Chapter 39

A Cave in the Forest

The high limestone bluffs above the Paturau River mouth were an impressive buttress against the sky. Their sides draped with steeplejack, the tops populated with Nikau palms and the dry trunks of broken forests. As always the waves that crashed nearby and the constant onshore wind lent the air an atmospheric haze. A hawk glided high above, bridging the great gap in the cliffs that the Paturau River had wrought over aeons.

Max adjusted the straps of his pack, as behind him people started boarding the train for its return journey to Collingwood. The passengers that shared their outbound journey, mostly miners and 'flaxies', being well used to the cliffs, had left the riverside platform and dispersed to whatever drew them to the wild coast.

The last time Max had been here was for his Archaeology field trip. Then they had discovered the gold coin that had been the motivation for this journey. He looked over to the rise where the university had it's dig site on top of the remains of the old Pā. But there was no movement there and it appeared abandoned, apart from a picket to keep wild pigs off.

"Shall we go?" said Wiremu and together they stepped down and strode across to the wharf.

The tide was in and the little steam boat, a dingy with a large pot belly boiler in the middle, had already set off from the Flax Mill on the far side and was making its way across to the wharf and the few freight items stacked on it.

"Bob for passage?" called Max when the boat, spilling black smoke from its high chimney, drew near. The lone man on board threw him a line and the friends fastened the boat to the landing.

"Ya can keep ya money," growled the boatman. "Just help get those sacks on board and sit still!"

Wiremu and Max did as they were bid and in a couple of minutes they were half way back across the river.

"Are there many caves hereabouts?" asked Wiremu of their Captain.

"Look around," he spat in answer. "Tis all limestone country. Place is riddled with caves." And he seemed disinclined to further conversation, apparently thinking them idiots. When they were safe ashore, the cargo off loaded, and themselves re-burdened with packs, Max looked out to the deep water in the curve of the river mouth. To his surprise he saw an iron steamship anchored there.

"What's that ship?" he asked. The boatman, straightened from his tying off and shielded his eyes with his hand.

"Little do I know," he said. "Came in yesterday. Crew of Chinamen by the looks. Just sitting there."

"Have you seen it before?" asked Wiremu, throwing Max a concerned look.

"Nope, sir. One of the flax captains said he has spotted it coming out of Freeport a time or two. I'm keepin ma gun near me!"

"Why is that?" asked Wiremu. The boatman looked at him like he was mad.

"Cause Chinese is dangerous!" he responded. Then shaking his head the boatman wandered away, mumbling loudly to himself as he went; "Two greener lads I never did see."

"Maybe it truly was best that Wang stayed home," muttered Max.

They didn't linger in Karaka, but climbed the hill and took the only track heading south. It was rough and little more than a sheep path, used only by horses and men trekking to the flaxmill at Sandhill Creek or on to distant Kahurangi lighthouse. But it would take them across the backs of the rolling hills that formed the fertile strip between the high limestone above and the sea cliffs below. Here wild sheep, with great shaggy, bur filled fleeces, grazed on the half-cleared land, clipping the grass short and polishing old stumps with their continual passing. And it was here somewhere, in a cave, that they hoped, against hope, to find hidden Chinese gold. Max had a spring in step, keen to be on with the adventure.

If not for the sea haze they would have been able to see all the way down the coast to the white pillar of Kahurangi lighthouse. But at the first crest they instead stopped and looked back the way they had come. The Prouse and Saunder's flax mill sat nestled against the hill at the base of the sand spit which had formed across the river mouth. Around the mill buildings and their attached hostel, a small collection of huts made up the settlement of Karaka. At the far end of the spit waited the Chinese vessel.

"I don't like the look of that ship," remarked Wiremu, speaking out Max's own concerns.

"Just a little too coincidental for my liking," agreed Max. Although he wasn't sure how much he really believed that there was anything to find in the empty hills south of the Paturau, the appearance of the ship put an extra edge on the whole enterprise.

"We'll need to keep an eye out."

Max felt a little guilty for missing classes, but reasoned that you only live once. Which of course can also be a good reason to attend your classes. He had told his parents that he was spending the week on a field trip at the Paturau. Which of course was true, after a fashion. He wondered if his Father would smell a rat when he noticed that Professor Wynyard was still in the staffroom at Victoria. But he doubted that his Father would focus long enough to put two and two together.

"Were shall we start?" he asked, peering at the cliffs. "Somewhere at the base of that I guess."

"Taniwha travel by water, for the most part," said Wiremu. "So, if one has made it's lair in a cave in those hills... there will be a stream flowing from the cave to the sea."

"Most caves have streams flowing from them, it's how they are made."

"Most but not all. Look at those holes up in the cliff face. All dry. We don't need to look in them. There's a goat standing in the mouth of that one! Anyway, it narrows it down."

"Alright. Now we aren't actually looking for a real Taniwha are we?"

Wiremu smiled to himself for a moment as they walked.

"No Max, I guess not. The language is our code. Maunga said a Golden Taniwha in a cave though the woods."

"Woods? Bit English."

"Forest, sure."

They came to the first steam and leaving the track, followed it left into the hills. It was hard going through clinging scrub, tangled vines and uneven terrain. Before long they opted for getting their feet wet and using the stream bed as their road way. Now the only danger was slipping over on the slimy rocks hidden beneath the tea coloured water. But the flow wasn't wide, and the bank was always nearby, if needed.

As the waterway climbed the two friends clambered over increasingly larger slabs of limestone, until after an hour of rough passage, the forest and the cliff closed in on them and they found themselves pulling aside hanging vegetation and peering into a small black fissure in the cliff side. They pulled off their packs.

"Next time we'll leave those hidden down by the track," said Wiremu. Max nodded and handed him a new kerosene lamp. But he never lit it, for just inside the cave the way became narrow and at once impassable.

"We had to check," said Max philosophically.

"Indeed," agreed Wiremu.

And they 'had to check' five other such caves that afternoon. Three of which had the same dead ends and two others that went in enough for them to light their lamps but proved either blocked after a short while or ultimately empty of anything like treasure. When they made camp that night the feeling was that they'd spent most of their day walking up and down steams, and not much else.

The next morning Max and Wiremu arose both stiff from a night on the hard ground and covered in mosquito bites. They said little to each other over breakfast, content to cook toast and eggs in near silence, while scratching the red welts that had formed on any skin left exposed to their nocturnal attackers. Then breaking camp, they began the new day by followed a stream until it became nothing more than a reedy raupo swamp.

It was hard, even after only one day, to not start feeling despondent.

As they walked and bush whacked, Max thought about Harriet, on the far side of the mountains.

What is she doing now? Is she well? How does she fill her days? Does she think of me?

He tried to send his thoughts to her, much as he had done on that night when he had lay just a few thin panels of mahogany away from her on the Pullman Palace Car. For a moment he imagined himself so connected to her that he could, by sheer force of will, turn her mind and heart toward him. But he knew that such ideas were indeed vain imaginings and that he ran the very real risk of making himself even more heart sick.

Even though it had come too late and was therefore bitter-sweet, he took some small comfort from the fact that she had said, at the end, that she loved him. He prayed that they would return to the city this time to find that somehow Harriet's engagement to the dreadful Gilbert Lavisham had been broken off. But deep down he knew that would not be the case. He wanted that outcome more than he wanted the Chinese gold, although the later, unlikely as it was, seemed the more possible.

He thought about Rowan too. About how Gilbert Lavisham had killed her younger brother. About what that must be like. The concept of losing a sibling, of losing any loved one to death, haunted him as they explored those lonely hills and gullies.

His actual meeting with Rowan was hazy now, as if the episode in the gallery at the Gothic Masquerade was just something he had read about in a book. He had been to Maoriland and back since then. Rebecca Salasor even came to mind once or twice. Max was glad to be away from the city on that count. The promised interview about his trip to the Northern Isle would go unsaid. The little incident at the door of Amelia's Tea House confirmed to him that they were not friends.

"So what is the point?" asked Max as the beams from their lamps probed the dark recesses of yet another cave. "Is it that the Paturau Māori traded with Chinese... what fishermen? And then didn't want the gold coins they got, so hid them in a cave... even though they didn't value them... and then created a Taniwha myth to protect it... even though they didn't value it?"

"Good questions," answered Wiremu, pulling himself up onto a ledge in the wall of the cavern they were exploring. "There are some nice stalactites in this one." Max watched as their light sparkled off the thin white strands hanging from the ceiling. "There is no Taniwha myth, as you call it, from these parts. Not one that survived the conquest at least. The place names... Paturau means; many bodies in a row, or killed by the hundred, so it's named for the massacre. The original name is lost. The next river down the coast is the Anatori, meaning; cave which is cut. What I'm saying is that if there is a Taniwha, the warning about it should reflect in the place names. Like Ruataniwha, back at Collingwood."

"Are you now saying that there isn't a Taniwha?" asked Max, starting to feel a little desperate. Not that he partially wanted to find a monster, just it's proverbial hoard of gold.

"No, and yes," answered Wiremu, most unhelpfully. "The only reference we have to a Taniwha is from Ikariki Maunga. Not from the land hereabouts, not from the memory of the Tangata Whenua, the people. Therefore, it isn't a real Taniwha."

"Real?"

"A forgotten Taniwha is a powerless Taniwha, a dead one."

"You said Taniwha can't die!"

"Figuratively. What I'm saying is that we can't be looking for a Taniwha... not in the sense that a Māori would mean. It has to be something else."

"Such as?"

"Again I'm not sure," replied Wiremu, stepping around a pile of rocks. "Maybe something foreign, something outside of the local peoples experience. Certainly, if I believed that it was a real Taniwha that we sought... well I wouldn't be here."

Before long they were retracing their footsteps back out of the cave. Max had noticed, right from the first, that he found the entrances of the caves more than a little unsettling. While he preferred to not be in a cave at all, he didn't mind being well inside. It was the half way stage that gave him trouble. In the first this was because the ground just inside the cave’s mouths were often strewn with rocks fallen from the ceiling. Likely they were the result of millennia of earthquakes, but some of the heavy slabs looked disturbingly recent. Second was the fact that the shady walls and ceilings near a caves entrance nearly always crawled with big bush Wetas. These large spiny insects jumped quite unpredictability when disturbed and could just as easy land in your hair or down your neck as anywhere else. Max would rather be well in or well out of the cave, and he moved across the threshold as quickly as he could.

"I guess," said Max. "That Jasmine must have her reasons to be searching. I wonder if the evidence for gold being here is on the other side of the world in China."

"How do you mean?" asked Wiremu, causally brushing a weta from his sleeve.

"Just that China has a very long and well documented history. Jasmine had to get the idea to come here and look for gold, from somewhere. I wonder if there was some record or something that someone back in China had uncovered."

"You know what I'm starting to think?"

"That the whole thing is a little thin?" asked Max, grimacing.

"Yeap."

"Darn it!" spat Max. "We are making fools of ourselves aren't we?"

"Only to each other."

They pulled their packs on again for the hundredth time.

"Alright. We have to be back in the city on Friday, or people are going to start asking questions," stated Max. "There is no train tomorrow. So, we are stuck here. I say we make the most of it, one more day of searching. Let's believe the crazy dream at least till the Friday train."

"Sure," said Wiremu with a shrug. "I'm with you. We are a long way south of Paturau now anyway, we must be running out of steams."

They found the next steam and started following it toward the cliffs, agreeing it would be there last before making camp for the night.

"Wiremu?" said Max, a little later, coming to a halt. "You know how you said about a real Taniwha needing a stream to get to the sea? And that is why we are only checking caves with streams?"

"Yes."

"Well just before, you seemed to decide that our Taniwha wasn't a real one."

Wiremu gave Max a puzzled look for a moment, then his mouth dropped open in disbelief, after which he sat down heavily in a fern bush.

"We are going to need another month to visit all the caves without steams," he groaned, putting his head in his hands.

* * *

Friday morning and Wang hadn't heard anything from Max and Wiremu. Although that wasn't surprising as the first train back from Paturau was that afternoon. He guessed that they would be on it. But right then, riding the little Chinatown train to Eeling Station to meet the 7:00am Valley Line to university, he had other worries.

Jasmine sat next to him, as had become normal of late. A little old lady had taken the seat in front of them, nothing out of the ordinary there. But in the very front seat sat a man and further back, not that Wang dared to turn and look, sat a second. They both wore rough nondescript work clothes and carried knapsacks.

The second man had been there when Wang had climbed aboard, his name was Chung. The first had jumped on when the train started moving out of Chinatown, he was called Jie Lam. They were Jasmine’s accomplices, the other two treasure hunters.

He tried to be calm, to act normal. For a time he talked to Jasmine about the exam he had that day, but she seemed distant and didn't take any interest beyond what was polite. At Kaituna… Eeling, they left the little train and after a short wait boarded the next for Collingwood. The two men moved away to different carriages. Again, as he had expected, Max hadn’t got on at Rockville and nor had Wiremu at Aorere Pā.

Although Wang had foreseen the message that his friend’s absences would send, he suddenly he found himself fighting the urge to panic.

Should he say something?

It seemed so obvious, surely he should acknowledge it. But Jasmine didn't show any reaction, so he let the miles roll past in silence.

"Good luck with your exam," whispered Jasmine, coming close to Wang on the platform at Collingwood Central, and placing a warm hand on his, while over her shoulder he spied Jie Lam and Chung leave the station and disappear into the city.

"Thank you my lady," he replied, watching a smile turn the corner of her mouth.

"Would you care to share a cup with me at morning tea?" she asked.

"I would like that," he lied, and unable to find a polite escape, he walked with her toward the University.

In his morning classes Wang began to relax a little. He hoped that in such a formal setting, surrounded by others, he would be safe. In Chinatown or even riding the train, he felt like his life hung by a thread. He had never felt so alone. But too soon it was morning tea and Wang found himself ordering a pot and sitting at one of the tables outside The Canteen.

In this way he could watch for Jasmine's approach, and when she appeared a minute later he was able to observe her as she crossed the courtyard toward him. She smiled and waved when she saw him, and the way she walked, today, seemed to accentuate the sway of her hips. Wang tried to steady his breathing, the game was afoot again.

"Hello Peng," she said warmly, using his first name, as she reached the table. Wang had stood and pulled out a chair for her, and without warning she leant in and kissed him on the check.

"My Lady," he stammered, momentary shaken.

The stakes are high.

Helping her into her chair, then sitting again himself, he poured them both a cup of tea.

"You seem a little... not yourself today," she said, taking a sip of the hot brew.

"No? A tad stressed about this exam," he lied.

"Hmm. What subject?"

"Ah, Company Law," he answered, having told her that once ready on the train. And so the conversation, complete with uncomfortable pauses, went for the next ten minutes. Finally, Wang made to leave.

"Thank you for your company," he said, looking up at the clock on the outside wall of the Canteen. "But I need to get on."

"Yes, likewise," she said, and they both stood.

"My exam awaits," he lied again.

"You'll do great."

"Thank you. I'll see you on the train home?"

"Yes of course," she smiled sweetly. Wang could hardly control the desire to run. He picked up his books and hat and started to walk toward the Chemistry Department.

"Oh Peng," Jasmine called. Wang's heart dropped as he turned back to her. "Where is Max and Wiremu, your friends?"

Wang shrugged.

Playing for keeps now.

"I'm not really sure. Off on one of their adventures," he answered casually, like the pair were well known for going on adventures.

"Have they gone to Paturau?" she asked, feinting an equally relaxed manner.

"I don't know," he responded, looking puzzled and slightly offended that they hadn't informed him. "I'd think they should be back tonight. Maybe we'll see them on the train this afternoon."

"Yes maybe." She didn't sound convinced.

"Alright, gotta dash." He knew that sounded forced. But his legs were carrying him away and that was all the mattered right then.

Stay calm.

He made it to the corner of the Chemistry Department, and then around, where he breathed a big sigh of relief.

A moment later he was though the big double doors and up a flight of stairs two at a time. The first classroom he came to was being used, but the second was empty. He burst in, threw his belongings in the corner, hat and books, then slowly approached the window. Looking down into the courtyard he could see that Jasmine had also left the canteen tables.

Has she followed me!?

No, she was walking out of the cobbed yard via one of the stone arches at the far end. Another sigh of relief. He would need all his skills now.

Retrieve the hat.

Back out the classroom door, along the second-floor corridor and down the other steps.

Wang tailed Jasmine out of the University and into the city. She walked with purpose and didn't appear to suspect that she could be being followed. She believed, possibility, that Wang was currently in an exam. Still, he didn't take any risks, she could be playing, and one false step, one sighting and the game would be up. Out in the hustle bustle of Orion Street it was easy enough, with his hat pulled down, like Max when he meant business.

Stroll, look around, don't over-do-it, you appear drunk if you seemed overly interested in the everyday, a sure sign that you are following someone.

Wang guessed that she was making her way to the cable car. Once she was in it, he would not be able to just jump on next to her, and once the doors closed and her descent begun it would be fifteen minutes until the car returned. The cable car was where he would lose her.

Time to make a calculated risk.

Wang took Nile Street, and at once broke into a half run, letting it take him a block away from Orion. Then crossing the tram rails, he doubled back up Old Topsail. At the intersection with Washington he paused, put his back against a street side building and watched. Across the way the bright red cable car appeared, dragged up from the haven side by great steel cables, and pulled into the terminus where it came to a temporary halt.

Thankfully commuters exited the car on far side and boarded it through the door facing Wang. Impatiently he watched as the line of downward bound passengers trooped in.

There she is! Fourth from the front.

He didn't wait to see the cable car leave again but backed away and retraced his steps back down Old Topsail Street and away from any chance of being seen.

There is only one place in Gibbstown that she could be going.

Wang tried to recall the time table. He was pretty sure that the train to Paturau departed Haven Station at 11:30am Tuesdays and Fridays. He jogged up Benbow Street until it ended at Blake Terrace.

Yes he was right.

He was sure of it; he knew could trust his number memory. He was the accountant in the Murderer's Bay Musketeers after all! He couldn't help a little smile on applying the title. It had been 10:30am when he had left Jasmine, that must have been at least twenty minutes ago.

Across Blake he went. Somewhere below him now, at the foot of the steep bank, next to the waters of the inlet, was Haven Station.

Steps down?

He trotted along the pavement in front of the hilltop shops and cafés. Within a few yards he found an alley between two brick buildings, within it there were steps leading downward. Wang looked around.

Nearby a Tinker in a waistcoat of blight patches had set up his tools and work boxes on the sidewalk. As Wang approached the little man lifted his tanned face in greeting.

"Good mornings to you young sir," he called. At first Wang had taken him for an Indian, but closer now he decided that the Tinker was more likely to be from Arab stock.

"Good morning," he answered. "Excuse me, but do you know if these steps go down to Haven Station?"

The Tinker peered at the entrance of the alley for a moment before answering.

"Yes, indeed," he confirmed. "But the next ones along will be taking you right to the platform."

"These are perfect," replied Wang, making to leave. "Thank you."

"No problems at all," answered the Tinker. "Now a China boy in the city, that is a rare sight."

"Not as rare as an Arab," replied Wang, moving away, with no time to be caught in polite conversation. "Thank you."

"An Assyrian," called the Tinker. But Wang was bounding down the alley, three steps at a time. "Mind you don't be breaking your neck young-un!"

That would be bad.

But Wang kept his feet, not breaking a neck or an ankle during his quick descent over uneven concrete steps and between wrought iron posts. He arrived breathless at the bottom of the steep hill. Here he found what he had hoped for; an alleyway running across his path and along behind the railway-side buildings. He took this new trail, overgrown with weeds, past corrugated iron fences and shop backs, arriving quickly in another alleyway a few properties along.

Here he crouched between two whether board buildings, resting in the shadows behind a water barrel and watching the foot path to and from Haven Station. The minutes ticked by as he studied the shapes of the people who, silhouetted against the glare, moved past his hiding place. Most were either hard working men or weary looking women. There would be no mistaking Jasmine.

I've got it wrong. I've got it wrong! She is not coming!

Before the panic could fully form he took hold of himself and forced it back.

I've played my part. I know the game. She'll come.

He looked up again in time to see her, head held high, walk past the end of the alley.

Play on.

Wang counted to ten before pushing himself up and moving hesitantly out to the street. At the corner he oh so cautiously put his head around the building and peered up the Boulevard. Jasmine was two doors along and as he watched she passed a third, then stopped outside the fourth, a tavern. Wang pulled his head back in, she would look both ways before entering the building. He knew the game. A moment later he looked again, she was gone.

Wang ran back down the alley, along the back fence, one, two, three buildings. Up the alleyway between the third and fourth. Definitely a tavern, pile of brown glass bottles stacked out the back. He was close now.

Play it right.

To the common room window, look in.

They were there, the two men from the morning train: Chung and Jie Lam, and Jasmine speaking to them, short and fast. They were both dressed now in good dark suits, their rough disguises long gone.

Enough!

Wang pressed his back against the wall. He could hear the men moving across the wooden floor toward the front door and going out.

Count to ten.

He edged to the street side again, peered around. The men were further down the street, just mounting the platform at Haven Station.

I knew it! They are off to Paturau! Time to do something. Warn his friends. Find Dickie!

Wang spun around and found himself standing nose to nose with Jasmine.

"What are you doing Wang!?" she hissed, all hint of warmth gone, the hardness back around her eyes. He knew it wasn't a question asked with expectation of an answer, he didn't try. But as her claw-like hand shot toward his neck he did manage to grab her wrist.

Choke, pressure point or poisoned nails?

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It didn't matter. She broke his hold at once. He had a double arm block up when her leg rose, a spilt second later, trying to smash against the side of his head! Still, he was flung against the side of the tavern, tumbling off and quickly rising into his fighting stance. She came at him, flying with scissor kicks, he skipped away, swapping places with her, getting nearer the hill and the city.

Have to get away, get back up to the city.

Jasmine didn't hesitate but came in again with high kicks, her silk dress riding up her powerful legs. Wang meet her in the middle of the alley, blocking with forearms and open hands. She switched to fast punches and whip hands. Again, Wang blocked, brushing the blows wide with sweeping hands, looking now for his moment. It came at once and his fist struck for her throat. But she turned aside, and he missed, by millimetres. Such were the tiny measures between life and death.

She is good, just like Jo Foo warned.

Wang's hand came back as if his arm were elastic, and he stuck once more and was blocked again.

Then was no pause. She tried a roundhouse kick, he stepped into her approaching leg, hands up like the praying monkey, caught the leg, blocked it, pushed it back, she spun with his force, spinning right back around, trying to catch him with the back of her foot. Wang predicted it, avoided the blow, struck back with his hands. Was blocked.

As they fought he could hear the whistle of the train as it came along Havenside from the Harbour Terminal. He wouldn't be able to keep her long enough so that she missed it, that wasn't his plan. He staggered back from a punch that landed on his chest.

Stay focused!

She came with kicks again, he avoided them, then tried one of his own. She caught his foot in her hands.

I know what comes next.

He spun, so that as she twisted his foot, his leg would not break.

Lucky I went the right way.

Spinning he landed heavily in the dust. Her heel came down immediately in a viscous stomp, once, twice... she missed both times, three... he swept his foot across the ground, caught her other leg and she came down. They both sprung up, Wang a fraction faster, his round house kick unwound, caught her in the side of the head, and she smashed though the high paling fence behind the tavern.

Wang didn't wait, but ran, back along the alley and up the stairs. The train was slowing for Haven Station now.

I've got to find Dickie!

* * *

"We should head back," said Wiremu, looking north up the coastal trail. "It'll take as about an hour to reach Paturau and we don't want to miss the train."

Max looked at his fob; eleven o'clock. Then snapping it shut, he started walking.

He knew that they had given it a good shot, checking every stream, cave and sink hole, to a long way south of Paturau.

But still he was disappointed, naturally. Finding treasure was the ultimate day dream. It was a large part of why he wanted to be an Archaeologist. But more than that, he had wanted it for Wang and Wiremu. Especially now that the Aorere Pā was about to go on the auctioneer’s block. He had imagined solving all his friend’s troubles with one fat gold coin.

Max had always been a great dreamer. He had once seen it as a strength. But now the depth of his dreaming only caused him pain. He dreamed of becoming a famous Archaeologist, a great swordsman, of marrying Harriet Leith, of finding lost Chinese treasure... he was beginning to despise his own childishness. His impossible fantasies were only setting himself up for failure and heartache. Right then the coast land with its nikau palm crowned cliffs and rattling flax bushes, tannin stained streams and wind tortured manuka trees seemed a long way from anywhere. It was not anywhere that treasure would be found and nor was it anywhere where he wanted to be.

"Dig it in then," he said to Wiremu. "I could do with a pie and a hot bath."

A pie and a hot bath, much more achievable dreams.

He was looking forward to using Harriet's sword again too, feeling the heft, hearing it zip through the air. He'd get home, have a good feed, a good sleep, practice with Harriet's sword and put all this foolery behind him.

I can still be a famous sword fighter.

As he lay awake last night listening to the morepork owls calling in the forest outside their tent he had pondered the hand feint that Harriet had used in their duel. It seemed to him a crude move, not something that would be allowed in any kind of formal competition. But still he had fallen for it, been momentarily distracted, and she had gotten the point of her sword up under his chin. In a fight that would be all that mattered.

They had made cold camp, as they had every night, least someone from the Chinese ship see them. Then with backs against the cliff they had sat and watched the sun set on both the restless sea and their hopes.

"New South Wales is out there," Max had stated, the fading sun painting his face orange.

"The rest of the world is out there," Wiremu had responded, seeming not like he wanted to talk.

Sometime later Max asked;

"What are you to this Ikariki Maunga had he would tell you about this golden Taniwha?" Wiremu had poked the ground with a stick for a little before answering.

"He is the man who gave Grandmother my seed."

Max knew what that meant.

"He is your grandfather," he stated.

"Tamati Pirimona Marino is my grandfather. That man was a rapist."

Max didn't say any more after that and wondered if Wiremu felt better now that he had shared the fact. He fell asleep wondering if his friend had missed one key point; This rapist left something in a cave, though a forest, that he wanted him to find.

"Be good to see Wang again," remarked Wiremu, drawing Max back from his memories of the previous evening.

"Indeed," he replied. "I feel bad for him, being left behind again. Especially when he was so worked up about Jasmine."

"Worked up?"

"Yeah! Didn't you notice? He was really worried that she was going to... I dunno, do him in."

Wiremu looked puzzled.

"Really?"

"Think so. I will be relieved to get back and see that he is well."

"I guess I missed that."

"Yes you were too busy cooking up stories about cave Taniwha hidden in the trees to notice. And here we are."

"Hmm. I really hope we didn't make the wrong call in coming here. He said wood not trees.

"Wiremu, we made the wrong call! Look no Taniwha! No gold! What do you mean? He wouldn't have said wood, we aren't in England! It's forest or bush."

"Guess," said Wiremu, and they were quiet for a long while after that.

Much of the return track was unfamiliar to them, as many times they had cut across country from one stream or valley to the next, missing out whole sections of pathway as they did. While they walked Max entertained himself listening to the abundance of bird calls and identifying those his father had taught him. Plenty of Bellbird and noisy Tui were about feeding on flax flowers, while furtive Toetoe and Weka, tweeted and clucked from their hiding places within the undergrowth.

They were getting near to Paturau when Max finally apologised to his friend for snapping at him.

"...fact is I wanted to come as much as you," he concluded.

"It's fine Max. We are both disappointed."

They had found a few flints in one cave and some ancient rope and flax mats in another, evidence that Māori had used those particular caves at one point for something. They left the artefacts where they were.

"Here is that fence I told you about," said Wiremu, as they came alongside a picket that had been erected next to the track in years long past. Max studied the lichen covered timbers a moment.

"The one with the strange wood?" he asked, struggling to recall their conversation.

"Sure. Evans brought us up here on the field trip, while you Archaeology students stayed back at the dig and found the coin."

"What is the deal?" asked Max. All he could see was a collection of odd shaped posts, in a landscape of odd shaped trees, stuck in the ground, in a line, beside the path, in other words; a fence. Wiremu trailed his hand against the rough posts as they walked, coming to a stop in front of a larger one near the middle of the line.

"Not sure. But I've pondered it a bit. Evans said that they must have been retrieved from the Pā palisade after the siege and placed in the ground up here. Maybe as a fence around a kumara garden or something. But I don't know." He placed his hands either side of the post, like some kind of healer, almost willing the long dead wood to give up its secrets. "Nor do I know for certain what kind of wood it is. It's not rimu, or totara, certainly not Kahikatea."

Max shrugged to himself.

"Your territory. What did you say reading wood was? Your third language?"

Wiremu nodded, still peering at the post.

"That's the thing. It is a hardwood and all I can think of is maybe... teak."

"Teak? As in..."

"Boat building," finished Wiremu. Then appearing to see something for the first time he added; "And look at this straight edge." He ran his brown finger down the side of another post. "That's not natural, and no one would cut a post like that just for a stake in a defensive wall."

"This one is the same," remarked Max tapping a post further along with his knuckles. "Got a hole in it too."

Wiremu joined him.

"Interesting," he said, after studying the hole for just a second.

"What?"

"Well, look at the grain around the hole. If that was a knot hole the lines of the grain would flow out around the hole, like the skin around an eye. But that hole goes right though the grain. It's been drilled."

For some reason, a simple curious impulse most-likely, Max lent down and put his eye to the hole. At once he could see the pearl of silver light at the other end.

"You can see right thought it," he announced. "Here look though the wood." He straightened up to give his friend a look, but Wiremu had a queer expression on his face.

"What did you say?"

"Hmm... look though the wood."

Wiremu just stood there, Max could almost see the cogs of his brain turning over.

"Look though the wood," he repeated ponderously.

"What is it Wiremu?" asked Max, as a slow, hesitant smile started to spread across his friend’s face.

"Look though the wood. That's what Ikariki Maunga said! Not forest or bush, he meant wood! '...a golden Taniwha... a Taniwha in a cave... south of the river... you just had to look though the wood. Look though the wood." Wiremu pressed his eye to the hole in the post, a moment later he sprung away again. "Max! Look though the wood."

Max gripped the post and looked again, this time letting his eye focus on what lay beyond.

"What do you see?!" demanded Wiremu.

"Ah, some bush on a hillside," he answered.

"And?"

"Not much else," said Max standing again.

"Look," said Wiremu pointing with his finger. "Some bush on a hillside, as you say, but in a cleft."

"We've been up that gully," responded Max, despite the excitement he felt rising in his chest.

"Sure. But not up into that ravine. Look for another hole," he commanded, walking back down the track the way they had come. "I've got a second one here!"

Max did as he was bid.

"There is another one here!" he called a moment later.

"Mine spies the same patch of bush!" shouted Wiremu. "Yours!?"

"There's a spider nest in mine!" exclaimed Max.

"Then get a rush and clean it out!" called Wiremu, running back to his friend.

Max broke off a reed from a nearby plant and pushed it into the hole. A moment later a quickly evicted black spider, now forgotten, crawled off to find a new home. Max had his eye to the hole.

"The same place!" he confirmed almost at once, "It points to the same place!"

"Could it be?" asked Wiremu, looking back toward the cliffs.

A steam train whistled down by the Paturau River.

The two friends looked at each other, the same question written on their faces.

"Forget the train!" said Max. Wiremu just smiled and nodded.

.

As Max had said, they had been into that gully, it was one of the first steam-beds that they had explored. But as Wiremu had also pointed out, they never went up the cleft that the three wooden spy holes had seemed to point at. It took them half an hour to find the point in the stream where the little cleft in the rocks joined the main flow. When they had last been this way they were fixated with the water and had simply missed or not considered the dry juncture. Now they scrabbled up it, as fast as their excitement and their packs allowed. Soon they were looking out over the tree tops, over the gully, beyond to the distant track and the row of posts.

They couldn't pick out the holes in the posts, over a mile away, but at the point where those three eyes seemed to bore into then, they turned, pushed through the hanging steeplejack, gigi and clematis, and found themselves crouching in the dark mouth of a hidden cave.

"I'll be," said Max in the near silence.

In front of them a large black hole yawned. Behind them the green curtain filtered the light and dampened the calls of the tui and bellbird. It was only a short moment before they had dropped their packs and pulled out the kerosene lamps. Wiremu held each one open and Max struck the flint and steel. Though a golden glow now burnt in the heart of each lamp they still paused. In every other cave they had simply walked on in, Max always keen to get away from the wetas. But this cave somehow felt different. In every way it appeared the same as all the others, a dark burrow in the rock of the earth. But this one felt different. Max knew he was inventing it, projecting a pulse of life or malevolence into the black space.

"I'm not going to ask," he said. "Because the last thing I want to hear is that you can feel it too."

"I can feel it too," confirmed Wiremu.

"Thank you."

"I think we have finally found... something."

Within the cave, only a few feet from the entrance, the feeling that the cave breathed and that they were walking into the lung of a monster hadn't faded. Their meagre lights were almost swallowed by the darkness and they could no longer hear the birds outside at all. Now the only sound was that of their own careful footfall and of dips of water falling into hidden places. The temperature dropped away and there was water on the ground, in-between slabs of fallen stone and gathered in calcium rimmed pools.

Here and there great pillar stalagmites rose from the floor to point up at their sword like partners, the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. In places the two had come together after aeons of slow work, united as one, each shower of rain on the earth far above continuing to cement their rock-hard union for all time.

In some areas there were thousands of tiny rods, like glass drinking straws dripping from the undersides of ledges and stone arches. They had seen these in some of the other caves, but never so many. In yet other parts the multiple flows of minerals from above had joined together to create great cream-coloured cloths that spilled down the walls at a speed so slow it could not be measured in the lifetimes of men.

Deeper they ventured, taking the only path offered to them by the hand of the subterranean architect, and watching as their breath turned to steam before them. At one point, Wiremu told Max to shutter off his lamp and wait. With both lights hidden the darkness was sudden and amazing and oppressive. It seemed to push on blind eyes with a physical force. It was hard to believe that that utter darkness was how it always was in the cave. No night or day, just black, black normal.

"Wait another moment," said Wiremu, as Max started fumbling with the shutter on his lamp. Max did as he was bid and then high above their heads hundreds of little silver stars started turning on. First just patches here and there, but then the whole ceiling was sparkling like the Milky-Way on a cloudless night.

"What?" whispered Max.

"Glow worms," came the answer, and Max heard the smile in his voice. "Inviting flying insects home for dinner."

Max stood there in awe, looking up, until his neck was stiff. Then they snapped their lights back on and the grow worms were gone.

"Is this a good sign?" said Max sometime later, holding his lamp up to reveal a wooden man, carved into the top of an ancient post that had been driven into the floor of the cave.

"Tekoteko," said Wiremu next to him. "Not the best sign."

"No?"

"No. It's a warning to turn back." Wiremu clicked his tongue. "But we'll take it as the opposite, won't we?"

Max studied the Tekoteko, who stood on top of his post and reached the height of Max's chest. He had a little pot belly, but maintained a defiant stance, complete with protruding tongue. In his three fingered hand he held a mere, clearly to ward off intruders.

"Encouragement to go on," agreed Max. They steeped around the fierce little guard and pushed on. The way was seldom wide enough to walk two abreast, but never did it require them to crawl or force themselves though claustrophobic squeezes, as in some of the other caves.

Different also from all those other caves was that in them the two friends had chattered away about this or that, but here they walked in almost complete silence, content with their own thoughts and navigating the uneven floor.

They stood in silence also when they came to a wall, built to one side, entirely of human skulls. The brown bone was ancient, mouldered by the years, eyes and noses black voids bleeding mud. The light from their lamps played across the ridges of bone; brows and cheeks, dome and jaw, white teeth and dark socket.

"One hundred," murmured Wiremu.

"Hmm?" responded Max, the horrific spell of the skull's death grins broken.

"One hundred dead men," said Wiremu, squatting down in front of the wall.

"The Paturau massacre?" whispered Max.

Wiremu shook his head.

"These have been here much longer. And look, none of the noses or jaws are broken. Nor any skulls stoved in."

He was right.

"A burial site?"

Again, Wiremu didn't think so.

"Not like this. Not the Māori way." He stood again as Max continued to ponder the grim structure.

"Also the bones are all the same size, no children. All these people were roughly the same age."

"You are right," agreed Wiremu. "Let's move on. I don't care for this company."

After finding the skulls the tension in the cave became a palpable force. So much so that Max screamed out loud when the head of a great sea monster reared up in front of them!

"Hang on," shouted Wiremu, putting a steadying hand in the small of Max's back so that he would not fall back down the jumble of rocks over which they had only just climbed. Then with both lamps lifted high they surveyed the head and neck of the massive wooden dragon that towered into the black cave space above them.

"Bloody hell," said Max, breathing out in awe.

"What is it?" asked Wiremu in a whisper. The open mouth of the medieval beast, with long teeth inside and flared nostrils above, wide eyes and broken horns, filled his vision.

"I think..." began Max, when his heart had slowed back to something near its normal pace. "That it is the prow of a ship. The same ship whose ribs make that fence down by the road... and the skulls of whose crew guard the way in."

Together the two friends swung the beams of their lamps down the long, scale carved, neck. When the light finally reached the cave floor at its base, their faces shone with the reflected glory of the gold coins piled there!

"Ikariki Maunga's Golden Taniwha," said Wiremu, after a long pause.

Max didn't say anything, he just sat down on a rock and stared. He imagined an old Māori, whom he had never seen or heard say; '...a golden Taniwha... in a cave... south of the river... you just have to look though the wood. Look though the wood.' He felt a slow laugh building in his chest.

They'd done it! Done it! Ikariki Maunga had done it! They'd found it!

"I'm going down there!" announced Wiremu, setting off at once. Springing up Max was only a step behind.

At the pile, which was easily as big as a full-grown horse laying on its side, and forming the body of the Taniwha, they stopped. Then with trembling hangs they both reached out and each seized up a single coin each. Laughing now, they studied the disks, the same as the one from the Paturau dig. Big as biscuits and heavy, even with a square hole though the middle. Chinese characters marked the four points of the compass and... golden, so golden, the deepest yellow gold colour that Max had ever seen.

There was something else too. Piles and piles of white porcelain trade bowls, again the same as the one from under Paturau Pā.

"Amazing," breathed Wiremu. "Who would have known?"

"Hidden here for... who knows how long!"

Max did a little dance on the dry dirt floor and swept up his friend in a bear like embrace.

"This changes everything!" he cried. Wiremu, his face lit with the reflected light of the gold, let Max spin him a couple of turns, before coming to a halt in front of the pile once more. Then Max watched him extend his hand and turn it slowly over so that the coin in it fell back to the pile with the heavy clunk.

"It changes nothing," said Wiremu flatly. Max stared at him, blinking in disbelief.

"Yes it does! We are rich, rich beyond belief!"

Wiremu shook his head.

"We will never see a cent of this."

"Oh yes we will!" asserted Max.

"We won't Max," spat Wiremu, with a bitterness to his voice that Max had never heard before. "It's not finders keepers!"

"I'm keeping my half!" said Max.

Wiremu shook his head again, staring at the pile of gold coins.

"You're not. Riwai Turangapeke sold this land to the Crown years ago. This gold will be swallowed up by the Government to build railways, ships and cities."

"You're wrong!" replied Max. "This is an archaeological find; these are cultural artefacts."

"So?! The museum will get the dragon prow, the bowls and a coin or two for display. But the rest of the gold will all disappear into the system."

"No, that's not..."

"It is Max!" interrupted Wiremu. "And if these are cultural artefacts... to what culture do they belong? Chinese or Māori?"

"Māori of course. That's not a Chinese Tekoteko standing guard. The original Chinese owners of all this are long dead! I think that the skull wall is testimony to that. Listen, with just one of these coins we could buy Jo Foo and Wang out of Chinatown, and pay for your and his entire university careers, with enough left over for a banquet at Amelia's every day of the year!"

"You know I'm right don't you?" asked Wiremu, looking his friend in the eye. Max ignored the question.

"With a few more we could buy the Aorere Pā, Wapping Point and every other piece of Māori land in Mohua... land that the Northerners are trying to sell out from underneath you!"

"You know I'm right," repeated Wiremu.

"Then you could set up your own scholarship scheme. You could help local Māori students though school and university. You could even establish that Marae, that you talked about! The one for all people."

"You remember that?"

"Of course."

"It doesn't matter. You can't buy your way into Rangatira. It can never happen. Face it Max I'm right."

"You're not right Wiremu! Listen this is not lost treasure. It has an owner and its owner knows exactly where it is!" Wiremu looked lost, so Max continued. "This all belongs... though right of conquest... raupatu if you will... to one Ikariki Maunga. And he wanted you to find it! I don't want to put too finer point on it... but this my friend, is your family inheritance." Max swept his hand over the entire cave. Wiremu stared at him.

"Tamati Pirimona Marino gave me all the inheritance I need!" demanded the young Māori, thumping his chest with his fist.

"You nobility is noted. No one doubts it. You are Marino's true grandson. But this is also all yours!"

Wiremu looked at the golden pile again, at the stacks of porcelain bowls, weighing his friend’s words.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked after a long moment.

Max clicked his tongue.

"First let me say that you are right. No one is going to let us walk out of here with all this. It will all get spent up buying guns to scare off the Russians."

"So?"

"So," a wicked grin spread across Max's face. "We do it in secret."

Wiremu's mouth dropped open.

"You mean we just keep it?"

"Indeed."

"Not very scholarly of you."

"Oh no, we declare the find alright. Just not all of it. We keep a percentage."

"How much?"

"Oh say fifty percent? How much were you thinking?"

Wiremu shrugged.

"Maybe more like ninety."

Max snorted.

"I like the way you think. Ninety it is!"

Max had a fair idea that the plan that he was forming was legally questionable, but he comforted himself, morally sound. He was giddy with excitement. He thought of Harriet; what she would think when his name hit the headlines of The Dominion Press and the Murderer's Bay Argus. His less noble side wondered for a moment if he could buy her affection. But his better self knew that such things lost their value when purchased. Furthermore, she had already said that she loved him, that was not where the battle lay.

Maybe I could buy Coast and Main Railways and fire the Lavishams!

A thousand such schemes raced through his mind. What they would do was free Wang and empower Wiremu's people. They would give back to them the gift that the wild west sea once delivered. Naturally his Archaeology career had just been given a rather massive kick start.

"So what is on your mind," asked Wiremu, bending to retrieve another coin.

Max thought for a moment.

"We get as much of this back to the city as we can. It will take a good few trips. Then we give the site a wash down, make it look like it hasn't been tampered with..."

"A wash down?" asked Wiremu tossing a heavy coin from one hand to the other.

"Literally pour a few buckets of water over the place, wash away the gaps left in the mud by the coins we have removed."

"I see. Then?"

"Then we set up a trading company with ourselves as directors and figure out some way to launder these coins into pounds. Wang will have ideas on how to go about that. Maybe we could buy the gully that this cave is in and pretend to mine it, there are enough other claims around here. Or we could just melt the coins down and drop em ounce by ounce into Jo Foo's gold pan! Once the money is in the bank, the world is ours!"

A slow smile began to spread across Wiremu's face.

"We really could, couldn't we? We could buy the tribal lands off the Northerners, even out bidding any European developers, then gift it back to the people."

"I think so," answered Max. "And you'll have more than enough finance left to manage and work the land properly. It wouldn't even be gifting it back. I imagine that could be dangerously patronising. It would be just using what is yours to allow them to keep theirs."