The Bamboo Sword

by Margi Preus

  As Yoshi hurried away from the stables, crossed the outer moat, and worked his way through the streets, he considered his situation. There would be several samurai. They would be armed. He doubted he could march in there and just demand that they release the boy.

  For one thing, Kitsune was sure to want Yoshi’s head as well.

  Maybe he could challenge Kitsune to a fight. Maybe someone would lend him a katana. He’d lose, of course. But maybe not. Kitsune was strong and big and he had a lot of power in his sword arm, but he was also reckless and undisciplined. There might be an opportunity . . .

  As soon as he rounded the last corner, he saw Needs-a-Shave leaning against the doorframe of the soba shop. He still needed a shave. Yoshi ducked behind a wall and waited until he went in. Then Yoshi took a deep breath, made himself as tall as he could, smoothed his peasant’s clothes, and walked inside.

  The bushi were huddled at a low table in a shadowy corner. Jack was sitting on a chair—a small courtesy for the foreigner—with his hands tied behind his back. He gave Yoshi an apologetic smile. Yoshi was surprised how glad he was to see him, but he didn’t smile back.

  The others looked up from their cups of tea. Kuma glowered. The tall, lean one was occupied with a fit of coughing. Catfish pulled on his whiskers. Loose-Hair was nowhere to be seen. In one corner, a cook sat chopping vegetables at a low table.

  And, standing in the shadowy fringes, Kitsune.

  “I suppose you’ve come to retrieve your little friend,” Kitsune said. He stepped forward and nodded toward Jack. That’s when Yoshi noticed a big purple bruise spreading around one of Kitsune’s eyes. Yoshi’s eyes flicked toward Jack, who smirked. Jack had given him that black eye! The growing bruise didn’t obscure the poisonous hatred in the big bushi’s eyes.

  “You know it’s a mistake to keep him here,” Yoshi said. “If the authorities find out you’ve been holding him, you will be in big trouble. They know about him; they’re looking for him. The Black Ships are on their way here now. You realize that an incident such as this could start a full-scale war!”

  The others shifted their weight nervously. Maybe, Yoshi thought, maybe he would be able to talk them into releasing Jack. “And if the Americans find out you are keeping him prisoner, I shudder to think what will happen to you!”

  The lean one bit his lip. Kuma blinked rapidly. Only Kitsune kept his narrowed eyes focused on Yoshi. “The Black Ships have turned around,” he said. “They are going away.”

  Was Kitsune bluffing? Or did he know something Jack didn’t know?

  “Yes,” Coughing One agreed. “It is true. The ships are going away. They have headed back to Kanagawa.”

  Chop chop chop went the cook’s knife.

  “Even so,” Kitsune said, “war is exactly what we need. If not now, when? If we wait, we will be crushed. The spirit of our divine land will, like a light, be extinguished!”

  “A little over-dramatic, wouldn’t you say?” Needs-a-Shave commented.

  “We must send a message to the shogun that barbarians will not be tolerated in our land,” Kitsune went on. “Here is this one”—he gestured toward Jack—“spying! In the sacred city of Edo! He deserves to die.”

  Yoshi glanced around. The others looked pensive. “Let him go,” Needs-a-Shave said. “You know that it’s trouble to have him here. Now is not the time to start a conflict. We must be better prepared to truly fight the outsiders.”

  “I say we put his head on a pole,” Kitsune said. “An example of what happens to barbarians who trespass on sacred ground!”

  “Do you think the Americans won’t sneeze?” said Coughing One. “Indeed they will! A sneeze with a blast of gunpowder weighted with cannonballs!”

  Chop chop chop went the cook’s knife.

  Yoshi watched Jack’s eyes flit from one speaker to another. He was glad Jack couldn’t understand exactly what they said, even though he must have a pretty good idea what they were talking about.

  “He’s just a boy,” said Needs-a-Shave. “You should set him loose. What harm can he do?”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Kuma. “He’s as wily as a fox. And look at his eyes.”

  They all peered at Jack’s eyes, wincing a bit at the strange blueness of them.

  “What about them?”

  “Even though he’s a barbarian, he is not without intelligence,” Kuma said. “You can see that he’s thinking. I don’t know about what, but about something.”

  Jack was thinking that the knot these desperadoes had tied around his wrists was a good one, and now that he had managed to loosen his hands a bit, he could feel it with his fingertips. Being a sailor, he figured he knew just about every knot there was, but he didn’t know this one.

  The cook, who had been chopping onions, got up, sniffed, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. You might well weep, Jack thought. The cook picked up the bowl of onions and carried them into the kitchen, leaving the knife lying on the table. Jack averted his eyes from it, shifting them back on the group of samurai, all of whom had been staring at him. But as soon as he turned his gaze on them, they looked away.

  “It’s too dangerous to kill him,” Catfish said.“They won’t let a slight like that go unpunished, even if he is only a worthless spy. Even if it were only one of their dogs, they would take revenge.”

  “Better than killing the little barbarian would be to make an example of the outsider spy, Nakahama. As we intended to do in the first place,” said Kuma. “At least that would not start a war with the Americans. He is not, after all, one of them.”

  “Nor is he one of us,” sneered Kitsune. “I see the sense in what you say.” He turned his evil eye on Yoshi. “Perhaps this little peasant is just the person we need. Perhaps he can do the job for us.”

  Yoshi did not want to think what the “job” was.

  “Here’s a commoner who thinks he knows how to use a katana.” Kitsune unconsciously touched his scar, while the other men’s eyes darted from Kitsune to Yoshi to one another.

  Yoshi tried to keep his face an impassive mask, while wondering what Kitsune was getting at.

  “But he is just a boy!” Needs-a-Shave said. “You can’t—”

  Kitsune cut him off. “Yes, he is just a boy. So no one will suspect him. As a trusted servant, he can get himself into the compound. He seems to think he knows how to use a sword. Let’s find out if he really can. Let him get rid of the American spy.”

  “Wait a minute . . . ,” Yoshi said. “You’re not suggesting—you’re not saying that I . . . ?” His mouth went dry. He felt like a completely empty shell, a husk. A puff of wind could have carried him away.

  Kitsune smiled, and it was not a pretty sight. The scar on his cheek pulled his lip in a funny direction, so it was hard to tell if he was smiling or sneering. “Do you want the little barbarian to survive?” He nodded toward Jack. “Or your friend the spy? It’s going to be one or the other. Which one do you choose?”

  40

  A WASP STINGING A WEEPING FACE

  Which will it be?” Kitsune asked again. “We will release the boy if you dispatch Manjiro.”

  “Dispatch?”

  Kitsune drew a finger across his neck. “Or,” he said, “we will dispatch this one,” he nodded at Jack, “and leave Manjiro alone. So which will it be?”

  Yoshi swallowed and said, “Nakahama.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the name by which he had always called his friend, Manjiro.

  Kitsune leveled his gaze at Yoshi. “You must bring us some proof that he is dead.”

  “Bring us his head,” Kuma growled.

  Yoshi felt as if he were going to vomit.

  “He can’t be expected to get out of the compound and all the way here carrying a bloody, dripping head,” Needs-a-Shave said.

  “That’s true,” Coughing One agreed. “What he says is true.”

  “I’ll bring you,” Yoshi said, picturing Manjiro’s unused daisho, “his katana.”

  “With his blood o
n it,” Kitsune demanded.

  His blood! Yoshi flinched.

  “Well?” Kuma said when Yoshi did not immediately respond.

  “Of course his blood will be on it!” Yoshi cried. “Who else’s blood would it be?”

  “And Kuma here will go with you,” Kitsune said.

  “That won’t work!” Yoshi blurted out.

  “Oh?” Kitsune said.

  “I mean . . .” Yoshi hesitated. “I can pass by the guards, but how will he?”

  “Well, you’ll just have to figure some other way for you both, won’t you? Do you think we’re just going to let you go alone?”

  Yoshi didn’t respond.

  “Well, then.” Kitsune narrowed his eyes to such a narrow slit that nothing could be seen of them but a thin black gleam. “Return with the outsider’s blade at the hour of the rat.”

  Now Yoshi and Kuma walked alongside each other through the dark streets toward the Egawa compound, where Manjiro was staying. Kuma shifted the lantern in his hand and grunted. “Have you come up with a plan?” he asked.

  They were almost at Lord Egawa’s mansion, and Yoshi still didn’t know what to do! He had chosen Manjiro only because that choice would give him more time to think. But he hadn’t come up with anything. All he could think of was the proverb “A wasp stinging a weeping face.” That’s what his life was like right now—insult heaped upon injury.

  He had to stop feeling sorry for himself and come up with something!

  Well, he had one idea, and he reminded himself of Miyamoto Musashi’s words: “Even a road of one thousand miles can only be traversed by taking one step at a time.” Or one idea at a time. That’s what he had: exactly one idea.

  He veered onto a route that brought them to the stables. “I need to get something,” he told Kuma. “You wait here.”

  “No,” Kuma said. “I go with you.”

  “Fine,” Yoshi said. “But be quiet.”

  Kuma nodded and the two stole inside the dark stable.

  The horses were all in their stalls quietly munching hay or resting. Near Haru’s stall, Yoshi found an old wooden feed tub. He kicked the bottom out of it.

  “Is this part of your plan?” Kuma asked.

  Haru looked up and whinnied.

  “Shh,” Yoshi said. “You’ll rile the horses.”

  Yoshi checked Haru’s bandaged leg, then touched her nose before going out. “See you later, my friend,” he said, adding, “if all goes well.”

  Kuma followed Yoshi as he crept around the back of the stables, then along the hedge to a spot where Yoshi stopped, glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and crammed the bottomless tub into the thick tangle of branches. Then, sucking his breath in and trying to be as skinny as possible, he wriggled through it, just the way he and Kiku had done earlier. He was maybe not as graceful as Kiku, and he had to kick and push and struggle a bit. But he soon found himself on the other side, crouched behind the rhododendrons in the Egawa garden.

  He turned around, stuck his head into the barrel, and said to Kuma, “Now you.”

  “I can’t get through that thing!” Kuma said.

  “Hmm,” Yoshi replied. “I suppose you’re right. Wait there, then, and I’ll be back soon.”

  “No!” Kuma’s voice was a harsh whisper. “I’m supposed to go with you!”

  “It’s the only way in!” Yoshi said. “It’s not my fault you’re too big to get through. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you didn’t come inside the compound. Anyway, this way you don’t run the risk of being caught by the guards.”

  Kuma was silent, probably pondering that bit of good luck, and Yoshi hurried away.

  Where was the katana? Yoshi wondered. It must be resting on the rack for that purpose in the entryway of Manjiro’s chambers.

  Yoshi crept around the garden pond and tiptoed over a little wooden bridge, then stepped out of his sandals and silently slid his bare feet along the wooden walkway that led along the courtyard.

  Here is where the floor squeaked, he remembered. Skirting the noisy spot, he continued on his way, the pale moon his only light.

  It was a wonder, he thought, that the loud thumping of his heart didn’t awaken the entire household! Past room after room . . . Finally he stood before Manjiro’s door. There he stopped.

  Slowly and quietly, he slid open the door, pushing a little each time Manjiro exhaled. When the door was opened just enough, he slipped inside.

  Moonlight slipped into the room with him, casting its blue light along the tatami floor, over Manjiro’s sleeping form, and illuminating the scabbards of the swords, placed on a special rack just inside the door. Yoshi crept to it and lifted the katana.

  Slowly he drew the blade from its scabbard. Moonlight struck the steel, making it seem as transparent as air, as reflecting as water. For a moment, it was as if he held a slice of sky in his hands, or a ribbon of faraway ocean. But as he turned it slightly, the light struck the blade’s sharp and deadly edge—its killing edge—and Yoshi felt as if the point had been thrust into his own heart.

  Katana. (Yuko Shimizu)

  41

  THE COOK’S KNIFE

  From across the room, Jack spied the knife blade glinting from under the vegetables.

  After Yoshi had gone, the others left the room. They had tied a mean knot, Jack thought, but they didn’t seem to completely understand chairs. For instance, they didn’t seem to realize that just because you were tied to one didn’t mean you couldn’t move.

  Jack and the chair hopped across the room, somewhat painfully, until he reached the table. There was the knife—right there! But how to get the knife into his hands? The table was so low!

  In order to get to the knife, he would have to either tip the chair forward, fall on his face, and pick the knife up in his teeth or tip the chair backward. Since his hands were behind him, it made more sense to do the latter.

  He hopped himself and the chair around, and prepared to do the thing for which his mother had often scolded him: rocking on the back legs of his chair. “One day you’re going to tip over backward and crack your skull!” she’d barked, and now, he supposed, he was about to do exactly that.

  He rocked on the back legs of the chair until the thing tipped all the way over—and landed splat in the middle of the vegetables, his head smashing into a pile of mushrooms. Fortunately, he thought, mushrooms are soft as far as vegetables go.

  He groped about in the sorry mess until his fingers touched the cold, smooth, sharp blade. Jack smiled. It was just where he wanted it to be.

  42

  WINNING WITHOUT THE SWORD

  Yoshi’s heels tapped along the dark streets, while Kuma huffed and puffed behind him. Otherwise, the streets were silent now, at the cusp of the hours of the rat and the ox.

  “I don’t see why you had to stop at the stable,” Kuma said. “That slowed us down.”

  “I told you,” Yoshi said. “I had to return the feed tub.”

  “Pffft,” Kuma scoffed. “An old bucket with the bottom missing! Who cares about that?”

  Yoshi didn’t answer. He was thinking through what had happened after he’d drawn the katana from its scabbard in Manjiro’s room. For a moment, he indulged himself, appreciating the beauty of the blade, before feeling the crushing weight of his assignment. Then he’d heard a voice.

  “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into,” the familiar voice had said, “that you need a sword?”

  Yoshi turned to see Manjiro watching him.

  The two had conversed, Yoshi trying to explain how he had gotten himself into so much trouble, and now there was a plan of sorts. It had some rough edges, and he gnawed at something Manjiro had told him. “Although you now have a katana,” he’d said, “it will turn out better if you can ‘win without the sword.’”

  Yoshi could not imagine how that would be possible.

  He and Kuma rounded the corner of the last street and turned into the alley, where four men waited in the shadows: C
oughing One, Needs-a-Shave, Catfish, and Kitsune. Kitsune reached out for the bundle Yoshi carried, but Yoshi pointed to the restaurant. “I want to see the American first,” he said.

  They walked inside to where Jack was still sitting in the chair with his arms behind his back, just as they had left him.

  “What a mess!” Catfish said, kicking at the vegetables strewn across the floor. “That cook is a slob.”

  “Let us see the blade,” Kitsune said.

  Yoshi unwrapped the bundle to reveal the katana. Even in the dim light, it was obvious that the blade was smeared with blood.

  Catfish stuck his finger in it and said, “Still fresh.”

  “How do we know it’s Nakahama’s blood?” said Coughing One, taking the sword and examining it closely.

  “Kuma can tell us.” Kitsune stuck his chin out at the bear-like man. “He can say whose blood this is.”

  All eyes turned to Kuma.

  Yoshi looked at him, too. Would he tell them that he had waited outside the compound while Yoshi had gone in alone? Or that they’d stopped at the stables, where Kuma had again waited while Yoshi had gone inside? Had Kuma noticed that the blood didn’t appear on the blade until after Yoshi had gone inside the mare’s stall?

  “Who else’s would it be?” Kuma said, looking at no one.

  Kitsune’s eyes narrowed at Kuma, who shifted from one foot to the other, as if trying to find a relaxed way to stand. Then Kitsune turned his eyes on Yoshi. “So, perhaps you killed him, but perhaps you did not. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Exactly so,” Yoshi agreed. “Now I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, and you must fulfill yours. You must release the American.”

  “Just one final formality,” Kitsune said. “I want you to put it in writing that you killed Manjiro.”