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  Where’s your clothes? Mom says.

  Oh, we’ve had quite a night, I say.

  I lead Esther to her armchair next to the fake tree. She squeezes my arm and doesn’t seem to want to let go. Tootie seems confused. She leaves her feet propped up on the footrest.

  Big Coyote went for a splash in the pool, Esther says. You should have seen him. She laughs. It’s a joke, sure, but there’s something in the way she says my name. No mockery there. I had hoped to trade the other way, for a younger widow, but if there’s one thing I know it’s filling a need.

  I got the one more delivery to make, and first light’s not very far off, but I can see that Esther wants to tell the story of my rescue, so I sit and listen to how she remembers it.

  The Bush Robin Sings

  Any luck with the fish, you lads?

  No, I don’t expect it. Not many fish left in Rotoroa. Or in them rivers. Eels, now. Eels we have aplenty. Eels from here to the ground. But not trout. The DOC would be happy if there weren’t a trout finning anywhere in New Zealand. But I don’t want to hear anything about the DOC.

  Just arrived, have ye? That’s Department of Conservation. Responsible, among other things, for the total destruction of all introduced game animals and the blind conservation of everything that was here before the Europeans set bloody foot. That’s your DOC.

  Bugger the sand flies. I can’t abide them. I don’t prefer to wander meself out there in the wilderness amongst the sand flies. Bloody sand fly heaven, this. I cast me line around that bend after dark, after the sand flies have gone and went to bed.

  Scotland, yes. Sure. I never could lose me accent, though it’s softened a wee bit. They said if you came on the boat when you were school-aged you could lose it, but I came when I was eighteen and all through with school. Nearly sixty years in this country and I’m a Scotsman as soon as I open me mouth.

  There used to be trout. Oh yes. Uncountable numbers of huge fish. If you asked me to count them, I couldn’t count them. They swum by in shoals. Shoals of nine- and eleven-pounders over here, there a shoal of the fours and sixes, and then another shoal of little beggars over there. The water clear as gin and so inundated with beautiful fish you couldn’t count them even if they asked you to.

  DOC sent their first officer up here in ’66, ten years after I came. Said, Look up Scotty and he’ll teach you how to cast. I was nifty with a fly rod as a lad, understand, but I didn’t have much use for it here with all the deer to shoot. Beggar looked me up, and I taught the lad to cast. Had an old cane pole belonged to his granddad. I taught him for a day, and he could still only cast from here to that sign. That was one day before the season opened, and he said he was counting fish, but I think he was looking to write tickets for fishing out of season.

  The next day I swapped him some venison for some trout.

  By God, Scotty, he says to me. I never seen such trout. I caught a dozen. Maybe more. If you asked me to count how many I hooked, I couldn’t say. So many trout. Huge trout. Broke me off and swum upstream, or else they swum downstream.

  Didn’t matter that he could only cast from here to that sign. The trout were there to be had, even for a learner with no business catching them.

  Who’s a native and who’s been introduced? That’s the question the little people squabble about. They’re German browns, and the DOC won’t stock a one. The hidebound buzzards would be happy if the last one disappeared. Which is a fine thing when they’re luring the tourists here with visions of trout as big as your holiday, pardon my speech.

  See a trout in the Sabine Gorge did ye? Ay, that trout has lived there for a decade, maybe more. He’s what you might call the poster fish for the Nelson Lakes. Only feeds at midnight on rainy nights during a full moon of a mayfly hatch. Good luck with that trout, lads.

  Yes, yes, we have our native trout. Sure we do. Little beggars. Only yea long. I was with me friend Rennie, fellow culler, and we decided to shoot one, have a taste of the native fruit if you know what I mean. By God, it was like cutting through wool that was inundated with bones. Just inundated. And when you got to the meat after a fortnight of cutting, it tasted of possum, I swear to you.

  That’s the wee trout we have native, and to protect the useless beggars, the DOC won’t stock another brown. But don’t ask me about the DOC.

  You care to smoke?

  Oh, quitter are ye? I don’t want to know about it.

  I used to smoke a pipe meself. I loved a pipe. By God. I never let it burn out. It felt good to smoke a pipe, and it looked good too. It is a handsome thing to hold a sturdy pipe in yer teeth. Ay. That American pipe tobacco tastes so good you could just eat it. I could smoke a pipe in me sleep. But you can’t afford it. These little rollies, you use less tobacco.

  No, gentlemen. You just can’t afford the pipe.

  What is it you say you do for a living? Ay, you didn’t say, did ye. I’m a nosey beggar. I won’t say I’m not. I find people here to talk to every day. Waiting for the shuttle like you, or looking for a place to pop their tents. German, Israeli, Czech Republic, American. I’ll take them back to my house to pitch a tent under me clothesline before I’ll recommend they camp on that miserable stretch of grass the DOC provideth. So many lads over the years you can’t count ’em. And some of them real gentlemen too. Some keep in touch still via the mails. I met an Israeli girl who was trying to cook tea in the campground there, and the sand flies were absolutely murdering her. I says to her, Come to me house and cook yer tea, lass. And she jumped right at the idea. Didn’t even stop to wonder if she should trust a stranger. The sand flies were just murdering the poor lass. Bloody insatiable beasts.

  Stayed two weeks, that one. A real gentleman. She keeps in touch through the mails yet. That was twenty years ago.

  History, say? I’m a big fan of U.S. history. Anything from the Revolution until the Civil War you can ask me about. I’m just mad about anything to do with yer Kentucky black powder muskets.

  They ran a special on the history of the American West here on the New Zealand telly. It ran six or seven nights. A regular miniseries. It was done by Spielberg. They showed it at two thirty in the morning, and it ran for two hours, but I was so keen I didn’t miss an episode. Two thirty in the morning they showed it. Beggars. They’ll do that sort of thing to you here in New Zealand.

  Yes, I know they have their modern black powder rifles. But I don’t want to hear anything about a muzzleloader that don’t look like a muzzleloader.

  For years I wrote letters to the president of the Muzzleloaders Association in the U.S. Up until he died two years ago. His name was Miles Standish. True descendant of the militia man if you can believe it. I was lucky enough to know him and to get one meself when I hung up me deer gun, a black powder musket, .50 caliber with the flint lock and curly maple stock. Oh, she was a lovely creature. Shoot as straight as a rifle. And very dear. Would have cost me $1,800 New Zealand. But Mr. Standish found me a deal for $200.

  Ay, Mr. Standish would send me this delicious American tobacco, right through the mails. By God, I can still taste it. The Prince Arthur and the Larsen’s Pure Kentucky Gold. Our tobacco doesn’t hold a candle, but we didn’t know better because we were brung up on it. I sent letters to him me whole life. He had a keen interest in deer culling, and I had a keen interest in U.S. history, so you could say we were natural pen pals. I would send him stories of life in the bush, and he would send me literature on the black powder muskets. Mr. Standish loved his tobacco too, he did. And coffee. He drank it black as the devil’s heart. Black coffee and that gorgeous American tobacco. My God.

  You can get anything you want in the U.S. Rennie and me used to scour the American magazines, just amazed at what you could buy. My God, we’d say. You can buy that? And then we’d turn the page and say it again.

  Do you know I’m seventy-six years old? I don’t feel seventy-six. By God. Until I go to take in the washing or have a go at the garden. Then I get tired and realize I’m seventy-six years old. Or I see
a picture of meself and I think, Who’s the old dodger in the photograph?

  I used to have a friend back in Scotland. Les was his name. He’s long gone now. He was older than me by a stretch. Maybe he was thirty and I was seventeen. We were mad about gunning. Mostly pheasant and grouse, but also stalking deer. Les had the antlers of a trophy stag he shot in the highlands mounted above his stove in the parlor. One night I was at his house for tea and he’s leaning over a paper, making a big secret about it.

  And I says, Let’s have a wee look, lad.

  And he pushes the paper at me and says, Yes, have a wee look at this, Scotty.

  I read the paper, just astonished. Do you believe it? I says.

  The paper was a color advertisement calling for sharpshooters in New Zealand. You could get paid by the government to shoot the red deer off the land. The acclimatization society called the deer the red menace on account of they ate the native flora, beech seedlings and such.

  Do you reckon it’s legitimate? I says.

  And Les says to me, Says right here in English it is.

  According to the advertisement, the program was begun in the 1930s and still growing. It had to be legitimate. There was already a bloody history to it.

  My God, I says. It was like a dream sent down from heaven above.

  And he says, My God.

  And we had a wee nip and just let the possibility settle into us. Nobody says anything.

  Then he says to me, says, If I were you, Scotty, a man of your age and not tied down with woman and child, I’d get out now. I’d go to New Zealand. Poor Les had two girls and a missuz, and it was hopeless for him to go anywhere but down the lane.

  I decided right then at the table that’s what I’d do. It was no contest really. I could follow me father into the bloody mines, or ship off to exotic climes and live from the fruit of the land.

  I walked home in the dark just brimming with it. And in the morning I told me folks I was bound for New Zealand.

  New Zealand, they said. Bosh, Scotty. Eat yer porridge, lad.

  And I said, It’s settled. I’m going to sling me Daniel, Father.

  And he said, Think it over, lad.

  And I said, I’ve thought of nothing else, sir.

  And in six weeks, seven at the most, I had me berth on the Castel Felice, and here I’ve been ever since.

  Yes, it was legitimate, I wrote to Les. True as the Queen of England. I signed on as Hunter Second Grade. The bottom of the staircase. That was me livelihood, gentlemen.

  I’ve shot thousands of deer. Tens of thousands. Stags the rich Brits may only dream of. Too many to count, though back then we had to count them. The DOC has always been big accountants. At first we had to hide the animals and cart the hides back from the bush with us. Until the DOC realized that was holding up the killing. Then we just cut the bloody tails off and brought them to the office to collect our payment.

  Of course we had a quota. Twenty deer per month or find a new line of employment, lads. It wasn’t the quota that drove most lads off. It was the hard yakka in the bush they couldn’t tolerate. The cold and the rain. Snow even in the summer. Rough as guts, it was. The wasps and the bloody sand flies and nary a flat patch of earth to pitch yer tent. Not to mention the lonesomeness.

  We cut the backstraps for tea and left the carcasses to rot in the bush. Which was a bloody shame, and I don’t like to talk about it. But we was two, maybe three weeks back in the wop-wops sometimes, and you couldn’t haul the carcasses out with ye. No sir.

  Well, let’s just say it wasn’t too hard hauling me paycheck home with me. Let’s just leave it at that.

  I wrote to Mr. Standish about it. He said he was going to make a chronicle of me life, but I don’t think he ever did. I told him of the exploits of a deer culler, fair and foul. My God, lads, I could tell you stories.

  I started on the north island in the Tararuas. The trout were as plenteous as they were here. And the deer were so common you could shoot them from camp. Back then no one cared about fishing except the rich Brits, and you wouldn’t find them wanderin’ far from the lodge. We’d be living up in the bush, miles from anything. Just me and Rennie. He was me partner for the duration. We worked in twos like that. Part of a bigger group of sixes sent off by the DOC, but it was always just the two of us. We’d get tired of eating venison, and we’d walk down to the river for trout. I’d get in the river up to me knees, and Rennie’d be up on the bank with his deer rifle, and he’d say, Are ye ready, Scotty?

  And I’d shout out, Ready lad, and he’d fire his rifle at one. The water was as clear as gin and you could see them swimming in the pools just as big as life. By God. You didn’t have to hit the beggars, just hit close by and you’d stun them, and they’d float belly up downstream like a loaf of bread into me acceptin’ arms.

  And we had this gorgeous trout for dinner that night instead of venison. Those were the days, lord.

  It was me elder boy hooked me back into fishing years later. Legal fishing, not with a rifle. Returned to the old country that one. A rare visitor. And me younger lad’s a city lad now. Lives in Christchurch.

  Yes, I met me wife here in the south when I was thirty. Had a couple of kids later on, and that put a crimp in me hunting, you could say. Big changes coming, but I was bloody hopeless against it. The culler’s life was hard on the marriage, I see now. Three or four weeks stalking deer and then a week at home. Though at the time it seemed like a beautiful arrangement, I’ll confess to ye. To save the lot, I had to hang up my rifle and pick up a pencil, which was a bloody shame. I was never much use with the pencil. I worked in the DOC office, filing the reports, playing wet nurse to the new recruits. It wasn’t the same as being a freelancer. I was a clerk. I wasn’t me own man.

  Rennie, he stayed in the field. New partner. A good, keen man, that one. He stayed in touch with me all those years. He was a better man than me, I’ll wager.

  Me elder boy used to go out fishing at night, after the sand flies had went to bed, and I’d be sitting at home thinking, I hope he doesn’t catch any. For you know who was the one would have to clean them. But home he’d come with three or four trout as long as yer arm, and I’d clean them, and by God they tasted fine.

  The roar was over for me by then lads, if you know what I mean. I was in me forties then, and it was a calm stretch of water. Had the house here in Rotorua and a little hut we built in the woods. Time for me hobbies like the black powder musket and yer histories on the subject. The wife and me younger lad were keen on the flora, and I’d take me elder boy out into the woods to shoot. It was a satisfactory arrangement. Yes, lads, me forties was a lovely stretch. I don’t recall that the sand flies was as wicked in those years, but you could say that memory is yer best repellant.

  Eel! Don’t touch a bloody eel, lads. They’re native. Protected by the DOC. You can go out and murder an old lady or commit some heinous felony against yer fellow creature, but don’t harm the hair of a bloody eel or you’ll be imprisoned for it. The lake is just inundated with eel. You could eat them back in the days, but I never cared to handle an eel meself. Slimy beggars.

  I read an article in an American magazine once about the eels in Bulgaria. There was a village where the people lived to be a hundred on the average, and they sent government scientists over to account for the miracle.

  Well, they studied everything. The air and the water and the color of the soils. They couldn’t come up with a defining theory. Finally they came to the conclusion that your layman could spot his first day in town. Of course, that wouldn’t have been a study then, would it? One thing all these centenarians had in common was the eels. They ate the bloody river eels breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they lived to be a hundred and some change. Eels themselves have longevity in their bones.

  I’ll never see a hundred. Set me sights on seventy-seven. By God.

  The DOC could open season for the eels, and I doubt I’d eat one. Of course I smoke too, and that knocks the years off the end, or so they say. />
  That’s a bush robin. Friendly creature. Tame as chooks, some of them.

  I can make the whistle.

  Listen.

  Well, I used to be able to make the whistle.

  Put your walking stick up like yea, and he’ll come and perch on it.

  You could say that. You could say he’s just looking for a handout. Other experts say he follows the trampers and catches the insects they stir up. Parasitic behavior, I read. That don’t account for it if you ask me. I think he’s just a friendly creature. I think he just likes people. Which is a fine thing considering he belongs to the bush. No doubt yer government scientist would see it a different way.

  When me and Rennie was in the bush, the robins would just move in with us. At first they seemed a nuisance, but after a while we saw they was a blessing. They would sit on yer shoulder and tell you a song or they’d peck at yer hand, and the next day you’d find a little bruise and wonder where it come from, until it dawned on you that’s where the wee bush robin sat a pecking. You’d never know he left a mark until the next day.

  It was so lonesome out in the bush sometime, me tramping up one river valley and Rennie in another. Cutting through bush as thick as wool, going insane from the sand flies, just hoping to make the quota while yer wife is home in the warm bed and yer sons they barely know ye. Then a bush robin appears like a wee miracle out of the cabbage and perches on yer gun barrel like it’s a beech limb. He seems to count himself fortunate for finding ye.

  Yes, you needed a friend in the bush. Years Rennie brought his dog named Black. Good mix of sheepdog, Black. He would prefer to hunt pigs than deer, but he was a fair companion. Twice Black got into the possum bait and Rennie had to cut off his ear to bleed him.

  You think I’m joking, do ye? Yer a skeptical lot. It’s a good thing Black only found the 1080 poison twice, because he only had the two ears. The bleeding made his heart pump faster and kept the poison from killing him. It was an old bush remedy. We come across another culler in the bush, and he’d look at Old Black with the ears lopped off and say, Got into the possum bait, did he?