He was just present, angerless, fearless, caught in an indescribable purity of rhythm where time did seem to change around him like a stream now fast, now whirlpooling, now spreading and slow, now paused in a backwash…
He had a sense that he would just dance out of this world into whatever oblivion waited through the opening gate into night and forever…
He’d circled back to her grave into a sudden pause. Just the sound of skreeghing insects, gasping breaths and groans in a world splashed by untarnished silver staining leaves, stones, woods, pillars, metal and men: living, dead, dying.
Takezo was almost sober, waiting for the final wave of steel-fanged shadows to sweep over him and drown him in darkness. He noted bowmen nocking arrows and figures closing in around him; shocks of sound that seemed unreal, blood itself was a colorless shadow. One, two: pause; then three, puffing blasts that popped the ears with three gouts of orange-red fire and a disproportionate roll of smoke suddenly covering half the scene blotting and dimming the gleaming night…
One attacker had fallen, flopping sideways over a grave, trying to crawl in agony, holding a hip shattered by a pistol ball. The inexplicable blast of pain shocked the man into a un-samurai-like keening.
Another ball had hit a wooden gravepost cracking it in half while the third shot missed everything. Instantly Takezo charged the men nearest him who were just starting to blur into the powder smoke.
The flashing moon-sketch of his blade cut so neatly that he had an impression the men just dissolved into blurred heaps as he disappeared into the acrid, reeking, heavily spreading cloud. On the far side of the unintentional smokescreen, Gentile was leveling his last two loaded pistols at a samurai who’d come through the smoke, firing point-blank, both shots good, the heavy caliber balls knocking the man down as if he’d been hit with a 12 pound hammer.
He recognized Taro and the bodyguard, Sanada, flanking the open gate. There was now almost enough smoke to suggest a burning house. The attackers came on, into and out of the drifting fumes as Gentile and the ronin fell back towards the gate. The Italian had his rapier out, now. A samurai struck down overhand and was briefly impaled by the five-foot long blade in the throat. He dropped backwards, gagging and spitting blood as he vanished in the obscurity.
A few tried to cut them off at the gateway. Taro and Takezo moved at them together, the spy almost nonchalant, actually more aware of the night, the moon gleaming on the slowly thinning gun smoke of the opponents.
One lunged behind his spear at Takezo and stabbed a coil of smoke, throwing him off balance as the ronin swayed slightly away from him. Taro had a three-pointed trident-style jittu in each hand, the central point a thick-bladed dagger, and caught a swordsman’s side slice at his torso, locked the blade with his left hand weapon and slashed the fellow’s forearms with the other, without really breaking stride so that they were already in the gateway.
Takezo gestured with his sword and stomped his foot with a kiai shout and several fell back from him. This cry from a master warrior’s belly had been known to seemingly stop or deflect attackers as if they’d been touched physically.
The four of them were now covering the gate, Sanada on the extreme right, Takezo on the extreme left. The smoke was gently and slowly spreading in their direction on the wet, heavy air that made hard breathing harder. It was perfect cover and reminded him of the sudden fog that had concealed them at the village.
As they backed to the gate another wave of samurai came out of the smoke and they clashed violently. As he cut the nearest opponent across the short ribs, Takezo peripherally noted Yoshi limping to the attack against young Sanada. He further noted that the young bodyguard was a good swordsman but Yoshi was better. Sanada ducked away and was in trouble except that, in a brilliant move, Gentile stuck his blade in the ground and drew two more pistols. Led by Yoshi, most of the attackers fell back into the obscurity with no way to know they weren’t loaded.
Outside they were crossing the moonwhitened road, kicking up dust in pale gouts when an arrow hit Sanada in the base of his skull and poked out a foot through his mouth. As he stumbled, Taro held him, saw the wound, blood (just a dark stain) drooling over his teeth and lips and let him continue to silently crumble onto his side. The policeman followed the other two into the dense darkness of the forest on the far side.
And then he took over and led them, down into a deeply slanting declivity, picking his way among closely spaced trees and hanging branches, then coming out into an open sweet-smelling stretch of tall pines. The air was clean, cool, almost electrically crisp under there.
“Where are we?” Takezo asked.
“An old smuggler’s way back to the city,” Taro replied. “We pick up and follow a river that flows into the Oi. No gates to pass, that way.”
Now there was a soft whooshing rush of water. They scrambled down a loamy embankment and started following the quick, looping river.
Takezo paused and dipped his face into the cool flow. His head felt better and the exertion seemed to have burned-off the alcohol. He had a feeling things were going to move faster and faster from here on. Drank and wet his hair. The other two were seated on a fallen tree trunk where it lay half in and out of the foaming river. The steady water-roar softened all other sound. The moon was directly overhead.
“I am grateful,” Takezo told them, standing up, amazed to be unhurt.
Taro leaned his face at him, half-silvered from above, topknot puffed-out and twisted like a dog’s tail.
“I’m in plenty of trouble,” he said. “I came to warn you, anyway. Late.”
Gentile was reloading pistols. Takezo picked one up and weighed it in his hand.
“Interesting weapon,” he commented.
“If I go back to honest crime,” said Taro, “I’ll get some of these.”
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Takezo said. “I didn’t wish to cause you problems.”
“Oh ho,” scoffed the big man. “You didn’t.” shook his head. Behind him the foamy silversheen of water hooked around a sharp bend and vanished into the overhanging tree shadows. “I have a family. They developed bad habits, like eating and living under a roof.”
Takezo nodded. Taro and Gentile stood up.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t have those problems.”
Taro touched his shoulder.
“I know, my friend,” he said, sympathetic.
“I feel like a man nailed to a tree,” Takezo said. “I take small delight in the view before me.”
“What do we do, now?” asked the Italian, pistols tucked back in his belt. He looked at the ronin whose back was to the luminescent water, a tall outline, featureless, one side of his long face lit by the bright moon. “That poor boy.”
“We’re all poor boys,” the ronin said.
“Ah,” demurred the Italian, “still… violence is irrational. Nature moves towards harmony, as in your exquisite paintings. Murder is jarring ugliness.”
“You come from the land of peace and reason?” wondered Taro.
“You have me there,” chuckled Gentile, shaking his head, no. “But the enlightened mind expresses the truths of the soul and brings harmony and …” Shook his head, again. “Sadly, ideals are mere dreams.”
“Here,” said Takezo, “the harmony of the spirit has a sword for a tongue.” To Taro: “Two ways to benefit you, Taro,” he said. “I sent the black man to Mora village by the sea.”
“Where the girl was killed,” confirmed the policeman.
“Maybe.” Takezo shrugged. “It’s run by criminals. You can arrest them and the crooked magistrate and so look good.”
“Or join up?” Taro didn’t quite laugh.
“Or make yourself boss. Kill them, cripple them. Scare them.”
“Why?”
“They have it coming. If I had time I’d go there now, myself.”
“What about uMubaya?” put in Gentile.
“The black one?” asked Taro.
“A good man,” af
firmed Takezo. “He’s in disguise and hiding out. Wants to help his foreign friend.”
Taro moved so the soft silver light was almost directly in the other’s face as
he turned to look at the two of them. The subtle glow smoothed away all strain and harsh lines, so it resembled a silver sculpture of some bodhisattva, or, as the Italian thought, the hinted mask of an angel with a sword in his hand; a Michael.
“Why?” Taro repeated his question.
“Whatever you do there,” was the answer, “it will help expose them. Like crawling things under a rotting board.”
This man has a purity, Gentile thought. Small wonder he is so troubled…
“Alright,” said Taro. “Now one for you.” They started walking again, carefully, following the twists of the rushing river. The bank was stony, damp and a little slippery. “There’s a nasty, known killer low-life been getting drunk for two nights at the Old Moon Inn. A spy for criminal families. Powerful protection. Dangerous. Pays well for young boys, I hear.” Shrugged. “Anyway, there were complaints to the watchhouse.”
They were passing in and out of deep shadow, now clear; now lost in darkness. Suddenly the earth downslanted steeply and they had to dig in their heels and backtilt. They were at the edge of a thin waterfall that vanished, then reappeared a hundred feet below, spilling into the moonlight and puffing out into a cloud of mist over gentle hills where the soft, colored lights of houses showed they were at the outskirts of Edo.
“Why mention this nasty fellow?’” Takezo wanted to know.
“He has muttered things about the dead women. The kosho.” Meaning licensed prostitutes. They were all almost running, now, as the slope steepened, voices jarred. “You can’t miss him.”
Takezo grunted, concentrating on his footing, bracing quick steps on rocks
and exposed roots, briefly gripping low branches and thin trunks as moonbright and shadow blurred and blotted past and for a moment, in a long stretch of steep darkness going down faster and faster where steps were blind and feet found their own footing, he felt the deep fear that there was about to be nothing under his tabi.
At bottom (racing full tilt out into a gently sloping, open field of wild wheat grass that swooshed around their legs and flowed in shadowy waves as freshening breezes ebbed, gathered and quickened) they might have been three boys on some lost summer evening, exuberant in the warm richness of the moon-charged night.
And all three kept running a little longer than necessary: for no reason except the knee and thigh-high grasses whipping past felt so good.
I’d like to just keeping running…
Thirty-Three
Colin had a big, angry bruise covering most of his left cheek. Blood caked in his nostrils.
He faced a high, narrow window barred with wrought-iron where he was seated on the polished floor of a small room. He assumed he was at Hideo’s stronghold. He expected to be put to death.
“Come all this far,” he muttered, in Gaelic, through his stiffened lips and discovered he must have bitten his tongue, too. Spat out a gob of partly clotted blood. It sat like red and black wet mud on the bright, stainlessly smooth wood. It gave him a dull satisfaction.
His arms were bound since he’d pummeled the guard the night before who’d come with food and water. Worked his sore mouth and could tell he’d lost at least one tooth.
“I wasn’t here but a short time,” he muttered, stiffly, “and see what I come to …”
His weak Japanese had pretty much collapsed, altogether; but he understood when they said he’d soon be punished for his crimes. The consensus seemed to favor beheading.
His arms were bound in front of him. He was tired… ached all over… leaned back on the floor and shut his eyes…
Thirty-Four
Takezo and Gentile stood at the open door of the Old Moon Inn. A sweaty man in a loincloth lay with his feet on the porch and his face in the dirt. He smelled like urine.
Inside the smoky room someone was erratically beating a prayer drum that resembled an oversized tambourine without the metal jingles. Deeper, drunken voices de-harmonized a dirge-like tune. A woman shrieked with laughter, a jug crashed to pieces near the doorway, chips glittering out in the smoky light while someone cursed, seriously and with flourishes.
“My kind of place,” he told him. “Like you, I’m in love with a dead woman.”
“I told you, Takezo-san, that is untrue. I do not …”
“The difference is, mine is truly dead and must stay in the spirit world.” He took his arm and they entered into the stinging air and din as some gamblers roared a response to a play and the woman laughed again. “Until a rebirth where, if she is blessed, we will not meet again.”
With her I always believed we had a destination, he thought. Time died and the road ended… like at Satta Mountain where Tokaido highway meets the sea and many drown who think they are on solid ground…
“I never really met Osan,” the Italian said.
“What matter? It’s all there at once or not at all.” Takezo shrugged his hands. “I’m always thinking about time,” he went on, really to no one. “Don’t know why.”
Feeling another bite of emptiness, he wanted a drink even more intensely. He felt hollow as he squinted around the dim interior: most of the lantern light was concentrated along the rear wall above the gambling. There was an open fire filling the low room with smoke from burnt pork, seared fish and smudgy candles here and there topped by cheap incense. It smelled, overall, of bad perfume, sweat, mildew and rancid sake.
“Wait out here,” he told the Italian.
Because he’d instantly recognized the one he was looking for.
At least I was in disguise that day, he thought. Maybe I’ll get by…
He crossed the crowded room, stepping over a sleeping man, circling around two brightly dressed prostitutes and then was standing in front of the mask-faced, wide-shouldered killer who was seated, back to the wall, on a slightly raised platform with a floor table and sake in front of him. A garish color scroll painting hung there showing a stiff-looking goldfish and a lotus blossom the color of decay.
The light from the blazing brazier flared and dimmed as fat dripped and smoke billowed. The reddish light shook and wavered over the grim swordsman’s pointed face, hollowing and unhollowing the bony features. He didn’t look happy about anything and wasn’t as drunk as advertised. This looked like another fight. He wondered, abstractly, how many more times he’d be lucky as well as good. Took a long, sighing breath in and out.
The man didn’t look up as Takezo knelt across the low table from him and carefully rested his long sword beside him on the worn, uneven boards.
“Forgive me, Kame-san” he said.
“Give a reason.”
“I’m poor. Looking for work.”
“Am I a great lord?”
“Work is work, Kame-san.”
The fellow gave him an up-from-under look.
“Who said that as my name?” he asked, half his face seeming to fill and empty with the smoky light’s halations.
“Aren’t you well-known?” Takezo responded, shrugging. “People say you’re worth talking to.”
“Go away.” Kame-san poured himself a cup of sake and drained it without offering. All he was showing was a faintly mocking smirk.
Takezo noted two tough-looking thug-like men seeming to casually take positions on both sides of him, maybe 15 feet away. He sensed they weren’t going to let him leave.
“I like it here,” he said.
“Go away, anyway.”
“I’m hurt.”
“Like a girl. Some say you’re pretty as a girl. Maybe you are a girl.”
“Maybe you don’t like girls. Do you enjoy killing them?” said Takezo. “Look, Somebody-san, my guts are hollow as a gourd. I need work.”
“Eat one of your goats.”
Takezo nodded and smiled, faintly.
“Nice to be remembered,” he said.
“I wan
t to forget you.”
“I was in disguise, that day. I’m a master of disguise. Looking for a man who owed me 10 ryo.”
“You were overpaid, no matter what for. Master of irritation. Go away.”
The wide-shouldered killer seemed bored. He knocked back another drink. No signs of being drunk, yet. Probably wouldn’t be.
“Did you say ‘go away?’” Takezo chuckled.
The other seemed even more bored. The detective noticed the two men were sitting to his left and right. Both sported greasy, drooping, thin moustaches. The uneven light blended them into the background of noise, bad music and intense gambling.
“Why don’t you sing and dance for me?” Kame asked. “Maybe I’ll let you blow my flute.”
Takezo’s patience was about played out. He wasn’t getting anywhere, anyway. He knew he was missing something. Kame was pushing far too hard and wasn’t worried.
What am I blindly missing, this time? he asked himself.
“Why did you kill Miou?” he asked. “She had nothing for you to steal.”
The seeming boredom was gone. Kame looked up and set down his cup of wine.
“Kill?” he asked, neutrally, as his hand went to the shoto in his sash.
“Time to say something.”
Takezo felt the two men readying themselves. Here it was, again. He hoped the Italian would stay clear, this time. Already liked him and didn’t want to lose him.
“Say something,” Kame sighed. “Give up the foreign bauble. I say that.”
“The ring,” Takezo said, mocking. “It’s nothing, now. Everybody knows the story. The ring proves nothing.”
“It’s nothing, yes. So give it up.”
“Better question: who pays you? Reiko? Who?”
“Who pays you to be stupid and a failure at your work?” Smirked, again. “We know you were an actor. A girlboy.”
What am I missing, here? He doesn’t serve Reiko, not directly… that feels all wrong…
“If you can defeat me,” said the detective, feeling a little sick at heart, “just tell me and then defeat me. What’s the harm?”
Dead Blossoms: The Third Geisha Page 22