Dead Shot Read online

  “Sorry Sarge,” said Thompson. “I didn’t mean…something scared him…”

  “It weren’t his fault,” said the bystander in what was clearly an Irish accent. “He had his gun pointed at the ground, he did, but the horse stumbled in a pot hole and the gun came up and…”

  Frank removed the bullet from the magazine and handed the empty gun back to Thompson. “Never ride with your weapon loaded,” he said. “Unless you’re in a fight.”

  “I was thinking about that,” said Thompson. “About what it would be like, charging at the rebels…”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Frank. “The government has the whole thing under control. Off home with you now.” He was going to have to add weaponry to his training, he could see that. The volunteers were useless without it.

  Thompson took off across The Square at a slow trot, his gun pointed at the ground, his shoulders slumped. Frank watched him go, shaking his head. Even his riding was poor. He turned to the Irishman. “Thank you for your prompt action. We could have had a disaster if you hadn’t reined him in. I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

  “I just arrived in this country,” said the Irishman. “I’m looking for work.”

  “What kind of work?” asked Frank.

  “Horses,” said the Irishman. “Anything to do with horses. I’ve worked as a stable hand…and a groom…done a bit of training…”

  “Good timing,” said Frank, thinking of the opportunity opening before him; Mr. Milroy’s proposition had suddenly become a possibility. “I own a stud farm, and I could do with some help. What did you say your name was?”

  “Boyle,” said the Irishman, sticking out his hand to Frank. “Paddy Boyle.”

  “Well Mr. Boyle,” said Frank. “We need to talk. What kind of wage would you expect? Room and board would be included, although nothing fancy. You might have to sleep in the soddy with the milk cow…and I already have a Maori boy living there…”

  “If you have a job, I’m your man,” said Boyle. “And I’m willing to work for nothing if you like, just room and board. At least for a month or so, to get me started. Then if we like each other we can decide if I’m going to stay and what wage would be fair to both of us. That way there’s no hard feelings if I decide not to stay, or if you don’t want me to stay.”

  Better and better. He’d been wondering how he could possibly afford to pay a hand, and to find one with experience willing to work for nothing for a while…that was just too good to be true.

  3

  The Coffee Tavern

  Mette hit the wooden floorboards of Mr. Jordan’s saddlery. Both her palms were grazed and full of splinters, and she felt as if she had been kicked by a donkey.

  She pulled herself to her feet with the help of Mr. Jordan, feeling annoyed with Frank and his constant need to protect her. She loved him, she really did, and couldn’t imagine life without him. But if he was that worried about a random gunshot why did he march out into The Square rather than dive into the saddlery beside her?

  She was used to the rough and tumble life of the colony by now. No one had shot at her before, at least not recently, but people died from strange things all the time. They were crushed by falling horses or trees, or fell over cliffs and broke their necks. Not long ago, a gust of wind had blown the train off the line as it trundled up the Rimutaka Incline, and three people had died.

  She’d been on trains many times in the last two years, having overcome her fear of being sucked out the train window when the train was moving, and being blown off the track did not scare her as it would have once. Accidents happened to trains and passengers could do nothing about it. No doubt if she and Frank had been on that train he would have dragged her out the window with no thought of his own safety when she was perfectly capable of getting out by herself. She’d spent two years working beside him on their stud farm, after all, building fences and digging up stumps. They’d lived in a soddy while they finished the house, and it had been the happiest time of her whole life. She could certainly manage to climb out the window of a train by herself.

  Frank arrived back at the store looking pleased with himself, another man by his side - the very same man who had leered at her as she went into the book shop. He had a self-satisfied look on his face, and she took an immediate dislike to him. He was a short, thickset man with dark curly hair and a slash scarring his forehead. A new chum, she thought, or Irish possibly. And probably a soldier as well, the type of man Frank was drawn to and trusted.

  “I’ve hired Mr. Boyle to work on the farm,” said Frank. “I’m going to need more help, what with the volunteers…”

  “What about Hemi?” she asked. Hemi, a young Maori boy whose family had been forced off their land to make way for settlers, had made a nice home for himself in the soddy. He was wonderful with horses, but Frank thought he was too young for any real responsibility. “Will he be leaving? Where will Mr. Boyle sleep?”

  “Mr. Boyle can bunk down in the soddy with Hemi,” said Frank. “There’s plenty of room. Hemi won’t mind. It’s warm in there, with the cow…”

  “Don’t worry Mrs. Hardy,” said Boyle. She heard his accent. Irish as she had suspected. “I’m very easy to get along with, I promise. I can share quarters with a Maori boy and a cow, I don’t mind…or I can sleep in the stable if that would be better…”

  She nodded, but said nothing. Hemi would hate sharing with this man, and would be made to feel inferior because Boyle was a new arrival from Ireland and Hemi was a Maori. Even the Irish considered themselves superior to the Maori.

  “We’re having lunch at Hop Li’s…” said Frank, half to Mette, half to Boyle. “Why don’t…”

  “Do you need to talk to Mr. Boyle any more?” said Mette, before Frank could ask the man to join them. “I could take the trap home by myself, and you could take the afternoon coach…”

  “Mr. Boyle has his own horse,” said Frank. “He’ll ride out to the farm later today.”

  He watched as Boyle left and turned back to Mette. “I prefer to drive you in the trap…at least until we’re out of town. You haven’t had a lesson yet and watching me drive isn’t enough. I’ll let you take the reins part of the way, but I’m not ready to let you take the trap by yourself…not yet.”

  Mette sighed and said nothing. She was going to drive the trap - her trap - by herself one of these days. But it was going to take some work on her part to talk Frank into giving her a lesson. He always claimed he was too busy, but she knew the real reason was that he was afraid of what might happen.

  Hop Li, Frank’s long-time friend and business partner, had opened the first coffee tavern in Palmerston, aware of the rise of the temperance movement and ready to profit from it. Neither Frank nor Mette thought the temperance movement would last, no matter how many pamphlets Ernest Robinson and his wife, Agnete, handed out in The Square. No country would ever completely ban the consumption of alcohol. What a ridiculous idea. But the tavern, named Mette’s Kitchen in her honour, was doing well for the moment. The best part was that decent women could eat there, which they couldn’t do at the public houses.

  Constable Karira, Frank’s partner in the investigation agency, sat in one corner enjoying a slice of pie. He looked up as they came in and waved to them, jumping up from his seat to pull one out for Mette. She sat beside him and indicated to Hop Li that they wanted their usual fare - a cup of coffee, a slice of bread and a chunk of cheddar from New Plymouth for her, and a good strong pot of Darjeeling tea and a pork pie for Frank. Mette sat down gingerly; she had a bruise on her bottom from Frank’s rescue at the saddlery.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” asked Karira.

  “I’m afraid I threw her into the saddlery when a bullet was fired in the Square and almost hit us,” said Frank, pulling out a chair for himself. He leaned over and squeezed her shoulder, smiling so affectionately that she forgave him instantly. She put her hand on his and smiled back. He turned to Karira without removing his hand. “What are you up t
o?”

  Karira wiped his lips with a handkerchief, even though not a crumb or a dab of butter was to be seen on his closely shaved chin, and avoided looking at the display of affection. “I’ve been talking to the new police inspector, the one from Wanganui who’s overseeing this district now, Inspector James.”

  “About?” prompted Frank.

  “You’ve seen the new totalisator machines?”

  “Of course,” said Frank. “At the track? The punters queue up with fists full of money, even though the odds are terrible…”

  Karira nodded. “The odds are actually worse with the machines, but for some reason people trust machines more than they trust bookies…”

  “Swindlers, blacklegs, welchers and card sharps,” said Frank. “That’s what the paper calls bookies.” He’d been a card sharp himself in his time, and didn’t think badly of the bookmakers, who were just making a living from people with too much time and not enough sense. He and Hop Li had done well working as a team to lift some cash from a few deserving marks. Too bad he couldn’t do it now he was married. He could do with the cash - but somehow it felt wrong.

  Karira shrugged. “I read that,” he said. “Their usual exaggeration. But Inspector James suspects gang involvement. He doesn’t have the resources to leave a constable here, so he asked me to keep a lookout until he can get down here himself.”

  “How do they work?” asked Mette. “These…what did you call them…totalisators?”

  Frank answered her. “The punter buys a numbered ticket and puts it in a slot in the machine, depending on which horse he’s backing. The machine calculates the odds right up to when the race starts, according to how much has been placed on each horse - it counts the tickets as they go in - God knows how - and when the race is over the operator takes out the tickets and pays the punters who had the winning horse, according to the odds at the start of the race.”

  “Can the operator do something to the machine to change the odds after the race ends and he knows who’s won?” asked Mette. “Put extra tickets in, or something?”

  “He’d have a really small window of time to do that,“ said Karira. Someone would have to run from the finish line…but he’d be discovered after a time or two…”

  “They don’t need to run. They could flash mirrors at each other, or use flags,” said Mette.

  “Possibly,” said Karira. He looked doubtful. “Frank, could I go undercover with you at the stables for a week or two? See if I can find out how they’re doing it?”

  “In Palmerston?” said Frank. “Doesn’t everyone know you in this town? You were the Maori constable for years. How would you go undercover?”

  “If Inspector James is right, it isn’t local,” said Karira. “I could hang about the stables, ask questions…and we could find someone to make a bet, keep an eye on things near the totalisator itself.”

  “I have shares in a horse in the Foxton Stakes on Friday,” said Frank. “You can work in the stables at the Foxton racetrack for the day. The totalisator owner will have his machine there I’m sure. And I’ll send Boyle to keep an eye on the totalisator itself. Make a few bets, perhaps.”

  “Don’t you have to train the volunteers for the review next week?” asked Mette. She was happy to hear that Boyle might be away from the farm, but she knew they were in a busy time. “Won’t you need him at the farm?”

  “Review? Yes, that’s next week, isn’t it?” said Frank. “They’ll be ready for it. War is another matter. They’ll never be ready for that…although I doubt there’s going to be a war. The Maori rebels…”

  “The rebels don’t want a fight with the government,” said Karira, somewhat stiffly. “They just want to be treated fairly. The lands were confiscated after all. It’s not as if they sold them to the government.”

  Mette had wondered for quite sometime if he was beginning to change his point of view about his own people and their situation in the land negotiations. He’d had to arrest Hemi’s sister Wiki three times, because she’d joined a group of Maori women who went out at night and pulled up surveyor’s pegs to disrupt surveys of new farms. He’d told Mette he hated arresting Wiki, and was relieved he was no longer a constable.

  “The iwi should stop putting up fences around Parihaka, then,” said Frank. “The government would leave them alone if they stopped.” He swigged down the last of his tea, put the cup on its saucer with a clunk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Are any local men going off on these fencing parties?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Karira, looking as if he might know one or two.

  “I half expect Hemi or Hohepa will want to go,” said Frank. “They seem like the type, especially young Hohepa. And Wiki’s trained them to be warriors.”

  Wiki and her brothers Hemi and Hohepa had been evicted from the pa - the Maori village - two years ago when the government took the land from them. At first they lived with their grandmother and ran wild, worrying their sister. To make things easier for the family, Frank had taken Hemi, the older of the two boys, to work on the farm. A serious, thoughtful boy, he worked hard and soaked up as much knowledge as he could from Frank. Hohepa was another story, and Mette worried about him. He spent a lot of time unsupervised and getting in to mischief.

  “Mette,” said Frank suddenly. “You were holding an envelope when I…you looked happy about something. What was in it?’

  Mette had pushed the envelope into her pocket and forgotten about it. She pulled it out and started to show him what was inside, but he waved it away. “The money from the sales of your cook books. Of course. Ernest said something to me about those. I forgot to mention it, sorry.”

  “You’re getting famous,” said Hop Li, coming up behind Frank with a pot of tea. “Watch out Frank. She’ll run off with another man if you don’t watch it.”

  Frank smiled. “Don’t put ideas into her head,” he said to Hop Li. He turned to Mette. “You should spend it on yourself.”

  He had no idea how much it was, obviously. She would surprise him with a gift like the one he had given her - the silver locket with a twist of her mother’s hair, which she adored. “I will,” she said. “I’ll buy some gooseberry bushes for my garden, and some fruit trees - an apple, an orange, a cherry. And don’t we need some new harnesses…?”

  “On yourself, I insist,” said Frank firmly. “You’ve earned it. You work hard enough at the farm already. Buy yourself a dress, or some new shoes.”

  Hop Li collected their empty cups. He’d taken to wearing traditional Chinese clothing since opening the restaurant, giving the place a mysterious aura to draw in the more adventurous spirits in town, and was resplendent in red. “Don’t spend it all, Mette,” he said. “Save some for later.” She suspected he’d seen the pile of bank notes in the envelope and smiled at him. He glanced at Frank, who was busy tucking into his pie, and back at her, grinning. “You don’t know when you will need it…for something important…”

  Frank left a few shillings on the table and escorted her to the paddock behind the Royal Hotel, where they’d left the trap and Miss Lucy, the little grey pony that pulled it. Frank had bought them from another farmer who’d gone bust, promising Mette she would drive it eventually, but had been avoiding giving her lessons. Mette was anxious to trot around the district alone, and kept suggesting she could take the trap somewhere - anywhere. But he always claimed he was too busy to get it ready for her.

  As they left the paddock heading towards the farm, a figure flashed in front of them, running at top speed. Frank pulled back on Miss Lucy’s reins. “Whoa, what was that?”

  “Hohepa,” said Mette. “He looks like someone was chasing him.”

  “I saw him going into the book shop earlier,” said Frank. “Lifting himself a penny dreadful I suspect…” He aimed a flick at Miss Lucy and she resumed her trot. “Ernest probably caught him stealing and is in hot pursuit…”

  “He does like to read,“ said Mette. “I’d like to get him reading something more educationa
l. If he lived with us I could help improve his reading tastes and keep him out of trouble…he could share the soddy…” She had suggested that to Frank before. Hohepa was young - too young to get into real trouble just yet - but it was only a matter of time.

  “Won’t be room for him, with Boyle working for us.“ said Frank. “By the way, I’ll be going up to Patea for a couple of days now that Boyle is there to take care of things. There’s a stud horse I want to look at. Apparently the owner wants to send him down here for a couple of months. I can get him cheap and he’ll bring in a good income.”

  Mette didn’t reply, but tried to pretend an enthusiasm she did not feel. Not only was Frank leaving; he was leaving her in the care of the unpleasant Irishman he had just hired and knew nothing about. And all to make a little more money off a horse he knew nothing about. Sometimes he didn’t think of all the possible consequences of his actions.

  4

  The Farm

  Mette had decided to plant nasturtiums between the onions. That way she might fool the rabbits into eating the flowers and leaving the vegetables alone. She was kneeling on a sack, digging into the soil with a trowel, half-filling the holes with leaf mould, putting in the seeds, and covering them with a mixture of leaf mould and soil. The morning sun warmed her back, and she felt as if she was part of the land, the cycle of planting and reaping. She was Hine Raumati, the goddess of the corn and of fertility. The thought made her smile.

  She loved living on a farm. It suited her perfectly. And Frank suited her perfectly. From the start they had worked together well on the house and the farm. But now he had stopped telling her how they were doing, and it worried her. She wished he would take the money she made from the cookbook sales, but he always said it was her own money. Other married women had no money of their own, but inherited, not earned like hers; she wanted to use it to help build the farm, not for a new pair of shoes or a dress.