Bravado's House of Blues

by John A. Pitts

  One year later she returned to him. This time they spent a night of bliss in his humble shack. During the quiet moments they spoke of his village and his family. She hung on his every word. Then their strength returned and the heat over took them once more. Before he passed into slumber, she spoke to him of Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi—the Grass Cutting Sword. She bade him protect it..

  When he rose the next morning she was gone. On the bench before his hut he found the pommel of a broken sword along with two great pearls.

  He wrapped the sword in the maiden’s fallen shift and took it and the pearls back to his village many days away. One pearl he gave to his father to honor him. The second he traded for a small boat. He returned to his hut wealthier and at peace with his family.

  On the second year anniversary of the warrior washing ashore, she returned to him once again, bringing another night of passion, another piece of the broken blade, and another two great pearls. They spoke between moments of passion. She told him of the great ocean and how the tides served the island he called home. He spoke to her of his youth, and of his desire to see the world.

  When he woke the next morning he was not surprised to find her gone. She had left him another piece of the sword and two more pearls. He sailed his small boat back to his village and this time honored his mother with a gift of one pearl. The second he traded for six young cherry trees that he would plant away from the salt of the sea, past the spring that kept him alive. He sailed home with joy and sadness.

  After another year she returned to him a third and final time. As she rose to leave, he begged her to stay with him. He did not think he could live another minute without her.

  “You are a kind and honorable man,” she said to him. “You give me pleasure like I have not had in a lifetime. But I cannot stay with you. I must return to the sea—to my true home.”

  He thought to plead with her, but he saw in her eyes it would do no good.

  “It has taken me three years to find the broken shards of Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. He who wielded this sword lies yonder beneath the cairn built with your capable hands. It has been my obligation to recover the pieces he carried home from foreign lands. As he fell in my domain, the responsibility lay with me.”

  He glanced toward the bench and saw the last shard of the great sword.

  “Keep it safe, my love. Protect it until such time as I come to you once more.”

  “You could stay,” he offered. “Make a life with me.”

  She cast her eyes downward and he turned to face the hut. Anger and despair rumbled in his belly.

  Beside the blade tip sat a wide clam shell holding seven pearls each the size of a thrush’s egg. Enough wealth to purchase his entire village. Enough to buy his own lacquered armor and take his own lands. But that was not his way and she knew this. He wanted no wealth. There was nothing in the world beyond the feel of her against him, or the depth of her gaze.

  She brushed her hand down the length of one arm. “Oh that I could grant your dearest wish,” she said, her voice thick, “my first and truest love?”

  She stepped to him and kissed him one final time. For a moment he thought she would stay, but a chill wind drove between them as she stepped back toward the shore. “Do you wish to see my true form?” she asked. “I would grant you this, if you so desire. Your love has earned you the right.”

  He thought of this beauty who came to him from the sea—of the love that burned in him like a raging bonfire. And he thought to the lifetime of cold nights he would endure.

  “Yes,” he said, his head high and his voice strong. “I would look upon you in all your true glory.”

  She smiled at him, bowed once, and turned to the sea. He watched her as the waves lapped against her naked thighs, watched as it rose to that secret place where the heat of her rose to consume him. In that moment, as the yearning for her grew intense once again, she changed.

  There was a flash of golden light and instead of a fair maiden, she strode into the sea in her truest form. She who rules the sea was a great dragon with frills of deepest blue and scales painted with the greens of the sea from the light froth of the foam to the blackness of the smothering depths. She swung her long neck to the side and looked back at him. Her eyes were like great pearls, iridescent.

  He fell to his knees, overcome by the madness and the power of her. She bowed to him, her great wings rising above her for one singular moment, then she slid beneath the waves.

  He waited for her, fished and held his peace for year after year. Eventually others came to this part of the island, and a village grew upon the cliffs above him.

  He waited for her return for decade after decade. When the Buddhists came and raised the shrine nearby, he gave up fishing and chose to tend the temple grounds. Yet he did not die and she did not return.

  For a long, quiet moment, his memories flitted across his mind, then sank once more into the warm waters of time.

  He looked up at the ancient crow and wiped the tears from his face with one gnarled and callused hand.

  “Why does she not come to me,” he croaked, his voice far too much like the crows.

  “Her ways are not the ways of men,” the great bird said. “After a time she feared that you would no longer love her.”

  Manakagami gave a heavy sigh. “Why would my love be diminished?”

  “Time dulls the past, paints memory with shadows and pain. She has suffered much in the wars that has befouled this land.”

  He knew of the wars, hidden in his quiet corner of the world. But he did not concern himself with their smoke and thunder. He had true love’s quest. Wars of men were nothing to protecting the broken blade.

  The bird considered him a moment and then took flight. Manakagami turned, revolving around his walking stick as the crow circled him once and flew out over the sea. “Go home,” the crow’s voice called back to him.

  “Home?” Manakagami pondered aloud. “I have only known one true home. So it shall be.” He walked to the water’s edge and turned south. He walked along the ragged shoreline as the sun rose in the heavens. He walked beyond endurance, following the gentle curve of the island, deeper into the wild country along the rough waters and the stony beach. Finally, as the sun dipped beneath the waves to the west, he came to the ruins of his ancient abode.

  This distance had been much shorter when he had been a young man. Now the day’s trek had consumed the last of his energy. He fell to his knees in the barest of ruins. A splintered post and a slight rise in the ever blowing sand were the only evidence of his once home. Not a dozen feet away, the warrior’s cairn was overgrown with salt grass and bracken. He was pleased to note that the ancient outcrop had never been disturbed.

  The night grew cold and his bones ached. He could not face another sunrise without her. The crow had broken open his soul, and he had no desire to gather the pieces.

  As the moon rose, he succumbed to exhaustion and drowsed. He sat in the sand with his knees drawn up to his frail chest. His robes were pulled high enough to expose the fronts of his shins. He kept his walking staff in his hands, the end driven into the sand between his knees, his left shoulder slumped against the worn wood.

  It was thus the great turtle came to him.

  Manakagami awoke with a start as breath steamed over him. He raised his head and looked up into the wide eyes that hovered before him. Moonlight shone from those orbs and for a moment he thought of her return. This was not the mighty dragon, nor the beautiful maiden. This was a turtle larger than five men standing side by side and nearly three times as long, as black as midnight. An aura hung around the vast bulk, like the rising of a mist in the early morn.

  “I nearly mistook you for driftwood,” the turtle said with a deep throated laugh. “You have grown wizened since you raised the cairn above my most honorable servant lo those many moons ago.”

  Manakagami cleared his throat. “It is I,” he said, being of foul disposition. “And what is it to you? Why do you wake me with your breath of sea
weed and salt? Why must I crane my neck to suit your needs?” He shifted in the sand, his boney bottom seeking a more comfortable juxtaposition of granules.

  The turtle lowered his great bulk to the beach, positioning his head near enough to the old man to converse. “My apologies, grandfather. I was but startled to find one as—” He paused, clearly seeking words that carried no insult. “—one of your size.”

  “Size indeed.” Manakagami grunted and pulled himself to his feet. The staff proved an invaluable ally in this endeavor. “Who was the warrior yonder?” he asked. “I never learned his name, nor whom he served.”

  The turtle snorted, and steam rose above his angular head. “The man’s name has long vanished in the tides of time. He was an able and honorable servant. That is enough. I am Genbu, the black warrior. I protect the north. I do not forget the service you performed for me in the youth of this world.”

  Manakagami glanced to the weathered and overgrown cairn south of his once domain. “He deserved the honor. How could I do less?”

  The turtle nodded once and spoke again. “She who rules the sea has spoken of you. I have come to insure that you retain that which she left in your care.”

  The old man bowed his head. “Indeed, I have kept her bequest. I wonder, mighty Genbu, if you know whether or not she has kept mine?”

  The turtle raised his mighty head, shaking off the sand. “I am pleased to know you have honored your duty,” Genbu said, his voice like the crashing sea.

  Manakagami bowed to the great turtle. “I am at your service.”

  “I will assure her you have honored her memory.” Genbu turned and plodded back to the sea.

  “And what of my heart?” Manakagami asked the wind, for the great turtle gave no answer.

  He dozed again as the sun rose. He moved north a ways to make water, then sat again in his ruins and waited. The gnawing of his stomach did not rouse him, but near dark he made his way deeper inland to a clear spring that had nourished him in bygone days.

  With his thirst sated, he returned to wait for his heart.

  Thrice the sun rose and set. Manakagami waited, hopeless. “I will die here,” he said as the sun fell on the fourth day. “I will sit here in my ruins and let the gulls peck out my eyes.”

  “That would be a shame,” a voice said in the darkness before him. “You always had such beautiful eyes.”

  Manakagami fell, his ancient heart stuttered and skipped. For a long moment he could not catch his breath. The pain in his chest was so great he felt he would die from it.

  A delicate hand stroked his face as he came back to himself. He lay on the sand, his head nestled in the soft lap of the one who stole his heart.

  “You should have come sooner,” he croaked, his throat hoarse. “There was a time I was worthy of you. Now I am an old man, a shell of my youth.”

  “Hush,” she whispered to him. “You are as handsome to me as the day I first saw you on this beach.”

  He lay in her lap and drank in her eyes. She glowed as moonlight on pearls. “I remember the curve of your neck,” he said. “And the way your lips tasted of apricots and salt.”

  “And I remember the feel of your strong hands on me as the ocean rushed between us. How the sky danced with fireworks when your lips caressed my skin.”

  Heat rushed into his body as she bent to him and pressed her lips against his.

  For a long moment flame roared through his veins. For the briefest of moments he thought to die as the urgency of her touch overwhelmed him.

  She slid from under his head and stood. He rolled to his knees as she let her silk kimono fall off her shoulders and pool at her splendid feet.

  “Come koibito, rise.”

  He looked for his staff, but saw it had fallen well out of his reach. His legs did not pain him at the moment, so he struggled to rise. Only there was no struggle. He looked down and saw that his legs were firm and strong. His arms were limber and his shoulders loose. His hands could no longer find the wrinkles in his face. He glanced down and saw his manhood had recovered as well.

  He was young again. She laughed at his wonder and pulled him to her. Together they walked back to his hut, which itself had been restored to its former utility and charm.

  They made love long into the night. As they lay sated near dawn, he licked the sweat from her stomach.

  “Enough,” she said with a laugh. “I have not been this contented in memory. But you must save some strength for the journey ahead.”

  He rose onto his elbow and looked into her face. Her eyes were the color of a stormy sea. “What journey, my heart?”

  “First show me that which you have kept for me all these long days.”

  He sprang from the mat and smiled down at her. The joy of walking without pain was nearly as invigorating as a night’s sleep. The staff sat in the corner of the room. He took it up and laid it across her lap.

  She laughed and looked up at him. “This is a walking stick,” she said, her small mouth twisted into a grin.

  “The pieces are within,” he said. “When I realized you would not soon return to me, I took the smallest fragment and pushed it into the growing limb of a blossoming cherry. Once the branch grew long enough and had begun to cover the edge of the blade, I added the second piece. Years went by before the tree enclosed the second piece. Finally, I placed the third and final piece against the cut limb and wrapped it in twine. For a decade it grew, straight and true. By the end of the first hundred years, I had a fine, thick branch wrapped around the broken sword. I could not mend it, but I could contain it, keep it together in as near its original form as I could.”

  She looked up at him in wonder. “You are a marvel. I am sorry I did not come to you sooner. The world does not always keep my attention. I am very old, after all.”

  “As am I,” he said with a laugh. “Or once was.”

  “I have returned to you the vigor of your youth,” she said, the smile falling from her face, “for only a little while.”

  “This night alone has been more than I could have hoped for,” he said. He meant it, truthfully. He had grown weary of life.

  “I ask you one final boon,” she said, taking his hand. “Take the sword across the great water. Find the gaijin—the maker who has the ability to restore the blade.”

  He stepped back. The girl flashed into his mind. “Sarah,” he said, knowing it to be true. “In a place called Seattle.”

  “Yes,” she who rules the sea said, rising to her feet. “The wheel has been broken too long. Corruption that once was has begun to surface once more. Yamata-no-Orochi rises once more.”

  He knelt, pressing his head to her hip, wrapping his arms around her waist. “And when I have done this? When this Bushi has remade the blade I have kept for you for the lifetime of a hundred men. What then?”

  “Then, my fair one, you will return to me and join me in my palace beneath the sea.”

  She pulled him to his feet once more and kissed him. Then she turned from him and strode to the sea. “You promise?” he called to her. “When I have done this, we will be together?”

  She nodded once and waded into the surf. He turned, did not watch as she changed. He felt it, in the way the air vibrated and the roaring of the sea faded.

  He would go to the rice lands, he would find this Bushi, and when she remade the blade, he would return here to where his heart lived.

  HOWLING

  I woke to the sound of wolves. Until you’ve heard a pack howling you’ve no concept of the beauty, the horror and the sadness they can instill. Man is right to fear the wolf. He’s smarter than we like, a remorseless hunter, and loyal to the pack. It is what we aspire to be, but fail.

  I slipped out of the blankets, easing out from under Katie’s arm. She had the blankets totally kicked off her. I could make out the form of her in the moonlight that snuck around the edge of the blinds, naked and glorious. She turned onto her side and pull the top sheet up over her middle, leaving her legs and chest exposed. I had
to smile. She’d be shivering in a minute, and I didn’t want her waking up. She slept hot when I was in bed with her, but with me up, she’d freeze.

  I walked around the bed, untangled the blankets, and settled them over her. She grunted, grabbed the whole lot, and rolled over, basically stripping my side of the bed. She was like that. I almost laughed as her ass was exposed. I almost think she did that on purpose.

  It was a little chilly outside the blankets so I pulled on a pair of sweats, grabbed a blanket off the shelf in the back, and went out onto the porch, easing the door shut most of the way. I didn’t want to wake her, but wanted to be able to hear her if she called out.

  It was brisk out there. Maybe I should’ve put on a shirt, but the air felt good on my chest. I draped the blanket over my shoulder and across my back, just in case any of the other folks from the resort happened by, but I let it fall to my sides. I could pull it up if need be.

  This area was sparsely populated so I debated just going out totally naked. I was learning to love that feeling. Katie, of course, would be naked most of the time if society would let her. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit. She was intoxicating. Well okay. In private. I wasn’t that comfortable.

  It was late, or rather early. The moon hung over the lake outside our cabin, big and fat, falling toward the tree line in an elegant arc of silver. The clouds were scudding across the sky, racing the moon toward the Pacific just an hour or so to the west.

  The wolves started singing again, somewhere to the northeast, deeper into the national forest. I’d never been over here before and was finding I loved it. It felt right in my bones. Lake Quinault was beautiful. I’d never just taken a vacation before. I could get used to this. Too bad I wasn’t independently wealthy. Katie was on winter break, so we had nine days here—only eight nights, though. And we planned to explore each of them with wanton abandon.

  The rainforest that surrounded us was primal. I understand why the wolves were drawn here. We’d driven clockwise around the lake yesterday, over rough roads and deep into the wild unknown. The rangers said there were hikers and backpackers in those woods, but we never saw them.