The Wives of Henry Oades. Johanna Moran

      “Are you bloody hard of hearing? I’m looking for my family.”

      Bell craned, sniffing the air. “You’re about three sheets to it, aren’t you?” He lifted the club. “Go on home before I give you the beating of your life.”

      Henry shoved him aside, shouting into the interior. “Meg!”

      Bell recovered from the surprise, raising the club higher. Henry had the advantage of thirty more pounds and at least ten fewer years. He grabbed Bell’s wrist, locking the man against the doorjamb. “Where’s your wife?”

      Bell struggled. “What do you want with her?”

      “Where is she?”

      “She’s not here, you buggering idiot. There’s nobody here but me and the dog. She’s a mean one, too. She’ll bite. One word from me and—”

      Henry wrenched the club from Bell’s flaccid grip and sent it sailing into the dark yard. Bell ducked back inside. Henry put himself between door and jamb. “Help me, please.”

      “Why should—”

      “Your wife visited mine last evening?”

      Bell swiped his nose on a sleeve. “If you say so. Walked out with a bee in her bonnet. Not for the first time. She and the boy. Pig-headed woman. Didn’t bother to say where they were headed.”

      “I found your rig on my property.” Henry pointed vaguely. “I’ve returned it.”

      “I owe you then. I thought…”

      Henry ran a hand through his dry hair, still scanning the interior, half expecting Meg and the children to suddenly show themselves.

      “My house burned to the ground last night.”

      “That’s terrible news.”

      Henry stood shivering, the dread rising in his chest, constricting his breathing. “My children are nowhere to be found.”

      “Ah, for the love of—”

      There had to be a rational answer. They couldn’t simply disappear.

      “I came upon a body.”

      “Oh, no, was—”

      “My wife, I thought at first.”

      “Oh Christ.”

      “Or your wife, sir. I’m sorry.” Henry was anxious to leave. He’d given up the search too soon. There were miles still to cover. John would have constructed a shelter of some sort, far away from the smoke and fire.

      Bell began to weep. “Jesus, Mary, and—”

      “There’s no way of knowing,” said Henry. “I couldn’t tell.”

      “My boy?” Bell’s tears streamed. “Oscar?”

      Henry shook his head. “I’m sorry. No sign of him either.”

      “Oh, sweet sacred heart. We’ll want to inform the authorities.”

      “They can wait.” On the way over Henry had considered and rejected the idea. No good would come of rousing the governor at this hour. He was a useless indecisive man; his sycophantic underlings were no better. Meg and the children were his family, his concern. He’d have the benefit of daylight soon. He’d start over looking. “Will you make a loan of a horse, Mr. Bell?”

      “Have your choice of the two in the stable,” said Bell. “I’ll take the other.”

      They made good time, arriving by first light to a smoky quiet. Bell tied up the horses. Henry stood in the road making quarter turns, calling to his wife and children. The men tramped up to the bush and began searching, giving up after three hours, making their way down to the charred cottage. “Tucked away,” Meg had called it. “A perfect place.”

      Bell had thought to bring a shovel and a bedsheet. The men labored with the delicate corpse. It collapsed in their hands, making red and yellow stains on the sheet. Daylight was no help, as Henry had hoped. “Can you tell anything?”

      “Might be anyone,” muttered Bell.

      “Anyone.”

      “Mine wore a little gold locket on occasion,” said Bell.

      “Mine wore her ring,” said Henry.

      “With my likeness and Oscar’s inside,” said Bell.

      Henry, the middle brother, had been the first in his family to present a wife with a wedding ring. His parents had disapproved, as had Meg’s parents. The older set still regarded the ring an ostentatious pagan practice. “Unseemly,” his mother had said. “Unchristian.” She may have reconsidered had she seen the thrill in Meg’s lovely eyes.

      The men poked around and beneath the body for as long as they could bear it, finding nothing to prove who it was or wasn’t. The lack of evidence meant little to Henry. Meg often took off the ring. She feared losing it in the wash, she’d said.

      They took turns with the shovel, burying the body out back, where the hydrangea once bloomed. They fashioned a cross of scorched stones and walked away, both quaking with uncertainty.

      Henry discovered the dogs beneath a thicket of broadleaf puka, flies and beetles feasting on the head wounds. “My boy’s pets,” he said, incredulous. “Who’d do such a thing?” Bell stalked off, disgusted. Henry stared, attempting to make sense of the grisly mess. These were John’s harmless pups, pleasant, obedient animals, bound for the circus. His eyes burned. He craved sleep; he wished not to think anymore.

      Bell called to him from below, waving an arm. Henry started down, his heart thundering with fear of finding a dead child. He came up on Bell, his breathing fast and shallow.

      Bell held a white-tipped, black tail feather. “Huia,” he said. “They wear the filthy things in their topknots.” He pointed out the horse tracks leading down to the river, the droppings. “Goddamn Maori were here. I’d stake my last farthing on it.”

      Henry had heard stories about long-ago murders and snatchings. He’d chalked them up to apocryphal pub tales at the time. There’d been problems back in the sixties, blood shed on both sides over land, but nothing lately, not since he’d arrived, not that he knew or even heard of. What would provoke them? Why his house and family? “I’m going after them,” he said.

      “I’m going with you,” said Bell.

      “We’ll need guns and rope,” said Henry, wide awake now, full of seething energy. “I’ll take a coat if you can spare it.”

      They raced back to Bell’s for supplies. Henry was barely aware of the horse beneath him. He did not see what caused the animal to rear. He lost hold of the reins and fell back, striking the road hard, his leg audibly cracking. A dusty blur of hooves rose in his vision. Henry tucked his head and flung himself right, rolling down an embankment, his eyes filling with searing juices.

      Bell came rushing, trampling leaves and twigs. “Close yer damn eye.” Henry couldn’t see him, but he could smell the man’s peculiarly olid flesh. “Close it, I said. Don’t try to use it.” A dry cloth was pressed to his right eye. “Yer damn leg’s broken. I can see the bloody bone. We’ll get you straight to hospital. Can you hear me, Oades? Put an arm about my neck. That’s it. I’ve got you. Gently does it. That’s a steady lad. Here we go then. On the count of three. One. Two. Here we go.”

      A fiery bolt shot up his spine. Henry screamed and slipped into black oblivion.

      THE DOCTOR SAID he was lucky. The leg was broken in three places, but both it and the eye had been saved. The doctor was a pale, walleyed man with cold hands. “You’ll walk eventually,” he said, “though it shan’t be anytime soon.”

      The eye dressing would come off in two or three weeks, depending. Depending on what, the doctor did