OFF THE LAND by BARRY MITCALFE Hira and Sonny paused for breath. Below them, the ridge swooped down to the sea; behind them, only the sky, as blue and empty as the eyes of an idiot. This was the time of change, neither day nor yet night, when things are not what they seem. “Is that a house, or am I seeing things?” Hira rubbed his eyes, “Down by those karakas there.” “It's a house all right,” said Sonny. “Lots of these empty places round these hills. What say we doss down there for the night?” Nothing would suit Hira better; pig-hunting was not the picnic he had imagined; getting there wasn't so bad, it was getting them home; he tried to shift the weight of the sow on his back and almost toppled into the ti-tree. “Come on, let's go,” said Sonny. It was easy enough for Sonny. He was used to it. Hira watched him go barging down the side of the ridge, making a track of his own through the scrub. “Here goes”, thought Hira, stepped into space, somersaulted three times and ended in the fern with the old sow curled lovingly over him. “Come on man, you'll bruise the meat” Bruise the meat—of all the bone-headed, slabsided, sway-backed sons of swag-bellied sows— “Bruise the meat! Is that all you've got to say, you …” But Sonny had already gone, charging through the brush, the ti-tree slapping and stinging at his face, his hands on the hocks and his head between the haunches of a Captain Cooker, almost as long as he was, five-foot-five. He'll be a tough porker, this one, Sonny was thinking, but smoke him in manuka and he'll keep the hui going for a day or two. Sonny busied himself making a fire in the karakas away from the house. One look at the place and he knew he'd go through the floor-boards. She'd been empty for years, since the slump most likely. The fire was well away by the time Hira arrived –he let the pig thud down from his back and staggered round with his arms out. “Wow, I could take off.” he said. “What's for tea?” “Pork”. “What's for supper?” “Pig”. “And what's for breakfast”. But Sonny wasn't listening. He was staring towards the house. “Feller must've left here in an awful hurry”, he said, “There's enough wood there to keep us going for a month.” “Just tonight will do me”, said Hira clumping through the dock and fennel towards the woodshed. “You sure nobody lives here?” he added. “Dead sure. There's a lot of places like this round here. Fellers in the slump walked off with only their boots. You can't farm—”. “Look here!” The tone of Hira's voice brought Sonny at a run.