Three Times Dead by D C Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

when I started going to church, she went funny on me. Said she didn’t want to have anything to do with the Jesus stuff. When she came to visit me here I said some things and kind of pissed her off. Maybe it was the drugs talking, I don’t know.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I … can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “Did you and Gina ever, you know … get it on?”
    Josh laughed and then stopped when he saw that I was serious. “No, we never did, not that I didn’t want to, and it came close a few times but she always pushed me away. I thought it was me, but I think it was you.”
    I leant my head back on the pillow, relieved. I mean, I should have believed Gina first off, but I had to make sure. When I looked at Josh, he was frowning and I saw him thinking about what I had said.
    “Is she pregnant?” he asked.
    “No, she says she’s not, but I wondered, you know, if she was then who …”
    “And you asked her this?”
    I nodded.
    “I can see where it went wrong then,” Josh said and smiled. “No wonder she was pissed off.”
    “Yeah, it didn’t go so well. And I told Mitch and Scott to fuck off as well, so there’s goes that contact.”
    “Can your folks find out for you?”
    “My folks seem to think that Gina is bad for me.”
    Josh laughed and said, “I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t feature in any of her circles, so not sure how that’s going to work out.”
    “Maybe she’ll come back.”
    “We’re talking about a girl here, Bevan, you should know that when they’re pissed off, they are seriously pissed off. You haven’t got a hope.”
    I knew what he said was true but I wanted to make amends. That was back when I actually cared enough to want to do something.
     

 
    Chapter 12
     
    Dad came at the weekend but we didn’t have much to say to each other. Mum filled him in on the progress so far, and they started discussing how they would have to change things around the house to accommodate the wheelchair, when I told them I wasn’t having a wheelchair at all and that I wanted my new leg as soon as possible. I didn’t know whether we had to pay or whether they were on the health system but I knew I wanted to be upright – and quickly. They left, discussing where and how to get in touch with the specialists that they knew.
    Mark came on Monday. He brought some books with him.
    “I went to the library and asked for books on the New Zealand Wars. I’ve read through some of them and what you’ve described to me seems to be incidents from the Waikato War.” He opened up a marked page in a book called Landscapes of Conflict . “The first battle took place on 17th July 1863 at place called Koheroa Ridges.” He turned the book so I could see a map. A cross was marked on it close to the town of Mercer. To me that was just a town we passed on the way to Hamilton. He opened up the larger book called Two Peoples, One Land and read from it: “‘As they advanced along the Koheroa Ridges they came under Maori fire but pushed on, driving the enemy at the point of the bayonet from successive positions, and down to the swamp and river.’ Sound familiar?”
    I nodded, puzzled.
    “What’s interesting,” Mark said as he looked up from the book, “is that the commanding officer was shot in the arm and General Cameron himself led one of the charges. The general was in charge of the British forces invading the Waikato so he should have stayed away from the fight, that’s what generals are supposed to do, or else there’s no one to direct the army.”
    I remembered the man on horseback chasing me, or rather Haki, from the slopes down to the swamp and towards the river. Could that have been the general? I shook my head – how could a dream be part of real life? Especially real life that happened ages ago.
    “Then there is the attack on a place called Camerontown. The place doesn’t exist now but it was close to Tuakau. It was a storage depot which the Maoris attacked on 7th