Musashi: Bushido Code (53 page)

"Fool!" he said contemptuously. "Do you think you can get away now?"

Otsū glanced downward; fifty or sixty feet below, a stream cut through the floor of the valley. Curiously, she was not afraid, for she saw the valley as her salvation. At any moment she chose, she could escape simply by letting go of the tree and throwing herself on the mercy of the open space below. She felt death was near, but rather than dwell on that, her mind focused on a single image: Musashi. She seemed to see him now, his face like a full moon in a stormy sky.

Baiken quickly seized her wrists, and hoisting her up, dragged her well clear of the edge.

Just then, one of his henchmen called to him from the road. "What are you doing down there? We'd better move fast. The old man at the teahouse back there said a samurai woke him up before dawn this morning, ordered a box lunch, then ran off toward Kaga Valley."

"Kaga Valley?"

"That's what he said. But whether he goes that way or crosses Mount Tsuchi to Minakuchi doesn't matter. The roads come together at Ishibe. If we make good time to Yasugawa, we should be able to catch him there."

Baiken's back was turned to the man, his eyes fastened on Otsū, who crouched before him, seemingly trapped by his fierce glare. "Ho!" he roared. "All three of you come down here."

"Why?"

"Get down here, fast!"

"If we waste time, Musashi'll beat us to Yasugawa."

"Never mind that!"

The three men were among those who had been engaged in the fruitless search the night before. Used to making their way through the mountains, they stormed down the incline with the speed of so many boars. As they reached the ledge where Baiken was standing, they caught sight of Otsū. Their leader rapidly explained the situation to them.

"All right now, tie her up and bring her along," said Baiken, before darting off through the woods.

They tied her up, but they couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She lay helpless on the ground, face turned to the side; they stole embarrassed looks at her pale profile.

Baiken was already in Kaga Valley. He stopped, looked back at the cliff and shouted, "We'll meet in Yasugawa. I'll take a shortcut, but you stay on the highway. And keep your eyes peeled."

"Yes, sir!" they chorused back.

Baiken, running between the rocks like a mountain goat, was soon out of sight.

Jōtarō was hurtling down the highroad. Despite her age, the horse was so maddened there was no stopping her with a mere rope, even if Jōtarō had known how to go about it. The raw wound burning like a torch, she sped blindly ahead, up hill, down dale, through villages.

It was only through sheer luck that Jōtarō avoided being thrown off. "Watch out! Watch out!
Watch out!"
he screamed repeatedly. The words had become a litany.

No longer able to stay on by clinging to the mane, he had his arms locked tightly around the horse's neck. His eyes were closed.

When the beast's rump rose in the air, so did Jōtarō's. As it became increasingly apparent that his shouts were not working, his pleas gradually gave way to a distressed wail. When he had begged Otsū to let him ride a horse just once, he had been thinking how grand it would be to go galloping about at rill on a splendid steed, but after a few minutes of this hair-raising ride, he had had his fill.

Jōtarō hoped that someone—anyone—would bravely volunteer to seize the flying rope and bring the horse to a halt. In this he was overoptimistic, for neither travelers nor villagers wanted to risk being hurt in an affair that was no concern of theirs. Far from helping, everyone made for the safety of the roadside and shouted abuse at what appeared to them to be an irresponsible horseman.

In no time he'd passed the village of Mikumo and reached the inn town of Natsumi. If he had been an expert rider in perfect control of his mount, he could have shaded his eyes and calmly looked out over the beautiful mountains and valleys of Iga—the peaks of Nunobiki, the Yokota River and, in the distance, the mirror-like waters of Lake Biwa.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" The words of his litany had changed; his tone was more distraught. As they started down Kōji Hill, his cry abruptly changed again. "Help!" he screamed.

The horse charged on down the precipitous incline, Jōtarō bouncing like a ball on her back.

About a third of the way down, a large oak projected from a cliff on the left, one of its smaller branches extending across the road. When Jōtarō felt the leaves against his face, he grabbed with both hands, believing the gods had heard his prayer and caused the limb to stretch out before him. Perhaps he was right; he jumped like a frog, and the next instant he was hanging in the air, his hands firmly wrapped around the branch above his head. The horse went out from under him, moving a little faster now that she was rider-less.

It was no more than a ten-foot drop to the ground, but Jōtarō could not bring himself to release his grip. In his badly shaken condition, he saw the short distance to the ground as a yawning abyss and hung onto the branch for dear life, crossing his legs over it, readjusting his aching hands, and wondering feverishly what to do. The problem was solved for him when with a loud crack the branch broke off. For an awful instant, Jōtarō thought he was done for; a second later he was sitting on the ground unharmed.

"Whew!" was all he could say.

For a few minutes he sat inertly, his spirit dampened, if not broken, but then he remembered why he was there and jumped up.

Heedless of the ground he had covered, he shouted, "Otsū!"

He ran back up the slope, one hand firmly around his wooden sword. "What could have happened to her? ... Otsū! O-tsū-ū-ū!"

Presently he met a man in a grayish-red kimono coming down the hill. The stranger wore a leather
hakama
and carried two swords, but had on no cloak. After passing Jōtarō, he looked over his shoulder and said, "Hello, there!" Jōtarō turned, and the man asked, "Is something wrong?"

"You came from over the hill, didn't you?" Jōtarō asked.

"Yes."

"Did you see a pretty woman about twenty years old?"

"I did, as a matter of fact."

"Where?"

"In Natsumi I saw some freebooters walking along with a girl. Her arms were tied behind her, which naturally struck me as strange, but I had no reason to interfere. I daresay the men were from Tsujikaze Kōhei's gang. He moved a whole villageful of hoodlums from Yasugawa to Suzuka Valley some years ago."

"That was her, I'm sure." Jōtarō started to walk on, but the man stopped him.

"Were you traveling together?" he asked.

"Yes. Her name's Otsū."

"If you take foolish risks you'll get yourself killed before you can help anybody. Why don't you wait here? They'll come this way sooner or later. For now, tell me what this is all about. I may be able to give you some advice."

The boy immediately placed his trust in the man and told him everything that had happened since morning. From time to time, the man nodded under his basket hat. When the story ended, he said, "I understand your predicament, but even with your courage, a woman and a boy are no match for Kōhei's men. I think I'd better rescue Otsū—is that her name?—for you."

"Would they hand her over to you?"

"Maybe not for the mere asking, but I'll think about that when the time comes. Meanwhile, you hide in a thicket and stay quiet."

While Jōtarō selected a clump of bushes and hid behind it, the man continued briskly on down the hill. For a moment, Jōtarō wondered if he had been deceived. Had the rōnin just said a few words to cheer him up, then moved on to save his own neck? Seized by anxiety, he lifted his head above the shrubs, but hearing voices, ducked down again.

A minute or two later Otsū came into view, surrounded by the three men, her hands tied firmly behind her. Blood was encrusted on a cut on her white foot.

One of the ruffians, shoving Otsū forward by the shoulder, growled, "What are you looking around for? Walk faster!"

"That's right, walk!"

"I'm looking for my traveling companion. What could have happened to him? ... Jōtarō!"

"Quiet!"

Jōtarō was all set to yell and jump out of his hiding place when the rōnin came back, this time without his basket hat. He was twenty-six or -seven and of a darkish complexion. In his eyes was a purposeful look that strayed neither right nor left. As he trotted up the incline, he was saying, as if to himself, "It's terrifying, really terrifying!"

When he passed Otsū and her captors, he mumbled a greeting and hastened on, but the men stopped. "Hey," one of them called. "Aren't you Watanabe's nephew? What's so terrifying?"

Watanabe was the name of an old family in the district, the present head of which was Watanabe Hanzō, a highly respected practitioner of the occult martial tactics known collectively as
ninjutsu.

"Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Down at the bottom of this hill there's a samurai named Miyamoto Musashi, all ready for a big fight. He's standing in the middle of the road with his sword unsheathed, questioning everybody who passes by. He has the fiercest eyes I ever saw."

"Musashi's doing that?"

"That's right. He came straight up to me and asked my name, so I told him that I was Tsuge Sannojō, the nephew of Watanabe Hanzō, and that I came from Iga. He apologized and let me by. He was very polite, in fact, said as long as I wasn't connected with Tsujikaze Kōhei, it was all right."

"Oh?"

"I asked him what had happened. He said Kōhei was on the road with his henchmen, out to catch him and kill him. He decided to entrench himself where he was and meet the attack there. He seemed prepared to fight to the finish."

"Are you telling the truth, Sannojō?"

"Of course I am. Why would I lie to you?"

The faces of the three grew pale. They looked at each other nervously, uncertain as to their next move.

"You'd better be careful," said Sannojō, ostensibly resuming his trip up the hill.

"Sannojō!"

"What?"

"I don't know what we should do. Even our boss said this Musashi is unusually strong."

"Well, he does seem to have a lot of confidence in himself. When he came up to me with that sword, I certainly didn't feel like taking him on."

"What do you think we should do? We're taking this woman to Yasugawa on the boss's orders."

"I don't see that that has anything to do with me."

"Don't be like that. Lend us a hand."

"Not on your life! If I helped you and my uncle found out about it, he'd disown me. I could, of course, give you a bit of advice."

"Well, speak up! What do you think we should do?"

"Um ... For one thing, you could tie that woman up to a tree and leave her. That way, you could move faster."

"Anything else?"

"You shouldn't take this road. It's a little farther, but you could go up the valley road to Yasugawa and let people there know about all this. Then you could surround Musashi and gradually hem him in."

"That's not a bad idea."

"But be very, very careful. Musashi will be fighting for his life, and he'll take quite a few souls with him when he goes. You'd rather avoid that, wouldn't you?"

Quickly agreeing with Sannojō's suggestion, they dragged Otsū to a grove and tied her rope to a tree. Then they left but after a few minutes returned to tie a gag in her mouth.

"That should do it," said one.

"Let's get going."

They dived into the woods. Jōtarō, squatting behind his leafy screen, waited judiciously before raising his head for a look around. He saw no one—no travelers, no freebooters, no Sannojō.

"Otsu!" he called, prancing out of the thicket. Quickly finding her, he undid her bonds and took her hand. They ran to the road. "Let's get away from here!" he urged.

"What were you doing hiding in the bushes?"

"Never mind! Let's go!"

"Just a minute," said Otsū, stopping to pat her hair, straighten her collar and rearrange her obi.

Jōtarō clicked his tongue. "This is no time for primping," he wailed. "Can't you fix your hair later?"

"But that rōnin said Musashi was at the bottom of the hill."

"Is that why you have to stop and make yourself pretty?"

"No, of course not," said Otsū, defending herself with almost comic seriousness. "But if Musashi is so near, we don't have anything to worry about. And since our troubles are as good as over, I feel calm and safe enough to think of my appearance.

"Do you believe that rōnin really saw Musashi?"

"Of course. By the way, where is he?"

"He just disappeared. He's sort of strange, isn't he?"

"Shall we go now?" said Otsū.

"Sure you're pretty enough?"

"Jōtarō!"

"Just teasing. You look so happy."

"You look happy too."

"I am, and I don't try to hide it the way you do. I'll shout it so everybody can hear:
I'm happy!"
He did a little dance, waving his arms and kicking his legs, then said, "It'll be very disappointing if Musashi isn't there, won't it? I think I'll run on ahead and see."

Otsū took her time. Her heart had already flown to the bottom of the slope faster than Jōtarō could ever have run.

"I look frightful," she thought as she surveyed her injured foot and the dirt and leaves stuck to her sleeves.

"Come on!" called Jōtarō. "Why are you poking along?" From the lilt in his voice, Otsū felt certain that he had spotted Musashi.