He breathed out deeply, and cautiously inhaled. The pains that felt like bubbles exploding in his chest did not return.
He took out his pipe and filled it carefully, picking up the shreds of tobacco that fell into his palm, and returning them to the tin. He smiled to himself as he did it.
"Ah, the habit of frugality is hard to lose," he said softly.
He reached across the still form in front of him, and removed a stick from the fire, and lit his pipe.
"Still, it is nothing to be ashamed of, this being careful of what one has. Just a little ridiculous when one is going to die."
As he smoked, he studied the face before him.
I am glad you're Maori. It would be very hard to explain things if you were a European.
The tendrils of smoke spread over the unconscious man, hang in swathes about himself. The cold at his back is intense, but the rain has stopped, and there is no wind.
The voice is high and husky.
"This is food, a piece of bread. Open your mouth and chew it." He chews obediently, puzzled by the taste. It is slightly fatty, more like a scone than bread.
It's fried bread, but I'm not… where am I?
He opens his eyes cautiously. The face above him smiles. Joe shuts his eyes quickly.
That can't be Kahutea feeding me fried bread. He's a photograph somewhere north and he's been dead for fifty years.
He shook his head side to side quickly. I'm hallucinating.
"He aha tou mate?"
'Who is there?" asks Joe, and his voice sounds loud and harsh to himself. "Who is that?"
There is a long silence.
Sweet Lord, prays Joe beneath his breath, if that is food I should not have eaten, I ate it in ignorance. I don't want to stay dead.
The voice says,
I was Tiaki Mira. But it is a long time since anyone called me that. I think of myself as the keeper."
Joe lifts his hand, passes it over his body. He is solid, he feels lihe himself, and his forearm still aches. His fingers rest on it briefly: «has been rebound, and the fierce pain has dulled.
He exhales and it sounds like a sob.
"Where is this place?"
"On maps, it is the Three Mile beach."
"There are many Three Mile beaches," says Joe doubtfully, his eyes still shut.
But the weird feeling is going. The discomfort of the stones he is lying on is too normal, the hurt in his arm too continuous.
"Tiaki Mira, thank you for the bread. Have you anything I can
drink?" "Ae," says the high voice. There was a scraping sound. "This
is tea, with sugar in it."
It is strong and acrid, and some of it dribbles out of his mouth and down his neck, but the rest flows into him like fresh blood.
He hears Tiaki Mira shift, hears him clear his throat. He draws in his breath, presses down hard with his good arm and levers himself up. He sits, eyes still shut until the throbbing in his head recedes.
"That is good," says the other man. There is a hesitancy to his phrasing, a pause between words as though he must think about what he is saying before saying it.
Joe looks at him.
The old man smiles, and pushes the kete across to him. "Eat," he says, and lights his pipe.
As Joe eats, hesitantly at first, and then with a relish approaching greed, he glances again and again at the man. The same stern time-sharpened face,
only here the features are sharpened by pain as welclass="underline" the old man's cheekbones press eagerly out, making the brown skin there a yellowish waxy colour;
the eyes are similar, deepset and always seeming to look down on you from above. Only these eyes smile. The hawklike stare of Kahutea is missing.
But the really astonishing thing, he thinks, is the two parallel blue lines across this kaumatua's face. A truly archaic moko, te mokoaTamatea.
He had thought the people who had worn that tattoo dead for
centuries.
The eyes do not flinch under his scrutiny, nor does the expression of benevolence alter. The old man waits.
"Ahh, good," sighs Joe at last. "That was good. Thank you for the food, and for, for," he touches his arm.
Despite the pains — for he can now feel an ache in his thigh and bruises coming out on his shoulders, as well as the nagging throb from the broken arm — and despite the shuddering that shakes him occasionally, he feels well. As though, he dare not think it clearly!
as though an expiation has been made. As though the benumbing burden he has been carrying for years is about to be removed.
The kaumatua smiles again. He knocks the dottle from his pipe, and repacks the kete.
Then he picks it up, and unfolds his tall thin body to its height.
"My home is an hour's walk from here," he says carefully, "I can help you if you need the help to walk."
Joe grimaces. He gestures to his pack.
"If you can help me on with that, I'll be OK," stopping as the old man shows puzzlement, "I think I'll be well enough to walk an hour or two."
Just the food, he thinks in wonder, the food and the drink and the time I slept for. He stands up: he does not feel faint or sick any more. He slides his right arm through the pack strap with extreme care, settles the pack on his shoulders uncomfortably. Too bad, he tells himself, but you can endure a few bruises. You've given enough. Before they leave, he kills the fire, pushing sand over the embers, separating the burning logs. When he is satisfied it is dead, that smoke now rising is the smoke of extinction, he turns away from the kaumatua, and glances up at the bluff.
"Ka maharatia tenei I ahau e ora ana," he says, very quick and soft. "E pai ana."
"Ka pai," says the old man behind him, "he tika tonu ano tena."
Joe stares at him. He couldn't have heard-
The seasound quickens in his ears.
The kaumatua smiles sadly back, and begins walking north.
It is smoky inside, and very quiet.
"What is that?"
"An antiseptic." The old man grunts. "A bush antiseptic-"
He had steeped and kneaded broad green leaves in a basin of water. The juice that he bathes Joe's arm with is mildly astringent.
"You were limping," he says, some time later.
Joe stretches his right leg cautiously: his jeans are stuck to the outer side of his thigh.
"I've cut the skin there, that's all," he says, pointing. "Nothing's broken."
The kaumatua tore another piece off his shirt.
"Can you bathe yourself there?"
Joe reaches awkwardly, careful not to move his forearm.
"Yes."
The kaumatua purses his lips, and rips off three more strips. He rolls them neatly, and then stands.
"I will be back in a short while."
He draws his greatcoat tightly round him, and walks noiselessly outside.
"E, what a weird old bird,"
tut he says it quietly lest the elder hear. He thinks, That's the first time I've ever met anyone who literally gave you the shirt off their back.
He balls the worn scrap in his hand. I can always buy him another… you're getting as bad as Kerewin, Ngakau-
He washes the crust of blood away; the stones have bitten into his flesh as well as scraping long grazes on his hip and thigh. More scars, he thinks morosely. All self-inflicted more or less. I don't think I've ever had an honest accident or an honourable wound-
The washing reopens the cuts. He rearranges the piece of shirt into a wad, and holds it against his thigh, staunching the flow with difficulty.
Kerewin said at Moerangi, "Suffering is undignified." Suffering ennobles, I said, but I smiled to show her that I thought that was really bullshit. What was noble about enduring a hook in your thumb? And she said, "Sometimes, the dross is burnt off your character," and moodily added, "but the scars that result from burning can be a worse exchange."