Owl Read online

  A dark shape hurtled out of the fog… The bird turned in a curving steep dive, aiming for Tama… The boy was being dragged beneath it, his feet barely brushing the tops of tussocks….

  Owl and Tama could hardly be more different.

  Owl has a lot to cope with. He’s trying to get used to life without his Dad while helping his family run their struggling farm. All he wants is to escape by getting into archaeology and improve his climbing.

  And along comes Tama, a disgruntled city kid. Owl’s family supposedly has to help him out. Tama won’t say much, but Owl can tell he’s full of aggro and resentment.

  The boys are set for a stand-off.

  Yet Tama’s arrival coincides with Owl’s discovery of some Maori cave drawings. Owl’s interest in the rock art, and the tension between him and Tama, somehow unleash a disturbing malevolence from the past. Together they have set free the forces of the ancient myth of the Pouākai, a brutal man-eater bent on destruction.

  Owl and the reluctant Tama must decode the story of the cave drawings so they can defeat the creature: to save themselves, Owl’s family, and the local farmers.

  A wild, gripping novel that retells the Waitaha legend of the Pouākai.

  For John, Sally and Kate with my love

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Joanna Orwin

  Copyright

  In this book I have combined two published versions of the Waitaha legend of Pouākai. I wish to acknowledge and honour the narrators, Hopa Paura and Taare Te Maiharoa, and thank their descendents (Ngāti Moki at Taumutu and the Te Maiharoa family of South Canterbury, respectively) for sanctioning my use of this legend. Ka nuiāku mihi ki a koutou katoa.

  All other aspects of this story, my extension of the legend, my interpretation of rock art, and the characters involved (including the descendents of Ruru) are entirely fictional.

  I would also like to acknowledge the Ledgard family, whose finding of the woven flax bag was the trigger for this story. I thank Tessa Duder for her encouragement and support, and my family for their unflagging faith.

  ≈ ONE

  ‘BUM OVER FEET,’ Hamish muttered. ‘Lean out.’

  With one foot jammed in the crack and the other pressed against the small ledge, he stretched for a handhold. He was sweating in spite of the intense cold. Tod made rock climbing seem so easy. It was a good thing he wasn’t here to see Hamish struggling.

  ‘Do it!’ He expelled his breath forcefully as he thrust up to the next foothold. A final heart-stopping scrabble of boots against rock, then he heaved his torso over the lip and sprawled onto the broad ledge. He had made it.

  Hauling himself upright, Hamish massaged his hands, sore from gripping the rock. Then he examined the back wall of the shallow cave formed by the overhanging rock face. The light was beginning to go and he moved closer.

  ‘Yes!’ He punched the air, then instinctively checked no one was there to see him. But he was alone except for the long black shadows of the Seven Sentinels reaching out beyond the rock overhang.

  He had to squint to see clearly, but he hadn’t been mistaken. A series of small black dots and lines were scattered in a pattern across the curving surface high above him. Rock drawings.

  Hamish couldn’t stop his grin. He felt like dancing and even shuffled a clumsy step or two on the dusty floor, but his calf muscles were already tight from the climb. His glasses fogged with the cold. He took them off and polished the lenses on the sleeve of his Swanndri shirt, then looked again. The shadows had won. The patterns had merged into the grainy texture of the rock.

  At the edge of the rock shelter where there was still some light, he headed up a new page in his notebook: ‘13 September, Sentinel Sector’. He wrote carefully underneath, ‘Maori rock drawings located on north-east face….’ His systematic survey of the outcrops and crags above the farm had paid off. He, Hamish MacIntyre, amateur archaeologist, had found a new site.

  The rest of the holidays stretched ahead, two whole weeks, heaps of time to photograph the drawings and interpret them. For a moment he saw himself addressing a meeting of the New Zealand Archaeological Society. Explaining his theory of the symbolic purpose of these drawings, the find of the century. Then he pushed the image away. Fantasy was kids’ stuff, and he was no longer a kid.

  The sun was sinking fast. Below him the shadows from the Seven Sentinels travelled across the basin. They engulfed the old farmhouse and plunged it into darkness. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled involuntarily.

  Hamish had never liked being up here once the sun had gone. Something about the Sentinels made him uneasy. He shook himself impatiently. It was time he left. What he had to concentrate on was getting down. And that was going to be a bit of a challenge.

  By the time he reached the bottom of the rock face, his legs were shaking and his hands were losing their grip. The climb had taken him to the limit of his experience. ‘The things one does,’ he mimicked a cereal advert. ‘All in the name of science.’

  Hamish set off on the hour-long scramble down the steep tussock slopes. He was running out of daylight. The deepening black of the night sky met the low arc of clear eggshell green now fading behind the mountains. Frost was already settling on the grass. It crackled crisply under his boots as he made his way across the home paddocks.

  Lights came on in the house. First in the kitchen where his mother would be cooking dinner. Then in his older brother’s room upstairs. In the far corner of the house a bluish light shone. Kirsten, hunched over the computer. Three squares of light, each isolated in different parts of the old house. The living room, where his father would have been settling down with a drink, his feet stretched to the fire, was still in darkness. Empty. Hamish slowed to a halt. The warmth of his discovery leaked away and his chest ached with a now familiar hollowness.

  The moment passed. He continued across the yard. Inside the cluttered back porch, he tossed his boots into the corner and slung his Swanndri on the hook next to his father’s old checked jacket. He took a quick comforting sniff at its pungent wool and pipe tobacco smell.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ he said, poking his nose around the kitchen door. ‘That smells good.’

  Jane MacIntyre responded without turning round. ‘Just the usual casserole. Tell Kirsten and Tod it’s nearly ready, will you?’

  Her voice was tired, and Hamish hesitated. He looked at her rounded shoulders and the scatter of grey in her dark hair that had aged her in just a few months. But there wasn’t anything useful he could say. Taking cutlery out of the drawer, he went to lay the big wooden table in the empty living room.

  In the adjacent farm office, Kirsten was sitting at the computer as he had anticipated. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, just to be friendly. He didn’t really want to know.

  ‘I can’t see what Dad was on about,’ she said, frowning. ‘There’s no way the farm could support this. No way.’ She hit a few keys and peered at the resulting calculations that came up on the screen.

  ‘He had dreams, didn’t he?’ Hamish bristled. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  His sister ran her fingers through her mop of short curly hair. ‘Sorreee. Don’t take me the wrong way. I shared Dad’s dreams for the farm. It’s just hard trying to…
.’ She gestured at the screen, then closed the spreadsheet and shut down the computer. ‘I’ll go and help Mum dish up.’

  The computer and all the other electronic equipment dominated the farm office. Most of it was his mother’s. For as long as Hamish could remember, she had combined family and farm life with freelance contracts from graphic design firms in the city. For weeks now her desk had looked too tidy for work in progress. No seemingly random piles of paper, no open reference books, no photographs pegged on the line above the desk. Just neatly stacked folders.

  A blast of loud rock music from upstairs broke into his thoughts. He went to the door and yelled in the direction of his brother’s bedroom, ‘Tod! Food!’

  ‘No use shouting from there,’ said his mother, on her way to the living room with plates of food. ‘He won’t hear you – you’ll have to go up, Owl.’

  ‘Okay – I’m going.’ It wasn’t the moment to remind her he had discarded his family nickname.

  Tod’s door was firmly shut. Hamish hesitated briefly, then knocked and pushed the door open. He made conciliatory eating gestures when Tod looked up, the all too ready scowl forming on his face.

  ‘Food? About time. I’m starving.’ Tod reached over to turn the music off, stretched his lanky body, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘Where did you get to, Owl? Kirsten wanted you to help feed out, but you vanished.’

  Always has to act the big brother, doesn’t he, thought Hamish. ‘My name’s Hamish – remember? I had things to do. It is the holidays, after all. And I did it yesterday. It was your turn.’

  ‘Okay, okay, keep your cool. Just tell someone where you’re going next time. Mum worries.’

  Hamish sighed. She never used to.

  Once they were all seated around the table, Kirsten barely waited for them to start eating. ‘Lambing kicks in any day now,’ she said. ‘Even if these two pull their weight, I’m not convinced we can do it on our own.’

  ‘That’s something I wanted to talk about,’ Jane said, putting down her fork. ‘One of your uncle’s waifs and strays needs time out from a family situation. He’s fifteen and as strong as an ox, apparently. Mick says he’ll work for free board and no questions asked.’

  ‘Great, that’s just what we need,’ said Tod. ‘One of life’s losers.’

  ‘That’s enough, Tod,’ said Jane. ‘Mick would hardly saddle us with someone who couldn’t be useful.’

  ‘Fair enough, Mum,’ said Kirsten. ‘I’ll knock him into shape. Has this ox got a name?’

  There was a pause while they looked at their mother expectantly.

  ‘Oh, how ridiculous,’ said Jane. ‘I’ve no idea. I sometimes think my brain has gone entirely to mush.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Kirsten. ‘He can tell us himself anyway. When does he arrive?’

  ‘Well that at least I do remember. He’ll be on tomorrow’s bus. It would be nice if you could all be here when he arrives.’

  ‘Aw, Mum,’ Hamish groaned. ‘Do I have to? I was going to spend the morning up the hill.’

  ‘Tough,’ said Kirsten.

  ‘Give me a break,’ said Hamish. ‘You just said lambing won’t start for a day or two.’

  ‘I promised Josh I’d meet him at the Pass tomorrow,’ said Tod. ‘It’s the best forecast we’ve had all week.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Jane, throwing up her hands. ‘I get the message. Kirsten, as long as you’re here, that’s fine. You two, just be pleasant when you do meet him. Have some fellow feeling, for god’s sake. This lad’s also having a tough time.’

  They finished the meal in silence.

  The frost set hard overnight. In the morning the home paddocks formed a frozen sea that lapped the foot of the hills surrounding the basin. On the slopes above, the humped grey limestone lay stranded by the outgoing tide of the night. Hamish stood at the back door, absently blowing on fingers already tingling with cold.

  High up, the Seven Sentinels dominated the skyline. They stood shoulder to shoulder, their sculptured forms highlighted as the sun rose from behind the high mountain range to the east. The conspicuous columns of limestone were marked on the map as The Pinnacles, and the farm was named for them. Hamish had called them the Seven Sentinels since his Dungeons and Dragons phase, privately considering their official name too colourless. They had a steadfast, watchful air about them, standing there on the ridge that overlooked the basin.

  He checked the position of the rock shelter. It was only just visible as a creamy smear against the grey limestone from this far away, but he recognised the distinctive scrub-filled runnel beside the overhang.

  ‘Thought you’d be away by now,’ said Kirsten, joining him at the door.

  ‘Changed my mind. Thought maybe I’d go with Mum to meet the bus. The hill can wait.’

  ‘Good one.’ She crouched to do up her boots. ‘Going to tell me what you’re up to?’

  Hamish looked down on her curls, so like Dad’s, and felt a sudden lump in his throat. Once he would have told her everything, but not any more. She wouldn’t really listen. The farm had become an obsession.

  ‘Nothing special,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘I just need to get away on my own sometimes.’ The last bit was true, anyway.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Kirsten, absently, her attention already elsewhere. ‘Just make sure you’re around when lambing starts.’

  ‘No need to go on about it,’ said Hamish. ‘You made your point last night, okay. I’ll be there, when you command.’ He clicked his heels in a mock salute. She grinned ruefully and cuffed him over the ear. They scuffled for a moment, just like old times. Then all too soon, Kirsten pushed him away. He watched as she trudged off to the yards, her figure bulky in polar fleece jacket and corduroy trousers. She seemed to have become an adult overnight.

  Back upstairs, Hamish piled the equipment he would need on the floor. He planned on heading up the hill again after meeting the bus. He ticked off a mental list. By the time he had sorted out everything he needed, his mother was backing the Landrover out of the shed. He ran down the stairs. ‘Hey, wait for me!’

  Jane lent across and unlatched the passenger door. ‘Hop in, the bus will be here soon. And thanks, Owl.’

  Hamish grinned at her. ‘No worries! Where’s Kirsten – I thought she was coming?’

  ‘She’s meeting us at the gate,’ said Jane.

  Hamish grabbed the strap as she jammed the old Landrover into gear. They bucked and jolted their way down the potholed drive, eased across the racketty bridge, and ground slowly up the hill. The bus was already in sight, a few kilometres up the road.

  ‘Great timing,’ said Kirsten as she pulled up beside them on the farm bike. ‘I thought I was going to be late.’

  They stood close together as the bus came to a halt, instinctively united against the stranger about to enter their world. Hamish’s heart beat faster as the bus door swung open.

  As the boy stepped down from the bus, Hamish stifled the urge to laugh. He had never seen anyone less ox-like. The newcomer was tall and skinny. If it hadn’t been for the huge basketball boots with undone laces that anchored him to the ground, he looked as though the slightest breeze would knock him over. Tracksuit pants hung low on his hips. His oversized sweatshirt had its sleeves rolled back to reveal thin wrists that dangled a pair of hands so large and knobbly they seemed to belong to someone else.

  ‘Ye gods,’ muttered Jane, as he went with the driver to collect his luggage from the side locker.

  ‘Fat lot of use he’ll be,’ said Kirsten, then nudged her mother as the boy picked up his sports bag and turned to face them.

  For a brief moment they stood in silence, then Jane mentally shook herself and stepped forward. ‘I’m Jane MacIntyre,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Welcome to The Pinnacles.’

  He took his baseball cap off, twisted it in his hands, then thrust it back on, peak to the rear, before addressing a point on the ground somewhere between his feet and Jane’s. ‘Yeah … um, hi … I’m Tama – Tama
Mitchell.’

  He ignored her outstretched hand. There was an awkward pause. A pair of steely grey eyes challenged Hamish’s fascinated stare, daring him to comment. Hamish swallowed, then tore his eyes away from the thin white freckled face and the ponytail of gorse-yellow hair that didn’t match up with the Maori name.

  Jane looked at Kirsten and Hamish for support, rolling her eyes helplessly.

  ‘I’m Kirsten, and this is my brother Owl … Hamish,’ Kirsten hastily amended as Hamish kicked her ankle.

  There was another silence, then Tama asked, ‘Why Owl?’

  Hamish looked at him sharply, then grinned reluctantly. He indicated his thick round glasses, his round face, and the way his own hair, a nondescript mouse-brown, grew up in tufts at the back of his head, despite his stubble cut.

  Tama merely nodded, his face neutral. He took out a packet of tobacco and some cigarette papers. While his fingers dealt with the familiar movements, his gaze travelled beyond the MacIntyres. He spotted the farm bike drawn up beside the Landrover. He didn’t say anything, but Kirsten picked up the glimmer of interest.

  ‘Throw your bag into the Rover,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a guided tour of the farm on the bike.’

  Tama’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked first at Hamish, then at Kirsten and shrugged. He made no attempt to do as she had suggested, but cupped his hand round the cigarette and bent to light it. Hamish clenched his fists. The chauvinistic creep.

  Jane MacIntyre stepped in quickly. ‘Right then. Hamish and I will leave you to it. Kirsten manages the farm, so she’s the best one to show you the ropes.’

  Without a word, Tama slung his shabby sports bag into the back of the Landrover and walked across to the bike. Kirsten handed him the spare helmet. For a moment he looked as though he was going to object, then he shrugged again. He took his cap off and stuffed it in his pocket, then stubbed out his cigarette. After fumbling with the strap for a moment, he stiffly let Kirsten show him how to fasten the safety buckle under his chin.