Pirongias secret, p.1
Pirongia's Secret, page 1
part #1 of Escape from the Back Country Series
PIRONGIA’S SECRET
K T BOWES
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Dedication
For Stitch and Pickle and Pudding.
Three great boys who must have surely become great men.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing now,
thank you for all the times you walked me home and made sure I survived the
gang warfare of the Manse estate unscathed.
Maybe there were safer routes home after all.
My father always said so.
You showed me how to stand up for myself.
You taught me how to roll a cigarette one handed, but never let me smoke.
You showed me that chivalry lived on.
You treated me like a princess, though nobody taught you how.
Go well, my friends.
I hope there’s still someone around to hold your jackets when you need to defend the meek.
CHAPTER ONE
The Fat Kid, the Foreigner and the Female
“Don’t call her names, loser!” The tall boy shoved him in the shoulder, causing him to overbalance. The name-caller took a step backwards, yanking the girl’s ponytail in the process.
“Why?” He jutted his chin out and sneered. “She’s a slut. She’s doin’ all of youse at the same time. Or just one in particular!”
The girl’s lips parted in horror, but the tall boy moved before the words escaped her. “I’ll kill you!” he snapped and his fist shot out in a deadly left hook. The name-caller went down like a stone.
“Aw Tane!” A dark-haired teenager stepped forward and tugged on his friend’s sleeve. “That’s what he wants. He knows he can’t fight you, but he wants his mates to see he tried.”
Taller than any of the gathered crowd, Tane balled his fists and channelled his rage into giant bunched fingers. “I wanna kill him!” he growled and his friend nodded.
“I know, dude. We all do.” He aimed a feckless kick at the boy on the ground, contacting his outstretched leg. “Let’s go. We’ve got places to be and this ain’t it.”
Tane’s jaw worked in his face and he snatched up the girl’s slender hand, towing her behind him like a tiny trailer. “Kid kills me,” he grumbled. “I hate him.”
“Tane, stop!” They reached the other side of the playing field before she wrested her hand free with a protest. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Tane stopped and released her wrist, an embarrassed blush touching his tanned cheeks. Blonde hair stuck up at different angles on his head and a dusting of teenage whiskers coated his chin. “They can’t keep saying stuff about you, Leilah. It’s not right.”
She tossed her dark hair and shrugged, rubbing her right wrist with the fingers of her left hand. “I don’t care. It’s us against the world remember?” She widened her eyes in expectation, hope fading as Tane turned away. She appealed to their companion. “Tell him, Dante. Tell him I don’t care.” Escaped chestnut curls blew into her face and Leilah brushed them away in irritation. “Tell him, Dante!” she demanded.
Chiselled features graced Dante’s face beneath wavy hair which always behaved. Handsome and clean cut, he exuded the charisma every mother sought for her daughter’s perfect mate. Except for the company he kept in the form of his three unruly friends, including Leilah. That ruined the image. He rolled his head and cracked his neck. “Dude. Hater’s gonna hate. Leilah doesn’t care so let it go.”
Tane shook his head. “We’ve been friends for years. The fat kid, the foreigner, the foster kid and the female.” He gritted his teeth at the label. “Now Leilah’s grown up all gorgeous, it makes us a target.”
Leilah grinned. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
Dante laughed. “In a horsey girl, ripped jeans kinda way. Yeah Lei, you looked in the mirror lately? Everyone wants to date you. Ya just don’t notice.”
Leilah wrinkled her nose. “We don’t have mirrors at our house. Dad says they’re for vain people with nothing better to do.”
Dante belted out a laugh and helped Leilah over the stile into the paddock beyond the school grounds. “He just doesn’t wanna see his own ugly mug every morning.”
Leilah sniggered. “Yeah. I think you’re right.” She looked around her at the lush green grass and halted, listening for the sound of the river to her left. She caught the strains of its song, birdsong and rushing water and felt the tension melt away from her body. “Where’s Vaughan?” she asked. “He said he’d be here yesterday, but didn’t show up.”
“Dunno.” Tane shrugged and caught her around the waist, swinging her in a wide circle. Leilah squealed and held onto his shoulders.
“Quit it you two!” Dante frowned and steadied Leila as she hit the ground and stumbled. His expression darkened. “I should go. Dad’s waiting. He needs help with some stuff.”
“Okay bro’, see ya.” Tane shot him a sympathetic glance but Dante waved it away. They watched his rigid spine as he staggered through the long grass. “He doesn't want to go home does he?”
Leilah shook her head. “No. It’s rotten how the whole town’s talking about his dad.” She hefted her bag onto her shoulder. “It makes a change for the gossips to start on me instead, but I don't mind if it takes the heat off him for a while.”
Tane smirked and sank into the grass on the edge of the riverbank. “That’s why I hit Malcolm. I figured if I made a big deal out of it, he might think it’s true.”
Leilah’s expression of misery wiped his smile away. “But if my dad hears that particular rumour, he'll kill me!”
Tane flopped onto his back. “He doesn't listen to the townsfolk. Anyway, he knows you’re better than that.”
“Thanks.” Leilah plucked a daisy and lifted it to her nose. “Wish I shared your confidence. He already hates Vaughan.”
Tane sighed. “Na, he hates Vaughan’s Uncle Horse. That’s different.” He rolled onto his ample stomach. “Why is that?”
“He won’t tell me.” Leilah snagged another daisy, punctured its stem and threaded the new one through. They wilted in the heat, but she persevered until she achieved a reasonable length chain. Leaning forward, she hung it around Tane’s head like a drooping crown. He lay on his front with his head cradled in his forearms and Leilah leaned closer, hearing the muted snores. She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Great.”
Leaving the school bags next to Tane’s head, Leilah rose and followed the sounds of the bubbling river. It called to her, reminding her of stolen moments amid its icy folds. She ventured to the lower reaches of the bank and stripped off her school sandals, testing the water with her toes. A jolt shot up her body, involving every nerve ending and she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. She tasted forbidden fruit for the first time in this water, sampling the delights adults wished to keep a secret. The evidence of her lost virginity washed downstream and Leilah hugged herself and wished for more. Her father’s best friend warned her of the dangers of sex, giving her a negative view. Mari’s eyes held sadness as she spoke the harsh words. “They love it, kōtiro but for us, it’s something we endure. Eventually they get too old and it stops.” The fiery Māori woman folded her arms across her breasts in challenge and Leilah nodded in her memory, believing every word.
With her bare toes in the running water, she grinned and hugged herself. “You’re wrong, Mari,” she whispered. “It’s amazing. You just weren’t doing it right.” Leilah inhaled the dusky aroma of native palms drifting down from the bush around Pirongia Mountain and imprinted the scent in her mind. She wished she could be seventeen forever.
“What are you doing?” Tane yawned and dropped the school bags with a thud He bent to loosen his black sandals. His huge knuckles looked like skeletal outlines in the afternoon sunshine. “Is it cold?”
Leilah turned back to him with a grin. “You always ask the same question and I give the same answer every time.”
“It’s cold then,” Tane grumbled. He shivered as his toes contacted the stream and the water bounced around his hairy shins like an excited puppy. Staggering over the rounded stones of the riverbed, he reached for Leilah’s outstretched hand.
CHAPTER TWO
The Female
“Lei! Get up here!” Hector Dereham put his hands on his hips and glared at his daughter as she sauntered up the long, dusty driveway. “You been in that bloody stream again, girl?”
Leilah swallowed and touched her damp hair, bringing her fingers to her lips and tasting the sweetness of the mountain spring. “No,” she lied and watched her father’s woolly eyebrows narrow. “Yes.” She changed her answer and her
“Get a move on!” Hector left the round pen and started towards her, his frustration growing and Leilah walked even slower. Her school sandals scuffed the dust and blew a cloud of filth around her. Her fairy-sized steps shrank to a geriatric shuffle. The chestnut gelding housed in the round pen shook his head and blew out a snort. Seeing Hector move away from him, he scraped his hooves against the stony ground and let out a high whinny of concern. “You been messing with Horse’s boy?” Hector demanded, meeting Leilah at the top of the rise. His muscular bulk obliterated the tiny three-bedroom house behind him which hugged the side of the mountain. Leilah shifted her head to the side to peer around her father, reassuring herself it hadn’t slipped away.
“Still there,” she muttered to herself.
“What?” Hector stood in front of her, hands jammed into jeans pockets. A tuft of dark hair peeked over the third button of his shirt and Leilah smirked at the sight.
She jerked her chin at his chest. “You’re flashing.”
Hector’s eyes widened and he glanced down, his fingers fumbling at his buttons. “Don’t try to put me off, Deleilah. Some of us have worked harder than others today.”
Leilah nodded and glanced at the young horse in the pen. “How’s he doing? Did you get a saddle on him?”
Hector winced. “Yep. And I wanted to put you up there, but you didn’t come home.”
“I’m here now.” Leilah threw her school bag next to the metal gate and clambered onto the bottom rung. “I can do it.”
“Not today.” Hector removed his cowboy hat and scratched his dark curls. Leilah reached up and stroked the flecks of grey in his sideburns.
“I’m here, Daddy. Put me up.”
Hector’s brown eyes flickered and he released a sigh. “Mari brought dinner,” he said, tapping Leilah’s nose with a dusty index finger. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Leilah nodded. “Yeah, but I wanna ride for you.”
“Tomorrow.” Hector squeezed her shoulder and winced. “You’re wet, Lei. Promise you didn’t go with Horse’s boy to the ngā hikuawa?”
“No!” Leilah stepped back with exasperation in her eyes. “Vaughan didn’t come to school today. I went to the stream with Tane.”
Hector exhaled and nodded. “I suppose you’re safe enough with the policeman’s boy. You need to be careful at your age, girly. Boys get ideas in their heads and I don’t wanna be loading my gun to deal with ‘em. I don’t have the time with this gelding to break. He’ll help us pay some bills and maybe we’ll eat next month.”
Leilah rolled her eyes. “No, Daddy. I’m careful. You know I am.” She cocked her head. “Are we struggling?”
Hector Dereham smiled and shook his head. “No more than most, kōtiro. We do okay.”
“Sorry for coming home late.” Leilah’s nose twitched and she reached up with a damp index finger and scratched the line of freckles dotting the regal arc to her brow. “I’ll come straight home tomorrow.”
“You do that.” Hector clasped her around the waist and lifted her down. He cuffed the back of her head, his touch gentle. “Go heat up that food Mari left.”
“What is it tonight?” Leilah patted her flat stomach and her mind wandered through imagined culinary delights.
“Beef crock pot.” Hector raised an eyebrow at her instant pout. “It’s leftovers from the cafe. Be grateful, kid. If it’s left to me, we’ll both starve.”
Leilah sloped off towards the house. It clung to the side of Mount Pirongia as though the slightest tremble of the earth would tip it off. She dumped her school bag on the porch and kicked off her shoes, relaxing in the familiar scent of home. Signs of Mari lurked in the kitchen and Leilah patted the aged oven gloves on the counter. Her mother’s old friend often fed them when Hector forgot or money proved short. When the stained telephone trilled in its cradle on the wall, Leilah snatched it up and barked out a greeting.
“Where you been at?” Mari demanded, her voice crackling over the tenuous connection.
“Nowhere,” Leilah replied, her tone sullen.
“I put a boil up in the oven,” Mari said. “But youse need to turn on the heat or it won’t warm through.”
Leilah stretched the cord as far as she dared without pulling the whole thing off the plasterboard wall. She knew from experience she could just about reach the knobs on the old cooker. “Done,” she announced, pinging backwards with the force of the coiled cable.
“You seen Horse’s boy today?” Mari asked, her tone suspicious.
“No!” Leilah snapped. “I don’t know why youse all keep asking that. He wasn’t at school today.”
Mari made an odd sound in her throat and Leilah listened to the cafe sounds in the background. Someone clanked crockery and glass without care and she heard Mari’s irritated exhale. “He’s sick,” she said and Leilah stopped picking at loose paint on the wall.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“Stomach,” Mari answered. “He went to the hospital, but he’s home now.”
Leilah pulled an ugly grimace into the cracked picture frame on the wall. “So why is everyone asking me if I’ve seen him then?” She pouted, disliking the effect on her features. “You and Hector are full of dumb questions. How can I see him at school if he’s at the hospital?”
“Don’t get mouthy with me, kōtiro!” Mari snapped. “Heat that dinner for your father. He’s worked hard on that horse today.”
Leilah moved her lips in a silent impression of Mari and sighed. “I turned the oven up,” she replied.
“Then don’t let it burn,” Mari grumbled. The handset fizzed as the call ended without a goodbye.
Leilah stuck her tongue out at the phone and a large hand on her shoulder made her jump in fright. “Don’t disrespect your elders,” Hector said and squeezed her neck between his giant fingers.
“Ouch!” Leilah protested and pushed his hand away.
“This is no good for you, Lei.” Hector sounded wistful as he twisted one of her long curls around his thumb. “You should have a mother.”
Leilah swallowed. “I have a father. It’s great just the two of us. We need no one else.”
Hector’s brows knitted and he nodded. “Maybe,” he whispered.
Leilah pressed her cheek against his hard chest muscles. “Please Hector. Don’t go all depressed on me.”
He sighed, ignoring her reversion to his Christian name and tapped the top of her head. “Where’s my kai?”
“In the oven. It’s cooking.” Leilah kissed his dusty shirt front and dropped her arms by her sides. He never met her embrace and it pained her. She dragged her school bag off the porch and closed the sliding door behind her. “I’ve got homework,” she said, shooting the comment over her shoulder and retreating to her tatty bedroom at the other end of the house.
CHAPTER THREE
Fear
The body in the water petrified her. Leilah watched the wispy tendrils of hair waft around its head against the steady pull of the current. She crouched by the water, her senses still raw from the stolen hour of passion. Her lover walked her to the boundary fence and left, his footfall heavy against the distance he must cover before home. His kisses left a warmth on her tender skin which the sight of the cadaver in the stream robbed with ease.
“What do I do?” Leilah whispered to the cool night air. She brushed a quivering hand across her forehead and peered into the water again, hoping the body had disappeared like a dream. It bobbed there, mimicking the action of a yellow boat tied to a pier. A sheen of terror coated her skin with dampness. She rose and peered through the darkness, knowing she wouldn’t see her lover’s retreating back. He left ages ago, stealing a last kiss before pinching her slender bottom with a snort of laughter. He didn’t know that Leilah had stayed out longer, enjoying the balmy night air and listening to the faint strains of distant thunder. He didn’t hear her strangled squeal at the sight of the dead body floating face down in the gully.
Leilah stood and clung to the fence to steady herself. Her hands shook. “Fingerprints!” she hissed, lifting her fingers from the wire. Her breath hitched in her chest. The consequences of sneaking out after dark hit her with full force. Many times during the summer of passion, her brain ran through scenarios of Hector discovering her immorality. In her mind’s eye, she saw him lift a gun and blow her lover’s face clean off his shoulders. Through all her worrying and stress, she never imagined this.
