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Pakeha

by Jane Lindskold

Ambrose Kidd, an old Kiwi sailor who remembered those days, was the first to tell Faelin about Aotearoa, yarning over a tankard of winter ale in a San Francisco pub. This was back when Faelin—an orphan of twelve—was still lying about his age to get a job clearing tables and such in a bar.

"Maybe if we hadn't been so spoiled then," the old salt would always begin, "we could've kept things the way they were, but we were spoiled—telephone, the Internet, cruise ships, jet airplanes—New Zealand weren't just a bunch of volcanic islands off the hither side of Australia; we were part of the first world. It might make you laugh, but tourism was a major part of our economy. Anybody with enough money could reach New Zealand in less than a day.

"Most folks skipped out when they saw what the petroleum virus was doing. You born-since can't imagine what that virus meant. Seems like just about everything then had petroleum by-products in it. Not just the obvious stuff like fuel and plastics, but clothing, medicines, even food was full of the stuff. Hell, I ain't telling anything you haven't heard before, son."

He wasn't, either. Faelin had heard stories like this a million times before. What fascinated him was where the story went from here. The New Zealanders had taken a novel approach to the crisis. While most nations strove to keep things as much the same as possible—laying new, untainted cables for telegraph and telephone for example—New Zealand's remaining population resolved to make a radical change.

"I remember my folks talking about it," Kidd went on. "Lady name of Christine Pesh had the idea, as I recall. Bright lady, fancied for prime minister if the oil bugs hadn't got loose. In a way, that makes it odd she should come up with such a plan, but then again, as they tell it, she'd always been one of those who contrary to reason—given they make their money outta government—think that a government that governs least governs best."

Faelin laughed and scooped up the old man's tankard, replacing it with another, filled while the boss's back was turned.

"Sounds to me," he commented, swiping circles on the tables with a dirty rag, "like this Christine Pesh was just lazy."

Ambrose Kidd snorted. "Not at all. It's harder work to make folk think for themselves than to think for 'em. Anyhow, Christine Pesh proposed—and got her proposal out while the communication system was still working pretty well—that government be phased out. She argued that those Kiwis who remained would have enough to do keeping mutton and fish on the table without supporting deadbeat politicians. I don't know how she managed it—remember, son, I was younger than you are now when this happened—but she got her measure passed."

Faelin was California born and bred. He'd heard of wilder schemes, but he knew how governments worked.

"Seems like someone would have appealed," he said.

"There were those who tried," Kidd agreed, "but Pesh and her cronies told 'em there was no government anymore to listen to their appeal. Meantime, while these pro-government factions blustered and debated—'cause they couldn't even agree among themselves which way things should be run, if they got government started again—the petroleum virus kept chewing away at stuff. Telephone failed. Computers flashed nonsense and died—lord how I cried when I couldn't get my games to run! Cars and trucks—all of which needed petroleum to go and even if they hadn't were so full of plastic parts that they crumpled up . . ."

"Just like here," Faelin interrupted, knowing he was being rude, but eager to hear the real story.

"That's right," Kidd said, thin lips shaping the half smile of an old man who realizes that the great events of his life are dull fodder to the eager young. "And so Pesh got her way. There were some riots, but most of those who disagreed simply got on ships and left. Most, I hear, got only as far as Australia, where they found more government than anyone could want—but that's another tale.

"You're wanting to hear about New Zealand, or Aotearoa as they renamed it, saying that since the nation was certainly new but had nothing to do with Zeeland—some Dutch place, I recall—they might as well go back to the old Maori name for the land. Prettier, too, means something like Land of the Long White Cloud."

Faelin nodded encouragingly. The boss didn't care if he chatted up the customers during these slow hours, not so long as he worked while he did so and the customers kept drinking.

"There were a couple of townships," Kidd went on, "Christ Church was one, I recall, that experimented with government. Problem was, it's hard to run a government when nobody except you is playing by the rules, sorta like playing soccer when three-quarters of the players insist on picking the ball up with their hands. None of those enclaves lasted more than about twenty years.

"My folks had decided to stay on in Aotearoa. They ran an inn out at Thames, augmenting their business with salvage—lots of folk worked salvage in those days. An uncle offered to take me on his ship as cabin boy—an island cruise, then—it'd be a while before anyone tried to go much farther than Australia. No reason or so it seemed to us."

Kidd paused, visibly swallowing down tales that covered some sixty years at sea. Faelin felt a tinge of curiosity about them, but not enough to keep him from prompting:

"And the rest of the Kiwis? How did things go for them?"

"They were pretty damn hot on their new idea, called Aotearoa the new frontier, compared it to the American West, like we used to see in the movies. Movies were . . ."

"I know, I know," Faelin said impatiently. "I am Californian! So everyone wore guns and rode horses?"

"Well," Kidd laughed, "many did, but that wasn't why folks made the comparison—at least not the only reason. More reason was because there was no law but what folks carried in their hearts. That's still how it is today—or at least how it was when I left Aotearoa a couple years back, and I don't see why it should have changed. No law books or lawyers, no presidents or monarchs, no rules and regulations, just common sense, hard work, and prosperity for those who earn it."

Faelin never forgot Ambrose Kidd's stories. Indeed, he became the old sailor's constant companion—for it soon became clear that Kidd was never sailing home again. The boy's eager attention was meat and drink to Kidd, just as his stories were to the orphan boy. After the sailor died, Faelin found that he was starving for more.

He took jobs around the ports and soon learned to spot a Kiwi sailor by a certain proud lift to his head. An offer of a drink usually got the boy more stories. Work as a dockhand evolved into work aboard ships—first in port, then at sea.

Chafing under California's numerous regulations, all of which seemed to exist—as far as Faelin could tell—to keep the strong and able from profiting while buoying up the weak and unfit, Faelin happily took a berth on the Speculation.

Speculation was an ocean-going free-trader, a sailing vessel modeled off the old China clipper—a ship type that, ironically, had met its demise due to the evolution of the coal-dependent steamers soon after it had reached near perfection of design. Now, with petroleum products useless, the clipper ship had been resurrected.

Current technology had taken a while to recover to the point that a clipper ship could be built—there were so many old skills to be relearned, so many shops to be retooled—but now that point had been reached and Faelin's childhood had been marked by the sight of these great white seabirds, first in ones and twos, later in great flocks.

The Speculation's captain, a sour old cove named Burke, was among those who were taking advantage of the relative availability of clipper ships. Burke's vessel was not among the newest, but Burke was owner-aboard, a thing that would have been nearly unheard of twenty years before when it took a corporation to fund the building of the vessels.

Faelin admired Captain Burke as the perfect type of the self-made man. The Speculation was a tight ship, but her regulations made sense. After all, you couldn't have someone lolling below decks in a storm when all hands were needed on deck or deciding to steer without the least knowledge of navigation, could you?

For five years, Faelin served on the Speculation and during that time he grew into a big man, broad-shouldered, topping most around him by a head or more. His rough, calloused hands were equally swift with a pistol, gun, or a line. He even picked up a few lubber skills—some carpentry, iron working, and sewing. He became known as a good man to have at your side in a brawl, had many followers but never close friends.

Over those five years, however, Faelin's opinion of Captain Burke and his capacity as a commander underwent a change. Faelin couldn't help but notice that as officers retired or went on to other vessels, he himself was never promoted to fill their posts. He received pay raises readily enough, and high bonuses when a cargo sold well. Still, this wasn't stripes on his sleeve and his mates calling him "sir."

Had the Speculation been a military vessel, Faelin might have excused the oversight, but on a free-trader nothing but ability was required for promotion. Therefore, he started brooding over the slight.

He might not make a good quartermaster—Faelin was the first to admit that bookkeeping was far from his favorite sport—but he navigated well enough, had taken his time at the wheel. He might be young yet to serve as first officer, but he'd make a good second. Eventually, he grew sullen, deciding he was being slighted.

"I tell you," he said one afternoon to Simon Alcott, his closest crony, as they sat up in the riggings mending trousers. "Captain Burke doesn't like me because he sees I'm a threat to him and that wimp son of his, Irving. He don't dare promote me, even to second, lest the crew start wondering why Irving's first mate and I'm second. Far better to have old Waldemar in that post, him with his stammer and two missing fingers."

Simon Alcott listened and nodded. Ever since Faelin had come to his rescue one night in a Singapore alley, Simon had been his absolutely loyal toady, reveling in his protector's strength. In his simple loyalty, contradicting anything Faelin said or thought never would have occurred to Simon. Indeed, he thought Faelin was right.

"Heck, Faelin," Simon said, "you'd make a better captain than the old man. Let him keep the books and work out the trades. You could run this ship tighter than a kernel fits in a nutshell."

For weeks Faelin groused on, Simon providing an unquestioning chorus to his complaints, until Faelin's vague grudges became as real to him as if Captain Burke actually told him that he was unpromotable.

As his discontent grew, Faelin considered his options. He could jump ship and get hired by another vessel, maybe by one of the big lines. They'd recognize his skills quick enough. For days he reveled in the image of himself in the neatly tailored dark blue coat and trousers of one of the better known shipping lines. There'd be gold piping on his sleeve and men jumping to anticipate his every word.

This fantasy soured, though, when Faelin considered the host of rules and regulations that even the officers were governed by on the lines. There were taverns and brothels they couldn't enter lest they sully the image of their employer. They had to accept transfers without protest, had to keep those uniforms perfect and those brass buttons shining. Sure they had lackeys to do the real work, but Faelin couldn't help but feel he'd be sealing himself into a tighter box than he was in already.

When Captain Burke announced that their next long haul was to be a winter—summer as it would be in the southern hemisphere—voyage to Australia, followed by a stop in Auckland, Aotearoa, Faelin realized what he should do.

Weren't rules—laws, regulations, favoritism—all that was holding him back? Hadn't old Ambrose Kidd told him that Aotearoa had no government and so was free from all that nonsense? Well, then, Faelin would jump ship in Auckland, that's what he'd do! Hadn't he been drawn there all his life? Hadn't old Kidd's stories been what had taken him to sea in the first place?

Faelin grinned like a fool, swallowing the expression when he saw Alcott staring at him curiously. They were weeks out yet, plenty of time for him to lay his plans.

He started by making himself up a couple of crates filled with trade goods purchased in various ports. He made them smallish ones, easy enough to carry for one man, especially if that man was a sailor used to loading and unloading, hauling lines and anchor, and all the rest.

From Kidd's tales Faelin knew that, other than gold, Aotearoa was metal poor. Nearly all they had came from salvage and trade. In every port of call he bought nails and wire, hinges and bolts, fish-hooks. He ended up taking Simon Alcott into his confidence for his follower started wondering at Faelin's sudden, unusual interest in trade. When Alcott begged permission to jump ship with him, Faelin graciously granted it. After all, two men could carry more than one and he knew that Simon would never rat on him.

In addition to trade goods, Faelin bought small items that would make their transition easier: extra knives, whetstones, coils of tightly spun rope, axe and hammer heads, needles and thread. In a pinch these could go on the block, too, but he didn't want to spend their capital on commonsense necessities.

Faelin spent both of their earnings lavishly, chatted up Kiwi sailors in every port, but kept care that no one other than Simon should notice his new interest. At last, after months at sea that for the first time in years seemed long, the Speculation sailed into Auckland's harbor and Faelin saw the promised land before him.

November was summer here and the hills were green. Off in the distance a white plume of smoke marked one of the many volcanoes that had shaped these islands, dormant now but for that almost fluffy plume. Drinking in those lush hills, the neat houses, the confident bustle of the citizens, Faelin thought Aotearoa the most beautiful place he'd ever seen.

Its difference from other nations was perceptible from the moment he strode down the gangplank in Auckland. By now Faelin had visited hundreds of ports through both Americas, Europe, the British Isles, even in Japan. Never before—not even in those nations erupted into despotic chaos—had there not been a governmental presence somewhere near the docks.

In Auckland's port there was plenty of activity, but not a glimpse of anyone with that stiff, attentive posture that said "official." There was no one sporting a clipboard, name-tag, or uniform. Merchants hurried to dicker for cargos, but no one rushed to collect tariffs. Able bodies offered themselves for a variety of jobs, from porter and dock hand to guide and companion, but there were no police, no soldiers, no . . . 

Momentarily Faelin felt a little lost. Then he rallied. His plans called for him and Simon to work just like usual, right until Burke announced that they were to set sail. Then he and Simon—who would have already inconspicuously unloaded their trade goods—would go ashore for one more roister. All they'd need to do then was lie low until the Speculation sailed on the tide.

He knew Captain Burke of old. Once the old man had even stranded his son, Irving, leaving the chastened young man to catch up to them at their next port. Burke wouldn't wait for two sailors, able as they might be.

Everything went according to plan. From a room in a port-side inn, Faelin watched the Speculation spread her wings and course out to sea. He felt a momentary twinge—after all, the ship had been his home for over five years—but this was washed away in a flood of excitement. Next time he encountered Captain Burke or any of his mates from the Speculation Faelin planned to be a big man—a ship owner maybe, a land owner, a trader.

Smiling, Faelin sauntered downstairs, Simon at his heels, to settle their bill. By reflex, he pulled out a handful of coins left over from his last pay. (At first he'd regretted that he'd not be getting his share of the Aotearoa bonus, but then he'd had the brilliant idea to make it up out of Burke's stores.)

The innkeeper, a prim-looking old woman, pulled out a scale and started weighing the coins, checking values against a handwritten chart.

"Copper'll bring less than iron," she said. "Iron less than steel. These . . ." she sniffed at some nickel-blend tokens, "aren't worth much but as sinkers on a line."

"They're money, lady," Simon Alcott blustered in reflection of his hero's momentary embarrassment, "not ore."

The old woman cocked an elegant white eyebrow at him.

"Not in Aotearoa, bro," she said. "Money's only worth what a backing government says it is. We're purely a barter economy here. You might get better prices from a currency speculator. To me this is just a few ounces of metal—and not pure metal either. Values are down a bit, too, what with the Speculation dumping quite a bit of metal goods on the market."

Faelin stepped in.

"How about worked metal, ma'am?" he said, doing his best to exude manly politeness to cover his gaff.

"That'd be better," the innkeeper admitted.

Eventually, they settled the bill with a handful of iron nails, a deal that brought them a map of the area, the innkeeper's recommendation of a boarding house run by her sister, information as to where they could get current values, and the old lady's sour smile.

"Welcome to Aotearoa," she said in parting. "You look tough enough and used to hard work, maybe you'll make pakeha yet."

Pakeha, they were to learn later, was local slang for a resident. Before the petroleum virus, it had meant anyone of European ancestry, but now it was reserved for those—no matter where their parents had been born—who made the grade in the new nation.

After Simon and Faelin had left the inn and were consulting the map, meaning to head first for the boarding house, a bedraggled figure clad in dirty rags sidled over to them.

"Spare a bit for a shave and a shower?" the man whined. "I gotta try and get passage off this madhouse island, and no one'll look at me twice the mess I am."

Faelin sneered at this wreck of a human being—clearly one of those who would never be pakeha, though he certainly looked to have the raw makings. There were broad shoulders under that ragged shirt and height despite the man's cringing crouch.

Faelin started to tell the bum to haul his worthless ass off to the social center, remembered in time that there wouldn't be one here, and in his momentary confusion dug a handful of nickel coins from the pocket of his trousers.

"See what you can get with these," he said, tossing them into the man's cupped hands.

The bum caught most of them, scrabbling on the patched concrete of the dock front for those he dropped, then scurried off. Simon shivered as he watched him go.

"Felt like someone stepped on my grave, just then," he said.

Faelin snorted, balanced his crate of trade goods on one shoulder and tucked his duffle under his arm, then led the way into the city.

A sign greeted them as they left the harbor:

Welcome to Aotearoa.
Mind your goods and your manners.
No one will mind them for you.

Faelin was heartened by the words. This was promising—a warning to the weak, a message to the strong.

At the boarding house, a handful of iron nails bought them a room and two meals a day for a couple of weeks if they agreed to do their own housekeeping—a thing that was second nature to a sailor in any case. The owner of the boarding house, Mrs. Philbert, tossed in the use of her son as a guide to sweeten the deal.

Mrs. Philbert was a shrewd-faced woman, less elegant and quite a bit younger than her sister, but she liked sailors. She told them her husband sailed on an island trader that ran a regular route between the North and South Islands.

As Faelin looked around the comfortable room to which they'd been shown and contemplated the wealth of manufactured goods stored in their two crates, he felt pleased with himself. Leaving Simon to stow their gear and make the room comfortable, he set out with the innkeeper's Bobby to get a feel for Aotearoa.

The next few weeks were a flurry of new impressions. Faelin had waited until his arrival to select just where he wanted to settle. He had a good idea of his needs.

He wanted open water near so he and Simon could fall back on sailing when needed. He wanted a fairly rural area. Auckland, while small by the standards of some urban areas, was still too big. The best pickings had been taken long ago and Faelin hadn't come here to be somebody else's serf.

He also needed to trade for horses and pack mules to carry their gear. The livestock he planned to ranch—his dreams still colored by old Kidd's comparison of Aotearoa to the American frontier—could wait until he'd staked his claim.

Eventually, Faelin selected a settlement near what had once been called New Plymouth. When the oil bugs had set to work New Plymouth had been abandoned by all but a few hardy souls. This new settlement, called Richmont, had started up about three years before and the town was actively recruiting settlers. They advertised a trading post, two inns, several boarding houses, a school, and a budding road system.

Richmont fit Faelin's requirements to perfection and, best of all, a wagon train funded in part by the town's founders was heading out within the week. The wagon train's organizer was more than willing to hire both Faelin and Simon as guards in return for grub and promise of their pick of a couple good cattle at the trail's end.

Waving good-bye to Mrs. Philbert and little Bobby, Faelin swung into the saddle of his buckskin riding horse and never looked back.

Richmont proved to be almost everything for which Faelin had hoped. The original city of New Plymouth was gone, burned to the ground in the riots that had followed the advent of the petroleum virus, riots inspired by panic related to the petrochemical plants that had once functioned in the area. The new settlement was built slightly west along the coast from the original city.

Although New Plymouth had been destroyed, its concrete, brick, and stone remained as a source of building materials for the new settlement. Instead of the log cabins and clapboard houses that had lined the streets of Richmont in Faelin's imagination, there were solid square-built houses, rarely more than three stories high, laboriously cemented together.

The greatest bane of Faelin's existence, Chapin Toms, lived in the most imposing of the three-story buildings. Chapin—he was one of those people who insisted everyone call him by his first name—was the unofficial mayor of Richmont. A tiny, wiry man in his mid-sixties, Chapin looked so frail that Faelin suspected he could break Chapin in two without breaking a sweat. He had the impulse to do so within a week of his arrival in Richmont.

Chapin ran the Richmont trading post and, as such, pretty much dictated the prices for anything other than a meal, drink, or livestock—and indirectly affected the prices for those as well. What drove Faelin crazy was how everyone rhapsodized about how fair Chapin was when to Faelin it was apparent that Chapin set his prices by how much a person could do for him—Chapin—personally. As a newcomer, Faelin felt he was being shafted.

He and Simon had staked their claim on a nice chunk of waterfront land west of Richmont, near to where—so the settlement agent told them—the small town of Oakura had been. Their land had beach front, good acreage inland for grazing, and nearby scavenging for building materials. The weather was pleasant this time of year—enough so that two sailors didn't think twice about bunking in a tent, but Faelin wanted at least the beginnings of a house built by winter.

Leaving Simon behind to mind the cattle and sheep—their duties as guards on the trip out had netted them a cow, a couple of nice heifers, and about a dozen sheep—Faelin rode into town. He took with him a pack mule, a small selection of worked metal trade goods, and empty saddlebags to carry back his loot.

Faelin strode into Chapin's trading post—the Dairy as the locals called it for some reason Faelin couldn't fathom, given that there wasn't a cow in sight—nodding greetings to a few folks he knew from the journey out. While waiting his turn he wandered around, checking the stock against his list. He was pleased to see that just about everything he needed was on the shelves. There were luxury goods, too: bolts of fabric, bottled liquor, shiny trinkets, salvaged antiquities.

When his turn came, Faelin nodded greeting and began: "I'd like a couple of shovels, two buckets, five pounds of flour, four hens and a rooster, and one of those things you use for making butter."

"A churn," Chapin said. He had a face like an amiable walnut and the lines in it shaped a smile around the words.

Faelin nodded. "That's right. A couple of glass or crockery jars would be good, too. Never knew one cow could give so much milk."

Chapin smiled again.

"Your bro picked a good beast, there. He has an eye for cattle."

"That's right. Grew up on a farm in Oregon," Faelin replied. "Handy with cattle and sheep."

"You're a sailor, I recall." Chapin thrust a hand across the counter. "We haven't been formally introduced. I'm Chapin Toms."

"Faelin," Faelin replied.

His surname had been that of the Domain of California orphanage which had reared him, and he'd dropped it as soon as he went to sea. Faelin had no idea where his given name came from, but suspected that it had been some administrator's fancy. Still, for years it had been all he owned and he'd grown fond of it.

"Faelin," Chapin said, pausing as if he expected more. "Right. Well, let's go through that list of yours. Shovel. Wood or metal blade?"

Faelin had no doubts on this. He'd known these would be his most expensive purchase.

"Metal."

"New or used?"

"Used, if the condition's good."

"Buckets. Wood or leather or tin?"

"Leather's fine."

"Have a sack for your flour?"

"Uh, no."

"I'll have to charge for that, then, but you'll find it'll reuse. All I have are ten-pound sacks right now. Hope that'll do."

Faelin nodded stiffly, certain he was being had and reluctant to turn from the counter lest he see a knowing grin on a pakeha face.

"Hens and rooster. Particular breed?"

Faelin couldn't recall the name of the big white birds the Speculation's cook had preferred and was embarrassed to say.

"Any kind as long as they lay biggish eggs."

"Well, the rooster'll take care of making sure there're eggs," Chapin said, a roguish twinkle in his eye.

Faelin wanted to punch the little man. At least he'd known enough to ask for a rooster.

"And a butter churn," Chapin concluded. "Small one should do for you two. Of course, you could save yourself the labor and trade with a neighbor. Debra and Fleming Dutchman have a two year-old claim not far from you and Debbie makes fine butter."

Faelin nodded. "We've spoken."

Chapin paused as if waiting to see if the request for the churn would be withdrawn, then he went on.

"Jars. I can do you a couple of good two-gallon crockery ones."

Faelin nodded, accepting the two bluish stoneware pieces set up on the counter for his inspection.

"Anything else?" Chapin asked. "Wax? We sell that in pound bricks. Axe handles? Honey? Liquor? Lanterns?"

Faelin considered. Wax would be useful for waterproofing as well as for making candles. Axe handles they could make. Both he and Simon were whittlers from way back. Sweets and liquor, though, those were luxuries that he and Simon had resolved to do without. They had a cake of sugar swiped from Speculation's stores and would make that last.

"Two pounds of wax," he replied. "I'll think on the rest."

Chapin nodded and started arraying the goods on the counter. A small group of idlers watched with interest, making Faelin feel acutely self-conscious. He wasn't used to shopping except for minor luxuries—shipboard life took care of the basics. Barter wasn't unfamiliar, not with all the ports he'd been to, but he didn't like the vague feeling that he was about to be taken.

When Chapin finished setting everything out, he asked Faelin to inspect the goods for flaws.

" 'Cause it's yours once it goes into your saddlebags.' "

Then he hopped up on a tall three-legged stool, bent his hands back to crack his knuckles, and said:

"So what do you have to trade, Faelin?"

Faelin pulled out some nails.

"Nails are good," Chapin said, hopping down from his stool, agile as a monkey to check their heft and quality. "These are good nails. They'll cover the poultry, flour and sack, wax, and, because I'm in a good mood and leather buckets aren't moving since we got a cooper in town, the buckets. What you got to cover the shovels?"

Faelin glowered at Chapin. There had been a few chuckles about the buckets, chuckles that made him feel uncomfortably like an outsider.

"Leather buckets are good," he growled. "And my mate and I can mend them ourselves."

Chapin waved a hand airily. "Don't be such a hard case, Faelin. Can't you see I'm having a joke at my own expense? I over-bought last winter and all the pakeha know it."

Rather than being soothed, Faelin felt even more out of place at this reminder that he was a newcomer.

"What do you want for the shovels?" he asked stiffly.

"You brought a nice mule in with you," Chapin said. "How about him?"

"You must be joking!" Faelin replied.

"Well, I can't see what else you've got if you don't put it on the table," Chapin said amiably. "What's weighing down your goody bag there? It's more than a few nails or I'm a one-legged weta."

Faelin had the vague idea that the weta was some local critter—a bug, he thought.

"And how do I know you'll play fair with me if I put my cards on the table?" he retorted.

"You are a hard case, aren't you?" Chapin said. "Look, Faelin. We're all neighbors. We live together, work together. How far would I go if I stole from my neighbors? Why they'd just trade with each other and leave me out of the mix. I only manage to make my living because people trust me to be fair and to provide them with a savings of time."

He leaned forward on his stool, his ugly walnut face earnest. "These aren't the petroleum days, Faelin. You could make most of what you're buying from me or hunt it out yourself. I'm just saving you time. If you don't want to trade for the churn and the shovels, ride on over to the cooper. He'll make you a churn—it might take a couple of weeks if he doesn't have one in stock, but he can make you one. Old Mrs. Velma has a couple of rusty old shovels. I bet you could rent them from her in return for splitting a couple cords of wood and returning the shovels all bright and sharp.

"Now, walk or pour out your trade goods. I have customers waiting. They may be enjoying the show—'specially since it's giving them a good idea of market value for a few things, but I don't have time to waste."

Faelin flushed and nearly walked, but he had a long trip back to the claim and didn't want to explain to Simon why he came back empty-handed. He spilled out the contents of his sack: more nails, a couple of feet of wire, and, selected almost at random, a pulley.

Chapin inspected the goods, then he looked around the store as if assessing his audience.

"A lesson for you, Faelin. The nails and wire, those are really good. Most of the nails we have here are wrought iron or salvage. These you've brought are better than local made. The wire's more of the same. Hell, most of us make do with twine. The pulley, that's a matter of need. With the new settlers come in—yourself among them—there's going to be a lot of house raising."

Faelin nodded. Rather than being grateful for the lesson, he was feeling embarrassed. He suspected now that both Mrs. Philbert and her sister back in Auckland had ripped him off. He wondered about the livestock dealers from whom he'd bought the horses and mules. At least Simon had gotten them good stock, but he'd bet his left foot they'd overpaid.

He felt color rising along his neck and fought down a desire to storm out the door.

"I'd keep that pulley if I were you," Chapin went on, "and hire yourself and Simon out to help raise a couple houses. Then when you're done, you'll have help and more to build your own place."

Chapin nodded happily, pleased by his own sermon.

Faelin swallowed hard. He wasn't going to accept this walnut-faced little monkey pushing him around. There wasn't a government here to make him build other people's houses. He'd just learned his nails made him pretty rich by local standards. He'd buy labor when he needed it and damn Chapin for trying to turn him into a toady.

"How much for the churn and the shovels?" he repeated.

"Nails for the shovels," Chapin replied, his friendly manner suddenly take it or leave it, "and the wire for the churn. Keep the pulley and I'll put you down for house building."

Faelin started to say, "Don't bother," then swallowed the words. He could always refuse when asked. He settled his bill and got out of there as fast as possible, then he fumed the entire way back to the claim. The chatter of the indignant chickens didn't help his mood.

As the weeks and months passed, Faelin's opinion of Chapin didn't change.

"He's made himself king in a land where there's supposed to be no government," he growled to Simon after another frustrating shopping trip. "Did you know that since we decided not to go to the Dutchmans' barn raising, Chapin refused to sell me anything? Said he didn't feel like trading with a man who couldn't be bothered to help a close neighbor. Those Dutchmans are just rolling in cream and butter! They could pay for my time!"

It hadn't helped Faelin's feelings about Chapin's know-it-all attitude that after a month or so of trying to make their own butter, Simon had timidly suggested that they trade the churn to Debra and Fleming in return for a few months' supply of butter and cheese. Faelin had been forced to agree. After a day of dealing with livestock and working on the house, neither man had the energy to churn.

He ignored the fact that he, not Chapin, had been at fault in the matter of the churn and continued his list of grievances.

"I had to go to the miller direct and she gouged me, charged everything that Chapin would have and made me pull nails from old lumber while I waited!"

Simon said nothing. Though Simon would never complain to Faelin, Faelin had seen the other man's distress when they didn't go to the barn raising. Simon liked the Dutchmans—a handsome, mostly Chinese couple despite their names—and the two men's isolation on the claim after crowded quarters on the Speculation had proven almost more than Simon could bear.

Faelin, not normally a sympathetic man, took pity on Simon, letting him make some of the supply runs into town and not even protesting when Simon came back with a fat black and brown sheepdog puppy of the type locally known as a huntaway. He tried not to recall that this new arrangement also saved him further confrontations with his self-appointed rival.

But Faelin continued to feel the pressure of Chapin's influence. When he got into a fistfight with the cooper over a horse race, Chapin just turned away and sighed, but the next time Faelin came into the Dairy, Chapin refused to serve him until Faelin promised to donate something to the cooper's support while he recovered from the hand Faelin had broken.

When Faelin tried to recruit some labor for raising the walls on the new house—he and Simon had built a solid foundation, but couldn't hope to finish stone walls by winter—mysteriously no one was available, not even when Faelin advertised handsome pay in metal goods. Not until he and Simon took a turn in a few building parties did help materialize, and then for free.

The laborers even brought treats—sweets and veggies and summer ale—to augment the fish-fry Simon and Faelin had supplied, and that evening their quiet claim echoed with laughter and the skirling notes of Erland Totaranui's fiddle.

Faelin hated it, hated the pressure of obligation which seemed far more binding than any law—after all, laws could be circumvented, reinterpreted, or simply ignored. He hated it even more when he saw how Simon was being seduced from him.

When they had arrived in Aotearoa, Simon had been completely ruled by Faelin. He let Faelin dictate practically everything he did, and was never happier than when dogging Faelin's heels. By July, the heart of the local winter, Simon was making excuses to do things on his own. He'd made friends with not only the Dutchmans and other pakeha neighbors, but also with members of a local Maori clan to the east who were associated with, but not precisely part of, the Richmont settlement.

Many a wet afternoon when Faelin thought they should be mending nets or carding wool or any of a thousand other jobs, Simon would make an excuse to go riding off to visit a neighbor. Roto the puppy—named after the Maori word for lake, since he'd been so hard to house train—would happily trot after Simon.

Nor could Faelin really complain that Simon was shirking. He always brought something back with him as payment for his day's labors elsewhere—honey and wax from a neighbor's hives, salt, tanned hides, rope. Once, incredibly, he'd even secured them the long-term loan of a Maori waka, or canoe, in return for giving sailing lessons to the local clan.

Faelin's dislike of Chapin and his influence came to a head that spring at the sheep shearing. Like so many things Faelin thought should be handled by trade and barter—or by a bit of strong-arm persuasion—the shearing was a community event, as much an excuse for a party as a means of getting work done.

With a calm persuasiveness Faelin wouldn't have suspected the other man of being capable of a year before, Simon had explained how much less labor it would involve for them to drive their small flock—now thirty strong with trade and lambings—over to town.

After pointing out that they didn't have shears, that they didn't really know what they were doing, and that they might as well see if they could trade a lamb or two for a piglet, Simon had clinched the matter by saying, "And if you're not going, well, then I am anyhow. There's to be dancing when the work is done and a cook-off and a horse race. Farmer Lamont is donating a pig in honor of his first grandchild's birthday and it's to be pit barbecued."

"I never said I wasn't going," Faelin snarled, though in fact he'd been planning on staying home. This spring he was hoping to put in a small kitchen garden, despite the fact that he'd never grown as much as an onion in all his life. He'd thought to start turning what looked to him like a promising bit of land.

Faelin trailed the flock into town in a sour mood, watching Roto drive the sheep along with effortless ease. He wished he could figure out why his own course was never so easy. He'd expected that in a land without government and binding regulations he'd prosper.

He wasn't lazy, nor was he intimidated by bad weather. He was strong and before had always met those who—like Simon—would cling to him because of that strength. To top it off, he had skills most of the others never dreamed of. He'd been shocked to learn that Farmer Lamont had been a lawyer in faraway New York before chucking it all and coming to homestead in Aotearoa over twenty years before.

Now Lamont was a pakeha of the pakeha. In fact, the Richmont settlement was Lamont's second claim. He'd sold his first at what everyone knew was a tremendous profit because Auckland was getting too built up for him. Lamont said he wanted his sons and daughters to be able to raise their families in less developed land, just as he had them.

Such thoughts put a sour taste in Faelin's mouth, but that sour turned to honey at his first sight of Jocelyn.

Tall and arrow-straight with golden-brown skin and shining black hair, she glided through the Richmont town square like a princess. Clearly, her parentage was mixed—there was Polynesian in her and Chinese, but the lapis lazuli of her laughing eyes spoke of some European heritage as well.

When Faelin first saw her, Jocelyn was holding a toddler by the hand and his spirits plummeted. Then the little one tore his hand free and calling out, "Mama! Mama!" went waddling across to a woman Faelin vaguely recognized as one of the Lamont girls.

This then must be the much celebrated Lamont grandchild. At that moment, Faelin would have added every sheep in his flock to the barbecue in his joy at realizing this goddess was not the baby's mother.

He nudged his buckskin alongside Simon's bay.

"Who is that?" he asked, indicating the girl with a tilt of his head.

Simon looked and smiled. When he replied his voice was warm with affection.

"That's Jocelyn Lee. She's a cousin of the Dutchmans, came up from Auckland over the winter. She's been staying with them since August. I'm surprised you haven't met her."

Simon clipped the end off that last sentence, suddenly uncomfortable. The fact was, Faelin had become more and more a hermit over that winter. Simon did almost all their trading, even picking up the butter and cheese from the Dutchmans. Faelin had done the fishing, building, even the sewing—anything that gave him an excuse to let Simon be the one to go out.

Faelin felt a faint regret for lost opportunities. Then suddenly he didn't care. Jocelyn Lee was here. So was he. There was to be dancing that evening. He would dance with her. He would woo her. He would win her.

Faelin worked that day with a constant awareness of Jocelyn's graceful presence. When the day warmed, he stripped off his shirt, knowing his muscles would show to advantage. He did every job with a smile on his lips, knowing he'd shine better in her eyes. He even avoided the horse race—though he longed to try his buckskin against the cooper's black—lest the old tale of their scrap go round and cheapen him in her eyes.

All that day he listened as the flirting note of her laughter, sweeter than any music, carried across the bleating of indignant sheep. When Jocelyn carried around cold water for the shearers' refreshment, Faelin introduced himself, then found himself too fumble-tongued to carry on.

When the shearing was done, Faelin retired to the room he and Simon had taken for the night and scrubbed down with care. He dressed in his best clothes, glad now that Simon had insisted they pack them along.

Like most sailors, Faelin had learned to tailor and embroider. The bleached cotton shirt he wore fit to perfection and was graced with tiny blue stars. After tying his freshly washed hair back in a sailor's queue and donning newly polished boots, Faelin inspected himself in the mirror and was pleased with the sight.

Faelin's grooming had taken so long that Simon had left without him. When he entered the torch-lit circle where three-quarters of the area's population had gathered, Faelin felt strangely shy, aware that he was still a stranger in a group of friends.

To cover his discomfort, he put a sailor's swagger into his walk and joined Simon by the buffet. The food was free—donated by all the participants and transformed into a feast by those who hadn't actually been working with the sheep. The centerpiece might have been Farmer Lamont's barbecued pig, but there was such a variety of food spread around it that even its vast bulk was dwarfed.

Faelin ate lightly, waiting impatiently for Jocelyn to arrive. Even after the dancing had started, she didn't come. Gruffly, Faelin refused an invitation from saucy Debbie Dutchman, waiting like an eagle for Jocelyn lest he not be free to dive upon her when she arrived.

When Jocelyn did come in, the dancing was in full swing. Even so it seemed to Faelin that Jocelyn brought her own music with her. In workday trousers and shirt, she'd been eye-catching. Now, dressed for a party, she was everything he had dreamed—lovely as springtime itself in a floor-length frock of deep red silk embellished with scattered golden flowers.

That silk gown should have been a warning to Faelin, but he was too besotted to think. Jocelyn stood poised near the edge of the circle of light and the swirl of dancing. Contrary to Faelin's expectation that she would be pounced on as soon as she arrived, she remained alone, though by far the finest woman in the place.

Why it's just like with me, Faelin thought. No one will have anything to do with her because she's so far above the rest. They want to lower her to their level—to transform that lovely princess into a wallflower as they've tried to make me every man's lackey. 

Faelin strode over to her, the beating of his heart in his ears louder than the combined fiddles and guitars, so that he felt strangely disconnected from everything around him. He made Jocelyn a sweeping bow, aware that he cut a dashing figure, and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance, sweet lady?"

In his imagination—fevered all that day so he hardly remembered the sheep, the mud, the faces of those he'd worked beside—Jocelyn had blushed prettily and put her hand in his. Then he'd swept her off into the middle of the dancing, the two of them becoming the shining heart of the action, paired stars that transformed all the rest into extras.

But in reality, Jocelyn returned his bow with a pretty curtsy and smiled.

"Thank you, sir, but I'm waiting for my fiancé."

"Your what! Who . . ."

Faelin heard himself bellow so loudly that the dancers nearest turned to stare and the musicians faltered for a moment in their playing.

"My fiancé," Jocelyn replied. "He had a bit of business to conclude."

"Then he's lost his chance," Faelin said, struggling for gallantry. "Let me convince you . . ."

A new voice cut in from slightly behind him.

"Convince her of what, Faelin?"

Faelin knew that voice, light and a touch impish, mocking him yet again.

"Chapin!"

He wheeled and found the little monkey man looking up at him, head tilted in inquiry, a smile on his lips.

"I see you've met my betrothed," Chapin said. "Jocelyn Lee, meet Faelin the Sailor, late of the Speculation and of California, now settler—neighbor to your cousins the Dutchmans."

Faelin saw red. He didn't know what made him more furious—that this little man should have somehow bought Jocelyn Lee or that in his mocking way he should make his introduction a reminder that Faelin was just a settler, not pakeha, not now, and—if Chapin had his damnable way not ever—not unless Faelin became Chapin's lackey, building other folks' houses, shearing their sheep, taking their insults . . . 

Jocelyn had slid her slender hand into Chapin's skinny paw and was smiling up at Faelin.

"Pleased to meet you, Faelin. I know your partner, of course. Sweet Simon we call him, always such a help. Such a hand with the cattle."

Faelin began to tremble with fury. So Simon had turned against him. Jocelyn might name him Faelin's partner, but clearly he'd become a toady to these enemies . . . 

He gnashed his teeth. He hadn't known anyone ever really did that, but in the madness that was overtaking him, he gnashed them, feeling them grind like rocks in his mouth.

"You!" he bellowed, a rough growl that echoed through the suddenly quiet throng. He hardly noticed that the dancing had stopped, only that his words carried farther. "You, Chapin! What did you pay for her?"

"Pay?" Chapin looked astonished.

Jocelyn, still clinging to his hand, colored, her golden skin flushing crimson.

"Pay? Chapin repeated.

"Aye, pay," Faelin growled. "You make everyone trade with you, monkey man. I won't believe that such a beauty would agree to wed a skinny old monkey like you if you didn't offer a good trade. Did you give her cousins more cattle for their farm? Or did you buy her with pretty things and the promise of a three-story stone house?"

The significance of the silk dress came to him. Vaguely Faelin recalled having seen a bolt of that fabric on his first visit to the store.

"Aye," he continued, tapping Jocelyn's sleeve. "I see she's wearing part of your trade. Well then, I've a trade for you. I'll trade you your life for the girl. Otherwise, I'm going to rip your head off those scrawny shoulders and take her home with me. What do you say to that offer?"

Chapin shook his head gently, almost sadly, then said:

"I have a counter offer for you, Faelin. Look around."

And Faelin did. Behind him the assembled pakeha had drawn into a semicircle. No one carried weapons, but fists were clenched and faces were stern.

From in the midst of that crowd of disapproval, old Farmer Lamont shook his gray head.

"We don't do things that way, Faelin. Jocelyn has the right to make up her mind who she wants to marry. If she wants to marry Chapin—for whatever reason—we support her, especially since Chapin wants to marry her, too, and no other woman has a claim on him."

There was a murmur of uneasy male laughter as if to say "What man in his right mind wouldn't want to marry Jocelyn?"

Faelin spat. "You talk of claims, of rights, Lamont. I thought Aotearoa had no laws."

"No government," Lamont said with a slight stress on the second word. "Law is not the same as government. Law is the rules by which a society decides to live. What we support here is the right of every human to decide his or her own life, free of some governing body asserting its rights over theirs."

"And my rights?" Faelin countered. "Seems like since I've come here, everyone has been steering me to do things their way. I can't get a bag of flour or a pig or a few days' work on my land without trotting about doing everyone else's bidding."

"Your rights are yours," Lamont expounded, shades of the lawyer he had once been in his intonation. "You can make your own flour or raise your own pigs or work your own land, but if you want to make someone else do something, then you'd better have the means to enforce your will. Seems to me that when you're accusing us of making you do our bidding, what you're really complaining about is that you can't make us do your bidding."

"There's no law against my way," Faelin sneered.

"No law," Lamont agreed, "but we don't like your manners much."

Faelin swung on his heel to look at Jocelyn. She was holding on to Chapin's arm, her posture protective. Whatever Chapin had paid for her, he'd bought her well and good.

"Damn you all," he said to no one in particular.

He spotted Simon on the edge of the crowd, Roto sitting on his feet.

"C'mon, Simon. We're cutting out of here."

Simon shook his head.

"Not me. I've got dancing to do."

Faelin stared at him, then he stormed out past the circle of torchlight and into the darkness beyond. The buckskin was at least tied up and waiting. Tacking it up, he swung into the saddle.

As he rode off, he heard a wave of laughter and the music starting up again. Angrily, he turned the horse's head not west toward the claim, but north to Auckland.

Bandits stole the buckskin two days later, taking also Faelin's boots, his leather belt with its brass buckle, and the trade trinkets from his pockets. Almost as an afterthought, one ugly fellow made him strip out of his party clothes, tossing him a ragged shirt in trade.

Faelin made the rest of the way to Auckland half-naked and on bare feet. He hobbled into town and discovered that there was no police or soldiery interested in his sorrows. A group of bounty hunters paid him in secondhand shoes and trousers for information on the bandits. They weren't interested in his joining them, though.

"Get a horse," one said, "maybe then."

Faelin turned to robbery. After one nasty beating when he underestimated the strength of the man he planned to assault, he humbled himself to laborer's work. He stayed away from the docks, though, lest someone who'd known him in better days recognize him.

Summer wasn't too bad, nor was autumn, but winter came in wet and chill. After nearly dying of hypothermia one night, Faelin traded some of his earnings to bunk in a barracks. He was robbed there, set back to almost the same naked condition in which he'd arrived in Auckland six months before.

He began to dream of Richmont as one might a fairyland. No one had robbed him there—not even though he and Simon were two men alone and known to be rich. Folk had even been kind, after a fashion. Oddly enough it was little Debra Dutchman's laughing attempt to get him to dance with her that haunted Faelin most. What had he done to earn that kindness?

Winter turned to spring. With the better weather, clipper ships came into dock. Faelin was drawn to them, haunted by his past. At first he watched from a distance, admiring the white spread of the sails. He began to think that if only he could get off this damned island, maybe he could earn enough to make his way. He'd lost weight and muscle, but the skills were there.

Soon, whenever he wasn't working—earning just enough to keep him in poor food and worse clothing—Faelin took to lurking about the docks, the pride that had kept him away faded to a shadow. In a way he was still afraid to be seen by anyone who might know him, yet he longed for the contact that might get him a berth.

Late one afternoon in September, almost a year after he had fled Richmont, a voice spoke his name.

"Faelin?"

He looked up, trying to place the voice, realizing with shock that the man who was speaking to him was Simon. Superficially, Simon looked the same, but there was something to his bearing—a straightness, a way of meeting your eye when talking to you—that transformed him into another man. Faelin, who had been much beaten and kicked this past year, had to fight an automatic urge to cringe.

"Faelin!" Simon repeated, dropping to his knees next to him. "Man, you're alive! I'd given you up for dead. I've been looking . . ."

He stopped, shocked as he assessed his former partner's condition. Then he went on in a deliberately steady voice:

"I've been looking since last year. Someone said they saw your buckskin for sale in a shady market at the edge of Auckland. I went there, but no luck, though I did find someone who remembered a man wearing what had to be your shirt. It wasn't you though—for one thing he was older, for another fair as a whale's belly. I kept checking for you though, came on all the supply runs to Auckland, but never got a whiff of you.

"When the clippers were due, though, I thought I'd check again. Seemed you might have gotten a berth, if by luck you'd gotten here alive. God's own, man, but what happened to you?"

Faelin told him, first crouched there on the street, later, when Simon recovered himself, in a tavern where they drank good ale and Faelin had his fill of chowder and bread.

"And so here I am," Faelin concluded. Simon's honest joy at finding him alive had robbed him of any defensiveness. He'd told the entire thing straight, even including the embarrassing parts.

"And what do you want next?" Simon asked. "If you want a berth, I'll buy you out of your share of the claim, if . . ."

"You'll buy me out?" Faelin interrupted, astonished. Surely he'd abandoned any right to the claim a year since.

Simon misunderstood him, though.

"I've managed to hold it. Made a deal with the Dutchmans. I work their place in return for keeping our livestock with theirs. Got another dog and that helps with the sheep. Named it Repo. That's Maori for 'swamp,' " he added inconsequentially. "Was just as hard to house train as Roto."

"But you say I still have a share?" Faelin asked. "After I walked out on you?"

"Sure. You started the whole thing, Faelin. I'd never have had the courage to jump ship and find my way to Richmont without you. I owe you my life and my . . . well . . . prosperity. In a way, I owe you my happiness, too."

Simon blushed.

"I got married this winter to Lamont's younger daughter, Idelia. She's not a looker like Jocelyn, but she's a sweetheart."

"And you'd still give me a share?" Faelin asked again.

"That's right," Simon said. He looked Faelin squarely in the eye. "I'll sell enough to make up your half of the sheep and cattle—based on what we had when you left. Same for the dog and the riding stock, less that buckskin. There's something I'd rather do though . . ."

"What?"

"Convince you to come back, Faelin. You've the makings of pakeha, if you'd just get rid of the idea that something can be had for nothing but your wanting it. Idelia knows how I feel and though she's a bit nervous—you scared everybody white when you went at old Chapin—she says she trusts my judgment."

Faelin considered. Impossibly, he had a second chance and he thought he understood a whole lot better what he was being offered.

He thrust out his hand.

"It's a deal, partner."

This time, he knew he'd make his word good.

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Framed

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Pakeha

by Jane Lindskold

Ambrose Kidd, an old Kiwi sailor who remembered those days, was the first to tell Faelin about Aotearoa, yarning over a tankard of winter ale in a San Francisco pub. This was back when Faelin—an orphan of twelve—was still lying about his age to get a job clearing tables and such in a bar.

"Maybe if we hadn't been so spoiled then," the old salt would always begin, "we could've kept things the way they were, but we were spoiled—telephone, the Internet, cruise ships, jet airplanes—New Zealand weren't just a bunch of volcanic islands off the hither side of Australia; we were part of the first world. It might make you laugh, but tourism was a major part of our economy. Anybody with enough money could reach New Zealand in less than a day.

"Most folks skipped out when they saw what the petroleum virus was doing. You born-since can't imagine what that virus meant. Seems like just about everything then had petroleum by-products in it. Not just the obvious stuff like fuel and plastics, but clothing, medicines, even food was full of the stuff. Hell, I ain't telling anything you haven't heard before, son."

He wasn't, either. Faelin had heard stories like this a million times before. What fascinated him was where the story went from here. The New Zealanders had taken a novel approach to the crisis. While most nations strove to keep things as much the same as possible—laying new, untainted cables for telegraph and telephone for example—New Zealand's remaining population resolved to make a radical change.

"I remember my folks talking about it," Kidd went on. "Lady name of Christine Pesh had the idea, as I recall. Bright lady, fancied for prime minister if the oil bugs hadn't got loose. In a way, that makes it odd she should come up with such a plan, but then again, as they tell it, she'd always been one of those who contrary to reason—given they make their money outta government—think that a government that governs least governs best."

Faelin laughed and scooped up the old man's tankard, replacing it with another, filled while the boss's back was turned.

"Sounds to me," he commented, swiping circles on the tables with a dirty rag, "like this Christine Pesh was just lazy."

Ambrose Kidd snorted. "Not at all. It's harder work to make folk think for themselves than to think for 'em. Anyhow, Christine Pesh proposed—and got her proposal out while the communication system was still working pretty well—that government be phased out. She argued that those Kiwis who remained would have enough to do keeping mutton and fish on the table without supporting deadbeat politicians. I don't know how she managed it—remember, son, I was younger than you are now when this happened—but she got her measure passed."

Faelin was California born and bred. He'd heard of wilder schemes, but he knew how governments worked.

"Seems like someone would have appealed," he said.

"There were those who tried," Kidd agreed, "but Pesh and her cronies told 'em there was no government anymore to listen to their appeal. Meantime, while these pro-government factions blustered and debated—'cause they couldn't even agree among themselves which way things should be run, if they got government started again—the petroleum virus kept chewing away at stuff. Telephone failed. Computers flashed nonsense and died—lord how I cried when I couldn't get my games to run! Cars and trucks—all of which needed petroleum to go and even if they hadn't were so full of plastic parts that they crumpled up . . ."

"Just like here," Faelin interrupted, knowing he was being rude, but eager to hear the real story.

"That's right," Kidd said, thin lips shaping the half smile of an old man who realizes that the great events of his life are dull fodder to the eager young. "And so Pesh got her way. There were some riots, but most of those who disagreed simply got on ships and left. Most, I hear, got only as far as Australia, where they found more government than anyone could want—but that's another tale.

"You're wanting to hear about New Zealand, or Aotearoa as they renamed it, saying that since the nation was certainly new but had nothing to do with Zeeland—some Dutch place, I recall—they might as well go back to the old Maori name for the land. Prettier, too, means something like Land of the Long White Cloud."

Faelin nodded encouragingly. The boss didn't care if he chatted up the customers during these slow hours, not so long as he worked while he did so and the customers kept drinking.

"There were a couple of townships," Kidd went on, "Christ Church was one, I recall, that experimented with government. Problem was, it's hard to run a government when nobody except you is playing by the rules, sorta like playing soccer when three-quarters of the players insist on picking the ball up with their hands. None of those enclaves lasted more than about twenty years.

"My folks had decided to stay on in Aotearoa. They ran an inn out at Thames, augmenting their business with salvage—lots of folk worked salvage in those days. An uncle offered to take me on his ship as cabin boy—an island cruise, then—it'd be a while before anyone tried to go much farther than Australia. No reason or so it seemed to us."

Kidd paused, visibly swallowing down tales that covered some sixty years at sea. Faelin felt a tinge of curiosity about them, but not enough to keep him from prompting:

"And the rest of the Kiwis? How did things go for them?"

"They were pretty damn hot on their new idea, called Aotearoa the new frontier, compared it to the American West, like we used to see in the movies. Movies were . . ."

"I know, I know," Faelin said impatiently. "I am Californian! So everyone wore guns and rode horses?"

"Well," Kidd laughed, "many did, but that wasn't why folks made the comparison—at least not the only reason. More reason was because there was no law but what folks carried in their hearts. That's still how it is today—or at least how it was when I left Aotearoa a couple years back, and I don't see why it should have changed. No law books or lawyers, no presidents or monarchs, no rules and regulations, just common sense, hard work, and prosperity for those who earn it."

Faelin never forgot Ambrose Kidd's stories. Indeed, he became the old sailor's constant companion—for it soon became clear that Kidd was never sailing home again. The boy's eager attention was meat and drink to Kidd, just as his stories were to the orphan boy. After the sailor died, Faelin found that he was starving for more.

He took jobs around the ports and soon learned to spot a Kiwi sailor by a certain proud lift to his head. An offer of a drink usually got the boy more stories. Work as a dockhand evolved into work aboard ships—first in port, then at sea.

Chafing under California's numerous regulations, all of which seemed to exist—as far as Faelin could tell—to keep the strong and able from profiting while buoying up the weak and unfit, Faelin happily took a berth on the Speculation.

Speculation was an ocean-going free-trader, a sailing vessel modeled off the old China clipper—a ship type that, ironically, had met its demise due to the evolution of the coal-dependent steamers soon after it had reached near perfection of design. Now, with petroleum products useless, the clipper ship had been resurrected.

Current technology had taken a while to recover to the point that a clipper ship could be built—there were so many old skills to be relearned, so many shops to be retooled—but now that point had been reached and Faelin's childhood had been marked by the sight of these great white seabirds, first in ones and twos, later in great flocks.

The Speculation's captain, a sour old cove named Burke, was among those who were taking advantage of the relative availability of clipper ships. Burke's vessel was not among the newest, but Burke was owner-aboard, a thing that would have been nearly unheard of twenty years before when it took a corporation to fund the building of the vessels.

Faelin admired Captain Burke as the perfect type of the self-made man. The Speculation was a tight ship, but her regulations made sense. After all, you couldn't have someone lolling below decks in a storm when all hands were needed on deck or deciding to steer without the least knowledge of navigation, could you?

For five years, Faelin served on the Speculation and during that time he grew into a big man, broad-shouldered, topping most around him by a head or more. His rough, calloused hands were equally swift with a pistol, gun, or a line. He even picked up a few lubber skills—some carpentry, iron working, and sewing. He became known as a good man to have at your side in a brawl, had many followers but never close friends.

Over those five years, however, Faelin's opinion of Captain Burke and his capacity as a commander underwent a change. Faelin couldn't help but notice that as officers retired or went on to other vessels, he himself was never promoted to fill their posts. He received pay raises readily enough, and high bonuses when a cargo sold well. Still, this wasn't stripes on his sleeve and his mates calling him "sir."

Had the Speculation been a military vessel, Faelin might have excused the oversight, but on a free-trader nothing but ability was required for promotion. Therefore, he started brooding over the slight.

He might not make a good quartermaster—Faelin was the first to admit that bookkeeping was far from his favorite sport—but he navigated well enough, had taken his time at the wheel. He might be young yet to serve as first officer, but he'd make a good second. Eventually, he grew sullen, deciding he was being slighted.

"I tell you," he said one afternoon to Simon Alcott, his closest crony, as they sat up in the riggings mending trousers. "Captain Burke doesn't like me because he sees I'm a threat to him and that wimp son of his, Irving. He don't dare promote me, even to second, lest the crew start wondering why Irving's first mate and I'm second. Far better to have old Waldemar in that post, him with his stammer and two missing fingers."

Simon Alcott listened and nodded. Ever since Faelin had come to his rescue one night in a Singapore alley, Simon had been his absolutely loyal toady, reveling in his protector's strength. In his simple loyalty, contradicting anything Faelin said or thought never would have occurred to Simon. Indeed, he thought Faelin was right.

"Heck, Faelin," Simon said, "you'd make a better captain than the old man. Let him keep the books and work out the trades. You could run this ship tighter than a kernel fits in a nutshell."

For weeks Faelin groused on, Simon providing an unquestioning chorus to his complaints, until Faelin's vague grudges became as real to him as if Captain Burke actually told him that he was unpromotable.

As his discontent grew, Faelin considered his options. He could jump ship and get hired by another vessel, maybe by one of the big lines. They'd recognize his skills quick enough. For days he reveled in the image of himself in the neatly tailored dark blue coat and trousers of one of the better known shipping lines. There'd be gold piping on his sleeve and men jumping to anticipate his every word.

This fantasy soured, though, when Faelin considered the host of rules and regulations that even the officers were governed by on the lines. There were taverns and brothels they couldn't enter lest they sully the image of their employer. They had to accept transfers without protest, had to keep those uniforms perfect and those brass buttons shining. Sure they had lackeys to do the real work, but Faelin couldn't help but feel he'd be sealing himself into a tighter box than he was in already.

When Captain Burke announced that their next long haul was to be a winter—summer as it would be in the southern hemisphere—voyage to Australia, followed by a stop in Auckland, Aotearoa, Faelin realized what he should do.

Weren't rules—laws, regulations, favoritism—all that was holding him back? Hadn't old Ambrose Kidd told him that Aotearoa had no government and so was free from all that nonsense? Well, then, Faelin would jump ship in Auckland, that's what he'd do! Hadn't he been drawn there all his life? Hadn't old Kidd's stories been what had taken him to sea in the first place?

Faelin grinned like a fool, swallowing the expression when he saw Alcott staring at him curiously. They were weeks out yet, plenty of time for him to lay his plans.

He started by making himself up a couple of crates filled with trade goods purchased in various ports. He made them smallish ones, easy enough to carry for one man, especially if that man was a sailor used to loading and unloading, hauling lines and anchor, and all the rest.

From Kidd's tales Faelin knew that, other than gold, Aotearoa was metal poor. Nearly all they had came from salvage and trade. In every port of call he bought nails and wire, hinges and bolts, fish-hooks. He ended up taking Simon Alcott into his confidence for his follower started wondering at Faelin's sudden, unusual interest in trade. When Alcott begged permission to jump ship with him, Faelin graciously granted it. After all, two men could carry more than one and he knew that Simon would never rat on him.

In addition to trade goods, Faelin bought small items that would make their transition easier: extra knives, whetstones, coils of tightly spun rope, axe and hammer heads, needles and thread. In a pinch these could go on the block, too, but he didn't want to spend their capital on commonsense necessities.

Faelin spent both of their earnings lavishly, chatted up Kiwi sailors in every port, but kept care that no one other than Simon should notice his new interest. At last, after months at sea that for the first time in years seemed long, the Speculation sailed into Auckland's harbor and Faelin saw the promised land before him.

November was summer here and the hills were green. Off in the distance a white plume of smoke marked one of the many volcanoes that had shaped these islands, dormant now but for that almost fluffy plume. Drinking in those lush hills, the neat houses, the confident bustle of the citizens, Faelin thought Aotearoa the most beautiful place he'd ever seen.

Its difference from other nations was perceptible from the moment he strode down the gangplank in Auckland. By now Faelin had visited hundreds of ports through both Americas, Europe, the British Isles, even in Japan. Never before—not even in those nations erupted into despotic chaos—had there not been a governmental presence somewhere near the docks.

In Auckland's port there was plenty of activity, but not a glimpse of anyone with that stiff, attentive posture that said "official." There was no one sporting a clipboard, name-tag, or uniform. Merchants hurried to dicker for cargos, but no one rushed to collect tariffs. Able bodies offered themselves for a variety of jobs, from porter and dock hand to guide and companion, but there were no police, no soldiers, no . . . 

Momentarily Faelin felt a little lost. Then he rallied. His plans called for him and Simon to work just like usual, right until Burke announced that they were to set sail. Then he and Simon—who would have already inconspicuously unloaded their trade goods—would go ashore for one more roister. All they'd need to do then was lie low until the Speculation sailed on the tide.

He knew Captain Burke of old. Once the old man had even stranded his son, Irving, leaving the chastened young man to catch up to them at their next port. Burke wouldn't wait for two sailors, able as they might be.

Everything went according to plan. From a room in a port-side inn, Faelin watched the Speculation spread her wings and course out to sea. He felt a momentary twinge—after all, the ship had been his home for over five years—but this was washed away in a flood of excitement. Next time he encountered Captain Burke or any of his mates from the Speculation Faelin planned to be a big man—a ship owner maybe, a land owner, a trader.

Smiling, Faelin sauntered downstairs, Simon at his heels, to settle their bill. By reflex, he pulled out a handful of coins left over from his last pay. (At first he'd regretted that he'd not be getting his share of the Aotearoa bonus, but then he'd had the brilliant idea to make it up out of Burke's stores.)

The innkeeper, a prim-looking old woman, pulled out a scale and started weighing the coins, checking values against a handwritten chart.

"Copper'll bring less than iron," she said. "Iron less than steel. These . . ." she sniffed at some nickel-blend tokens, "aren't worth much but as sinkers on a line."

"They're money, lady," Simon Alcott blustered in reflection of his hero's momentary embarrassment, "not ore."

The old woman cocked an elegant white eyebrow at him.

"Not in Aotearoa, bro," she said. "Money's only worth what a backing government says it is. We're purely a barter economy here. You might get better prices from a currency speculator. To me this is just a few ounces of metal—and not pure metal either. Values are down a bit, too, what with the Speculation dumping quite a bit of metal goods on the market."

Faelin stepped in.

"How about worked metal, ma'am?" he said, doing his best to exude manly politeness to cover his gaff.

"That'd be better," the innkeeper admitted.

Eventually, they settled the bill with a handful of iron nails, a deal that brought them a map of the area, the innkeeper's recommendation of a boarding house run by her sister, information as to where they could get current values, and the old lady's sour smile.

"Welcome to Aotearoa," she said in parting. "You look tough enough and used to hard work, maybe you'll make pakeha yet."

Pakeha, they were to learn later, was local slang for a resident. Before the petroleum virus, it had meant anyone of European ancestry, but now it was reserved for those—no matter where their parents had been born—who made the grade in the new nation.

After Simon and Faelin had left the inn and were consulting the map, meaning to head first for the boarding house, a bedraggled figure clad in dirty rags sidled over to them.

"Spare a bit for a shave and a shower?" the man whined. "I gotta try and get passage off this madhouse island, and no one'll look at me twice the mess I am."

Faelin sneered at this wreck of a human being—clearly one of those who would never be pakeha, though he certainly looked to have the raw makings. There were broad shoulders under that ragged shirt and height despite the man's cringing crouch.

Faelin started to tell the bum to haul his worthless ass off to the social center, remembered in time that there wouldn't be one here, and in his momentary confusion dug a handful of nickel coins from the pocket of his trousers.

"See what you can get with these," he said, tossing them into the man's cupped hands.

The bum caught most of them, scrabbling on the patched concrete of the dock front for those he dropped, then scurried off. Simon shivered as he watched him go.

"Felt like someone stepped on my grave, just then," he said.

Faelin snorted, balanced his crate of trade goods on one shoulder and tucked his duffle under his arm, then led the way into the city.

A sign greeted them as they left the harbor:

Welcome to Aotearoa.
Mind your goods and your manners.
No one will mind them for you.

Faelin was heartened by the words. This was promising—a warning to the weak, a message to the strong.

At the boarding house, a handful of iron nails bought them a room and two meals a day for a couple of weeks if they agreed to do their own housekeeping—a thing that was second nature to a sailor in any case. The owner of the boarding house, Mrs. Philbert, tossed in the use of her son as a guide to sweeten the deal.

Mrs. Philbert was a shrewd-faced woman, less elegant and quite a bit younger than her sister, but she liked sailors. She told them her husband sailed on an island trader that ran a regular route between the North and South Islands.

As Faelin looked around the comfortable room to which they'd been shown and contemplated the wealth of manufactured goods stored in their two crates, he felt pleased with himself. Leaving Simon to stow their gear and make the room comfortable, he set out with the innkeeper's Bobby to get a feel for Aotearoa.

The next few weeks were a flurry of new impressions. Faelin had waited until his arrival to select just where he wanted to settle. He had a good idea of his needs.

He wanted open water near so he and Simon could fall back on sailing when needed. He wanted a fairly rural area. Auckland, while small by the standards of some urban areas, was still too big. The best pickings had been taken long ago and Faelin hadn't come here to be somebody else's serf.

He also needed to trade for horses and pack mules to carry their gear. The livestock he planned to ranch—his dreams still colored by old Kidd's comparison of Aotearoa to the American frontier—could wait until he'd staked his claim.

Eventually, Faelin selected a settlement near what had once been called New Plymouth. When the oil bugs had set to work New Plymouth had been abandoned by all but a few hardy souls. This new settlement, called Richmont, had started up about three years before and the town was actively recruiting settlers. They advertised a trading post, two inns, several boarding houses, a school, and a budding road system.

Richmont fit Faelin's requirements to perfection and, best of all, a wagon train funded in part by the town's founders was heading out within the week. The wagon train's organizer was more than willing to hire both Faelin and Simon as guards in return for grub and promise of their pick of a couple good cattle at the trail's end.

Waving good-bye to Mrs. Philbert and little Bobby, Faelin swung into the saddle of his buckskin riding horse and never looked back.

Richmont proved to be almost everything for which Faelin had hoped. The original city of New Plymouth was gone, burned to the ground in the riots that had followed the advent of the petroleum virus, riots inspired by panic related to the petrochemical plants that had once functioned in the area. The new settlement was built slightly west along the coast from the original city.

Although New Plymouth had been destroyed, its concrete, brick, and stone remained as a source of building materials for the new settlement. Instead of the log cabins and clapboard houses that had lined the streets of Richmont in Faelin's imagination, there were solid square-built houses, rarely more than three stories high, laboriously cemented together.

The greatest bane of Faelin's existence, Chapin Toms, lived in the most imposing of the three-story buildings. Chapin—he was one of those people who insisted everyone call him by his first name—was the unofficial mayor of Richmont. A tiny, wiry man in his mid-sixties, Chapin looked so frail that Faelin suspected he could break Chapin in two without breaking a sweat. He had the impulse to do so within a week of his arrival in Richmont.

Chapin ran the Richmont trading post and, as such, pretty much dictated the prices for anything other than a meal, drink, or livestock—and indirectly affected the prices for those as well. What drove Faelin crazy was how everyone rhapsodized about how fair Chapin was when to Faelin it was apparent that Chapin set his prices by how much a person could do for him—Chapin—personally. As a newcomer, Faelin felt he was being shafted.

He and Simon had staked their claim on a nice chunk of waterfront land west of Richmont, near to where—so the settlement agent told them—the small town of Oakura had been. Their land had beach front, good acreage inland for grazing, and nearby scavenging for building materials. The weather was pleasant this time of year—enough so that two sailors didn't think twice about bunking in a tent, but Faelin wanted at least the beginnings of a house built by winter.

Leaving Simon behind to mind the cattle and sheep—their duties as guards on the trip out had netted them a cow, a couple of nice heifers, and about a dozen sheep—Faelin rode into town. He took with him a pack mule, a small selection of worked metal trade goods, and empty saddlebags to carry back his loot.

Faelin strode into Chapin's trading post—the Dairy as the locals called it for some reason Faelin couldn't fathom, given that there wasn't a cow in sight—nodding greetings to a few folks he knew from the journey out. While waiting his turn he wandered around, checking the stock against his list. He was pleased to see that just about everything he needed was on the shelves. There were luxury goods, too: bolts of fabric, bottled liquor, shiny trinkets, salvaged antiquities.

When his turn came, Faelin nodded greeting and began: "I'd like a couple of shovels, two buckets, five pounds of flour, four hens and a rooster, and one of those things you use for making butter."

"A churn," Chapin said. He had a face like an amiable walnut and the lines in it shaped a smile around the words.

Faelin nodded. "That's right. A couple of glass or crockery jars would be good, too. Never knew one cow could give so much milk."

Chapin smiled again.

"Your bro picked a good beast, there. He has an eye for cattle."

"That's right. Grew up on a farm in Oregon," Faelin replied. "Handy with cattle and sheep."

"You're a sailor, I recall." Chapin thrust a hand across the counter. "We haven't been formally introduced. I'm Chapin Toms."

"Faelin," Faelin replied.

His surname had been that of the Domain of California orphanage which had reared him, and he'd dropped it as soon as he went to sea. Faelin had no idea where his given name came from, but suspected that it had been some administrator's fancy. Still, for years it had been all he owned and he'd grown fond of it.

"Faelin," Chapin said, pausing as if he expected more. "Right. Well, let's go through that list of yours. Shovel. Wood or metal blade?"

Faelin had no doubts on this. He'd known these would be his most expensive purchase.

"Metal."

"New or used?"

"Used, if the condition's good."

"Buckets. Wood or leather or tin?"

"Leather's fine."

"Have a sack for your flour?"

"Uh, no."

"I'll have to charge for that, then, but you'll find it'll reuse. All I have are ten-pound sacks right now. Hope that'll do."

Faelin nodded stiffly, certain he was being had and reluctant to turn from the counter lest he see a knowing grin on a pakeha face.

"Hens and rooster. Particular breed?"

Faelin couldn't recall the name of the big white birds the Speculation's cook had preferred and was embarrassed to say.

"Any kind as long as they lay biggish eggs."

"Well, the rooster'll take care of making sure there're eggs," Chapin said, a roguish twinkle in his eye.

Faelin wanted to punch the little man. At least he'd known enough to ask for a rooster.

"And a butter churn," Chapin concluded. "Small one should do for you two. Of course, you could save yourself the labor and trade with a neighbor. Debra and Fleming Dutchman have a two year-old claim not far from you and Debbie makes fine butter."

Faelin nodded. "We've spoken."

Chapin paused as if waiting to see if the request for the churn would be withdrawn, then he went on.

"Jars. I can do you a couple of good two-gallon crockery ones."

Faelin nodded, accepting the two bluish stoneware pieces set up on the counter for his inspection.

"Anything else?" Chapin asked. "Wax? We sell that in pound bricks. Axe handles? Honey? Liquor? Lanterns?"

Faelin considered. Wax would be useful for waterproofing as well as for making candles. Axe handles they could make. Both he and Simon were whittlers from way back. Sweets and liquor, though, those were luxuries that he and Simon had resolved to do without. They had a cake of sugar swiped from Speculation's stores and would make that last.

"Two pounds of wax," he replied. "I'll think on the rest."

Chapin nodded and started arraying the goods on the counter. A small group of idlers watched with interest, making Faelin feel acutely self-conscious. He wasn't used to shopping except for minor luxuries—shipboard life took care of the basics. Barter wasn't unfamiliar, not with all the ports he'd been to, but he didn't like the vague feeling that he was about to be taken.

When Chapin finished setting everything out, he asked Faelin to inspect the goods for flaws.

" 'Cause it's yours once it goes into your saddlebags.' "

Then he hopped up on a tall three-legged stool, bent his hands back to crack his knuckles, and said:

"So what do you have to trade, Faelin?"

Faelin pulled out some nails.

"Nails are good," Chapin said, hopping down from his stool, agile as a monkey to check their heft and quality. "These are good nails. They'll cover the poultry, flour and sack, wax, and, because I'm in a good mood and leather buckets aren't moving since we got a cooper in town, the buckets. What you got to cover the shovels?"

Faelin glowered at Chapin. There had been a few chuckles about the buckets, chuckles that made him feel uncomfortably like an outsider.

"Leather buckets are good," he growled. "And my mate and I can mend them ourselves."

Chapin waved a hand airily. "Don't be such a hard case, Faelin. Can't you see I'm having a joke at my own expense? I over-bought last winter and all the pakeha know it."

Rather than being soothed, Faelin felt even more out of place at this reminder that he was a newcomer.

"What do you want for the shovels?" he asked stiffly.

"You brought a nice mule in with you," Chapin said. "How about him?"

"You must be joking!" Faelin replied.

"Well, I can't see what else you've got if you don't put it on the table," Chapin said amiably. "What's weighing down your goody bag there? It's more than a few nails or I'm a one-legged weta."

Faelin had the vague idea that the weta was some local critter—a bug, he thought.

"And how do I know you'll play fair with me if I put my cards on the table?" he retorted.

"You are a hard case, aren't you?" Chapin said. "Look, Faelin. We're all neighbors. We live together, work together. How far would I go if I stole from my neighbors? Why they'd just trade with each other and leave me out of the mix. I only manage to make my living because people trust me to be fair and to provide them with a savings of time."

He leaned forward on his stool, his ugly walnut face earnest. "These aren't the petroleum days, Faelin. You could make most of what you're buying from me or hunt it out yourself. I'm just saving you time. If you don't want to trade for the churn and the shovels, ride on over to the cooper. He'll make you a churn—it might take a couple of weeks if he doesn't have one in stock, but he can make you one. Old Mrs. Velma has a couple of rusty old shovels. I bet you could rent them from her in return for splitting a couple cords of wood and returning the shovels all bright and sharp.

"Now, walk or pour out your trade goods. I have customers waiting. They may be enjoying the show—'specially since it's giving them a good idea of market value for a few things, but I don't have time to waste."

Faelin flushed and nearly walked, but he had a long trip back to the claim and didn't want to explain to Simon why he came back empty-handed. He spilled out the contents of his sack: more nails, a couple of feet of wire, and, selected almost at random, a pulley.

Chapin inspected the goods, then he looked around the store as if assessing his audience.

"A lesson for you, Faelin. The nails and wire, those are really good. Most of the nails we have here are wrought iron or salvage. These you've brought are better than local made. The wire's more of the same. Hell, most of us make do with twine. The pulley, that's a matter of need. With the new settlers come in—yourself among them—there's going to be a lot of house raising."

Faelin nodded. Rather than being grateful for the lesson, he was feeling embarrassed. He suspected now that both Mrs. Philbert and her sister back in Auckland had ripped him off. He wondered about the livestock dealers from whom he'd bought the horses and mules. At least Simon had gotten them good stock, but he'd bet his left foot they'd overpaid.

He felt color rising along his neck and fought down a desire to storm out the door.

"I'd keep that pulley if I were you," Chapin went on, "and hire yourself and Simon out to help raise a couple houses. Then when you're done, you'll have help and more to build your own place."

Chapin nodded happily, pleased by his own sermon.

Faelin swallowed hard. He wasn't going to accept this walnut-faced little monkey pushing him around. There wasn't a government here to make him build other people's houses. He'd just learned his nails made him pretty rich by local standards. He'd buy labor when he needed it and damn Chapin for trying to turn him into a toady.

"How much for the churn and the shovels?" he repeated.

"Nails for the shovels," Chapin replied, his friendly manner suddenly take it or leave it, "and the wire for the churn. Keep the pulley and I'll put you down for house building."

Faelin started to say, "Don't bother," then swallowed the words. He could always refuse when asked. He settled his bill and got out of there as fast as possible, then he fumed the entire way back to the claim. The chatter of the indignant chickens didn't help his mood.

As the weeks and months passed, Faelin's opinion of Chapin didn't change.

"He's made himself king in a land where there's supposed to be no government," he growled to Simon after another frustrating shopping trip. "Did you know that since we decided not to go to the Dutchmans' barn raising, Chapin refused to sell me anything? Said he didn't feel like trading with a man who couldn't be bothered to help a close neighbor. Those Dutchmans are just rolling in cream and butter! They could pay for my time!"

It hadn't helped Faelin's feelings about Chapin's know-it-all attitude that after a month or so of trying to make their own butter, Simon had timidly suggested that they trade the churn to Debra and Fleming in return for a few months' supply of butter and cheese. Faelin had been forced to agree. After a day of dealing with livestock and working on the house, neither man had the energy to churn.

He ignored the fact that he, not Chapin, had been at fault in the matter of the churn and continued his list of grievances.

"I had to go to the miller direct and she gouged me, charged everything that Chapin would have and made me pull nails from old lumber while I waited!"

Simon said nothing. Though Simon would never complain to Faelin, Faelin had seen the other man's distress when they didn't go to the barn raising. Simon liked the Dutchmans—a handsome, mostly Chinese couple despite their names—and the two men's isolation on the claim after crowded quarters on the Speculation had proven almost more than Simon could bear.

Faelin, not normally a sympathetic man, took pity on Simon, letting him make some of the supply runs into town and not even protesting when Simon came back with a fat black and brown sheepdog puppy of the type locally known as a huntaway. He tried not to recall that this new arrangement also saved him further confrontations with his self-appointed rival.

But Faelin continued to feel the pressure of Chapin's influence. When he got into a fistfight with the cooper over a horse race, Chapin just turned away and sighed, but the next time Faelin came into the Dairy, Chapin refused to serve him until Faelin promised to donate something to the cooper's support while he recovered from the hand Faelin had broken.

When Faelin tried to recruit some labor for raising the walls on the new house—he and Simon had built a solid foundation, but couldn't hope to finish stone walls by winter—mysteriously no one was available, not even when Faelin advertised handsome pay in metal goods. Not until he and Simon took a turn in a few building parties did help materialize, and then for free.

The laborers even brought treats—sweets and veggies and summer ale—to augment the fish-fry Simon and Faelin had supplied, and that evening their quiet claim echoed with laughter and the skirling notes of Erland Totaranui's fiddle.

Faelin hated it, hated the pressure of obligation which seemed far more binding than any law—after all, laws could be circumvented, reinterpreted, or simply ignored. He hated it even more when he saw how Simon was being seduced from him.

When they had arrived in Aotearoa, Simon had been completely ruled by Faelin. He let Faelin dictate practically everything he did, and was never happier than when dogging Faelin's heels. By July, the heart of the local winter, Simon was making excuses to do things on his own. He'd made friends with not only the Dutchmans and other pakeha neighbors, but also with members of a local Maori clan to the east who were associated with, but not precisely part of, the Richmont settlement.

Many a wet afternoon when Faelin thought they should be mending nets or carding wool or any of a thousand other jobs, Simon would make an excuse to go riding off to visit a neighbor. Roto the puppy—named after the Maori word for lake, since he'd been so hard to house train—would happily trot after Simon.

Nor could Faelin really complain that Simon was shirking. He always brought something back with him as payment for his day's labors elsewhere—honey and wax from a neighbor's hives, salt, tanned hides, rope. Once, incredibly, he'd even secured them the long-term loan of a Maori waka, or canoe, in return for giving sailing lessons to the local clan.

Faelin's dislike of Chapin and his influence came to a head that spring at the sheep shearing. Like so many things Faelin thought should be handled by trade and barter—or by a bit of strong-arm persuasion—the shearing was a community event, as much an excuse for a party as a means of getting work done.

With a calm persuasiveness Faelin wouldn't have suspected the other man of being capable of a year before, Simon had explained how much less labor it would involve for them to drive their small flock—now thirty strong with trade and lambings—over to town.

After pointing out that they didn't have shears, that they didn't really know what they were doing, and that they might as well see if they could trade a lamb or two for a piglet, Simon had clinched the matter by saying, "And if you're not going, well, then I am anyhow. There's to be dancing when the work is done and a cook-off and a horse race. Farmer Lamont is donating a pig in honor of his first grandchild's birthday and it's to be pit barbecued."

"I never said I wasn't going," Faelin snarled, though in fact he'd been planning on staying home. This spring he was hoping to put in a small kitchen garden, despite the fact that he'd never grown as much as an onion in all his life. He'd thought to start turning what looked to him like a promising bit of land.

Faelin trailed the flock into town in a sour mood, watching Roto drive the sheep along with effortless ease. He wished he could figure out why his own course was never so easy. He'd expected that in a land without government and binding regulations he'd prosper.

He wasn't lazy, nor was he intimidated by bad weather. He was strong and before had always met those who—like Simon—would cling to him because of that strength. To top it off, he had skills most of the others never dreamed of. He'd been shocked to learn that Farmer Lamont had been a lawyer in faraway New York before chucking it all and coming to homestead in Aotearoa over twenty years before.

Now Lamont was a pakeha of the pakeha. In fact, the Richmont settlement was Lamont's second claim. He'd sold his first at what everyone knew was a tremendous profit because Auckland was getting too built up for him. Lamont said he wanted his sons and daughters to be able to raise their families in less developed land, just as he had them.

Such thoughts put a sour taste in Faelin's mouth, but that sour turned to honey at his first sight of Jocelyn.

Tall and arrow-straight with golden-brown skin and shining black hair, she glided through the Richmont town square like a princess. Clearly, her parentage was mixed—there was Polynesian in her and Chinese, but the lapis lazuli of her laughing eyes spoke of some European heritage as well.

When Faelin first saw her, Jocelyn was holding a toddler by the hand and his spirits plummeted. Then the little one tore his hand free and calling out, "Mama! Mama!" went waddling across to a woman Faelin vaguely recognized as one of the Lamont girls.

This then must be the much celebrated Lamont grandchild. At that moment, Faelin would have added every sheep in his flock to the barbecue in his joy at realizing this goddess was not the baby's mother.

He nudged his buckskin alongside Simon's bay.

"Who is that?" he asked, indicating the girl with a tilt of his head.

Simon looked and smiled. When he replied his voice was warm with affection.

"That's Jocelyn Lee. She's a cousin of the Dutchmans, came up from Auckland over the winter. She's been staying with them since August. I'm surprised you haven't met her."

Simon clipped the end off that last sentence, suddenly uncomfortable. The fact was, Faelin had become more and more a hermit over that winter. Simon did almost all their trading, even picking up the butter and cheese from the Dutchmans. Faelin had done the fishing, building, even the sewing—anything that gave him an excuse to let Simon be the one to go out.

Faelin felt a faint regret for lost opportunities. Then suddenly he didn't care. Jocelyn Lee was here. So was he. There was to be dancing that evening. He would dance with her. He would woo her. He would win her.

Faelin worked that day with a constant awareness of Jocelyn's graceful presence. When the day warmed, he stripped off his shirt, knowing his muscles would show to advantage. He did every job with a smile on his lips, knowing he'd shine better in her eyes. He even avoided the horse race—though he longed to try his buckskin against the cooper's black—lest the old tale of their scrap go round and cheapen him in her eyes.

All that day he listened as the flirting note of her laughter, sweeter than any music, carried across the bleating of indignant sheep. When Jocelyn carried around cold water for the shearers' refreshment, Faelin introduced himself, then found himself too fumble-tongued to carry on.

When the shearing was done, Faelin retired to the room he and Simon had taken for the night and scrubbed down with care. He dressed in his best clothes, glad now that Simon had insisted they pack them along.

Like most sailors, Faelin had learned to tailor and embroider. The bleached cotton shirt he wore fit to perfection and was graced with tiny blue stars. After tying his freshly washed hair back in a sailor's queue and donning newly polished boots, Faelin inspected himself in the mirror and was pleased with the sight.

Faelin's grooming had taken so long that Simon had left without him. When he entered the torch-lit circle where three-quarters of the area's population had gathered, Faelin felt strangely shy, aware that he was still a stranger in a group of friends.

To cover his discomfort, he put a sailor's swagger into his walk and joined Simon by the buffet. The food was free—donated by all the participants and transformed into a feast by those who hadn't actually been working with the sheep. The centerpiece might have been Farmer Lamont's barbecued pig, but there was such a variety of food spread around it that even its vast bulk was dwarfed.

Faelin ate lightly, waiting impatiently for Jocelyn to arrive. Even after the dancing had started, she didn't come. Gruffly, Faelin refused an invitation from saucy Debbie Dutchman, waiting like an eagle for Jocelyn lest he not be free to dive upon her when she arrived.

When Jocelyn did come in, the dancing was in full swing. Even so it seemed to Faelin that Jocelyn brought her own music with her. In workday trousers and shirt, she'd been eye-catching. Now, dressed for a party, she was everything he had dreamed—lovely as springtime itself in a floor-length frock of deep red silk embellished with scattered golden flowers.

That silk gown should have been a warning to Faelin, but he was too besotted to think. Jocelyn stood poised near the edge of the circle of light and the swirl of dancing. Contrary to Faelin's expectation that she would be pounced on as soon as she arrived, she remained alone, though by far the finest woman in the place.

Why it's just like with me, Faelin thought. No one will have anything to do with her because she's so far above the rest. They want to lower her to their level—to transform that lovely princess into a wallflower as they've tried to make me every man's lackey. 

Faelin strode over to her, the beating of his heart in his ears louder than the combined fiddles and guitars, so that he felt strangely disconnected from everything around him. He made Jocelyn a sweeping bow, aware that he cut a dashing figure, and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance, sweet lady?"

In his imagination—fevered all that day so he hardly remembered the sheep, the mud, the faces of those he'd worked beside—Jocelyn had blushed prettily and put her hand in his. Then he'd swept her off into the middle of the dancing, the two of them becoming the shining heart of the action, paired stars that transformed all the rest into extras.

But in reality, Jocelyn returned his bow with a pretty curtsy and smiled.

"Thank you, sir, but I'm waiting for my fiancé."

"Your what! Who . . ."

Faelin heard himself bellow so loudly that the dancers nearest turned to stare and the musicians faltered for a moment in their playing.

"My fiancé," Jocelyn replied. "He had a bit of business to conclude."

"Then he's lost his chance," Faelin said, struggling for gallantry. "Let me convince you . . ."

A new voice cut in from slightly behind him.

"Convince her of what, Faelin?"

Faelin knew that voice, light and a touch impish, mocking him yet again.

"Chapin!"

He wheeled and found the little monkey man looking up at him, head tilted in inquiry, a smile on his lips.

"I see you've met my betrothed," Chapin said. "Jocelyn Lee, meet Faelin the Sailor, late of the Speculation and of California, now settler—neighbor to your cousins the Dutchmans."

Faelin saw red. He didn't know what made him more furious—that this little man should have somehow bought Jocelyn Lee or that in his mocking way he should make his introduction a reminder that Faelin was just a settler, not pakeha, not now, and—if Chapin had his damnable way not ever—not unless Faelin became Chapin's lackey, building other folks' houses, shearing their sheep, taking their insults . . . 

Jocelyn had slid her slender hand into Chapin's skinny paw and was smiling up at Faelin.

"Pleased to meet you, Faelin. I know your partner, of course. Sweet Simon we call him, always such a help. Such a hand with the cattle."

Faelin began to tremble with fury. So Simon had turned against him. Jocelyn might name him Faelin's partner, but clearly he'd become a toady to these enemies . . . 

He gnashed his teeth. He hadn't known anyone ever really did that, but in the madness that was overtaking him, he gnashed them, feeling them grind like rocks in his mouth.

"You!" he bellowed, a rough growl that echoed through the suddenly quiet throng. He hardly noticed that the dancing had stopped, only that his words carried farther. "You, Chapin! What did you pay for her?"

"Pay?" Chapin looked astonished.

Jocelyn, still clinging to his hand, colored, her golden skin flushing crimson.

"Pay? Chapin repeated.

"Aye, pay," Faelin growled. "You make everyone trade with you, monkey man. I won't believe that such a beauty would agree to wed a skinny old monkey like you if you didn't offer a good trade. Did you give her cousins more cattle for their farm? Or did you buy her with pretty things and the promise of a three-story stone house?"

The significance of the silk dress came to him. Vaguely Faelin recalled having seen a bolt of that fabric on his first visit to the store.

"Aye," he continued, tapping Jocelyn's sleeve. "I see she's wearing part of your trade. Well then, I've a trade for you. I'll trade you your life for the girl. Otherwise, I'm going to rip your head off those scrawny shoulders and take her home with me. What do you say to that offer?"

Chapin shook his head gently, almost sadly, then said:

"I have a counter offer for you, Faelin. Look around."

And Faelin did. Behind him the assembled pakeha had drawn into a semicircle. No one carried weapons, but fists were clenched and faces were stern.

From in the midst of that crowd of disapproval, old Farmer Lamont shook his gray head.

"We don't do things that way, Faelin. Jocelyn has the right to make up her mind who she wants to marry. If she wants to marry Chapin—for whatever reason—we support her, especially since Chapin wants to marry her, too, and no other woman has a claim on him."

There was a murmur of uneasy male laughter as if to say "What man in his right mind wouldn't want to marry Jocelyn?"

Faelin spat. "You talk of claims, of rights, Lamont. I thought Aotearoa had no laws."

"No government," Lamont said with a slight stress on the second word. "Law is not the same as government. Law is the rules by which a society decides to live. What we support here is the right of every human to decide his or her own life, free of some governing body asserting its rights over theirs."

"And my rights?" Faelin countered. "Seems like since I've come here, everyone has been steering me to do things their way. I can't get a bag of flour or a pig or a few days' work on my land without trotting about doing everyone else's bidding."

"Your rights are yours," Lamont expounded, shades of the lawyer he had once been in his intonation. "You can make your own flour or raise your own pigs or work your own land, but if you want to make someone else do something, then you'd better have the means to enforce your will. Seems to me that when you're accusing us of making you do our bidding, what you're really complaining about is that you can't make us do your bidding."

"There's no law against my way," Faelin sneered.

"No law," Lamont agreed, "but we don't like your manners much."

Faelin swung on his heel to look at Jocelyn. She was holding on to Chapin's arm, her posture protective. Whatever Chapin had paid for her, he'd bought her well and good.

"Damn you all," he said to no one in particular.

He spotted Simon on the edge of the crowd, Roto sitting on his feet.

"C'mon, Simon. We're cutting out of here."

Simon shook his head.

"Not me. I've got dancing to do."

Faelin stared at him, then he stormed out past the circle of torchlight and into the darkness beyond. The buckskin was at least tied up and waiting. Tacking it up, he swung into the saddle.

As he rode off, he heard a wave of laughter and the music starting up again. Angrily, he turned the horse's head not west toward the claim, but north to Auckland.

Bandits stole the buckskin two days later, taking also Faelin's boots, his leather belt with its brass buckle, and the trade trinkets from his pockets. Almost as an afterthought, one ugly fellow made him strip out of his party clothes, tossing him a ragged shirt in trade.

Faelin made the rest of the way to Auckland half-naked and on bare feet. He hobbled into town and discovered that there was no police or soldiery interested in his sorrows. A group of bounty hunters paid him in secondhand shoes and trousers for information on the bandits. They weren't interested in his joining them, though.

"Get a horse," one said, "maybe then."

Faelin turned to robbery. After one nasty beating when he underestimated the strength of the man he planned to assault, he humbled himself to laborer's work. He stayed away from the docks, though, lest someone who'd known him in better days recognize him.

Summer wasn't too bad, nor was autumn, but winter came in wet and chill. After nearly dying of hypothermia one night, Faelin traded some of his earnings to bunk in a barracks. He was robbed there, set back to almost the same naked condition in which he'd arrived in Auckland six months before.

He began to dream of Richmont as one might a fairyland. No one had robbed him there—not even though he and Simon were two men alone and known to be rich. Folk had even been kind, after a fashion. Oddly enough it was little Debra Dutchman's laughing attempt to get him to dance with her that haunted Faelin most. What had he done to earn that kindness?

Winter turned to spring. With the better weather, clipper ships came into dock. Faelin was drawn to them, haunted by his past. At first he watched from a distance, admiring the white spread of the sails. He began to think that if only he could get off this damned island, maybe he could earn enough to make his way. He'd lost weight and muscle, but the skills were there.

Soon, whenever he wasn't working—earning just enough to keep him in poor food and worse clothing—Faelin took to lurking about the docks, the pride that had kept him away faded to a shadow. In a way he was still afraid to be seen by anyone who might know him, yet he longed for the contact that might get him a berth.

Late one afternoon in September, almost a year after he had fled Richmont, a voice spoke his name.

"Faelin?"

He looked up, trying to place the voice, realizing with shock that the man who was speaking to him was Simon. Superficially, Simon looked the same, but there was something to his bearing—a straightness, a way of meeting your eye when talking to you—that transformed him into another man. Faelin, who had been much beaten and kicked this past year, had to fight an automatic urge to cringe.

"Faelin!" Simon repeated, dropping to his knees next to him. "Man, you're alive! I'd given you up for dead. I've been looking . . ."

He stopped, shocked as he assessed his former partner's condition. Then he went on in a deliberately steady voice:

"I've been looking since last year. Someone said they saw your buckskin for sale in a shady market at the edge of Auckland. I went there, but no luck, though I did find someone who remembered a man wearing what had to be your shirt. It wasn't you though—for one thing he was older, for another fair as a whale's belly. I kept checking for you though, came on all the supply runs to Auckland, but never got a whiff of you.

"When the clippers were due, though, I thought I'd check again. Seemed you might have gotten a berth, if by luck you'd gotten here alive. God's own, man, but what happened to you?"

Faelin told him, first crouched there on the street, later, when Simon recovered himself, in a tavern where they drank good ale and Faelin had his fill of chowder and bread.

"And so here I am," Faelin concluded. Simon's honest joy at finding him alive had robbed him of any defensiveness. He'd told the entire thing straight, even including the embarrassing parts.

"And what do you want next?" Simon asked. "If you want a berth, I'll buy you out of your share of the claim, if . . ."

"You'll buy me out?" Faelin interrupted, astonished. Surely he'd abandoned any right to the claim a year since.

Simon misunderstood him, though.

"I've managed to hold it. Made a deal with the Dutchmans. I work their place in return for keeping our livestock with theirs. Got another dog and that helps with the sheep. Named it Repo. That's Maori for 'swamp,' " he added inconsequentially. "Was just as hard to house train as Roto."

"But you say I still have a share?" Faelin asked. "After I walked out on you?"

"Sure. You started the whole thing, Faelin. I'd never have had the courage to jump ship and find my way to Richmont without you. I owe you my life and my . . . well . . . prosperity. In a way, I owe you my happiness, too."

Simon blushed.

"I got married this winter to Lamont's younger daughter, Idelia. She's not a looker like Jocelyn, but she's a sweetheart."

"And you'd still give me a share?" Faelin asked again.

"That's right," Simon said. He looked Faelin squarely in the eye. "I'll sell enough to make up your half of the sheep and cattle—based on what we had when you left. Same for the dog and the riding stock, less that buckskin. There's something I'd rather do though . . ."

"What?"

"Convince you to come back, Faelin. You've the makings of pakeha, if you'd just get rid of the idea that something can be had for nothing but your wanting it. Idelia knows how I feel and though she's a bit nervous—you scared everybody white when you went at old Chapin—she says she trusts my judgment."

Faelin considered. Impossibly, he had a second chance and he thought he understood a whole lot better what he was being offered.

He thrust out his hand.

"It's a deal, partner."

This time, he knew he'd make his word good.

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