we were all together again.

Hamish was facing towards us as we reached the main river. Today I had seen him go through so many emotions, but this I decided was the face I would remember from today. Blond fringe flying, mouth wide, head thrown back to laugh at the cloudless blue sky. ‘That was so cool. I put a lovely jumble of footprints leading back into the water, then came back to look over the waterfall. Browne was looking straight up at me. I took off and disappeared into the trees on this side of the stream while they went charging off.’ I threw myself against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, but was still too busy talking. To the Dodger. To me. To himself. I decided then that he just liked talking. Probably stood him in good stead as sports captain. ‘They’ll have to turn back or be caught in the Valley in the dark. Coles is pretty careful not to be here when the light goes out. Where did you get to Dodger?’

Then he remembered why we had become separated. He pulled himself out of my arms and approached the Dodger, who was standing back. He held out his right hand. ‘I’m sorry, Douglass, about putting you in the water. No harm done?’

There was silence. I looked at the Dodger in surprise. ‘We are being chased because you pushed me in the water.’ His voice was cold. This wasn’t like the Dodger I knew. Another silence.

Hamish lowered his hand. ‘Fair enough.’ They stood looking eye-to-eye.

Jasper growled. Another time. We must reach the Source. Then he led the way. I followed, leaving the two boys to sort out their differences.

Lyttelton Gazette, NZ, March 16th, 1855

‘… The naked man appeared from nowhere in the dark street, but his cry of pain soon brought him to the attention of the occupants of nearby houses. They poured out of doors not knowing what to expect. The men after a glance bundled their wives and children back the way thay had come.
‘Dinna leave me here. I’ll get the stanes back I promise.’ the man appeared to be yelling, but it was not known whom he addressed as there appeared to be noone about, although his clothes and a shepherd’s crook were lying near at hand. Mr Arthur James Carter (29) set off immediately to call the police as three stalwart men set about securing the suspected lunatic. When the police arrived at the scene, McKenzie (for that is who it was ) was decently draped and subdued on the ground. Sergeant Struan recognised the prisoner from a message lately come from the Timaru Station, south of the Rakaia River. ‘Your attempt to escape has proven fruitless, McKenzie.’ he said as he had the prisoner brought to the Gaol at Lyttelton. James McKenzie, native of Ross-shire, latterly from Melbourne Australia, will face court on the charge of stealing 1000 sheep from George Rhodes of the Levels, at the next sitting…’