‘They’re way out of their territory,’ Dad said.
‘Ae,’ Pani nodded.
‘Has Dad been told?’
‘Aua,’ Pani shrugged. ‘That’s up to Matiu.’
Dad paused. ‘Something must be going on. I don’t like the sound of it.’ He was pensive. The moonlight glinted on his blades.
‘Come to bed,’ Mum called, interrupting him.
We had arrived.
Chapter 19
‘Okay, sweethearts, rise and shine,’ Aunt Ruth yelled the next morning. I opened one eye and then another. No, this wasn’t a nightmare, this was real.
‘Come on,’ Aunt Ruth repeated. ‘This is second call, you fellas! The cook is cooking and the shearers are already over at the shed. Get to it.’
Aunt Ruth roused the single men who were still in bed in the bunkhouse. I looked around. Dad and Mum had already gone, and so had Glory. We had arrived in the middle of the night and four hours later were straight into work.
‘Faith! Hope!’ I said. ‘Kia tere. We’re late.’
Aunt Ruth poked her head in through the door. She was scrubbed and energetic. She had tied a red scarf around her hair. She wore green overalls.
‘Good, you’re up, boy. No hurry. The sheep are in the shearers’ pens but they haven’t started the engines yet.’ Aunt Ruth’s eyes twinkled. She had caught me unawares and I had dreamt one of those dreams. ‘Is that your stick to whack the sheep with?’ she laughed. She could be so embarrassing.
Her eyes returned to Faith and Hope. ‘Come on, girls! You two are on kitchen duty.’
I dashed down to the creek to wipe the pikare out of my eyes. When I was ready I walked past the kitchen, cocky this year because Willie Whatu was the poor shit taking my place there — and he was already quailing under Auntie Molly’s orders. Affectionately known as Good Golly Miss Molly, she had been Mahana Four’s cook for ages. Behind her was Aunt Esther as second cook and, entering, the Frog Queens as the female kitchen hands.
‘Oh my giddy aunt, Willie,’ Molly was growling. ‘Get a move on, boy. Bring that pot over here. Not over there. Over here.’ She turned to Faith and Hope. ‘Where have you two been! Don’t be late tomorrow morning or you’ll have your pay docked. Esther? You show the girls how to peel the spuds the way we want them, ne? Thank goodness you’re here. I don’t know how I could manage without you — just look at this kitchen! Oh for crying out loud, Willie —’
Aunt Molly sat in the doorway, trying to escape the worst of the smoke as it billowed down the ineffectual chimney. All shearers’ kitchens were variations on bad and, boy oh boy, by midday they turned into a smoky fiery furnace.
‘Good morning, Aunt Molly!’ I called cheekily. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day to start a new shed? The birds are singing and the bees are humming —’
Aunt Molly tried to be stern. She was physically enormous. She never did any cooking herself but, rather, directed from afar. She sat all day in one place, ordering you around, and if you didn’t do your job properly she had a switch that stung your legs.
‘Don’t think you can laugh at me, Simeon Mahana! You think you’re on easy street now, ne! I can still get you back in here for one more year!’
I grinned and blew her a kiss. ‘I love you too, Auntie!’
I ran along the track to the shearing shed. The Pakeha shepherds were saddling up to bring in the sheep from the far paddocks. Sheepdogs scampered and barked and squealed around the horses’ hooves, daring the horses to kick them. The shepherds had whistles shaped by sovereigns in their mouths. The air was filled with the excitement of their whistling and the barking of the dogs.
I took a quick look at the sheep yards at the back of the shed. Good — they were filled with sheep and there were two shepherds there.
‘Kia ora,’ I said to them. ‘My name’s Simeon and I’m the sheepo.’ Me. Wow.
The shepherds nodded. They were in their late teens.
‘Gidday,’ the red-headed one said. ‘My name’s Mick. This here’s Phil.’ We shook hands. ‘We’ll keep the sheep coming. If they’re coming in too slow, give us a whistle. Okay?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
I saw Uncle Hone and he winked at me. Then, into the shed.
There was nothing like the first day at a shed before the engines started up. Outside was the yelp of dogs, swearing of shepherds and constant bleat of sheep. Inside was purposeful preparation. Aunt Sephora was Mahana Four’s wool classer, but now that Aunt Ruth had been assigned to us she was deferring this position to her elder sister. Apart from the mana of the position, it also brought in more pay.
Aunt Ruth smiled. ‘No, sister,’ she said, ‘everybody’s used to you.’
My mother and Aunt Kate, Uncle Hone’s muscular wife, would be working with Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sephora on the table. Two on each side. Mum waved me over.
‘Did you say your morning prayers?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered. Under my breath, WethankyouforthisdayinJesusnameAmen.
‘Ka pai,’ she continued. ‘You ready to do your job?’
‘Ae.’
I waved to Mahana Four’s pressmen. David and Benjamin were the eighteen-year-old twin grandsons of Zebediah Whatu. I would become a pressman when I got to be their age; they would have moved on to being shearers. I saw Glory sitting close by Uncle Hone, two clapper boards in her hands. Peewee and Mackie, her male cousins, were glaring at her. There had been a fight to wrest the boards from her.
Glory gave me her look. Do something.
I walked over to Uncle Hone, who was on the top gun or ringer’s stand. He was dressed in the usual black woollen singlet, woollen pants tied at the waist with string and jute moccasins. Although he was big and fat, Uncle Hone was one of the best shearers in the family. His bulk gave him reserves that kept him going way after everybody else had called it quits. Uncle Hone had just finished sharpening the blades of his handpiece, the sparks arcing like fireworks from the grinding wheel. He was talking to Dad on the Number 2 stand. Dad, of course, was the champ, except that he pretended not to show it; out of respect for his elder brother, he always lagged one or two sheep behind. Sam Whatu, David and Benjamin’s father, was on the Number 3 stand, Pani on Number 4 stand, and on Number 5 was Uncle Albie, who was cutting out new moccasins and sewing them up.
‘Eh Albie!’ Aunt Kate called. ‘Sew up your fly while you’re at it and give Ruth some peace!’
‘I should be so lucky,’ Aunt Ruth muttered.
The two sweepers on the boards were my cousins Haromi and Frances. I was surprised to see Haromi because she was usually with Mahana One.
‘Morning, boy!’ Uncle Hone said. ‘I saw you talking to the shepherds. That’s what I like — a sheepo who knows how to do his job. I want the sheep to come in nice and steady. Not too slow. But don’t push us, all right? The sheep look like they’re pretty clean, so they’ll be sweet to shear, but that doesn’t mean we should increase the pace. Slow and steady does the job.’
‘Yes, Uncle.’
‘I don’t want my pen less than half empty, okay?’ he continued.
‘Nor mine,’ Dad said.
‘Nor mine,’ Uncle Albie said.
Uncle Hone laughed. ‘But mine gets filled before anyone else’s!’
Behind me, Glory coughed. Uncle took me to one side. ‘That sister of yours has been giving me the glad eye ever since I got here,’ he whispered.