Rich Man's Coffin (28 page)

         
“Oh?
 
Does it have to do with Robulla?”

         
“Yes.
 
You know that I went to war with him, right?”

         
“Well, I had heard rumors.”

         
“It’s not important now.
 
What matters, shall we say, is that Robulla has had a change of heart.
 
He has not promised the world overnight, but he has given me his word that the threat to your tribe has been lifted.”

         
“Really.”

         
“On one condition”

         
“And what is that?”

         
“In an effort not to appear weak to some of his outlying enemies, he has requested that a massacre be staged.
 
He wants you to use some of your old bones and tell any messengers that my visit left many dead and dying.”

         
“I think that we can arrange that...
 
Bloody Jack!”
 
He chuckled.

         
“Stop it!”

         
The Chief erupted into laughter.
 
Black Jack stormed out of the village with his warriors, the Chief laughing behind him.
 
I am through with living with the Maori.
Black Jack told himself.

Chapter 17

         
With hardened heart, Black Jack headed for home.
 
Part of him had died in his endeavors to find his lost love, while a new aspect of his person was coming to life.
 
Not as beautiful as the hope of eternal love, this side of him had perhaps lain dormant or obscured by his desires. In his callous resolve and lack of love, the ugly thing inside him reared its head again and offered him solace: The lust for wealth.

         
Black Jack began to think back to the words so long before which had not made a large impression at the time, but which were coming back now clearly to entice him.
 
They were the statements of Happy and Groggy Jack concerning the profitability of whaling.
 
After having lost his desire for all the ways of the white man and his money, ironically, now Black Jack was returning full circle to seek out a possible position at one of the reeking bastions of raw greed and blubber.

                                               
II

         
“I decided that I truly had become a free man, so I could do what I wanted. Even if it did mean going back to live with the white man.
 
I decided first that I wanted to see the place called Kapiti.
 
That’s where Robulla ran his operations.
 
I figured that it would be a good place to start my soul searching.
 
Besides, I wanted to tell him how badly he had messed up my life, even if I had already forgiven him.”
 
Black Jack said as he sipped his second cup of tea.
 
He asked his hosts, “Now this is a whole ‘nother story.
 
If you don’t want to hear it, I’ll understand.”

         
The Judge said, “It is all one story.
 
It is your story.
 
Please continue.
 
Biscuit?”

         
Black Jack accepted the cookie and cleared his throat.
 
He continued, “I went alone to Kapiti Island in my own canoe, leaving behind all the good people I had come to know at Te Pukatea.
 
They said that I would be back. I tried to explain that I was returning to the ways of the white man and whaling.
 
I had heard that Kapiti was a hub for the whaling ships.

         
"When I arrived, Kapiti Island was teeming with Maori and whites alike.
 
It was like a frontier town. Everything was in demand and easy to get.
 
I soon tracked down Robulla. From him I learned that most of the Maori living there were former slaves of his.
 
Most of them had no way of making their way home, or anywhere else for that matter.
 
They were nomads in their own land, marooned in a place that was too small to support them all by honest means.
 
Most had resorted to trickery or outright begging to get what they needed from the whalers.
 
Robulla said that one of the ships’ doctors had informed him that he had a
social crisis
on his hands. Robulla asked me what that meant.
 
I told him it sounded like another one of the Pakeha’s evil spirits.”

         
"I told Robulla about the fate of Kumari and the other Rangitane.
 
I told him how part of me wished that I had not forgiven him so soon. I told him that I sort of wished I had killed him in the cave that day.
 
He said that he understood and that he was sorry, he had reformed, he said.
 
Not only because of his realization about his wrongs against Maori, but also because he had learned that what I warned him about the Pakeha was true.
 
I asked him what he meant, and he said that he had had a run in with some whalers that had turned bloody.
 
Many Maori were killed, he said.
 
He said that he was partly to blame, but he thought that the whites had overreacted.
 
It was something to do with a tribe taking some white children and their mother from a shipwreck.

         
"I told Robulla that I was returning to the white man’s world for a time to do some more whaling.
 
I told him about my wife and child back home. Now that Kumari was lost, I wanted to try and make some money and return to my true home.
 
He said that he understood.
 
He said that he had recently taken a new wife, and that his feelings had changed about everything.”

         
"He also said that he had good news about the Pakeha.
 
In the case of the kidnapped family, he had negotiated a purchase with the white whaler for some land back down south near Te Pukatea.
 
The man was on his way back from Sydney with supplies to set up a shore-whaling station he said.”

         
"I asked if it was a big burly man with black hair, and he said yes.
 
My heart jumped.
 
I asked if the wife and children were all right, and he said yes.
 
I was overjoyed.
 
I told him all about Jackie, Sam, Groggy, and Happy.”

         
"Robulla said the whalers looked for Maori who would help them set up camp.
 
He said that I should offer my services as a Maori and not as a former black white man, and see how I get on.
 
It did seem like a good idea.
 
He told me to go on down there and tell the Maori that he had sent me, and that I had first shot at helping the new whalers.
 
He said the place was called Kakapo Bay.
 
Just follow the coast up from Te Pukatea
, he said.”

         
"So we said our farewells, and he gave me his assurances of peace in the region, with whites and Maori alike.
 
I told him again that the white people would not go out of their way to kill any Maori if he helped them and did not pester them.
 
He understood, but he was still not gonna go all soft.
 
We laughed and did the hongi, and I set off with a little better feeling in my heart for life and the world as a whole.”

         
"When I got to Kakapo, I really liked it.
 
It was a little bit like Pukatea:
 
A nice, small bay with hills and trees running down to it, and a good, flat beach.
 
I thought that Jackie had purchased a good spot for only a few guns, some old blankets, and a keg of moldy tobacco.
 
I wouldn’t mind purchasing some land
, I thought,
but first I had to earn some money
.
 
I got over my earlier anger and settled in to live with the Maori there.
 
They had heard of me, and they respected Robulla.
 
They were waiting for the whalers to return from Sydney with all the wood and things that they would need to get the station started.
 
Some of the men had been out on a few whale hunts down at Te Awaiti before the owner’s shipwreck.
 
One woman wished she was a whaler’s wife as well.”

         
"When the ship pulled in, I greeted them in full warrior dress.
 
I wondered if Jackie and his wife would recognize me.
 
At first, it seemed like they did.
 
Jackie’s eyes lit up. He said I was the blackest Maori that he had ever seen. He did not recognize me after all those years. I was happy to leave it at that.
 
Besides, he was happy to have someone young, big, and strong to make their life easier at their new home.
 
It was all good.
 
They got off to a flying start, Jackie being eager to pick up his booming business where the other station had left off.”

         
"From 1836 to 1843, everything in life and business went exceptionally well.
 
Looking back, it seems like a dream. That period of my life was just as exciting and interesting as my time with the Maori. Ironically, it too would come to a similar, untimely end. But before that happened, I can honestly say that I had attained happiness again.”

         
"The whalers at the bay were amazed at my ability.
 
They had never seen such raw savagery from someone who seemed like a novice. They often asked me to be their headsman.
 
There were many times that I was first to the whale, and many more times that I would leap upon its back and finish the beast fearlessly and single-handedly.
 
Without boasting, I can say that I became a legend of the seas during that time; only because my keenness for killing, which sprang from a former life, had now become one of my few satisfying pleasures.
 
When once I had blindly slaughtered my fellow man, I now boldly butchered the Black Whale with the same senselessness.
 
To spare you all the gory details, I will only tell you the bigger things from that era of my life as a Tonguer.”

"What’s a tonguer?” Asked the Judge.

“It is the man responsible for cutting the huge muscle out of the dead whale’s mouth. Now, listen.”

Chapter 18

         
From a worm's-eye view, a large, wobbling droplet of water drips from a roof gable in slow motion, splashing to the ground.
 
Another drop falls, illuminated within by the cool, gray sky; then another.
 
The rain comes again. The sound is like hushed sandpaper brushing the lone house. The winds from the shore rush its drab sides and stir the scrubby bushes growing down to the sea.

         
On the beach is a large kettle, a try-pot, smoldering over its guarded coals.
 
The drizzle spatters and hisses on the hot, black iron, tiny droplets vainly stippling the ashes skirting the angry embers. Small, meteoric craters open in the sludgy, smoking surface of lard brimming over the lip.
 
Rhythmic belches of greasy steam with rancid vapors take flight in timely puffs from the irreverent cauldron boiling the remains of the whale.
 
The muffled bubbling harmonizes with the continuous sizzle of repelled rain, in concert with the steady downpour.
 
Like a lonely sailor, the kettle hovers amid the barrage above the smooth black sea pebbles crowding the beach. Mingling among them is the scant sand that washes in and out with the punctilious tide.

         
The sheets of rain sailing sideways in the torrent sweep the beach, smacking the royal blue water of the virgin bay penciled charcoal in the dusk brought early by the storm clouds.
 
A long line of white curves rises from the gritty stage, a row of whale ribs bleached by the long-gone sun. Their stark, alabaster radiance mocks the cast and pall of the day.
 
They form a holy cathedral of sorts, a collection of flying buttresses suited for the Notre Dame itself. They are understated by their resemblance to carefully arranged headstones.