Ginger-haired people are commonly believed to have short wicks. Dick Burton lived up to the stereotype, particularly when the humiliation of his kidnapping was followed by the story about a geologist who had interfered with his sanctuary and of whose mental stability there was some doubt.
“Bloody mental geologist! Discovering uranium! In a huia sanctuary! I never heard such a lot of crap. The only place he discovered uranium was in the asylum. Well, let him just keep right out of my sanctuary! If you ask me, all geologists should all be in that bloody mental hospital.”
Kate, who was sitting in the back seat with Dick, came in quickly before any tempers were ignited in the front seat. “I couldn’t agree with you more, Dick. Geologists are certainly a real menace. Look at the job we had getting them out of Coppermine Island and the Poor Knights. Now they’re trying to get their hands on Coromandel and the Kaimais, even though they’re Forest Parks.”
With such appeasing words from Kate, the ranger gradually calmed down. It was then that she swung the conversation away from uranium to the huia, which was Dick’s favourite topic.
“That was great what you said in the TV documentary,” she said. “You must be a bit of a poet.”
She was surprised to hear that Dick had actually written a poem about the huia. They talked about its eating habits and physiology and the last reports of unconfirmed sightings. Kate then got onto Kevin and his interest in semi-extinct birds.
“That was a fine shot of the huia that he took. He saw the peck marks, made sure he had another witness, concealed himself, imitated the whistle, got the right focus, then he put in a faultless sighting report.”
“He did everything right.”
“Only one thing wrong; it wasn’t a photo of a live huia.”
Dick’s body suddenly went taut, his face reddened and his fists clenched with white knuckles. For a moment Kate thought he was going to hit her, but instead he exploded into a string of expletives, most of which concerned the mental state of his three captors.
She ignored his reaction and continued blithely. “It was a photo of Keulemans’ illustration of the huia in Walter Buller’s Birds of New Zealand, but only the female bird because the male was behind and less distinct and a little obscured and would not have reproduced so well.”
“Don’t give me that crap!”
Kate sailed coolly on. “The male was removed, the perch and the background were changed and it was facing right instead of left. But it was no trouble to an expert on photo doctoring like Kevin.”
“All huia look alike.”
“I know, but no two photos of a living bird are the same because it can’t sit still and is constantly changing its position. Have you seen the illustration?”
“I’ve got more important things to do.”
“The reprint was done in 1967 and there weren’t many copies.”
“I haven’t even tried to get hold of it.”
“Really. But Kevin’s not like you. He’s a very studious type. He borrowed our Ornithological Society library copy for two weeks before he left for the Raukumara. You can’t tell me he didn’t study it carefully, especially the illustration. Yet when I remarked that his huia slide was very similar to the illustration, what did he say? ‘Keulemans – never heard of him’.”
“You just want to get in there with your geologists.”
“In other words, he lied. But why did he lie? He got excited because of something I said about Nga Tama and he wasn’t thinking straight. He just took the easiest way out, thinking that the people listening to him would never have heard of Keulemans, as you probably haven’t.”
At this she paused and looked at the ranger’s eyes. They were angry, but did she sense some hesitation in them as well? Was his anger his way of resisting what he didn’t want to believe?
“Listen, Dick. You’ve had a fair experience of poachers telling you lies. What do you do to get the truth out of them?”
“I can’t see what all this has got to do with Kevin.”
“I’ll tell you what I think you’d do. You’d rattle them so they would say something they didn’t mean to. That’s what I did with Kevin. I asked him a question which made him angry, and as a result he resorted to a direct lie. As for his huia story, he must have made it up, then written it down. In the documentary he just read from his notes. He had nothing else, no humour, no anecdotes, and no excitement. Now would you expect a man that has achieved his life’s ambition to act like that? Not likely. The man’s a sham, an automaton. He’s being manipulated by someone else. He doesn’t really care about birds at all.”
“You’ve been listening to those mental geologists...” and he began another tirade.
During this outburst, Tane unfortunately broke out laughing. That’s canned it, she thought. Then David joined in. It was good humoured, jovial, clean, honest laughter. They were just laughing at the description of themselves. She looked at the ranger’s face and saw that he didn’t know how to take it.
She was becoming aware of something quite odd. The ranger was uneducated, uncouth, a man of strong likes and dislikes, a man who spoke before he thought. All his knowledge came from-on-the-ground observation. He was scornful of knowledge that came out of books and didn’t even bother to read them.
How was it that he had been appointed to a position of such responsibility?
Was it because he was the simple outdoor type whom the public could identify with but who could be relied upon not to ask questions?
“I’d really like to congratulate you on your appointment,” she continued. “They could not have chosen a better person. I suppose you have plans to get in there and see the huia soon.”
This time he definitely hesitated before he replied. “Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants me to come and address a meeting.”
“It’s probably a good idea to check on how they’re getting on, isn’t it? Put in a few traps for stoats, for example.”
“Dr Holcroft told me that my work would be outside the sanctuary.”
“So you’ve never been in there?”
“Dr Holcroft knows what he’s doing. If he hadn’t acted, there would be no huia sanctuary.”
“Don’t you think because of all these rumours, you should ask him again?”
They were in Rotorua now. They could smell the sulphur in the windless summer night.
David glanced at Kate and she nodded. In Fenton Street he stopped momentarily.
“Thanks again, Dick,” said Kate. “Give him the Land Rover key, Tane.”
The ranger leapt down and strode off into the darkness with clenched fists and without a backward glance.
The Mercedes gathered speed on the highway to Whakatane. Kate had taken over the driving. It was 2 a.m. on Monday and only the big transporters were on the road.
“He was very angry,” said David. “I don’t know how you managed to handle him.”
“He’s angry because he regards the huia sanctuary as his personal property and any doubts about it he sees as a personal attack. All the same it’s curious he’s never been in there,” she mused, “because he’s a real huia man.” She paused and added, “I’m sorry that I was so nasty about geologists just now.”
“You’re actually quite right. You spoke about the geologists who are trying to get their hands on Forest Parks. I ought to tell you that I am about the worst of them.”
“Oh, no!”
“My present research is on how to find legal methods to open up National and Forest Parks for mineral develop-ment.”
She felt sick inside.
“But I’ve decided to give it away.”
In spite of her determination to remain professional, Kate almost wanted to kiss him.