Sam was still on the ground with the wounded pilot. Only, it wasn’t a pilot any more but a girl in an evening dress. And MacDuff was radioing:
‘Your call, Woody Woodpecker.’
Bullets were whanging around the chopper. Seymour was yelling that they had to exit the area. But Cliff couldn’t leave Sam. Not like this. He looked down to the ground. Saw Sam moving his fingers in sign.
Hey, Harper! Do you know what haere ra means?
Cliff cried out,
‘Sam, no —’
He worked the controls, seesawing the chopper back and forth across the tops of the trees, mowing through the upper density.
Suddenly there was a sunlit space. Sam’s eyes were glowing with love.
I will always love you, Illinois country boy. You’re in my heart.
And he was gone.
Thirty years later, and I was sitting in an airport lounge with Cliff Harper. Our conversation had circled and spun between past and present. Somehow we managed to stitch together what he knew of Sam and what I knew of what had happened to him. Somewhere in all that circling we found a kind of friendship, a kind of reconciliation with one another.
From talking about Uncle Sam it only seemed natural to talk about Auntie Pat.
‘How is she?’ Cliff Harper asked.
He had a strange look in his eyes, almost as if he didn’t want to know, but he relaxed as I told him she was well.
‘Is she still unmarried?’ he asked.
To my surprise, Cliff Harper then turned the attention to my life.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he asked.
I told him I was gay. ‘Once,’ I said, ‘I was ashamed of it. I’m not any longer.’ I told him about my break-up with Jason, my meeting Carlos, and the interesting shapes that were emerging out of the dynamic of Roimata, Carlos and myself.
‘Most of all,’ I said, ‘I’ve made a political commitment to change my world. To change the Maori world. I owe it to myself. I owe it to Uncle Sam — and to you —’
Cliff Harper nodded.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you talk like that, you take up a particular posture, a way of standing that reminds me of Sam. Leaning slightly forward. Ready to take on all comers.’
The business class supervisor tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Mr Mahana, your plane is boarding now.’
I stood up. Shook Cliff Harper’s hand.
‘I’m glad you came to Los Angeles.’
‘So am I, son,’ he answered. ‘So am I.’
‘Would you do me a favour? Some day, would you tell your son, Cliff Junior, about you and Uncle Sam? It might be a hard ask right now, but you were the one he loved, the one he wanted to be with. I don’t think I’d be able to take it if I knew that of all the people in the world, you denied him, Mr Harper. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next week or next month. But tell your son sometime?’
‘Yes, I will,’ he promised
I turned to walk away. I don’t know why, but something made me turn back. Something to do with gladness, with joy, with grief. I grasped Cliff Harper fiercely and pulled his forehead against mine, his nose against mine in the hongi. Mourned and keened over all that could have been between him and Sam.
‘Goodbye, Mr Harper.’
‘Wait,’ he said.
His face was blanched with grief, as if he didn’t want to let me go. As if he should do something to keep Uncle Sam alive between us. Then he found the way.
He took Tunui a te Ika out of his pocket, lifted it up. The light glowed through it, showing its upright penis, its mana, its strength. The greenstone twisted and flashed in his fingers.
‘I know you brought this all the way to give to me. But I need to return it to you. Your uncle would have wanted you to have it. You will need it more than I do if you are to achieve all the things that lie ahead of you.’
He placed Tunui a te Ika around my neck. At first the greenstone was cold, as if only just awakening. Then it began to take warmth from my skin, and I felt it searching for a place to settle. A place from which to begin battle.
‘Tell Patty,’ Cliff Harper said, ‘I forgive her.’
The flight soared across a midnight sea. The sky was still sunless as we made our descent to New Zealand. Mist was streaming across the land, spilling over the cliffs at the end of the world. Mist, sea, land, all spilling over into oblivion.
Carlos met me at the airport. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.
We drove to the apartment. Made love. Talked about what had happened in Canada. Talked about his skindiving while I’d been away. I told him about Cliff Harper. He asked about Roimata. We made love again.
That night I tossed and turned in the tightening noose of jet lag. My dreams were fractured, cut glass tearing at the dreams and letting the nightmares in. Once more, I felt that tremendous dread as, all of a sudden, a thousand shards fell about me and I saw that black highway at midnight. I fell to the tarseal and listened to the ground throbbing with hoofbeats. The thrum thrum thrum of the black stallion. It had pursued me all my life, through countless years, countless beds and countless dreams.
You know what it’s like in nightmares. It’s dark and you’re always alone. It’s like those horror movies where the actor is in a perilous position and there’s never anybody around.
And so, once again, I began to run. I could only move in slow motion. I could hear myself grinding my teeth. I heard myself moaning, willing myself to run faster, get out of there, escape from the blackness. I felt my pores pop with explosions of fear, and I was drenched with sweat.
I looked back again. I could see the stallion. Its eyes were on fire. Its hooves struck sparks like flints, taunted me, circling me in the blackness, choosing its moment. The thrum, thrum thrum was all around me and then —
There it was. Coming towards me. There was nothing I could do.
I cried out to myself, Wake up, wake up.
But the stallion was rearing up on its hind legs. It was screaming its rage and slashing out its hooves like steel blades. It shredded the blackness with arcs of fire. Its eyes were bulging. The veins on its neck were like ropes.
The hooves descending. Slashing.
Then I heard myself saying in my dream, ‘No.’
The stallion was standing on its hind legs. For a moment it was motionless, looking down at me. Its eyes were wild, unwavering. It whinnied again, surrounding me with its rage and fetid breath.
‘No,’ I said again.
All of a sudden, I saw that there was a bullwhip in my hands. The whip was covered in blood. And all the fury, sadness and anger of the world rushed into the whip as I raised it and began to crack it at the stallion.
‘Get back. Get back.’
The whip arced through the air. At each snap it showered sparks through the dream. The sparks fell upon the stallion, making it cry with pain. Then the whip began to sing. Its song was one of strength and power. It said, ‘I will take this no longer, I will no longer let you have power over me. From this day I will fight back and I will win.’
I brought all my rage to the bullwhip.
‘Oh, you bastard world!’ I called.
My eyes were on fire. My feet struck sparks like flints. At each crack of the lash the stallion began to diminish, to squeal with confusion and pain. It began to retreat. Slowly. Giving ground.
In the dream I heard the whip singing. I saw the stallion retreating. The arc of the whip shredded that dream until it no longer existed. Then I woke up. How Carlos had slept through my tossing and turning was beyond me.
I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and had a long hot shower. After a while an extraordinary sense of release and calm came over me. I went out into the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee and took it out onto the balcony.