Little Yokozuna

by Wayne Shorey

  "Oh," said Owen Greatheart, the disappointment deep in his voice. "It's you again."

  It was indeed the old priest, dressed again in his former priest's robes. He also wore an extraordinary straw rain hat that came halfway down his back.

  "Yes," he said. "You need me, so here I am."

  He would say no more, but lifted Libby from Q.J.'s back onto his bent old shoulder, and set off again down the trail.

  "A path without bypaths," he finally said, breaking a long silence that had fallen over the whole group. "Isn't it lovely to have only one choice? Enjoy it while you can."

  It was after many more windings of the way that the old priest finally led the seven children to the bottom of the valley floor, across an arched stone bridge, and onto the stony rubble of the beach that they had first seen from thousands of feet overhead.

  "Ah!" said the old priest, setting Libby down on the ground and rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. "Here we are, at last." He peered out into the ocean, as it came brawling its way again and again through the rocks onto the beach. He shaded his eyes and squinted far out to sea. "And there, at last," he said, "is your Little Harriet."

  CHAPTER 20

  Impossible Choices

  "Where!" cried Annie, thumping on the thin shoulder of the old priest. "Where is Little Harriet? Are you out of your mind?"

  "Perhaps," said the old priest. "But there is Little Harriet."

  No one could see anything in the raucous tumult of surf. Here and there they could see vertical stones standing out of the ocean, but there was no sign of any human life. Sea gulls dipped and sobbed on the sea breeze.

  "She is beyond the sight of any of you," said the old priest. "But she is there, on the ancient stone of sacrifice. At the highest tide it is six feet under water. Many children died there in ancient times, sacrificed to the gods. It has been long since a child died there."

  "How do you know this?" shouted Owen Greatheart.

  "I was told it by the demon chief himself," said the old priest. "I am not omniscient. I know only what I am told."

  "Why are you just telling us now?!" cried Annie. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

  "This was the soonest you could have come here," said the old priest. "Knowing this would only have made you more reckless on the way, and may have thrown you into some other danger. It is not always best to know things."

  Q.J. flung herself at the old priest. "Then why are you telling us now, at all?" she sobbed. "There's nothing we can do now. After all this, our Little Harriet will die anyway?"

  "There is a boat," said the old priest, infuriatingly serene. "One boat, around that bend. It is an old boat, but there are no holes in it. It is in a calmer cove, away from this riot of waves, where you can pull out away from shore."

  Before he had even finished, all seven children were running in that direction, stumbling over stones, falling, skinning their knees, getting up again, and running on. The old priest moved after them without apparent haste, and because he never stumbled he got to the boat at the same time the first of them reached it. It was an ancient flat-bottomed fishing boat, full of old nets, with two curiously shaped oars. The old priest and smaller children tumbled into the boat, while the older three pushed and shoved it off the shore, falling into it at the last moment.

  "Tell us where to go," said Owen Greatheart roughly, taking one of the oars. Annie took the other, and they began to pull together.

  "Three degrees north of that standing stone," said the old priest, pointing. "Many yards past it you will come to the stone of sacrifice."

  "How much time do we have?" asked Q.J. "How much time till the rock is covered?"

  The old priest considered, looking at the lowering sun and the shoreline. "Perhaps thirty minutes," said the old priest. "Perhaps a little more. It is more than enough time, even against the waves."

  The two oldest children bowed their backs into their work.

  "We'll get there faster than that," said 'Siah. "Owen lifts weights."

  "But then we'll go in circles," said Knuckleball, who knew something about rowing. "Because Annie doesn't".

  "Ha!" said Annie, taking this personally. She hauled away on her oar with such fury that the boat began to curve in Owen Greatheart's direction, and he had to catch up. There was no conversation for a long space, as the boat began to make progress out toward the stone of sacrifice and Little Harriet.

  "Ha!" said Annie, taking this personally. She hauled away on her oar with such fury that the boat began to curve in Owen Greatheart's direction, and he had to catch up. There was no conversation for a long space, as the boat began to make progress out toward the stone of sacrifice and Little Harriet.

  "What could be more horrible than what they've already done?" asked Owen Greatheart through his teeth. "You talk, we'll row."

  "If you look to the north," said the old priest, as if a great weight were on him, "you will see a railroad cutting in the mountainside, beyond this bay, and a bridge spanning the end of the bay itself."

  "I see it," said 'Siah, squinting in that direction.

  "Me, too," said Libby, competitively, perhaps a second before she really had.

  "Me, too," said Knuckleball and Kiyoshi-chan, almost in unison.

  Q.J. just looked hard in that direction. "So what?" she asked.

  "When the demons set your Little Harriet on the rock," said the priest, "they set a trap for you that could only have been conceived in Hell."

  Annie and Owen Greatheart kept pulling on their oars, but something in the voice of the old priest cast a dreadful suspense over the boat.

  "What do you mean?" asked Q.J., in a cold voice. "And make it quick."

  "When they placed her on the rock," said the old priest, "at the same time the demon chief had other demons unbolt one of the rails of that bridge. When a train passes over that bridge at high speed, it will surely be derailed."

  There was total silence in the boat. Annie and Owen Greatheart kept rowing.

  "It will plunge into the ravine," said the old priest. "Everyone on the train will die."

  Annie and Owen Greatheart still pulled at their oars, but more slowly.

  "So what?" said Q.J. "Tell us everything"

  The words seemed to have to be pulled by force from the mouth of the old priest. "There is a train," he said, "an express, due to cross that bridge. Soon."

  "How soon?" asked Q.J.

  "In about thirty minutes," said the old priest.

  "So," said Q.J. slowly, "we would have time to go and signal that train before it crosses the bridge?"

  "Yes," said the old priest. "A little more than enough."

  "Or," said Q.J., "we would have time to reach Little Harriet and rescue her."

  "Yes," said the old priest.

  "But not both," said Q.J.

  "Not both," said the old priest.

  A deeper darkness than ever seemed to rise up in every heart, a hopelessness before impossible choices.

  "Will all the people on the train die?" asked Libby.

  "Surely so," said the old priest. "The bridge is high, and there are great rocks below it."

  "How many people will be on that train?" asked Knuckleball.

  "Many hundreds," said the old priest. "Many hundreds."

  Q.J. broke into sobs, as if she had been holding out against them for days. She buried her face in her arms and rocked back and forth, back and forth, her body shaking.

  "Why did you have to tell us?" Owen Greatheart lashed out at the old priest. "Why couldn't you have made the choice, and just not told us the alternative?"

  "It was not my choice to make," said the old priest. "Because Little Harriet is not my Little Harriet, nor are any of the people on the train mine."

  "I don't know whether to love you or hate you," said Annie. "Who are you, anyway?"

  The old priest made no answer.

  All rowing had stopped, and precious minutes were passing.

  "Do we have a choice?" said Annie. "It's a ch
oice between hundreds of lives, or just...." She couldn't finish.

  Everyone was crying, from oldest to youngest.

  "But it's Little Harriet out there on the stone!" wailed Libby. "She's not just anybody!"

  Owen Greatheart took the sobbing little girl onto his lap and buried his face in her hair. "But nobody's just anybody," he said unsteadily. "Every one of those people is a Little Harriet to someone."

  There was no answer to this, no possible answer.

  Annie lifted her face from her hands and tried to speak clearly. "Everyone will die if we don't decide quickcly," she said. "Including Little Harriet. How would we ever live with that?"

  "Should we vote?" asked Owen Greatheart.

  "Quickly," said Annie. "Time is running out. Youngest to oldest, not counting Kiyoshi-chan. None of these people are his, either. 'Siah?"

  Kiyoshi-chan fell back against the side of the boat in a wave of relief at this, feeling the burden of decision roll away from him. 'Siah held his head, shaking it, crying and unable to speak.

  "What about you, Squib?" asked Annie.

  "I choose Little Harriet," said the little girl stoutly, simply. "I love her."

  Knuckleball was crying, too, but there was anger in his tears, anger against the choices of life, falling on him so young. "Little Harriet," he said. "Little Harriet. We have to save Little Harriet. That's what we're here for."

  "Q?"

  Q.J. sat very still, unable to control the sobs that rocked her body. She raised her tear-soaked face and looked from Owen Greatheart to Annie. They looked back at her for a long moment, then all three nodded. The two oars began to pull again, out into the darkening sea. Stroke by stroke the four strong arms pulled the boat through the water, as swells swept the boat upward toward the sky and then dropped it again. They passed the standing stone pointed to by the old priest, and pulled for what seemed like an eternity away from the setting sun.

  Finally the old priest said, "We are very close. Go carefully."

  The two oldest children pulled more slowly, while everyone else strained their eyes to see the stone of sacrifice standing up out of the sea. For several awful moments they thought that they were too late, and that the stone was already underwater. But Q.J. was the one to shout the news.

  "I see her!" she cried. "There she is! Little Harriet!"

  They rowed according to her directions, until they were close to the stone of sacrifice, and could see their little sister standing and reaching out to them, and could even hear her small voice calling across the water. The light of the setting sun fell directly on her, so that her face seemed to shine against the darkness of the dusky ocean. They were in great danger for a few minutes, as they tried to maneuver in closely enough to reach her without smashing the boat on the stone. She reached out to them, almost wild with terror.

  "From the lee side!" cried the old priest. "Get around behind the stone, where it leans out over the water. We will have to sweep past quickly, or else we will all die on the rock."

  It was impossible to stand in the tossing boat, so Q.J. got up on her knees, as close to the side of the boat as she could get.

  "Now go/" she shouted, and the two rowers pulled with all their might toward the rock. Swooping down the side of one wave, with more luck than skill they came up

  right beside the out-thrust part of the stone where Little Harriet stood. Q.J. reached over impossibly far and got a grip on the little girl's arm, just as another lifting wave started to sweep the boat away again.

  "Oh, no!" she cried in agony. "I don't have her!"

  And Little Harriet, seeing the boat being swept off, pulled her arm away in fear of being dragged down into the terrifying ocean.

  "Q.J.!" she cried.

  "Quick, Little Harriet!" shouted Q.J., leaning as far as she could over the side of the boat. "Jump!"

  Then Little Harriet did the bravest thing of her whole life. Casting away her fear, she ran to the edge of the stone and jumped as far as she could toward Q.J.'s arms, while Owen Greatheart and Annie fought with their oars to keep the boat in toward the stone. The little girl screamed as she fell short, but when her tiny dark head bobbed back to the surface, Q.J. seized the little body and tumbled backward with her into the boat.

  They wasted no time rowing back toward shore, away from the deadly rock. When safely away, they flung down their oars and hugged and kissed Little Harriet, laughing and crying and laughing and crying again that they had found her at last. But almost immediately Owen Greatheart snatched up his oar once more.

  "Come on, Annie," he said. "Let's go."

  Annie looked at him one blank moment, then nodded and took up the other oar. They began to row to the north, across the bay.

  "We would never forgive ourselves," said Annie, "if this turned out to be the only time the express was late, and we weren't there."

  "Whatever happens," said the old priest, "you have chosen between impossible choices. Therefore, you have chosen well."

  No one knew how to respond to this, so the two rowers rowed and the others watched the shore creep closer. It was grim work. Q.J. huddled Little Harriet close to her body to warm her, but everyone was silent as the old boat crawled toward shore, with the red sun setting just off the port bow. Stroke by stroke Annie and Owen Greatheart hauled away in perfect unison, as if they had always rowed side by side, in just this way. The shore seemed to get no nearer no matter how they rowed, but they just kept rowing, with their heads down, watching the green water slide by out of the corners of their eyes.

  They were still a hundred yards from shore when they saw the sleek silver train, its many windows bright with light, swoop around the bend of the dark mountain and dip downward toward the bridge. Knowing then that it was hopeless, the children stood up in the boat and waved and shouted at the top of their lungs, until they almost swamped themselves several times. Even the old priest shouted like a madman, while Basho the monkey leaped and gibbered in the bow.

  "Too late!" cried Annie. "It's too late!"

  And before their grief-stricken faces, the doomed train, full of hundreds of folk who were each a Little Harriet to someone, roared down the slope and onto the great bridge.

  "No," whimpered Libby. Knuckleball covered his eyes, cringing in horror, not wanting to watch but looking through his fingers.

  The crowded train thundered across the bridge and on through the trees, climbing a steep grade before it disappeared safely around the far mountainside.

  The boat rocked on the waves, unheeded, as its ten occupants stared after the vanished train, stunned.

  "What...?" said Q.J., finally. "How...?"

  "He lied to me," said the old priest, his voice cracking with an unidentifiable emotion. "The demon samurai lied to me."

  "But why?" asked Annie. "Why?"

  "Even the gods love to play such games with us," said the old priest. He seemed very tired. "So why not the demons?"

  In a great confusion of anger and weariness and overwhelming relief, the children slumped to the bottom of the boat, flinging their arms around each other in an exhaustion of emotion. The old priest stepped carefully around them and seated himself on the central seat, taking an oar in each hand. He looked at them, having recovered his maddening tranquility.

  "You hate me perhaps," he said. "But now I will row."

  CHAPTER 21

  Under the Deep Green Sea

  The old priest rowed for hours, deep into the night ocean, while Basho the monkey sat in the bow and gazed unmoving at the horizon. The children slept soundly in the bottom of the boat, covered as well as possible by the robe of the priest, who rowed in nothing but his rain hat, a thick wrapping around his waist, and a loincloth. When the sun finally rose, the children sat up rubbing their eyes and looking about in bewilderment. There was no land in sight in any direction.

  "Don't worry," said the old priest. "Trust me."

  "In our country," said Owen Greatheart, "we are told never to trust anyone who says that."

 
The old priest chuckled. "That is very good advice," he said, but kept rowing. He rowed through that day and another night and another day, while the children asked no questions but spent all their time sleeping or watching the ocean pass by. There was little to see, but there was something healing about the smooth, steady passage of so much deep green water, and the children let themselves be eased, one bit at a time. The scrawny old man rowed through another night, his arms seemingly tireless.

  "We haven't eaten in three days," said Annie.

  "Are you hungry?" asked the old priest.

  "No," admitted Annie.

  "You won't be hungry," said the old priest, "until we get there."

  "Where?" asked Q.J.

  "There," said the old priest, and no more.

  So they finally came There, but where There was the children couldn't tell, nor how this There differed from all the other places they had been on the wide ocean. It also was deep green water, but Basho the monkey leaned over the side of the boat and called, and a vast sea turtle suddenly surfaced beside the boat.

  The old priest bowed deeply and spoke to the huge turtle, with great respect. "Please," he said, "take these children to the kingdom of your master, and ask him to care for them as they deserve. I regret that they have seen so much trouble and so little hospitality in our land. They are tired and sore with choices."

  "I understand," said the great turtle. "For your sake I am sure that my master will give them great honor."

  The old priest bowed. Then the American children stepped from the boat onto the back of the turtle, which was the size of a small island. They turned back to bow to the old priest, to Basho the monkey, and to Kiyoshi-chan, who knew that they were going not only to a faraway place, but also to a faraway time, to the time of strange heroes such as Akebono the unknown yokozuna, and No-ma-ru the unknown shortstop. He wept at the strangeness of it, and at the loss of Knuckleball, who had become the best friend he had ever known.

  "Good-bye, Kiyoshi-chan," said Knuckleball. He wanted to say, "I'll see you later," as he would have said upon leaving any other friend, but knew that this time he couldn't say it. Tears flowed down his cheeks.