Free Sound by Sarah Drummond Page A

very happy to find you, Wiremu.”
    â€œI’m not so happy with your news, brother.” Billhook took a deep draught of rum and felt it burn down his gullet.
    â€œIt is terrible to have to say these things. Nga Rua thinks that you are working out of Hobart Town.”
    When Marama said familiar names like “Hobart Town” or “Otakau” out loud, it warmed Billhook. It was an age since he had talked with his own people.
    â€œWhen she heard that the
Sally
was going to Van Diemen’s Land, she honoured me and invited me to your father’s tangihanga. Later she asked me to find you and give you this. So you see, if I had not found you, then Nga Rua would be unhappy with me and she is the last woman I would want to offend.”
    Oh Sally, she’n the gal that I love dearly
, the men sang.
    Way oh, sing Sally oh
    Sally she’n the gal that I love dearly,
    Hilo Johnny Brown stand to your ground.
    Just out of the firelight it was quite dark but Billhook knew what John te Marama placed in his palm without looking. The weight, the cool, glossy curves and stiff strands of ancient sinew against his fingertips told him that it was the orca tooth necklace.
    Oh Sally, she’n my bright mulatta
    Way oh, sing Sally oh
    Sally gal she do what she ought to do
    Hilo Johnny Brown stand to your ground.

16. D OUBTFUL I SLANDS 1826
    Billhook climbed to the highest part of the island, away from the fires, past the sweet-scented flannel flowers and over sheets of cool granite. There was no moon, yet. He climbed until he could see the dark mountains crowding the long white bays in the east. He lit a small fire and sang his father’s waiata.
    Sal’s lurcher followed him and slumped into the grasses eventually, twitching with hunting dreams while Billhook sang and sang, fed by grief and rum. Finally he quietened and the words, laughter and music travelled up the hill to him.
    â€œWhat’s he doing?”
    â€œBlackfella stuff.”
    â€œLeave him alone.”
    â€œHeathen.”
    â€œYou’re no man to talk … fucking heathen yerself.”
    â€œWho’s got that Sal?”
    â€œGot a dud deal with that cut-up woman.”
    â€œCries all the time, she do.”
    â€œAnd then we fastened on the bull.”
    â€œTry some o’ this.”
    â€œAnd after a day we dragged him alongside and flensed him.”
    â€œYou never want to see a face like his in yer life, mark my words.”
    â€œThat bull’s stomach was wrigglin’.”
    â€œThe lad Kim.”
    â€œI don’t want no fireship whore.”
    â€œHe came up out of the sea like an angel, Kim did.”
    â€œLike an angel, he was.”
    â€œThis one here, she looks like an angel.”
    â€œWhere’d you get the kid from? She’s real pretty.”
    When Billhook heard that he galloped down the hill, stumbling over mounds of grasses and rocks, cursing as best as he’d learnt from the sealers. He’d forgotten all about her. He stopped again to listen.
    Bailey.
    â€œWell, don’t I get a go at Sal, then?”
    â€œNah. You got a fucking useless prick, Bailey, and where’s your rum?”
    â€œI’ll earn me some.”
    Splinter woofed at Billhook’s side.
    And so Billhook ran again, until he was standing on the outside of the firelit party, panting and bloodied, breathing in the alcohol fuming from the men’s bodies. He saw the captain unconscious, the little girl gathered onto the first mate’s lap, him undoing the flap of his pants and Bailey looking on, smiling like he had in his mind the sweet memory of something good. Billhook had never seen Bailey smile before. He’d seen the look on that child’s face though, that look the day she was stolen. Beyond the light of the fire and Smidmore’s fiddling, he could hear the grunts and crying of Sal and Dancer and the men.
    He reefed the child from the whaler by one arm, yanking her up to