Death at the Crossroads (16 page)

The young samurai, a bit perplexed by Kaze’s lack of reaction to his feint, stood for a moment, figuring out his next move. Suddenly,
with a loud shout, he attacked with all the quickness and fury that youth can muster, bringing his stick down in a slashing blow. Kaze met the blow with his own stick, and both men executed a
kiri-otoshi
. With the kiri-otoshi, the blocking of the opponent’s blow and the attacking counterblow are one motion, not two separate actions. The young samurai tried to counter with a kiri-otoshi of his own, jumping away from Kaze’s cut.

After the clack of the wooden swords, the young samurai looked at Kaze with both respect and surprise. “You’re a superb swordsman!” he exclaimed.

“Thank you,” Kaze said with a short bow. “Is your honor satisfied now?”

“Well, it was a draw, but I supposed I can be satisfied with that,” the young man said.

Kaze paused, then said, “All right then. Let us call it a draw.”

“You don’t think it was a draw?” the young samurai said.

“If your honor is satisfied, then that’s what is important.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t a draw?”

“It was a draw.”

“You are saying that, but do you believe it was a draw?”

Kaze said nothing. The young samurai threw his stick on the ground. “My honor is not satisfied,” he said. “I insist we have a rematch, but this time with steel!”

“Please, let’s not fight with steel swords. A rematch with wooden swords will do to settle the point.”

“So you are a coward after all,” the young samurai said.

“If you wish to believe so,” Kaze answered.

“Fight!” The young man drew his sword. “Fight or I’ll cut you down where you stand.”

Kaze dropped the stick and drew his own sword. “I wish you wouldn’t do this,” Kaze said. Instead of answering, the young samurai advanced on Kaze, his sword held at the pointing-at-the-eye position. Once again Kaze stood his ground, waiting for the young man’s attack. The young man came to within attack distance and
warily watched the older samurai. He was waiting for a lapse in concentration, some momentary interruption that would give him an opportunity to push past Kaze’s guard and strike a fatal blow. He saw none. The seconds crawled past, with the onlookers as mesmerized by the duel as the two participants. Suddenly, the young samurai attacked again, rushing forward with a great shout as he first raised his sword and brought it down in a blow designed to slash Kaze’s neck.

Once again, Kaze did a kiri-otoshi, but this time the sword bit into the flesh of the young man. Surprised, the young man staggered back and looked down at his side, where a crimson stain was now spreading. He dropped his sword and clutched at his side, swaying slightly, then dropping to his knees from pain and weakness.

“Baka! Fool!” Kaze shouted. “You’re too young to play with your life as foolishly as I do! You’re also too stupid to play such dangerous games, challenging strangers to duels when you lack the judgment to see if you would win or lose in a mock conflict with wooden swords. The difference between victory and death in a sword duel is in the blink of an eye or the width of a finger. It’s too fine a difference to judge if you have no experience. I pray to the Kannon that I haven’t struck a vital organ with my cut. I tried to pull back so you would be wounded and not killed. I’ve killed enough in this district, and I’m sick of it. I especially don’t want the killing of any more youngsters like you, who are too young and too stupid to know their own limitations and lack of skill.”

Kaze looked at the landlord and the maid. “Take him into the inn and get him a doctor. He should live if we stop the bleeding now, so hurry.”

The maid and the innkeeper rushed forward as ordered and helped the young samurai, now pasty white from loss of blood and shock, into the inn. Kaze wiped his blade on the sleeve of his kimono and stomped into the inn after them, with the old woman and her two companions bringing up the rear.

Kaze returned to the inn and picked up his bowl to resume eating.
The other three guests did the same, but this time the old woman was not anxious to disturb Kaze’s privacy. At the end of the meal, as the servant girl was taking away his tray, she leaned into him and whispered conspiratorially, “That duel was superb! When all are asleep, I’ll come to your room tonight. I still want to repay you for what you did for me.”

Kaze made no reply, and the girl busied herself by gathering up the dishes on a tray and leaving the room. Kaze went to the room that was assigned him and found a futon already laid out on the floor, as well as a wooden head block, which was used as a neck rest. A single candle in a paper lantern lit up the austere room. As with every room in Japan, this one was laid out to a constant unit of measurement, the size of a standard rectangular tatami mat. He was in a four-mat room, which was small, but still large enough for one person.

Kaze sat for a minute and wondered if the room was big enough for one man and one serving girl. He leaned over and blew out the candle but didn’t crawl onto the futon. Instead, he waited a few minutes until his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he stood up and slid open the shoji screen. He walked outside the inn onto a veranda and made his way to the corner of the inn where the men’s urinal was.

The urinal was an area off the corner of the veranda with two bamboo screens. On the dirt floor fresh pine boughs had been laid. To use the facilities, a man stood at the edge of the veranda and made his water onto the pine boughs. Every few days, the pine boughs would be removed and fresh boughs would be added to keep the pine scent strong. Men only would use this facility, although Kaze was not too sure that he wouldn’t be elbowed aside by the gruff old grandmother on the vendetta. Women would have to go to the privy, as would men when they wanted to do more than just pass water.

As he made his way back along the veranda, he saw two bundles sleeping on the ground behind the inn: the old woman’s servant and young grandson. Kaze thought a moment, then walked over to the smaller of the two bundles and squatted down next to it.

“Sumimasen,” Kaze said. There was a sleepy grunt of response.

“I’ve decided I don’t want my room,” Kaze said, “I’d rather sleep here in the fresh air. Would you like to sleep on a futon tonight, instead of the ground?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, samurai,” the teenage boy said sleepily.

“Well, then, follow me,” Kaze said, leading him back into the inn and to the room that he was supposed to occupy. “Just climb in the futon and stay warm,” Kaze advised the boy, “and try to have a good night’s sleep.”

Smiling, Kaze slid the shoji screen closed behind him, walked outside, found a comfortable spot, and stretched out for the night, wrapping his kimono tightly around him and sleeping with his sword hugged in his arms.

The next morning, when Kaze went into the inn for his breakfast, he saw the old woman, the servant, and the young man already finishing up theirs. The woman was scolding her grandson.

“What is wrong with you this morning?” she said sharply. The boy looked up over his bowl of miso soup with a strange smile plastered across his face.

“Nothing, Grandmother,” he mumbled.

“Well, you’re acting most peculiarly,” the old woman said.

The boy made no response but just continued to give a small smile.

As Kaze sat down, the serving girl came in and slammed a tray with his breakfast down before him. She had a look on her face that was both angry and accusatory. Smiling, Kaze tucked into his breakfast with a hearty appetite.

Before the strange trio left the inn, the boy came up to Kaze and thrust something into his hand. It was a scrap of cloth wrapped around something light.

“It’s just
senbei
, rice crackers,” the boy said, “But I wanted to thank you for letting me sleep in your bed last night!”

Kaze took the meager gift and put it into the sleeve of his kimono, where most things were carried, and forgot about it.

I
t was a fine day. The birds were singing deep in the woods, and a light breeze ruffled the fragrant pine needles on the trees lining the road. Kaze was walking slowly down the road, using his hunter’s senses to scan the periphery. He was looking for hoofprints that led off the road or some other sign of activity.

It didn’t make sense to him that anyone, human or demon, would take the road from Suzaka to Higashi and then back to the crossroads. Yet, he was also convinced that the man strapped to the horse of the “demon” was probably the dead man he found at the crossroads. The dead man was dumped at the crossroads, the timing was too close to be otherwise, and the stripe of blood found on the dead man’s back, which ran parallel to his spine, could have been caused by the body’s lying over the back of a horse.

Kaze was convinced that something along the road from Higashi to the crossroads was the reason for the roundabout route from Suzaka to the crossroads. Maybe the demon met someone along this road or maybe there was some other reason. Despite his desire to push on to Rikuzen to see if his quest to find the young girl might end there, he decided to spend the morning walking the road from Higashi to the crossroads.

His careful examination of the road revealed nothing, and he was angry with himself for wasting time as he turned a bend in the road and saw the crossroads up ahead. Then he stopped. There, at the distant crossroads, was a tiny figure slumped in the middle of the road.

Kaze rapidly crossed the remaining distance to the crossroads but stopped short of the body. It was a young man sprawled facedown in the road, an arrow protruding from his back. It looked very much like the body Kaze had found at the same place just a few days before.

Kaze approached and leaned down to see if the man was dead. As he turned the man’s head, he paused and gazed at the lifeless face, covered with dirt and in death contorted with pain. It was Hachiro, the young man Kaze had given life to twice. Hachiro’s dead eyes stared back at Kaze, dull and clouded.

Kaze gently shut the eyes. He glanced at the arrow that cut the young life short and confirmed that it was the same type as the arrow that killed the unknown victim a few days before. He scanned the area around the body and saw the hoofprints of a horse. From the tracks of the horse, he was able to see that the body had been brought directly to the crossroads from Suzaka village. Why this time the body was brought directly to the crossroads, instead of by the indirect route through Higashi village, was something that Kaze couldn’t fathom. In fact, why the body was brought to the crossroads at all was something that Kaze couldn’t understand.

He looked around and found a sturdy stick. He picked it up and started scratching out a shallow grave, not far from the fresh grave of the previous victim.

When he was done burying the boy, he had carved another Kannon. When he had carved the statue for the bandits, he had had a hard time finishing the face. His encounter with the obake of the dead Lady had come back to disturb his tranquillity, and he wasn’t able to finish the statue of the Goddess of Mercy. For this boy, he had no trouble. The familiar face of the Lady, beautiful and serene, appeared from the point of Kaze’s small knife. Placing the statue over
the shallow grave of Hachiro, Kaze clapped his hands twice and bowed deeply. When he straightened up, there was a look of weary sadness on his face.

Later that night, Jiro was making his evening meal when he heard a soft knocking at his door. He paused, not quite sure if he had actually heard a sound. The knocking was repeated. Jiro went to his door and said, “Who’s there?”

“A friend.”

Jiro reached down and moved the stick that prevented his door from being opened. He slid the door slightly, to make sure he was correct about whom the voice belonged to. He gave a small grunt of surprise and slid the door completely open. Kaze entered Jiro’s hut and quickly shut the door.

“Sneaking unseen into a small village is worse than entering a lord’s castle,” Kaze remarked as he walked over to the cooking fire and sat down.

“What are you doing here? I was told you left.”

“I did leave. Now I’m back. I want to spend a few days with you.”

“Why?”

“I want to watch the village, and the best place to watch the village is from inside it.”

“What for?”

Kaze sighed. “Something is not right here. It destroys my
ki
, my harmony and balance. I’m upset by it and want to restore that harmony.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kaze smiled. “Let’s just say I need a favor. I want to watch the village and the Magistrate and the headman Ichiro and maybe that prostitute, Aoi, too. If I’m caught here, it may mean trouble for you. I walked out on Lord Manase, and I’m sure he was upset. The fact that Lord Manase was undoubtedly upset about my leaving is why I slipped in here unseen. So the most powerful man in the District will not be pleased if he learns I’m back spying on the people in the District. He may also not be pleased with you if he learns I’m doing
this spying from your house. It may be dangerous, and you could end up back in that tiny cage. If you say no, I’ll understand.”

Jiro turned back to his cooking. “You’ll have to wait a few minutes for dinner. I wasn’t expecting company, so I only cooked enough for one.”

“Good.”

The next morning, Jiro woke at his habitual time. The familiar darkness of his farmhouse wrapped around him. On the other side of the platform he could hear the breathing of the samurai, slow and regular.

Jiro got up from the platform, shrugging off the sleeping quilt. He stood on his feet, listening for the samurai once more, and moved toward the door, reassured that his guest was oblivious to his nightly sojourn.

Sliding back the door of his hut with exaggerated caution, Jiro slipped out into the cold night as soon as the door opening was large enough. He carefully slid the door back into place.

The velvet night nipped at his flesh with surprising sharpness. He thought briefly of slipping back into his hut to get a jacket but decided against it. He didn’t want the samurai to know what he was doing any more than he wanted the rest of the village to know what he was up to. He felt ashamed by his nightly ritual, knowing that the others in the village would view it as a sign of weakness and something a real man wouldn’t do, but he couldn’t help himself.

The moon was a quarter full, so coming from the complete blackness of the hut, Jiro found it almost light enough to make out details on the ground. But Jiro didn’t need to see his path. He knew it from countless repetition, over nine thousand journeys to the same destination.

He skirted the village and made his way up a nearby hillside. The pine trees gathered round him, but he knew the placement of every trunk and made his way rapidly up the path to the top of the hill. There, in a natural clearing, was the village graveyard.

Jiro went directly to a large stone flanked by a small stone. When
he first started making this journey to the graveyard, he would worry about ghosts, but now it was as if the ghosts of all the past people in the village approved of what he was doing, and he felt safer in this place of the dead than in any other place on earth.

In front of the two stones, he squatted down.

“
Anata
,” he said tenderly, “Dear.”

He reached out and touched the stone that memorialized his wife, now dead over twenty-five years. Then he tenderly stroked the stone that marked his dead son, who outlived his mother by only two days.

“How are you, Dear?” Jiro whispered. “The samurai has come back to stay with me. He’s a strange one, but he has a good heart and I like him. I don’t have much news to report to you. Things are more quiet in the village now that Boss Kuemon is gone, but I don’t understand what the samurai is doing.” Jiro shook his head. “Samurai! Always starting wars that kill peasants. Such a bother,
neh
?”

He stopped talking and felt the tears welling up in his eyes. The same tears that came every day for over twenty-five years, grieving over the loss of his wife and son. It was a weakness, Jiro knew. A man was supposed to bear it, showing strength in adversity. But Jiro couldn’t help it. When his wife died, some part of him died, too. He felt incomplete without her, and the only time he felt whole again was when he was once more in her presence.

A rich man might have an altar in his house, to call the spirits of the dead to him with a fine brass bell. Jiro just had the stars and the pine trees and the two roughly hewn rocks to represent his wife and infant son. Yet somehow visiting his wife every day made him feel content and whole and ready to bear another unbearable day, until it was his karma to join her.

In the darkest shadow of the trees, Kaze stood watching Jiro. He was close enough to hear Jiro’s conversation with the dead and knew what the two rocks meant immediately. He slipped back deeper into the forest, silently making his way back to Jiro’s hut so he could seem to be sleeping when Jiro came back.

So the mystery of where the charcoal seller went every night was
solved. Kaze didn’t know if the dear one was a wife, mother, or mistress, but it was plain that Jiro was still linked to her in spirit. Kaze couldn’t see Jiro’s tears, but he could tell from the charcoal seller’s ragged breathing that there were tears.

Kaze thought of his wife, killed along with his son and daughter when his castle fell to the Tokugawa forces. She died a samurai’s death, killing her own children before they could be captured and tortured and then driving the blade of a dagger up under her chin and into her throat. The servants who escaped said she never hesitated when she realized all was lost. She retired to the castle’s keep and did what she had to do, ordering the servants to set fire to the keep in a clear voice that never once wavered, according to the old family retainer who was instructed to report on her death to others, instead of joining her in death.

It was a fine death and a brave one. But Kaze wished she had been less the samurai’s daughter and wife and more the woman. He wished she could have found a way to survive the destruction of their castle while Kaze was out fighting the Tokugawas. He felt tears forming in his own eyes, especially when he thought of the shining eyes of his children. Now, years later, Kaze found himself agreeing with the charcoal seller. Samurai were always starting wars, and peasants and other innocents were always dying in them. At one time it seemed so logical and sensible to him that bushido, the way of the warrior, was the natural way for a man to live. Now he wondered, especially when he dwelt on the losses that way had brought.

When Jiro returned to the hut, he found the samurai still sleeping soundly, breathing in a slow, gentle rhythm. Jiro didn’t know that the samurai’s breathing masked a sorrow as deep as his own and tears as bitter and salty as the ones the peasant shed every night in the forest. He drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Jiro woke early and stretched his stiff bones. When he sat up he was surprised to see the samurai already awake. Jiro nodded to the samurai and hoisted his heavy charcoal basket on his back. With another dip to say goodbye, Jiro left his hut to make his rounds,
selling charcoal to the people who needed it. The activities in the village were no different from those on any other day, for nature and survival know no holidays, but with the elimination of Boss Kuemon the people had smiles on their faces and a lightness to their step.

Despite the gnawing danger of having the samurai hiding in his hut, Jiro, too, was especially loquacious that morning, actually trading small talk with several customers. By the time he returned to his hut, his basket was considerably lighter.

He entered the gloom of his hut and was surprised to see the samurai sitting in the lotus position, his eyes closed and his hands in his lap. He expected to find him gone or, at the very least, spying through the wooden shutters that covered the windows of the hut, looking at whatever it was that had prompted him to return to the village.

Kaze didn’t open his eyes and made no move when Jiro entered. From the heavy sound of his footfall, he knew it was the old charcoal seller, still hauling his large basket. Jiro hesitated a moment at the doorway, then closed the door behind him and shrugged off his basket. He cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, samurai-san, but would you like something to eat?”

Kaze popped his eyes open. “Why are you getting so formal now? I already know how gruff and rude you are.”

Jiro scratched his head and grinned. “You were so quiet and still that I wasn’t sure I should disturb you.”

“I was thinking. When I awoke this morning, I realized I was about to make a samurai’s mistake.”

“What’s that?”

“Confusing activity with action. Sometimes thinking is action. I came here to observe the village, but I realized this observation was worthless without considering everything I knew and working up a strategy.”

“What is it you’re trying to observe?”

“That’s what I should be thinking about. In the heat of battle, some samurai rush about like a school of fish, darting this direction
and that, showing a lot of activity, but not killing too many of the enemy. The great Takeda Shingen would sit, holding his war fan and directing his troops. He would never move, even when the enemy was on top of him. He could do that because he would pick the strategic place to sit; the point where the entire battle would be decided. They called him The Mountain. He thought about the battle and knew where The Mountain should be placed. He didn’t try different locations like a flea hopping across a tatami mat. If I’m going to be Matsuyama, pine
mountain
, I should take a lesson from Shingen and think about what I know and what I want to see. Then I can place the mountain at the spot where I’m most likely to see it.”

“You say the strangest things. I can’t understand you sometimes.”