‘Is this relevant, Mr Lyall?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘Witness will answer the question.’
‘It is correct.’
Lyall, his hand up, remained punctiliously silent until Harrison nodded at him curtly. ‘Can you tell us why?’
‘I broke my leg in a skiing accident in Switzerland.’
‘Thank you, Mr Ballard.’
‘I can’t say that I see the relevance,’ observed Harrison. ‘But no doubt it will appear in time.’
‘It was in an avalanche,’ said Ballard.
There was dead silence in the hall.
Two
Harrison looked across at Lyall. ‘The significance still escapes me,’ he said. ‘And since Mr Lyall does not see fit to pursue the subject I think we should carry on. Mr Ballard, when did you arrive in Hukahoronui?’
‘On the sixth of June — six weeks before the avalanche.’
‘So you had not been there very long. Was Hukahoronui what you expected?’
Ballard frowned in thought. ‘The thing that struck me most was how much it had changed.’
Harrison’s eyebrows rose. ‘Changed! Then you had been here before?’
‘I lived there for fifteen years — from infancy until just after my sixteenth birthday.’
Harrison made a note. ‘Go on, Mr Ballard. How had Hukahoronui changed?’
‘It was bigger. The mine was new, of course, but there were more houses — a lot more houses.’ He paused. ‘There was a lot more snow than I seem to remember from my childhood.’
Professor Rolandson of the DSIR said, ‘It is a matter of record that the snow precipitation in the Southern Alps was exceptionally high this past winter.’
Ballard had been depressed as he drove west from Christchurch in a company Land-Rover. He was going back to his origins, to Hukahoronui which lies in an outrider of the Two Thumbs Range, and which he had never expected to see again.
Hukahoronui.
A deep valley in the mountains entered by a narrow rock-split gap and graced with stands of tall trees on the valley slopes. A river runs through, cold from the ice water of the high peaks, and there is a scattering of houses up the valley, loosely centred about a church, a general store and a village school. His mother had once been the schoolteacher.
He hated the place.
It was a bad place to get to in thick snow. There had been heavy snowfalls and even with snow tyres and four-wheel drive Ballard found the going tricky. As far as he could remember there had not been a snow like that in those parts since 1943, but of that his memory was understandably hazy — he had been four years old at the time. But he had particular reasons for remembering the heavy snow of that year.
After a lot of low gear work he eventually reached the Gap and he pulled off the road on to a piece of level ground overlooking the river gorge where he contemplated Hukahoronui.
It had certainly changed, just as old Ben said it had. In the distance was a little township where no township had been. On one side, under the western slope of the valley, was a cluster of industrial buildings, presumably the milling works and refinery belonging to the mine. A streamer of black smoke coming from a tall chimney was like a stain against the white hillside beyond.
The township spread along the valley floor with most of the houses to the west of the river which had been bridged. The valley people had talked inconclusively for years about putting a bridge across the river, and now it had been done at last under the prodding thrust of an affluent economy. That was probably to be chalked up on the credit side; you had to pay the price of the mine to get the bridge.
Beyond the township there did not seem to be much change. In the far distance Ballard saw Turi’s house beneath the great rock called Kamakamaru. He wondered if the old man was still alive or whether the smoke coming from that distant chimney rose from the fireside of another. Turi had been an old man even when Ballard left the valley, although age in a Maori is difficult to estimate, especially for a youth of sixteen. At sixteen anyone over forty is verging on decrepitude.
But there was something else about the valley that was strange and Ballard was puzzled to determine what it was. A change had occurred which had nothing to do with the mine or the new town and he tried to match up sixteen-year-old memories with the actuality before him. It was nothing to do with the river; that still ran the same course, or seemed to.
And then he found the change. The hill slope on the western side was now almost completely treeless. Gone were the stands of tall white pine and cedar, of kahikatea and kohekohe — the hillside had been stripped almost completely bare. Ballard looked up at the higher slopes of the mountain to where the snows stretched right up to the base of the crags in one smooth and beautiful sweep. It looked good for skiing.
He switched on the engine and went on down into the new town. As he approached he was impressed by the way it had been laid out. Although much detail was blanketed by snow he could see the areas which, in summer, would be pleasant open gardens and there was a children’s playground, the swings and slides, the seesaws and the jungle gym, now white-mantled and stalactited with icicles and out of use.
Although the house roofs were heavily laden with snow the road was quite clear and had apparently been swept recently. Coming into the town centre he came across a bulldozer clearing the road with dropped blade. There was a name on its side: HUKAHORONUI MINING CO. (PTY) LTD. It seemed as though the mine management took an interest in municipal affairs. He approved.
There were houses built along the bluff that projected into the river; when Ballard was a child that was called the Big Bend and that was where they had their swimming hole. Peterson’s store used to be at the base of the bluff, and so it still was, although it took him a long time to recognize it. In his day it had been single-storey with a corrugated iron roof, a low building with spreading eaves which protected against the summer sun. There used to be chairs on the veranda and it was a favourite place for gossip. Now it was two-storey with a false façade to make it look even larger, and there were big plate-glass windows brightly lit. The veranda had gone.
He pulled the Land-Rover into a designated parking place and sourly wondered when parking meters would be installed. The sun was setting behind the western slopes of the valley and already the long shadows were creeping across the town. That was one of the drawbacks of Hukahoronui; in a narrow valley set north and south nightfall comes early.
Across the street was a still-raw building of unmellowed concrete calling itself the Hotel D’Archiac — a name stolen from a mountain. The street was reasonably busy; private cars and industrial trucks passed by regularly, and women with shopping bags hurried before the shops closed. At one time Peterson’s had been the only store, but from where he sat in the car Ballard could see three more shops, and there was a service station on the corner. Lights glowed in the windows of the old school which had sprouted two new wings.
Ballard reached for the blackthorn stick which was on the back seat and then got out of the car. He crossed the road towards the hotel leaning heavily on the stick because he still could not bear to put too much weight on his left leg. He supposed that Dobbs, the mine manager, would have accommodated him, but it was late in the day and he did not want to cause undue disturbance so he was quite prepared to spend a night in the hotel and introduce himself to the mine staff the following morning.
As he approached the hotel entrance a man came out walking quickly and bumped his shoulder. The man made a mutter of annoyance — not an apology — and strode across the pavement to a parked car. Ballard recognized him — Eric Peterson, the second of the three Peterson brothers. The last time he had seen Eric he had been nineteen years old, tall and gangling; now he had filled out into a broad-shouldered brawny man. Apparently the years had not improved his manners much.