Frog Whistle Mine Page 5

  Soon afterwards Duggan left, and Tony returned to his breakfast. Yes, he would go and see Duggan’s place, and he would make sure he took someone with him. He didn’t want to be alone with the man. Then, for some reason, he thought of the shadow he’d seen hanging around the caravan. Could that have been Duggan?

  ‘Where exactly is Duggan’s farm?’

  ‘Further up the road,’ replied Lofty. ‘It almost backs onto where you are in the caravan.’

  Tony nodded. It could have been Duggan in the bushes. Then he got to thinking of Duggan’s question about sleeping in the caravan. How did he know that Tony slept there? It hadn’t come up in the conversation the night before. Had Duggan’s question really been that friendly? Or had he already known something about the rat? Maybe he had put it there. But why?

  ‘To scare me, that’s why,’ Tony said to himself. ‘For some reason he doesn’t want me around that place.’

  Which just made Tony all the more determined to stay.

  Chapter 8

  After breakfast Tony fired up the computer so that he could find names for each of his weka. He’d already worked out some of them: after what they had done to the rat they had to be called the Butcher family; the male bird would be Sirloin Butcher, and one of the chicks Black Pudding Butcher. To get some more names he searched for a site that showed the various cuts of meat. Immediately he had a name for the female bird—she would be Tenderloin Butcher. The names of the other chicks were more troublesome until he found a site that gave the names of hundreds of different sausages. Black Pudding’s siblings soon became Salami, Frankfurter and Polony.

  Well pleased with his names, Tony turned to the map so he could plan his morning explorations. The quickest route to the bay seemed to be via the path that also led to Cathedral Rock, so that was the way he went.

  Steps led steeply down to a stream enclosed in bush. Tree ferns were the main plant, surrounded by a few young rimu. There was a sense of perpetual dampness: the compost that formed the track squelched with every step, and deep watercourses flowed beneath rotting covers.

  He was pleased when the path began to climb and he moved out of the bush into a mossy avenue lined with flowering flax. Here, he could smell the scent of the sea carried by the slight breeze. As he climbed, the moss gave way to speckled white rock that glistened in the sunlight. The flax became shorter, and the birdsongs were replaced by the roar of the waves.

  A sign told him he had reached Cathedral Rock, and warned parents to keep their children close-by. Tony soon saw why. The summit was almost bare rock with just a few struggling ground creepers. The rock sloped down towards the edge, making it doubly dangerous. There were no barriers or anything else that could stop someone from walking to the brink and over. The explosive sound of waves crashing into rocks could be heard from far below.

  Carefully, he moved forward, hoping to get a view over the edge. At the last minute his nerve failed, yet he had seen enough to know that there was a sheer drop of about forty metres onto jagged rocks. He could see how Fred’s grandfather might have fallen over. It would have been so easy and there would be little hope of survival.

  In his mind, Tony could see the old miner standing on the rock, looking out to sea, thinking about his life and all the good and bad things that had happened. Then the man’s face twists in a combination of pain and fear. He doubles over grabbing his chest, hoping to stop the crushing pain. But it won’t stop and he stumbles forward, staggering ever closer to the edge, until…

  Or maybe there was a fight. Another miner knows where the rich lead of gold is and wants the mine for himself. The old man fights bravely, but he is no match for the younger man. As he is forced towards the brink, his boots search for a foothold on the slippery rocks, but there is none. In the end he falls, his screams echoing off the cliffs, until there is a dull thud and finally all is silent…

  Tony smiled to himself, pleased with the images he had created. That was what he called real imagination—not the boring stuff that adults always came up with. Fred thought his grandfather had fallen down a ditch: how boring was that?

  It was the same with the missing Frenchwoman. Everybody thought she’d gone down one of the ditches. Yet there were all sorts of things that could have happened to her. For instance, someone could have thrown her to the sharks off this rock. He wondered if the police had even searched down below. It would be easy enough if you knew how to abseil, as there were rings cemented into the rock. People went over that edge for fun. Tony knew that was something he would never do. What was the point? There was nothing to do when you got to the bottom, except climb back up again.

  He moved back down the path to where an overgrown track led to a lower set of rocks. The surface here was safer, with a few rocky handholds. Now he had a good view back up to Cathedral Rock, and could see that it wasn’t entirely a straight fall: a small ledge and a cleft offered some hope for anyone unlucky enough to go over the edge.

  He turned and looked to the north. In the middle distance the rocky shore changed to a curving beach that stretched to another set of rocks near Cape Foulwind. Beyond that, the sea continued until, somewhere in the distance, it merged with the sky. In the whole of the view there was not a single building or anything else that would suggest that people lived there. It was hard to imagine that in the 1870s it had been one of the most populated places in the country.

  His next stop was Doctor Bay. Through the flax he could see an arc of sand edged with speckled boulders. It could have been beautiful, if there had not been such a foul smell in the air. He struggled through the flax hoping to get down to the sand.

  He had made it to the edge of the boulders when a large grey animal lunged at him out of nowhere. With gaping mouth, and roaring like a lion, it lumbered forward, plainly upset by his presence. Tony quickly backed away. And that must have been all that the thing wanted. For, with a final snort, it turned and went back to its grassy spot in the sun. Behind it was a sign that warned to be careful of the seals—Arctocephalus forsteri, the New Zealand fur seal.

  This was the first wild seal Tony had seen. It was now obvious that the animal was the source of some of the smell, though not all of it—no single thing could smell that much. He looked around and found several other seals sunning themselves on the rocks. A few more could be seen lolling in the waters of the bay.

  He stood watching as one of them hauled itself out of the water and scrambled up a rock that was already occupied. There was a moment of roaring and head waving before they discovered there had always been enough space for two.

  Loop Track branched off Cathedral Track and led down to the rocks at the entrance to Constant Bay. There he found Nick sitting on a rock with a computer resting on his knees. The air around him was thick with the stench of seals.

  ‘Nice company you keep,’ Tony said.

  Nick turned and looked at two seals snoring on the glittering rock behind him. ‘They’re better than some humans.’

  Tony looked at Nick wondering if he was a little crazy—sitting on a rock in amongst stinky seals, working on a computer. It was not a normal thing to do.

  ‘What are you doing anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Measuring radioactivity.’

  Tony looked at him dumbly.

  ‘Here, I’ll explain.’ Nick lifted the computer and stood. Tony could then see a pipe sticking out of the rock. A cable led from the computer to the pipe. ‘I’m measuring the radioactivity in the rocks down that pipe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So I can predict earthquakes.’

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Tony, getting interested. ‘You can say when earthquakes are going to happen?’

  Nick gave a sheepish smile. ‘I hope I can.’

  ‘How?’

  The scientist looked at him for a while, as if wondering how he could explain it to a boy. ‘What do you know about atoms?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ replied Tony.

  ‘You know they have a nucleus in the middle with electrons
around the outside, and are the building blocks of everything?’

  ‘I think I must have been away that day.’

  ‘Well they do, and some atoms throw bits out of that nucleus. This is called radioactivity. Uranium is one that can do that. This rock that we are sitting on is Charleston Gneiss. It is mostly quartz, but it also has some uranium. Are you still with me?’

  ‘No sweat.’

  ‘Good. Now, do you have a hundred-dollar note in your pocket?’

  Tony slapped his leg. ‘No! Darn! I left them all back home.’

  ‘Well then, when you get back,’ said Nick, seriously, ‘have a look at the picture on it. That man was the one who sorted out a lot of this radioactivity stuff. He was born about three hours’ drive up that road over there.’

  ‘Ernest Rutherford?’

  ‘Ah! See! You do know something. For all we know he may have stood on these rocks as a child. Later, he identified the bits thrown out by uranium. He called them alpha, beta and gamma rays. When uranium throws out those bits it eventually becomes another substance called radon. That’s where my work starts. Because radon is a gas and can get squeezed out of the rocks.’

  He touched the pipe by his feet. ‘In this tube is a Geiger counter.’

  ‘I know what that does,’ said Tony. ‘It counts geigers.’

  ‘Ha, ha. Very funny,’ said Nick, without smiling. ‘No, it counts when radon changes into lead. From the size of the count I know how much radon is in the tube.’ He pointed out to sea. ‘A few kilometres out there is the Foulwind Faultline. Over the years, pressure builds up in the rocks on either side of it. When that pressure gets released, an earthquake occurs. If I measure the radon, then I know how much pressure there is, and from that I can predict the earthquake.’ He leaned back on the rock smiling, obviously pleased with his explanation.

  ‘So when do you expect this earthquake?’

  The smile disappeared. He glanced from side to side as if looking for spies. Then he looked long and hard at the boy. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Nick still looked undecided. Yet he plainly wanted to share what he knew. He wanted somebody to know how clever he was. Eventually he said, ‘I think it will come in about ten days’ time.’

  ‘Wow! Will it be like the one last night?’

  ‘No! It will be stronger and we will feel it much more. That one last night was deep in the earth. The ones on the Foulwind Faultline are near the surface. There will be a lot of earth movement around here.’

  Tony was beginning to feel scared. ‘Will there be damage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will people get killed?’

  ‘I hope not. It did not happen in the 1913 or 1962 earthquakes.’

  ‘Why don’t you want to tell people?’

  ‘Because TV would make a big thing of it and people would get very scared.’

  ‘But they might do something to protect themselves.’

  ‘They should be doing those things anyway. They should know this is a high-risk area.’

  ‘I think you should tell them,’ said Tony, gravely.

  Nick looked down at his feet. ‘I can’t. What if I am wrong? People would get frightened for nothing.’

  ‘And you would look a bit stupid,’ added Tony.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Nick quietly, ‘I would.’

  Chapter 9

  Tony spent the rest of the morning in Fred’s shed, developing his ideas about the fossil crabs. Fred was most helpful—he seemed to enjoy having young people around. Already the mobile phone had been reassembled and delivered back to Rose, who was sitting in a corner catching up on all the news from her friends.

  Fred was right when he said he had just about everything in his shed. He certainly had all that Tony needed. The idea was to paint the concretion and display the halves on wood. He wanted to sell them to get money for Christmas presents.

  Two hours later he was finished. Rose and Fred gathered around to assess his handiwork.

  ‘Very good,’ said Fred. ‘You should make more of these. The tourists will love them.’

  ‘They’re both nice,’ added Rose. ‘But I like that one best.’ That one was the half containing the imprint of the crab. Tony had added thin, white lines to highlight the hollows. It gave a beautiful modern look to the ancient image. The other contained the crab, which was now a polished, deep black. It was also beautiful, but in a more sinister way. Each of the halves sat on a piece of golden rimu.

  ‘Are you going to make more?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Yes. Tomorrow, I’m going back into the mine to do some collecting. That’s if Fred will let me.’

  Fred thought for a while. ‘I don’t like you going in by yourself, Tony. Just in case something happens.’

  Tony turned to Rose. ‘Will you come with me?’

  Rose pulled a face. ‘Do I have to? That place gives me the creeps.’

  ‘You know,’ said Fred with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘there’s also greenstone pebbles stuck in that sand.’

  ‘Is there?’ said Rose. ‘I could use it to make jewellery.’

  Thus it was arranged: Rose would join Tony in the mine, so they could each collect things. Though from the wink that Fred gave Tony, he wasn’t sure that Rose would find what she was after.

  That afternoon they visited Duggan’s farm. It was an easy walk up the hill onto the terrace behind the mine entrance. Tony became aware that the mine must be under the Scotsman’s property.

  Alongside the parking area was a shop labelled Golden Glow Herbal Medicines. The shop was empty, but a bell somewhere in the distance rang to announce their arrival. The first impression was the smell—sweet, creamy and relaxing.

  ‘Vanilla,’ said Rose. ‘Oh, how I love that smell.’ She walked around the shop with her nose in the air until she located a basket full of brown-coloured pods. She picked one up and rolled it past her nose.

  ‘You like the smell of vanilla, do you?’ It was Duggan. He had entered noiselessly, through a door behind the counter. ‘Those beans’re grown right here in Charleston. As is everythin’ else in this shop.’

  Tony and Rose looked around. It was an attractive-looking shop. Most of the goods rested on straw packed into cane baskets. There were jars of all shapes and sizes. The ingredients came in a range of colours, with the dominant one being a golden yellow.

  ‘Are they all medicines?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Aye, sort of. They’re all good fer you in some way.’

  The bell rang again as a group of tourists entered. They seemed to know just what they were after, for they went straight to a box by the counter and picked up several packages. A good amount of money changed hands and they were off again.

  ‘Marshmallows,’ said Duggan. ‘By far ma biggest seller. Here, try one.’ He held out a dish with some yellow jellylike blobs.

  ‘Marshmallows?’ said Rose. ‘They don’t look like marshmallows.’

  Duggan just smiled.

  Tony popped one in his mouth. It felt like it looked, with a slight taste of vanilla. It was nothing like any other marshmallow he’d tasted.

  ‘You see, these’re the original marshmallows. They’re made oot of a mallow plant tha’ grows in marshes. They’re not made oot of any of tha’ other rubbish you get in sweeties. These ones’re good fer you.’

  Tony nodded his head. Now he understood why they tasted that way—they were healthy.

  ‘C’mon oot the back and I’ll show you.’

  The mallows were small shrubs with white flowers. They seemed to like living in the smelly, wet patch not far from the house.

  ‘We use all parts of the plant, but the most useful is the root. When ground up and mixed with water it forms a jelly. You eat tha’ and you’ll nay suffer from stomach troubles again.’

  They then got the full tour, starting with a large lake. ‘This dam once supplied water for the gold-sluicing. Now it grows ma water lilies. Thos
e white ones’re spatterdock—good for acne, toothache and ulcers. The pink ones’re lotus—diarrhoea, dysentery and piles.’

  ‘Top end and bottom end,’ said Tony.

  Rose sniggered; Duggan ignored him.

  They moved along to the edge of a large, dark pit. There was water in the bottom in which even more plants were growing. Around the edge were banks of shiny black coal.

  ‘This was one of the main reasons I bought this place—the coal mine. It had stopped workin’ years ago, but still had enough coal fer ma purpose and tha’ was to heat those over there.’ He pointed to two glasshouses on the far side of the pit. ‘Tha’s where I do ma hobby.’

  The air in the glasshouses was hot, moist and smelled strongly of vanilla. The plants were straggly vines, climbing up posts made from tree ferns. Long, green pods hung from the stalks. Some of them were already turning brown.

  ‘This is the vanilla orchid. I had a vanilla farm on Mangareva fer many years until ma wife died.’ He paused for a moment in remembrance. ‘Tha’s one of the islands in French Polynesia.’ Another pause. ‘When I came here, I was determined to continue growin’ them. I can come in here and it’s like I’m back in the islands and ma dear wife is still alive.’ Tony studied the man with some sympathy. This was an altogether different side to Duggan. This was somebody who had genuine feelings for others.

  Rose seemed to be affected too. ‘Was your wife French?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Nay!’ he said, in a flash of anger. ‘She certainly was not.’ With effort, he calmed himself down. ‘She was Mangarevan—one of the most beautiful people living on God’s earth.’ Then he gave a little smile. ‘Och, Rosie, I’m sorry I barked at you. But you nay call the Polynesian people French. It’s like saying a Scotsman is English.’

  The tour continued: wasabi, water chestnuts, calendula, sarsaparilla—there seemed no end to the strange plants that he grew. Each was described along with the illnesses it could cure or prevent. There was no doubting that Duggan knew his medicinal herbs.

  They were inspecting bamboo shoots (spasms, convulsions and strokes) when the bell rang. ‘Excuse me,’ said Duggan. ‘I gave ma workers the day off to go Christmas shopping, so I’m a wee bit short-handed.’ He jogged off towards the shop.