1636: Seas of Fortune (47 page)

“Or Spanish,” Jiro cautioned.

But Saburo was already running forward, shouting and gesticulating.

Jiro ran after him.

The party of horsemen spotted them, and headed their way. It was soon apparent that they were, indeed, Japanese. When they came within hailing distance, Jiro and Saburo discovered that they were Date Masamune’s men, exploring the upper reaches of the Pajaro River. The Japanese settlement of Niji Masu/Watsonville was only a dozen miles away, downriver. Jiro and Saburo doubled up behind two of the riders, and the scouting party took them home.

The following morning, Jiro and Saburo were loaned horses by the commander at Niji Masu. They rode south along the coast, and by dinner time they were in the presence of Date Masamune at Kawa Machi/Salinas.

They were the first to carry word to the grand governor of the debacle at the Golden Gate; the other pair of messengers, the ones who were to follow the coast to Monterey, hadn’t made it. They were presumed dead.

* * *

Captain Haruno and “Tenjiko” Tokubei, still recuperating from their exploration of the Vancouver area, received an urgent summons to Date Masamnune’s still ramshackle fort.

“Success brings rewards, but also punishments,” he told them.

They smiled uncertainly.

“Those who achieve great things are expected to move on to even greater accomplishments,” he explained.

That sounded even more ominous.

“In this case, I need you to sail at once to San Francisco Bay. You are to go first to the south end, where my daughter Iroha-hime and her companions are encamped. They were shipwrecked by the Golden Gate last September. You will then head north, exploring as you think best, but you must be at the mouth of the Sacramento River by July, to meet her husband, Lord Matsudaira Tadateru. If he does not show up by the end of August, you will return here. Iroha-hime is to come back here with you, with or without him. Even if she protests.”

Tokubei and Haruno exchanged glances.

“Great Lord,” Haruno replied, “we will of course act as best serves you and your daughter’s interests. However, it will not help your daughter if we are lost at sea. The encyclopedia revealed that in northern California, the rainy season is October to April.

“And it is not just the rainy season, it is the season of great storms, with high winds and therefore powerful waves. As we experienced on our passage south to Monterey. Hence, I would recommend that we not leave until April or even May.”

“That’s a long time to wait,” said Masamune. “Is it truly hopeless to leave any sooner?”

“Hopeless, no,” said Haruno. “Dangerous, yes. And with the First Fleet departed, this is the only ship you have. If it’s lost, you will have to wait until the Second Fleet comes, next fall, to have another chance.”

“I think it is perhaps a mistake to place too much faith in what the encyclopedia says. For all we know, the climate has changed over the years. Please take your ship up to the Golden Gate this month. Judge firsthand whether it is safe to proceed through the strait. If it isn’t, return and try again in April.

“I must trust your judgment, as you have already proven your ability by your exploration of the northlands.” He paused. “But if you succeed in passing the Golden Gate this year, you may expect additional rewards, befitting the risks you have taken.”

* * *

After Haruno and Tokubei left, Masamune summoned Jiro and Saburo.

“The rescue mission is being prepared. Missions, I should say. I am so sorry, but I must split you up. Jiro-san, you will go by sea, with Captain Haruno and Tokubei-san, as soon as their ship is refitted.

“Saburo-san, you will go by land, and you will leave this week. You will guide a troop of samurai, and they will bring extra horses, enough for all of Iroha-hime’s party.

Each of you may wait up to a week for the other to arrive, but no more. Iroha-hime’s safety is paramount.”

South Bay, near Alviso, California

The local Indians had become friendly with Iroha’s party, and had brought them food: acorn mush, berries, fish, and so forth. However, she had been running out of small gifts to reward them with, and she and Matsuoka were worried as to what would happen once they were no longer able to reciprocate. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Indians in the area. If they became hostile, they could make short shrift of the small Japanese party, despite the superior skills and equipment of the two Japanese samurai who had remained with her. Quantity has a quality all its own.

Banks of the American River

“Dispose of the body,” said Lord Matsudaira, who then cleaned and sheathed his katana. He walked away from the corpse without a backward glance.

The victim of the samurai lord’s rage was not the former captain of the
Sado Maru
, but one of the miners. The unfortunate man had been executed for insolence. His crime had been to say that their search for gold was a waste of time just as Lord Matsudaira passed within earshot.

Kiyoshi reflected that if the man had only had the wits to hold his tongue, he would probably have lived longer in America than if he had remained in Japan. He was not a real miner; he was a convict who had been sentenced to a life term working in the mine, draining the lowest levels one bucket at a time.

His death presented Kiyoshi with a problem. That being, what to do about the body? In Japan, in the Shinto religion, contact with the dead was ritually polluting, and was left to the eta, the Japanese “untouchables.” But there were no eta on the
Sado Maru
. Nor were Japanese Christians any more enthusiastic about handling the dead, as their European instructors considered gravedigging to be a dishonorable occupation. If Kiyoshi could speak to the local Indians, he could perhaps persuade them to deal with the body, but they had seen no Indians recently. In any event, they didn’t know their language.

Kiyoshi picked out the two lowest-ranking of the remaining miners and ordered them to bury the corpse. After much argument, they did so.

* * *

Kiyoshi rose groggily. The sun had only just cleared the horizon, and scattered trees cast long shadows that in his half-awake state led Kiyoshi to imagine them the fingers of
oni
, Japanese demons.

He quickly made a Christian sign of aversion, followed by a Buddhist one, just to be safe.

As his head cleared, he became more and more sure that something was wrong. But what? Then he realized the answer: two men were missing from the mining camp. The very men who had conducted the burial the day before.

He shivered involuntarily. Had their state of impurity rendered them vulnerable to some
American
demon?

He called out, but they didn’t answer.

Kiyoshi quickly woke the others. They grabbed weapons and searched the area, spiraling outward.

They didn’t find the two missing men. But they did find footprints leading to the water, and then disappearing in the muck.

With some reluctance—as headman he could be held accountable for the actions of his men—he informed the samurai on duty that the men were missing. A samurai joined the search, to no avail.

Kiyoshi suggested that the men had been taken by the Indians, or perhaps by some water beast.

The samurai was skeptical. “I see no sign of a struggle. . . . And didn’t you have a man posted on guard? Why didn’t he call out?”

“The man who disappeared was the watchman on the last shift. He was taken by surprise, perhaps while relieving himself,” Kiyoshi suggested.

The samurai snorted. “There aren’t enough of us to conduct a proper search, especially since we don’t have horses. But I will have to report this to Lord Matsudaira.”

Kiyoshi shivered once again. There were more fearful beings than hypothetical American demons.

The samurai returned, this time with several of his fellows. “By order of Lord Matsudaira, we are taking over the night watches. And you and your men are to be roped together, night and day. So there are no more mysterious disappearances.”

December 1634,

Off the Coast of California

It had taken several weeks to refit the
Ieyasu Maru
to return to sea, and Captain Haruno had practically danced with impatience until they pulled out of the little harbor at Andoryu/Monterey.

To reach the Golden Gate, the
Ieyasu Maru
found it expedient to take a circuitous route. Monterey Bay lay to the south, but the prevailing winds of the California coast come from the northwest, and the California current sets south along the shore.

The rescue ship sailed directly away from land until it crossed the 125th meridian. It then encountered more variable winds, and made northing whenever it could. Eventually, it clawed its way up to the 38th parallel, and turned eastward. This process took perhaps two weeks, even though, when it had come south from British Columbia, the passage from the 38th parallel to that of Monterey had taken a single day.

South Bay, near modern Alviso, California

Led by Saburo, the samurai scout troop at long last reached Iroha-hime’s refuge. Each scout had an extra horse on a lead, so all of Iroha’s party would be able to ride back. Saburo proudly advised Iroha that he had come to rescue her, and that soon she would be safe with her father in the Monterey Bay colony. She had thanked him, and neither agreed nor disagreed with his statement that she would need to be ready to leave in a week’s time.

The week passed.

* * *

“I am sorry, Saburo, but I cannot go with you,” said Iroha. “I will wait for Captain Haruno to arrive, and go with him to rescue my husband. Then, and only then, will I go to Monterey Bay.”

“But . . . But, Iroha-hime, your father was most insistent that we wait no more than a week for Captain Haruno, and if he had not arrived by then, we were to take you with us.”

“My husband commanded me to remain here, and of course his authority overrides that of my father.”

“Actually,” said Matsuoka, “his command was that you go to your father in Monterey.”

“Yes, but that was because he thought that I might need to plead with my father in person to assist Lord Matsudaira. But Captain Haruno was sent to aid him, not just to rescue me, yes?”

Saburo admitted that this was the case.

“So there is no immediate need for my presence in Monterey, after all. Indeed, it would be best that we can report to my father that Captain Haruno has succeeded in entering the Bay. Otherwise a third ship will need to be sent out, to look for him, too.”

Saburo looked at the troop commander, who looked at Matsuoka.

“All right, one more week,” said Matsuoka. “But after that, if there’s no sign of the
Ieyasu Maru
, you will ride with us to Monterey if I have to tie you onto the saddle.”

Near the Farallone Islands, outside San Francisco Bay

“What great luck, Captain Haruno!” Jiro exclaimed. “No fog today!” He paused. “Why are we slowing down? Shouldn’t we hurry through while we can?”

“We must check for hidden dangers, honorable samurai. I am lowering a boat to take soundings, I don’t like the look of the water ahead. If you want a better view of what it’s doing, you may go forward.”

When Jiro walked out of earshot, Haruno snorted, and whispered to Tokubei, “The grand governor expects us to be bold. He does not desire that we be stupid.”

Kinzo, the
Ieyasu Maru
’s coxwain, reported back a few hours later. “There seems to be a very large bar in the shape of a folding fan, in front of the strait. I wouldn’t want to cross it during a storm, but it won’t be a problem with the seas as they are now.”

“What was the current like?” asked Haruno.

“When I started, the waters were a bit confused; the swells were from the northwest, and they seemed to be meeting a tidal ebb. But I think the tide has nearly slacked off by now.”

“We’ll go a bit deeper in, and anchor,” Haruno announced, “and then you’ll take the boat in all the way in and find an anchorage. I’ll not trust my ship to the word of a landsman as to where we can pass the night safely.”

* * *

Kinzo and his men raised a sail and, under both sail and oar, steered their longboat toward the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Jiro had insisted on joining them, saying, “For the honor of Lord Matsudaira, at least one member of his party should be on the boat that is the first to enter San Francisco Bay by the sea.” Apparently, he felt that the shuttling of supplies around Fort Point by the surviving boats of the
Sado Maru
was best left out of the chronicles.

They rounded Fort Point and continued east, passing cautiously between Clark’s Point and Yerba Buena Island. The peninsular coast pulled inward here, forming a cove overlooked by Telegraph Hill.

This seemed an eminently satisfactory anchorage, and they tried to return to the
Ieyasu Maru
. That proved easier said than done. The tide had turned, and the waters of the Pacific were now pouring into the Bay.

With the wind against them, and the current too strong to fight with oar power, they returned to the cove and beached their boat.

* * *

In the meantime, the
Ieyasu Maru
was having trouble holding its position. The wind had picked up, and the inward tidal current had strengthened. Its anchor lost its grip on the bottom and the
Ieyasu Maru
lurched forward.

“Up anchor!” Captain Haruno ordered. “Make sail!” His junior officers shouted out the step-by-step instructions to get the ship under way.

“Better to go in now, under control, then be carried willy-nilly by wind and tide,” he told Tokubei.

Riding the flood tide, and with the wind at their back, the
Ieyasu Maru
sped eastward, like a traveler running to reach the gate of a city before it closed for the night. Iwakashu’s miners were stationed all along the railing, as extra lookouts. Iwakashu, at least, was glad to be on this rescue mission to San Francisco Bay. Which, he hoped, would give him the opportunity to see the fabled American River—and perhaps its gold.

* * *

At last, the
Ieyasu Maru
passed between Lime Point and Fort Point. For the first time in history, a sailing ship had entered San Francisco Bay.