“His brother is dead, and I don’t know where Tane is,” he said.
So the whole story of Tane came out, or the story as far as David knew it. They listened to him attentively and in total silence. At the end he decided to share his feeling about the fleeing figure in the picture.
“…and I got this idea of Cain and I’d like to know what he’s running away from,” he finished.
This time the silence lasted a much longer time.
Leone had drawn closer to Eleanor and was holding her hand. “It’s been an interesting evening,” she said in a flat voice.
Eleanor’s face was pale. “Thank you, Dr Corbishley, for sharing this with us. We hope you find your colleague.”
The vicar stood up. It was obvious that the evening was at an end. “We’re all very sorry to hear about your friend, David, and we’ll certainly pray for you. And please come again if you think we can help.” He took David’s elbow and together they walked out of the lounge into the vestibule.
It was old-fashioned with little alcoves and crannies and rather dimly lit. He heard the sound of chiming. As he looked towards the grandfather clock, he was surprised to see a tall figure standing just inside the front door.
“Oh, Randall, thank you so much for locking up.” David recognised the man who had taken his book at the church door. He was placing a key on the table by the front door.
“Beautiful service tonight, Vicar.”
“Have you met David Corbishley? Dr Randall Richardson, my warden.”
It was the second shock about the membership of the congregation. Randall Richardson was the well-known psychiatrist who was the mental health consultant on the health talkback show on Radio Waitemata.
The gloomy cadaverous face gave the semblance of a smile. “Welcome to St. Peter’s!”
“David is searching for a colleague of his, a fellow geologist, who disappeared from the University about three years ago,” explained Harry Mountjoy. “There is just a possibility that both he and Stan may have been interested in the valley where the huia was discovered.”
“A sad loss to the University,” came the familiar reassuring talkback voice. The eyes, however, probed deep. “I don’t expect your colleague would have agreed with closing the valley for the huia.”
“Not entirely.”
“He would have been interested in another kind of discovery?”
“Possibly.”
“Any leads?”
Before he had time to answer, the vicar broke in unexpectedly. “David is concerned about his state of mind.”
“Is he indeed?” The eyes seemed to be sizing him up again, then the gloomy face returned. “‘The mind has mountains, cliffs of fall, sheer, no man fathomed’ – Gerard Manley Hopkins you may recall. I am afraid you will not find many signposts there.”
It was full moon and the dappled avenues of Epsom were full of the scents of midsummer blossoms. David strode out confidently towards Grafton whistling as he went. In his excitement he gave little thought to Eleanor’s white face and the evening which had been so politely but firmly terminated. At last he had a lead.
Was the Waitoa the valley that Tane had visited on his last trip? If so, what had he found there? And what possible connection could he have with the huia?
CHAPTER 11
So, there it is!
Before David lay the six maps of the Raukumaras, and in the middle map he saw an unbroken green. On the lower right-hand corner of this map he was examining a knot of contours hideously contorted and so close together that they were indistinguishable. In his mind’s eye he imagined it and shuddered. The great force of water that was the Waitoa blasted its way through the primeval rock on its turbulent descent, foaming white against black, cutting, hissing, pummelling, pounding, prising great boulders loose and hurling them downwards like sledgehammers, cascading, swirling, tumbling, falling, black, brown, green, foaming, spume-topped, breathing spray as a dragon would breathe fire, roaring on like a monster with insatiable appetite, yet locked in never-ending battle with the million year fortress of rock which stood aside as yet only a crack to let the impetuous torrent through.
No sane person would risk his life in that elemental battlefield between rock and water.
Or would he? He remembered those deep-set, disconcerting eyes – both pairs of them – Stan’s and Tane’s. The same eyes that he had seen in pictures of those nineteenth century explorers who blazed the way through African jungles and Australian deserts or in New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary who conquered Everest. Men like Stan and Tane were born out of their time. The present generation could not imagine the relentless thrust which drove them, as it drove those early explorers, to go where no one else had dared to venture.
Had one or both braved this terrible gorge?
And if so, what would he have searched for?
For Tane it would have been the rocks.
The geological knowledge of the Raukumara interior was rudimentary. Igneous extrusions, sedimentary, sandstone – anything was likely. He followed the course of the Waitoa. From Devil’s Peak down to the Motu it was all gorge. No, not quite. There was a flat about five miles long about half way down. He began to examine this flat. Then he noticed a curious thing.
There was a gap in the river’s course through the flat.
Was it a typographical error? Had the printer run out of ink? The mappers would have worked from aerial photos and the position of the contours which they calculated from these photos. He took a magnifying glass and looked at the contours. He noticed a steep-sided, possibly cone-shaped mountain which appeared to be an outlier from the main range and stood near the centre of the flat. The contours showed that the river went to the foot of the mountain and then disappeared. He thought again and then cross-checked with the geological map. There was nothing there because Tane had left no survey and no one else had been in there. Then he remembered the Ruakituri wilderness in the Urewera on the east side of Mt. Maungapohatu and the strange phenomenon of the Kopuapounamu River.
Of course! It’s a disappearing river.
So probably it was limestone country too. If so, he wondered how far the limestone belt extended. He put the magnifying glass aside and looked at the whole course of the Waitoa River. He noticed that the flat was on a wide bend at which the river valley appeared to change direction from west to south. The Bay of Plenty coast at the point of the bend was not far away.
It looked as if the river wanted to flow out westward direct to the Bay of Plenty, but changed its mind and turned south to flow into the Motu. It would have been a lot shorter and saved carving the lower part of that enormous gorge through the hard greywacke which was the base rock of the Raukumara Range.
The possibility of an underground river system opened up some interesting geological and developmental considerations.
Firstly, in a geological sense, the limestone caverns would be formed from ancient marine deposits. Assuming that these deposits were uplifted at some stage and used as nesting areas by seabirds, phosphate-rich guano deposits would overlay the calcium bearing limestone. Repeated processes of subduction and uplifting of the earth’s crustal plates would create the conditions for some interesting geological formations.
Secondly, in a remote, inaccessible area such as this, access was the key factor. Tane’s whole approach made him aware that any minerals discovered would belong to the Maori landowners. If there were no access, it was possible that the discovery would remain in effect “undiscovered” or at least unexploited. If there were access, several options might emerge. One of these options would be to leave the area as it was. This would have appealed to him as a conservationist. However, if there was going to be a benefit to the tangata whenua he would have taken this into account as well.