But the night before the ship sailed, Great-uncle Niall’s horse kicked his way out of the corral and vanished into the dark. Niall had to leave without him. He spent a year fighting in South Africa on other army horses. Two of them were killed.

Chieftain? About a fortnight after the troop ship sailed, Wellington newspapers started carrying reports of a big black horse seen around the outskirts of the city. It escaped when anyone tried to capture it. A month later, the Levin paper, about 50 miles north of Wellington, reported the same horse, eating shrubs and grass from the roadside. Chieftain was trying to get home.

The months passed. Palmerston North papers, then Wanganui ones also described sightings of the black horse. It was limping now, but nobody could get near it. Then Chieftain vanished. He must have fallen over a cliff, or drowned in a river. Great-uncle Niall’s family never mentioned it in their letters to him.

Then my great-uncle was wounded in the shoulder by a bullet, and sent home. Just a week after he returned to our farm, Nana Aggie and Grandad John heard him shouting and laughing outside. There he stood, his good arm around a tall, thin black horse with a lame leg, which was nuzzling its head into his chest. Chieftain had come home. Nana Aggie says the two of them were always together after that, until Chieftain died.

I stood gazing for a few seconds at the place where Great-uncle Niall had been found. Then I looked around. Everything was still. No sound, except for the Waimoana gurgling along. I glanced up at Dad’s Bridge. It had stopped moving.

I usually keep an eye on the bridge if I’m down at the river. Angus likes to stand on the rails, and look over the edge. If Dad or Mum saw him, he’d get a telling-off. It’s a long way down to the riverbed. Angus is spoiled, I reckon. He’s five years younger than me; Dr Warburton from town had told Mum she shouldn’t have any more children. Dad said she grumbled ‘What would a man know about it?’ Little Angus, we sometimes call him (I do it to annoy him), is named after our great-grandfather.

Anyway, Little Angus wasn’t on the bridge this morning. Dad’s Bridge: we call it that because my father wrote letters and nagged government people until they agreed to build it. He used to limp into their offices on his bad leg and tell them how he almost died because of having to wade the river and climb the bank. Now it’s much easier for people to get around our valley.

Whina stumbled on a stone. I looked across; she was gazing up and down the riverbed. ‘Bad luck,’ I told her, ‘Robert’s not here.’

Whina didn’t smile. ‘Things seem … strange. Can you feel it?’