F E AT U R E
Original Summer fiction
Headwater BY B E N N J E F F R I E S
I
can’t remember why I was so angry. The ads on the telly used to say things like ‘don’t take it out on the family,’ but they never mentioned a ponga. I was swinging uppercuts and haymakers at this poor tree, all the while yelling the few Māori words I knew at the top of my lungs. Now what they won’t tell you about getting in a fistfight with a ponga is that you get showered in these tiny brown hairs that itch like hell. I had to strip naked and wash in the Ruamahanga River to get rid of the damn things. The water was ice cold from snowmelt and calmed me down better than a beer ever could. I floated downstream on my back, listening to the river stones shift in the current, until I washed up on a gravel bar. My grandma had taught me to fly fish on this river. She was a hard woman, harder than a bag of nails. She’d raised me from when I was just a young fella and used to try and scare me with stories of the taniwha who lived in these waters. I never did get scared though – I knew bloody well that any taniwha with half a brain would steer clear of her. I sat down on the river bank to dry off in the morning sun and watched a pīwakawaka dart around catching sandflies. Most people will go their whole lives without knowing a single thing about the birds they see every day – a goddamn tragedy if you ask me. My favourite bird is the house sparrow. I know they aren’t native and all that, but you gotta hand it to the little bastard for spreading his seed far and wide. The sparrow has got to be the most successful bird ever, and most people can’t tell a male from a female. It’s an easy thing to do in breeding season, the male’s chest turns black like some kind of lion’s mane. My
chest is black year-round which some might say is fitting. My grandma once told me that my good for nothing father was two things besides being good for nothing – a drunk and hairy as hell, so at least I inherited something. I realised I was hungry and lumbered back to the hut to get my clothes and fishing kit. I found a nice pool a little way upstream and caught a decent two-kilo brown, then fried it up with cannellini beans and garlic. Up in the Tararua backcountry where this river meets the Ruapae Stream, the fish are less common but you’ll find fat browns and the odd rainbow trout. I cracked open my last beer after the meal, which normally signalled the end of the trip. I threw it back then spent an hour cutting firewood for the DoC hut before I left. The walk out was gentle, and not far from the road end I spotted a hind grazing on a broadleaf tree. I could’ve snuck around the ridgeline and grabbed my rifle from the truck but I was enjoying watching her too much. After a few minutes, the wind swirled and she scented me, running for cover like I’d seen too many women do in my life. On the drive back to Wellington I stopped in Clareville for a pie and a coke. The only better combo being raw kingy and soy sauce. Over the Remutaka hill I picked up a bottle of red and a four-forty can of beer to tide me over. Most cities give me a pain in my chest, but the constant wind in Wellington seems to calm me. I have a place round the south coast the old lady left me when the smokes finally caught up with her. It’s rusted out and cold as hell when the southerly pushes up from Antarctica, but I like it that way. When I
You're home now, 2018, The Children of Māui, Chevron Hassett
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