The wind off the Tasman still carries salt and
rot, but the sheep know. They bunch at the gate
each dawn, bleating low, eyes fixed on the dam
where the water doesn’t ripple like it should.
Tama Hohaia hasn’t slept since the shearing
began. His hands are raw from the clippers, his
boots caked in the same mud that swallowed his
wife three winters back — same mud now creeping
up the dam’s edge, swallowing the old fence
posts one by one.
The land took the Pukekura block in ’12, after
the Crown declared it “unproductive.” They never
told the iwi the surveyor’s notes called it
“spiritually contaminated.” Tama’s grandfather
buried his daughter there, not in the churchyard,
but under the kahikatea — where the soil won’t
hold a root, only memory.
This year, the sheep keep coming back shorn. Not
by hand. Not by machine. Their fleeces hang
loose, wet with loam, threaded with strands of
black kelp and something darker. The wool smells
of wet earth and burnt flax. Tama finds it
draped over the gatepost each morning. No cuts.
No blood. Just the wool, stripped clean, like it
was pulled off by something that didn’t need
hands.
He’s broke. The bank’s letter sits on the
kitchen table, unopened. The new rules say: no
more subsistence farming on confiscated land. If
he doesn’t sell the flock by midOctober, the
Crown takes the land — and the sheep — by force.
The deadline’s in seven days. He can’t afford
the shearer. Can’t afford the truck to haul the
wool. Can’t afford to bury his wife properly.
On the fifth night, he follows the tracks. Not
hoofprints. Not human. Small, barefoot, toes
splayed like a child’s. Leads to the dam. He
doesn’t call out. He doesn’t pray. He just walks
in, chestdeep, until his boots touch the cold
that doesn’t belong to the season.
There, in the murk, the boy stands. No face.
Just a shape wrapped in wet wool, eyes like
polished pounamu. He holds a single clipper,
rusted, humming. The sheep gather behind him,
quiet. Not afraid. Waiting.
Tama doesn’t speak. He takes the clipper. It’s
warm. The boy doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. He
just watches as Tama shears his own arm — wool
blooming from the skin, thick and dark, smelling
of peat and burnt korowai. The pain doesn’t burn.
It sings.
The next morning, the last of the flock is shorn.
Wool piled high, clean, heavy. Tama loads it
onto the truck. He drives to the auction yard in
Levin. Buys a coffin. Buys a plot. Pays the
bank’s final notice in cash, the last of his
savings.
At dusk, he walks back to the dam alone. The boy
is gone. The water’s clear now. The kahikatea’s
roots have pushed up through the mud, wrapping
the dam’s edge like arms. Tama places the coffin
in the earth. Covers it with wool. Doesn’t say a
word.
The land doesn’t take the farm. The bank pulls
the papers. The Crown doesn’t come.
The sheep are gone too. Not sold. Not stolen.
Just… gone. No tracks. No bones.
Tama sits on the porch every evening now. He
doesn’t shear. He doesn’t cry. He just watches
the dam. And when the wind drops, you can hear
it — the soft, rhythmic click of rusted clippers,
working under the water, cleaning what was never
meant to be owned.
