In the Land of the Long White Cloud

that crybaby? That colorless little gutless thing? Listen, Howard, you could have had her for all I cared. I wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole. But you had to gamble the farm away. My money, Howard! My hard-earned money. And God help me, I preferred climbing on little Barbara to another whaler. And I couldn’t care less who she was whining for on our wedding night.”
    Howard pounced on him. “She was engaged to me!” he screamed at Gerald. “She was mine!”
    Gerald fended off his blows. He was already very drunk, but he still managed to duck Howard’s wild punches. As he did so, he saw the necklace with the jade piece that Howard always wore around his neck. With one jerk he pulled it off and held it up high so that everyone in the pub could see it.
    “So that’s why you’re still carrying her present,” he scoffed. “How touching, Howie! A sign of eternal love! What does Mrs.
Helen
O’Keefe have to say about that?”
    The men in the pub laughed. Howard reached in impotent rage for the memento, but Gerald did not plan to give it back.
    “Barbara wasn’t engaged to anyone,” he went on. “No matter how many baubles you exchanged. Do you think Butler would have given her to a down-and-out gambler like you? You could have gone to jail for misappropriation of the money. But thanks to my and Butler’s indulgence you got your farm; you had a chance. And what did you make of it? A rotten house and a few shabby sheep! Isn’t the wife you ordered from England worth anything to you? No wonder your son ran away from you!”
    “So you already know too!” O’Keefe exclaimed, swinging and landing a haymaker on Warden’s nose. “Everyone knows about mywonderful son and his wonderful wife—were you the one who financed them, Warden? Just to get back at me?”
    In his burning rage, anything seemed possible. Yes, that’s how it must have gone down. The Wardens were behind the marriage that had estranged him from his son, behind the warehouse that made it so that Ruben could spit on Howard and his farm.
    Howard ducked Gerald’s right hook, lowered his head, and butted Gerald heavily in the stomach. Gerald doubled over. Howard used the opportunity to land an uppercut to the chin, and Gerald slid halfway across the pub. His skull landed on the edge of a table with a hideous crack.
    A horrified silence came over the room as he sank to the ground.
    Paul saw a thin trickle of blood flow from Gerald’s ear.
    “Grandfather! Grandfather, can you hear me?” Horror-struck, Paul crouched next to the groaning man. Gerald slowly opened his eyes, but he seemed to be looking through Paul and the entire scene in the bar. With great effort he tried to sit up.
    “Gwyn,” he whispered. His eyes became glassy.
    “Grandfather!”
    “Gerald! By God, I didn’t mean to do that, Paul. I didn’t mean to do that!”
    Howard O’Keefe stood before Gerald Warden’s corpse, scared to death. “Oh God, Gerald…”
    The other men in the pub slowly began to stir. Someone called for the doctor. Most of them kept their eyes on Paul, who stood up slowly and fixed Howard with a cold, hard gaze.
    “You killed him,” Paul said quietly.
    “But I…” Howard stepped back. The coldness and hatred in Paul’s eyes were almost palpable. Howard did not know whether he had ever felt such fear before. He reached instinctively for the gun he had leaned on his chair earlier. But Paul was faster. Since the Maori revolt on Kiward Station he had taken to visibly carrying a revolver. He maintained it was for self-defense; after all, Tonga could launch an attack at any moment. Until that moment, though, Paul had never drawn the weapon. Even now he was not all that quick. He was nosix-shooter hero out of the penny dreadfuls his mother had devoured as a young girl, just an ice-cold killer who slowly took his gun out of its holster, aimed, and shot. Howard O’Keefe did not have a chance. His eyes still reflected disbelief and fear as the bullet knocked him backward. He was dead before he hit the ground.
    “Paul, for heaven’s sake, what have you done!” George Greenwood had not entered the pub until after the brawl between Gerald and Howard was already underway. He wanted to intercede, but Paul pointed the weapon at him. His eyes flared.
    “I…it was self-defense! You all saw! He was reaching for his gun!”
    “Paul, put that gun away!” George just hoped to avoid further bloodshed. “You can tell it all to the officer.