THE DOWSER’S TALE

By

Waiata Dawn Davies

I

All that morning I had been up at Tom Beresford’s farm, walking back and forth across his paddocks, holding two bits of bent wire. Eventually they had kicked almost out of my hands and that was where I drilled through dry clay, through stones and rocks until eventually there was a grunt, a gurgle and water had spurted our of the pipe; muddy at first but finally clear and fresh.

By the time the cattle trough was full Tom’s missus was on her third load of washing and she was singing like a thrush on a fence post. I stayed for a cuppa and we sat on their verandah watching white thunderheads creep above the hilltops. After months of drought rain clouds were finally spreading across the sky, so I got in my ute and headed south

switched on the radio.

“Wairarapa’s last surviving Gallipoli veteran, Archibald McKinley died today at his home near Pirinoa, aged one hundred and four..”

Arch McKinley had been at Passchendale, not Gallipoli; told me himself.

I stopped for petrol at Greyrown. Young Mark washed the windscreen while the tank filled. He kept talking about the show the College kids were putting on. ‘Songs From WW1.’

The missus buzzed, reminding me to buy eggs. Big drops of cold rain set my wipers clicking. It was only four o’clock but I had to put the headlights on. At College corner I slowed as a bus pulled round, heading south past the old pines. Moments later a girl ran out the College gate, waving and hallooing. Joe McKinley’s youngest, Nettle.

Did she know her great grandfather had died?

I would have offered Nettle a ride, but nowadays they think every bloke’s a rapist, even if he went to school with their grandmother. I decided to offer her a lift if she was still there when I came back from the egg farm. As I slowed to turn into Dave Naylor’s gate a car came hooting out, Pete Rodman’s red Capri, its horn playing Dixie.

At the packing shed Dave hosed smashed eggs from the walls.

“Bastard” he muttered, “Took the cash box. Second time this month!”

“That was Pete Rodman’s car,” I said. “He wouldn’t scramble your eggs.”

“Pete wouldn’t but his boy would.”

I couldn’t imagine any emergency dire enough for Pete to let young Stan drive his precious Capri.

We found enough unbroken eggs to fill a tray and I left. At the corner I waited for the afternoon rush to pass, a petrol tanker, a stock truck, three four wheel drives all rushing. I let them go. Young Nettle was not sheltering under the pines or striding backwards with her thumb out.

At Tauheranikau the Tin Hutt’s red roof stood above river fog, thick as whipped cream. Trees and fence posts were grey shadows. Beyond the river some trick of the light made the road look narrow, with more trees, macrocarpa, manuka. At Camp Road the ute died; lights, indicators, engine, everything. I drifted to the verge, tried the usual things, nothing worked so I raised the bonnet to check the linkages.

Just then Pete Rodman’s Capri came belting out of Camp Road and took off south in a shower of gravel. A bugle sounded and a soldier, all-brass buttons and braid, cheese cutter cap, polished riding boots, rode out from Camp Road on a big chestnut. He turned towards Featherston before backing his horse up until its hindquarters were against my bumper. Even the horse’s ears stood at attention.

I coughed, said, “Excuse Me!”

I stepped away from the ute and nearly fell into the ditch where water was braiding and purling over gravel in the bottom.. The officer and his horse stared south after the Capri’s tail light.

The bugle sounded again. Soldiers ran from long huts. They were a scruffy lot, wrinkled khaki shirts, braces holding up baggy trousers; none of the action man outfits the real army wears. No berets but slouch hats. Someone making a film, I thought. Sergeants shouted, corporals shoved and soldiers shuffled. When the bugle sounded again they marched off in fours. As they passed out the gate they turned eyes right to the officer on the horse.

Young Nettle stood by the fence. As the soldiers passed she stepped towards one whose hat was pushed to the back of his head. She walked beside him for a few paces. He smiled at her, but didn’t stop. He marched out the gate, turned eyes right.

Then it all vanished. Headlights rushed up and down Highway 2, not a soldier, or horse in sight. Just young Nettle looking like a drowned rabbit as rain dripped through her hair, off her jacket, into her shoes. I handed her my mobile, told her to ring her Mum, pretended to roll a cigarette while Nettle’s blue fingers pressed the numbers.

“Mum?”

Squawks.

“I told you we had a rehearsal. I missed the bus.”

More squawks.

“I’m at Camp Road. Jack Driller lent me his mobile.” She passed the phone to me.

“ “Mum wants to talk to you.”

Myrtle McKinley’s voice was almost incoherent with all the static on the mobile. I offered to drive young Nettle home.

“Can’t understand . . . got enough on my . . . . Thanks Jack.”

“What went on back there?” I asked Nettle, but she stared out the side window pretending not to hear.

When we drove up the hill to McKinley’s farm Nettle slammed out of the ute and scuttled inside. The house was lit up enough to keep the wind generators turning all year. Myrtle’s sister’s blue Mitsubishi was in the yard. I waited a couple of minutes, wondering if anyone would acknowledge my presence, and finally pulled around to leave. Joe McKinley came out the back door and across the yard. He tried to be casual but just looked as though his piles were hurting.

“Er. Thanks for bringing her home, Jack.” he started.

“No trouble. Couldn’t leave the kid stranded. Sorry about your Grandfather. ”

“We’re in a bit of a flap here. Myrtle went to take him his cuppa and there he was, dead. Bit of a shock for her. But she says you’d better come in.” As we crossed the yard I told Joe about finding Nettle on Camp Road.

“I would have offered her a lift back at the College,” I told him, “but these days you have to be careful.” He nodded.

The kitchen was full of red headed women; Myrtle’s mother was beating something in the Kenwood. her sister, Daphne Rodman had a headlock on a big yellow bowl and was whipping for dear life. Myrtle was slapping trays against the bench until the muffins surrendered and fell out. Judging by the heat in the kitchen and the scones, muffins, and lamingtons cooling on the kitchen table, they’d been at it for some time.

Nettle was drying her hair, looking as though she found the entire bustle entirely tasteless. The three witches stopped beating and whipping when we came in. They looked as though they would like to transfer activities to me. I was not going to be offered a cuppa, or a lamington, not even a scone.

“Why is my daughter so late?” asked Myrtle, no ‘Gidday Jack. Thanks for bringing her home ten miles out of your way.’

“As though Myrtle hasn’t got enough on her plate,” chimed Daphne Rodman.

“I told you. I missed the bus. Jack gave me a lift, ” said Nettle as though she was doing everybody a favour by speaking.

“Mr. Driller to you, my girl,” said Nettle’s grandmother. Joe opened his mouth but he didn’t have a chance. Myrtle kept asking where had I taken Nettle between four and six o’clock. Daphne told us Myrtle had enough on her plate. Jenny Andrews said young people had too much freedom, and at my age I should know better, as if Myrtle didn’t have enough on her plate. Finally Nettle screamed, a real cow cocky’s bellow.

“You’re not listening! I told you. He,” pointing at me, “gave me a ride home.”

“Don’t you speak to your mother like that.” Joe managed at last. “Now, tell your mother where you were when Jack picked you up.”

“As if she hasn’t got enough on her plate,”

“Shut it, Daphne. Now, Nettle.”

Nettle stared out the window and mumbled, “I missed the bus.”

“And?”

“He gave me a ride.”

“We should ring the police,” Daphne did Women’s Studies at Massey ten years ago. Makes her an expert she thinks, “It’s always someone they know. That’s a fact .”

Finally, after a lot of shrugging and squirming young Nettle mumbled that she had hitched a ride.

“Who with?”

Mumble.

“Who?”

“Stan.”

“But why didn’t he bring you home? It’s on his way. You must have said something to annoy him. As though we haven’t got enough . . .” Stan’s mother gloomed at her niece.

Mumble.

“Stan put the hard word on you, Nettle?” I asked. Nobody else was going to.

Mumble.

Turned out Stan had offered Nettle a ride home but he had stopped on the way, expecting a bit of passion in payment. Nettle said he’d pinned her against the car door. When she managed to land a knee in his tender parts he’d taken off.

“I saw the Capri turn out of Camp Road. ” I said.

“I was going to walk to Featherston but he,” shrugging at me, “offered me a lift.”

Joe came out to the ute with me, looking embarrassed. Myrtle had a lot on her plate with the old man dying and everyone would be coming for the funeral. Myrtle didn’t apologise and Daphne was still muttering about no smoke without fire.

The district gave old McKinley a good send off. I went to the funeral, but not the bun fight afterwards. The paper wrote a decent obituary. Born 1901, enlisted at fifteen, fought at Passchendale , took up a soldier’s farm, served on the County Council twice. There were two photographs, one of Arch, in his wheel chair last Anzac Day. The other been taken on his final leave. Good looking youngster, slouch hat pushed back, happy smile.

Stan Rodman’s in hospital. The Fire Brigade pulled his father’s Capri out of the lake. The boy kept babbling about having to swerve because of ‘a bloke on a horse.’

I took the Ute to the garage. It was running rough and I didn’t want it stalling at the funeral. Mark climbed on to the bumper to look under the bonnet.

“Where’ve you been, Jack?” he asked, “Look at this.”

Now I drive a lot of back roads, but there’s no way I can explain the horse droppings Mark hosed off the engine before he fixed the ute.