Tama threw a tarpaulin down on the grass, and settled down to roll a smoke. The air had a silky dampness. In the distance, he could hear Akatea squealing with laughter. Beneath the surface of the Rangitikei the Taniwha slept, Tama's nets sprawled loosely beside its tail.
After a while, Tama reached into his army satchel and carefully removed two spiky Kina. The tide was beginning to turn and the river crept slowly towards him. Tama climbed down the riverbank and placed the two Kina side by side in the sand. This was his offering to the Taniwha. He climbed back up the bank to his possie and cracked open a DB stubbie. In the distance he could hear Akatea and Tane digging for Pipis, yelling when they found them to each other across the long stretches of sand. Tama stretched out on the tarp in the sun and listened as the lapping of the water increased, as the Taniwha accepted his Kai. Tama and the Taniwha were like the Kina he placed in the sand. Side by side, almost as if they were family. The relationship between them, a secret one to the kids.
He always fished at this bend in the river, where his Taniwha lived. In the years to come, he would explain to Akatea and Tane that the Taniwha was their kaitiaki. That the Taniwha protected them from the currents of the river when they were little mokopuna.
Akatea's shadow woke him up. She was rattling her bucket excitedly.
"Dad, wake up!" she yelled.
"Get up, Get up!" she yelled.
Tama rubbed his eyes. He was not sure how long he had been asleep.
"What's wrong Akatea?" he asked.
"Nothing, look how many Pipi's I found" she exclaimed.
"I found way more than Tane," she said excitedly.
"Bloody Marvelous, eh." he said then "Oh shit, the whitebait nets…..."
As he rushed towards the nets, now weighed down in the incoming tide, he shouted back to Akatea "Akatea, go and get some saltwater in that bucket eh, or those pipis will be no good by the time we get home" Akatea ran off, her knees coated in sand, towards Tane who was still furiously digging.
Tama pulled the first net from the river. It seemed unusually heavy. As the net broke the surface, he could not believe his eyes. The net was teeming with whitebait. Tama's pulse was racing, his body on full alert. He quickly began scooping the fish with the homemade cut-off-plastic- bottle scoop into the fish bucket. White slithery bait. A million eyes looking up at him.
He muttered happily, to himself "there has to be five kilos of bait here, aue!"
Tama went back out to fetch the second net. To his disappointment, it was not as heavy. As he pulled in the net, he saw a few whitebait and a small round black object.
Carefully he removed the bait and the object, which was caught in the net. It was to become his amulet. It was a small piece of petrified Kauri, shiny and bold and appeared to have an eye. It was a gift from his ancestors via his kaitiaki, the Taniwha.
"Thank you", he whispered to the river.
Years later, he would tell this story to his family with the Kauri amulet hanging around his neck on a piece of leather, close to his heart.
Akatea appeared again.
"Dad I'm hungry," She complained.
"Look, Akatea at all of our fish for Aunty" "We are finished here," he said.
They loaded up the old Holden with the nets and the kai.
"How about a feed of fish-n-chips in Bulls?" Tama asked.
"Yeah!" both kids yelled simultaneously.
Tama pulled away from the riverbank.
On the way home with the fish-n-chips wrapped in newspaper between them, he gave the HQ a little bit of grunt, up and over the dips in the road.
