The Wives of Henry Oades. Johanna Moran

and then slept straight through four days. “A near coma,” said the doctor. Henry brought a hand to his bandaged cheek and touched his shaved chin. He’d been bearded since twenty. He spent a drugged moment worrying that Meg and the children wouldn’t recognize him, then closed his good eye and slept another three days.

      He woke asking for his wife, his children, Cyril Bell. The aide on duty told him he was better off resting now.

      All the staff cajoled. “‘Tis always darkest before the dawn,” said the Irish nurse with Meg’s blue-gray eyes. She came on duty early and was the kindest of the lot. “We’ve a lovely porridge this morning, Mr. Oades. You’ll do your poor children no favors by starving.”

      He asked, “Have you any news today?” The nurse took advantage of his open mouth and shoveled in the tepid, mealy paste. It came straight back up, along with his own sour bile.

      “I’m not hungry just now,” he said, embarrassed.

      She clucked and mopped his gown with a rag. “I’m praying for you,” she said.

      Most gave up on him fairly quickly and went on to the next bed. The ward was full. The overflow suffered outside in the hall. The groaning and sobbing never ceased. Henry closed his eye, letting the din wash over and through his ineffectual self.

      On Sunday he begged the homely missionary woman who came around to read Scripture, “Please, will you find Mr. Bell?” She promised she would. He, in turn, endured her biblical gush, feigning comfort. He did not see her again.

      Mr. Freylock, Henry’s immediate supervisor, came the following week. He entered the ward with his hat in his hands, his mouth twitching with sympathy. “They tell me you’re not eating,” he said.

      Mr. Freylock was a career man, one of the first of the distillery men to arrive in New Zealand. “The place suits me,” he’d once said. Henry recalled feeling both vaguely envious and disdainful of a man who found true contentment behind a desk.

      He looked up at Mr. Freylock, his good eye filling. The eye wept constantly. He’d been given drops, but they did little good. A brown spider ran along the windowsill. He dabbed at the eye with a corner of sheet, thinking how spiders frightened Josephine.

      Mr. Freylock touched Henry’s sleeve. “You’ve had an abysmal time of it.”

      Henry cleared his throat. “Is there any news, sir?”

      “Only that the scouting trip was unsuccessful.” Mr. Freylock fiddled with his felt brim. “Six men went out, myself included. The governor sent out four more. We rode together for a day and then split from them, thinking we’d cover more ground that way. I’m sorry, Henry.”

      “My family could be anywhere then?” Henry’s dry lips cracked with speech. “Anyone might have them?”

      “If you mean white men, no, not likely. The arson, you see, the snatching itself. It smacks of utu.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      Mr. Freylock sighed. “It is the heathen’s word for revenge. The governor believes your family was taken in retaliation for last month’s flogging. The whipping would have brought dishonor to the entire bloody tribe. Utu of some sort was inevitable. I sincerely loathe being the one to tell you.”

      The Maori lad had been no more than fifteen. Henry had walked away before the lashing even began, repulsed by the gawking onlookers. “I assume another search is under way, sir?”

      Mr. Freylock shook his head. “Not at present, I’m sorry to say.”

      “Why not?”

      “Simply put, Henry, it would do no good. The trail went cold scant miles out. We were but a handful of family men against a sodding band of savages. Sorry to say it. The odds weigh too heavily.”

      “And the governor’s men?”

      “They’ve since returned empty-handed as well. That is not to say you should relinquish hope. That is not to say you shouldn’t continue to pray. All of Wellington is praying for your wife and children.”

      Henry’s eye ran, salting his stinging lips.

      “Ah, Henry. I’m only adding to your distress.”

      Henry pleaded, “Will you help locate Cyril Bell?”

      Mr. Freylock took out his watch and flicked open the lid with a thumbnail. “Poor fellow had a bit of a breakdown, smashed a good bottle at McFadden’s, started a brawl. They locked him up for his own well-being.”

      “When will he be released?”

      Mr. Freylock glanced down at his watch. “Sooner rather than later, I’m sure.”

      “Will you ask him to come round?”

      “I shall, Henry. First chance. I must be off. I’m sorry the news isn’t better. Your post is being held indefinitely, if it’s any small consolation. That’s what I came to tell you.”

      Henry struggled to remain civil, to issue his senior a proper farewell, but all before him had eclipsed. As if a cupboard door had just been nailed shut, and he’d found himself inside.

       She Speaks to Me Day and Night

      IT WAS LOVELY HERE, green and tranquil. Meg was decked out in her wedding frock, an ivory lace and satin affair with complicated buttons that were hard to undo. She nattered quietly, asking after his tea. The light shifted, the temperature fell, just as she offered a fresh cup. Henry opened his good eye to find Cyril Bell standing over him. Bell sucked on his cigar and hacked a rough cough.

      “Are you awake, mate? Are you in need of anything?” Bell’s cheek was bruised, his swollen lip split in two places. “Shall I call the lazy nurse?” He clamped the cigar between his crooked yellow teeth and tugged on Henry’s pillow. “It’s caught in the rail. There now. Much better, isn’t it?”

      Henry sat up, groggy, dream-addled. “What brings you?”

      “You asked for me,” said Bell, looking wounded. “I came when I heard.”

      “I did, didn’t I? Sorry. Thank you.”

      Bell smiled a sad smile. “Birds of a feather now, aren’t we?”

      Bell wore black gloves and a mourning armband; he carried Meg’s mother’s ginger jar as one would a baby, in the crook of his arm. He offered it now. “Thought you might like a memento of happier times.”

      Henry took the lidded jar, a grinding fear clenching his bowels.

      “Not a crack, not a singe,” said Bell. “Queer what a fire will leave behind.”

      “Is there news?”

      Bell shook his head, soft cigar ash falling, breaking on the white sheet. “They’ve gone to a far better place, my friend.”

      A vision of his children laid out in death swamped him. Henry’s pained cry roused the sleeping patient in the next bed. “They’ve been found?”

      Bell put a finger to his lips. “Hush now, Oades. Calm yourself. No, they haven’t been found. But where the tree is felled that’s where the chippings are.”

      “Jesus Lord,” said Henry. “What does that mean?”

      “Do you recall the poor Hagstrom family?”

      “No,” said Henry. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

      “Six or seven years ago,” Bell went on. “There was a spate of snatchings around the same time. The Hagstrom children, eight little towheaded angels, were all the talk. The old grandfather looked for years. Then one fine day he put his rifle to his mouth and pulled the trigger