The Du Rose Prophecy

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“Just leave us at the drop off point,” Robert said, his voice sounding strained as he mopped at his eyes with a clean handkerchief. “Don’t come in. I can’t bear it.”

“I don’t mind,” Logan began but Hana’s father shook his head. Robert looked like a broken man and Logan felt genuinely sorry for him as he pulled up outside the departures terminal of Auckland Airport.

“Please look after my daughter,” Robert asked the tall Māori tearfully and Logan nodded and allowed the Scotsman to pull him into an awkward embrace. “Tell her children I’ll see them next time we come,” Robert begged, eyeing his wife hopefully and she nodded and smiled at him. Relieved, he seized the handle of his suitcase and wheeled it along behind him, casting desperate looks over his shoulder at his son-in-law before the departure doors slid closed. Logan stood for a moment, leaned against the front wing of the Honda and wondered if he would ever see the gentle man again. He hoped so.

“I like him,” Tama mused thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” Logan replied. “Robert McIntyre has grown on me over the last month.” The old man had worked particularly hard to repair the damage with Hana, overwriting the rash words of a bitter argument with heartfelt encouragement and admiration for what she had achieved during the years of separation.

“Does he have to go back for his cancer treatment?” Tama asked and Logan shook his head.

“Hopefully just check-ups.” Logan felt sad for his wife. She wanted this last week with her father to be special, up at the hotel together. After twenty-six years without contact, it was meant to be a time of healing and reconnection. The heart surgery robbed her of that and Logan didn’t think he would ever forget the ashen look on the old man’s face as Hana sank to the ground at the redoubt in agony. “Not again,” Robert had sobbed. “Not like her mother.”

As Hana’s handsome husband leaned against the car with his arms folded, thinking about his beautiful but fragile wife, a security guard approached with raised eyebrows. “Move your car, sir. Now!”

Logan gave him a hard stare before turning slowly and folding his tall frame back into the vehicle, the man’s attitude towards the colour of his skin prickling something antagonistic in the Māori. The guard turned away, muttering to himself. “Bloody Māori’s. Think they can do what they like.”

Both Logan and Tama were silent on the way back to the hotel, their minds occupied by their own personal thoughts. Tama clutched his precious offer of employment from the Fire Service headquarters in eager, excited hands. He signed it in reception after Logan checked it over. They both knew he would have signed it anyway, but his uncle drove him all the way there and it seemed churlish not to ask for his help. The main office was only open until midday on a Saturday and it was a rush to get there after the airport run.

“Thanks for all your support, Uncle Logan.” Tama shook hands with him in the hotel car park. Logan smiled tiredly and they went indoors, Tama to raid the chiller for his lunch whilst dodging the sharp tongue of Leslie and the kitchen girls and Logan to check on his wife.

He discovered their room empty, the ranch slider still open wide and the temperature cool. Logan closed the doors and stayed long enough to wash his face and then sought out his wife downstairs, expecting to find her either in the family room or the dining room next to the huge industrial kitchen. She wasn’t in either place. His daughter slept soundly in her pram in a corner of the dining room while Leslie bustled around next door, giving orders to the kitchen women and chopping up kumara like a maniac. “I thought you changed youse mind!” she hollered at her employer. “Din’t she go with you? I ain’t seen her.”

Logan brushed a curl out of Phoenix’s face and sensed how deeply she slept. He touched her tiny fingers and she didn’t even stir.

“I ain’t seen her,” Leslie told him again as she flipped a tea-towel at Tama’s backside for snatching some chicken off a serving platter.

The kitchen girls shook their heads. “No, sir. We ain’t seen her today.”

With a horrid foreboding in his heart, Logan went in search of his wife with more urgency. In the stable yard, he hit pay dirt. Jack emptied sacks of feed into the huge wooden bins in the feed shed, lifting them effortlessly onto his stooped, broad shoulders. Chaffage and seed covered his face, hair and hat, drifting into the air in the process. He was an elderly man of indeterminate age who had worked for the Du Roses forever. Deaf from birth, he ran the stables since before Logan’s birth. Jack read Logan’s lips as the younger man asked him if he had seen Hana and where his horse was. He shrugged at where Hana might be, but looked genuinely bemused at the question about Sacha. He pointed frantically to the stall where he put her that morning, banging his chest to make a point. It was empty. The stand which formerly held Sacha’s tack was mysteriously back inside and bare.

Rawhiti appeared and Jack waved his arms and grunted at him, leaving the poor stable hand feeling as though he was living in some alternate reality.

“Have you seen Sacha?” Logan asked him quietly.

Rawhiti’s answer caused a mixture of anger and terror to cross his new employer’s face. Jack read the young man’s lips as he haltingly betrayed the beautiful woman. The old man slapped him forcefully on the upper arm, grabbing at his own chest and trying to explain why she shouldn’t have gone off on her own. Logan saw the confusion in the young man’s face but didn’t have time to waste in lengthy answers. He spun around, assessing the situation with his usual brand of competency.

There were four horses tethered by the tacking area, none of them particularly dynamic. They were already tacked, but for a party of guests who arrived at that moment for a trek, expecting Rawhiti to take them up into the bush and give them a taste of rural New Zealand. Jack’s Jeep sat idle at the end of the stable yard, but Logan was too impatient to drive to where he needed to be, especially when he knew there were quicker ways. Beyond the vehicle was a gate into a lunge arena, where a young grey speckled appaloosa colt grazed quietly. He was a two year old that Toby was having trouble breaking in and stock training. Logan helped him whenever Hana had a nap and Phoenix was with Leslie. It took his mind off his own problems for a few hours a day. Hana’s father had watched him working with the large, determined colt a few times and taken photos, impressed by the man’s skill and endless patience.

Logan sized up the animal, certain of his own ability but doubtful of the colt’s. He didn’t feel as though he had much choice. “Open the end gate,” he told Rawhiti with authority.

The young man faltered, plainly having the worst day of his life. Jack nudged him and pointed towards the far gate at the end of the stable yard, nodding his head emphatically towards it. Rawhiti walked towards it slowly, not understanding what was going to happen. Logan stepped into the arena, greeted enthusiastically by the colt. It nosed into him trustingly, used to his presence and gentle voiced demands. It was excited by this rider’s domination of its muscular body and relished another go at getting him off. Sensing the tension in the air, the three female guest riders stopped trying to guess which of the four horses would be theirs and fell silent. They also ceased loudly attempting to squash their hair tidily into borrowed riding hats and stood watching the men. “Ooh, what’s happening?” one said a little too loudly, ignored by her friends who stood raptly staring at the handsome Māori with the death wish.

Logan took a rope from the wooden fence and clipped it to the metal ring at the side of the colt’s halter. He waited a moment, moving round to both sides of the animal’s face, needing to be seen by both dark brown eyes and acknowledged. “Mārū tamaiti tāne,” he whispered, soothing the flicking ears and watching the white rims around suspicious eyeballs.

It seemed as though the man spent long wasted moments putting the colt through its paces, but it was only a waste if he never intended to make it to where he was going in one piece. Finally Logan ran his hands gently over the animal’s back, neck to tail, then he bounced once and landed neatly behind his withers. The horse looked surprised but had been ridden a number of times bare back in the arena, so kept his cool. For now.

Logan urged him out through the arena gate and the colt faltered and shied at the metal rungs, the sensory overload threatening an explosion of hysterics. Logan pushed forwards gently, not wanting to fall off on concrete in front of such a captive audience. He wasn’t sure which would be worse, the pain or humiliation. The colt was afraid, his ears lying flat against his head as he registered unfamiliarity and didn’t like it. Logan felt the power bunching power into the muscular shoulders and knew what was coming. He couldn’t either pair of dinner plate hooves come together or he would be flat on his back and unable to get to Hana. He knew with an unfailing conviction exactly where she was. After all, it was where he went to think, to rage or just to be still.

“On you go, boy. Steady now tamaiti tāne,” Logan said, keeping his voice light and his body devoid of tension. He pushed the beast with his heels, keeping those hooves moving. The animal stepped high, picking its feet up and dancing on the spot. Logan felt its back arch and pushed him in the direction of the end gate, seeing with dismay Rawhiti staring at him open mouthed and the gate still closed. Logan’s heart sank. He couldn’t afford a bad fall; his haemophilia was barely manageable as it was and he needed to be mobile and fit for his family. “Open the bloody gate!” he roared at Rawhiti, who still stood there.

Jack flapped his arms like a frustrated, flightless bird, grunting and looking comical. Logan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There was no way he would get the terrified horse through the small gap from the courtyard of the hotel. The gate was the only exit. His shout finished off the horse’s nerve once and for all and he took off, recognising for himself the only way to freedom. Unshod hooves scrabbled on the concrete and they were off and running, gathering speed across the stable yard even as Rawhiti grappled with the gate latch. Logan had no reins and no bit, holding onto mane and lead rope as the colt took off into the air. It cleared the metre-high gate with room to spare, galloping flat out into the paddock beyond, increasing speed even as it climbed steeply uphill.

Rawhiti managed to duck just in time, feeling the air shift as the half-ton animal moved above his head. He looked fearfully at Jack expecting a reprimand, but all he saw in the old man’s face was speculation and surprise. Looking over at Rawhiti he smiled, showing the gaps in his mouth where teeth were missing and indicated with his hand the motion of a jumping horse, followed by a shrug and a palms-open movement. Evidently nobody realised the colt’s particular talent.

Bred from stock horses with a legacy of rounding up cattle and covering heavy terrain, the young, green animal’s ability to jump an obstacle with such precision and confidence under stress, was a rare thing indeed. Jack was impressed. “Geez!” Rawhiti breathed and wiped his sweaty forehead on his forearm. He was a competent rider. Plonked into the saddle by his father before he could walk, even he would have struggled to ride a barely broken, ungelded colt over a solid obstacle and stay seated bare back. He was filled with admiration for his employer. A collective gasp behind him from the visitors caused him to look back at the horse and rider, now disappearing into the bush line. They had cleared the next gate flat out and after a series of hefty bucks ran into the canopy and were lost from sight, Logan still sat firmly on board.

“That was amazing!” the visitors agreed, exhilarated by the free show of horsemanship on display. They were oblivious to Logan’s panic, nurtured by Rawhiti’s offhand comment that Hana left over four hours ago.

The female riders secured their own hats and each other’s, proceeding towards the docile horses in the tacking area. Jack helped them to mount and sort out their stirrups, girths and other paraphernalia. By the time they set off up the track into the bush following Logan’s deep hoof marks, the company was increasingly jolly. Especially as Jack obligingly opened the gate for them and they weren’t expected to jump it. They jogged uphill, hoping very much to see the handsome rider on the fiery horse again on their travels through the bush. “Will we see that hot guy at the top?” one of them called. Rawhiti shifted uncomfortably in his saddle.

“Sorry, ladies. You’ll have to make do with me.”

The colt had bent itself to Logan’s will by the time they reached the top paddock. Jack taught Logan as a boy that a beast might be one hundred times mightier than him, but his will needed to be stronger. As long as he set his will immovably, he could defeat any living thing. He never forgot that lesson and it served him well during his lifetime, especially as it worked on school boys and other adults similarly. He was never again beaten by anyone or anything. The incident in which his two older half-brothers chased his eleven year old ass through the bush and cut him open with a machete, was put firmly behind him and never to be repeated. Logan despised his childish self for the weakness and misplaced trust in his blood relatives.

Jack was sickened and disgusted by the older boys’ jealous behaviour, especially as Logan remained unaware of the reasons behind their hatred. His bastard parentage was not his fault. The scar was wretched and ugly, made worse by the difficult healing of a haemophiliac and marked Logan forever, a rubbled road of flesh running from under his armpit to his hip. The old man taught the gangly boy the ‘principle of wills’ and knew he would use it. Jack loved Logan more than any other child, for reasons he would never share.

Unfortunately for Logan Du Rose, the only person the principle inexplicably never worked on, was his wife. It was a source of continual bafflement for him. The harder he set his will at Hana, the more likely she was to rebel or run. When she gave in to him in the laundry room at the hospital, he was surprised.

Logan stood over his wife, watching her sleep and wondering how to get her back from the edge of the cliff without causing her to pitch over it. She looked like a small child curled up on the grass and his heart ached for her, not understanding her pain but acknowledging its presence. His big colt made a bee line for Sacha, seeking out comfort with a dominant, lustful air and the dignified mare turned her backside on him and put him in his place. He moped along behind her, experiencing the most perplexing of days - beaten by a man and rejected by a woman - the sweat drying on his coat and making it sticky and dull.

Hana stirred and rubbed her eyes and Logan tensed, ready to catch her if she reacted badly and went the wrong way. She had been crying and her eyes were swollen, her eyelashes beaded with tears. Tracks in the muck on her face betrayed her further. The tell-tale hitch in her chest caused by uncontrollable sobbing bothered Logan and saddened him beyond belief.

Logan stayed still but as Hana woke further and saw his feet, she panicked and thrashed and he had no choice. He seized her under the armpits and pulled her away from the cliff edge. Hana cried out in pain as the action lifted her left shoulder and disturbed the scar and the foreign object under her skin. When Logan let go, she was enraged and frightened, irrationally convinced the leads inserted directly into her heart might have been dislodged. “You shouldn’t have done that!” she raged. She lay on her back in the grass for a moment, waiting for the fear to subside. When her husband’s face appeared above her looking concerned, she raised her right hand quickly and tried to slap him. He caught her wrist easily and held on, sinking down next to her in the grass and not letting go. His grip was like a vice and Hana knew from experience that struggling was futile.

Exhaling loudly in exasperation, she lay back and stared at the sky above her. Clouds scudded across the cold blue expanse as though being herded, responding to the push of the wind as cattle might to a stockman’s whip. Logan lay down next to her; his fingers warm on her cool wrist as he balanced on his elbow and watched her. Hana tried to pick out shapes in the fluffy white objects but they moved too quickly, merging and distorting without settling in any particular pattern. It was frustrating, but Hana persevered, desperately avoiding her husband’s gaze whilst knowing she was wasting her time. He wouldn’t give up. He never did. He would lay there and stare at her until it grew dark and she froze in position, but he wouldn’t back down and look away.

The trouble was, Hana hadn’t really worked out how to deal with things yet. She knew what was wrong, but not how to cope with it.

Logan let go of her wrist, gently laying her hand on her stomach and reaching for a lock of her long red hair. He twisted it in his fingers, examining it like a priceless artifact, admiring how it caught the light. Hana felt the movement and sneaked a look at him, dismayed to find him staring straight at her. She looked away quickly, but not before she caught the smirk in his eyes at her weakness. He exhaled and there was a laugh caught up in it as he moved closer to his wife so their bodies touched. “Go away!” Hana snapped.

Logan shifted slowly, as though dealing with a frightened or unpredictable horse, inch by inch imperceptibly until he leaned over Hana and obscured her view of the sky. Reluctantly she looked up at him, resisting the urge to slap him again or burst out laughing. He kept his grey eyes fixed on hers, his pupils as intense as black holes. His lashes brushed his cheeks and caused his fringe to bounce as it got caught up on them. He brushed her chin gently with his thumb and Hana felt like crying at the raw compassion in his face. “I was scared for you,” he whispered.

“Sorry, if I worried you,” Hana replied, her voice laced with sarcasm.

Logan kissed her dirty face with such tenderness it felt like the start of something. He brushed his lips gently over hers. “I wasn’t bothered about you. You stole my bloody horse.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he waited for Hana’s reaction. It didn’t come. She didn’t fight him or argue. She yawned and ran her hand over her face, feeling dust and sticky dirt under her fingers. Hana reached up with her left hand and ran her forefinger down the ugly scar on the right side of her husband’s face, a dubious injury from a brawl after a ‘friendly’ soccer game. Her grandson, Jas said it made him look like Action Man. The thought made her smile and Logan looked relieved. “I thought you might be here,” he said and kissed her neck.

Hana shifted underneath him guiltily. “I can’t live here, Loge,” she said sadly and he started in surprise. “The generator. I’m meant to stay away from them. They might damage the ‘thing’ and I wouldn’t realise until it failed and I was dead.”

“Ok,” he said, so easily Hana was astounded. He pushed his right hand behind her head and up into her hair, stroking the back of her neck and she closed her eyes under the spell of his caress. He made everything feel so much better, as though nothing was a problem; everything could be sorted.

Logan didn’t seem interested in anything except his wife, keen to re-establish their relationship on a more secure footing. He undid the buttons on her blouse and kissed the ridge of the pacemaker, not once breaking eye contact with her. By the time his lips sought hers, hot and intense, Hana had forgotten everything except her husband. Logan wouldn’t let her talk anymore, keeping her there on the grass amongst the building debris and flying polystyrene, which danced around them carelessly in the grip of the wind.