Chapter 5
“Are you going to join the regatta?” Cat asked Georgie.
He was a short, strong man with tousled red hair. He rowed his flat-bottomed riverboat with powerful strokes to the middle of the Waimakariri. There, the current would speed their progress.
The boatman shook his head. “No, Miss Cat. I paddle around enough. I don’t need to do it on Sundays too.”
“A few of the boatmen on the Avon are joining in anyway,” Carol remarked.
Several of those men had easily beaten Oliver and his friend Jeffrey the previous year, and the pair had wound up in fifth place.
Georgie shrugged. “Sure. Some of them just can’t wait to show the young ‘gentlemen’ from the rowing club how it’s done. But it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t want to spend the time practicing either. It’s actually not that easy to row in teams of two or four or eight. The trick is not to row all at once, but—”
“Oh, really?” Linda asked, her voice saccharine. “That’s so interesting! You’ll have to tell us more about it.” She repeated Carol’s honeyed words to Oliver while Georgie blinked in confusion.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Carol grumbled. “And if you ask me how far along I am with my needlepoint, Lindy, I’ll throw you overboard!”
Cat listened to the half sisters’ friendly bickering. She lounged on a bench at the bow and watched the grass- and reed-covered banks of the Waimakariri slide past. The landscape seemed wild and untouched, though most of it had briefly been farmland. But the settlers in the Canterbury Plains had given up planting fields long ago. The towns were too distant for effective deliveries, and the pervasive tussock grass was much too tenacious, quickly overwhelming any crops. Instead, the plains had proved ideal for raising livestock. Sheep grazed by the thousands in the wide grasslands, and in summer they were driven high into the mountains. The majestic, snow-covered peaks of the Southern Alps rose behind the plains. In the clear air of the South Island, they seemed close enough to touch, but the yearly journeys there and back with the sheep could take days.
Cat knew it would soon be time to make the trip again, and she was glad of it. For years, she’d accompanied Chris and the drovers on their trek to the mountains. She loved making camp in the wilderness, hearing the cries of the night birds, and gazing at the stars while the campfire slowly burned to embers. The men would pass around a whiskey bottle and tell stories about their adventures, and would sometimes take a harmonica or fiddle out of their saddlebags and play a few tunes. It reminded Cat of nights in the Ngati Toa village where she’d spent her youth. She could almost still hear the lyrical melodies of putorino and koauau flutes and Te Ronga’s gentle voice as she told stories about her peoples’ gods. And Cat loved nestling against Chris, feeling safe and at home by his side.
The boat sped along the river, and Cat and the girls waved as they passed the Redwood house. Cat had been friends with Laura Redwood for years, but there was no sign of her now, or of her husband and his brothers. Still, Cat wanted to be polite in case anyone was standing at the window. Laura had just given birth to her fourth child and would hopefully be taking it easy at home. Usually, she worked as tirelessly on her farm as Cat did at Rata Station. Although Laura preferred handling sheep and horses to housework, she was quite a good cook, and certainly more domestic than Cat was. Laura was very proud of the stone house that her husband, Joseph, had finally built for her after years of wooden ones. Her living room was filled with her handwoven rugs and throws and embroidered pillows, whereas Cat felt uncomfortable surrounded by abundant furnishings. She preferred the minimalist, practical interiors of Maori homes.
Cat gazed ahead expectantly. Somewhere here was the border between Redwood and Rata Station. She looked beyond the wild flax and raupo reeds that grew thickly on the banks and tried to catch a glimpse of her sheep. She was able to make out a few ewes much closer than she had expected, sitting in the shade of manuka and cabbage trees, chewing their cuds. One animal was perched atop one of the large rocks that jutted out of the grasslands. In Cat’s opinion, the stones gave the plains character, and she knew the Maori considered them the dwelling places of gods and spirits that protected the land.
“What are the sheep doing here?” she asked Linda and Carol. “Did you drive them over for grazing? They’re supposed to be going to the highlands with the drovers next week.”
Carol shrugged. “They probably escaped from Chris. The fresh grass is tempting. I can ride out tomorrow morning and bring them back. Fancy will be delighted.”
The dog let out a bark of acknowledgment. The three women laughed.
“Speaking of escaping,” Georgie said, “I found another letter for you. It had somehow escaped from the stack.” He dug in one of his heavy bags and pulled out an envelope. “So sorry.”
“It happens,” Cat said unworriedly. “Oh, look, girls, this is from Karl and Ida.”
Linda and Carol turned, curious. Karl and Ida had been away for several months. Karl had surveying jobs all over the North Island, and Ida and their younger daughter, Margaret—who went by Mara—were accompanying him. Now they were expected to be back soon. Cat smiled as she read.
“They’re in Lyttelton already! They arrived yesterday with the ship, direct from Wellington. Ida says they want to recover there overnight. Apparently, the crossing was quite stormy, and her horse is still seasick. That means they must be setting out about now, and they’ll be here in a few days! Karl will be able to help with the droving. Ida thinks he feels guilty because their trip took so long. And she has exciting news.”
Carol giggled. “Maybe Mara is betrothed.”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Mara only has eyes for Eru. And it would break his heart if she got engaged to a pakeha—”
“Girls, Mara is only fifteen!” Cat scolded. “We’re not even thinking about her getting engaged yet. And whatever you do, don’t let Jane hear you talking about Mara and Eru! She wouldn’t take kindly to her golden boy being interested in a local girl. She wants to send him to college.”
“And he’ll have to marry a Maori princess, at the very least, who will bring half of the North Island into the marriage,” Linda said with a laugh.
“No, a sheep baroness would be even better!” Carol countered. “Let’s see: aristocratic lineage is a must—”
“After all, he’s a chieftain’s son!” Linda said, imitating Jane’s haughty voice.
Jane Te Rohi to te Ingarihi—formerly Jane Beit—was English. The Maori name her beloved husband had given her meant “English rose.” Before she had fallen in love with Te Haitara, the local Maori chieftain, she had been married to Chris. Their marriage had never been a love match, and the tribal elder had granted them a divorce, to the relief of all.
“And of course she’d have to be the sole heir of at least ten thousand sheep,” Carol went on, describing Jane’s dream daughter-in-law. “As well as being a vision of beauty, and able to intelligently quote Adam Smith between kisses.”
Linda giggled. The Scottish economist was one of Jane’s guiding lights. “In the evenings, she’d entertain Eru by reciting logarithm tables by heart.”