The Plum Rains and Other Stories (11 page)

Koda searched through the outer edges of the berm-road hamlet until he found a freshly trampled path made by a
party
of men heading out into the moorlands. The day was cold and overcast but no snow fell, and he caught up with them at a newly-built mortuary shelter where they had paused to rest. The land there had been set aside for the city’s future dead. A few clan tombs stood erected already on the snow-filled plain, isolated and forlorn. The foundations for a bell tower occupied the edge of the new cemetery grounds, and the space for what would eventually be a grand funerary temple had been cleared and smoothed near a grove of leafless trees.

Koda watched the morose Ishida samurai as he came out to intercept him. I thought you didn’t want to be with us.

Koda told him he just couldn’t sleep there.

I guess you have refined tastes.

I don’t like other people around me when I’m asleep.

Ishida said most people thought being together was safer.

I guess that means I’m not like you.

Ishida looked off at the snow-covered hills beyond the moorlands. Then why are you following us?

The gamblers had built a fire at the front edge of the
mortuary
shelter and distributed the rations for their midday meal. They had a cask of rice wine that they heated in an iron pot then dipped out with a ladle, and they had wine cups fashioned from of sections of green bamboo.

Koda picked at the rations he’d been given, moving bits around in a simulation of eating.

Gompatchi studied him then held out his makeshift wine cup to be filled again. So what happened to your basket-hat?

I decided I didn’t like it. 

You didn’t like it. So then are we to assume you’re no longer living the life of an Emptiness Monk?

Koda looked at him for a moment then said, I guess not.

And were you ever? said the matchlock owner.

They finished their meal and poured the last of the wine into their big pot then broke apart the wine cask and began feeding bits of it into the fire, the inner surfaces of the wooden slats hissing and steaming as they charred. A couple of the
gamblers
went outside to piss, choosing to do so behind one of the newly erected family tombs.

I bet pissing in front of people is another thing he won’t do, said the matchlock owner.

A rat-faced gambler said he thought pissing on tombs was wrong.

I guess the dead won’t mind.

The rat-faced gambler thought they would mind. It was his understanding that the ghosts which collected near new tombs were particularly virulent due to the absence of the moderating effect of the older dead.

That’s not it, said the senior mat sweeper. They’re just ashamed.

Ashamed? The pistol owner dipped out another large cup of wine for himself. What a stupid idea.

Ashamed of being dead, said the mat sweeper. When
someone
dead looks at you, what they want is not to be rejected. It was the mat sweeper’s responsibility to manage the flow of a game, and the other gamblers respected him and paid attention to his opinions.

I guess I never heard anything like that, said the rat-faced gambler, and Earless Gompatchi said it was new to him too.

They know you’re disgusted by them, said the senior mat sweeper. And they are too. How could they not be? What they want is not to be blamed for it. 

Blamed for being dead? said the man with the pistol. He stared at Koda. You ever hear of anything like that?

No.

As if it’s their fault they got that way? And that’s why they feel ashamed? You don’t see how stupid that is?

No one said anything then Koda said, It’s never anyone’s fault.

I guess that’s what I just said, said the pistol owner. I guess we agree.

Every man’s death holds him, Koda said. Like a thing in a hand. And every year you go past your death-day without knowing how special it is. Of course you can’t know. But if you could, would you? What would it be like to know the day of your death but not the year?

Or know the year but not the day? said the rat-faced
gambler
.

That’s it too, said Gompatchi. But which would you choose?

The gamblers looked at each other, afternoon drinkers
pondering
thoughts of sufficient novelty and merit as to require careful consideration.

I’ll tell you the one I wouldn’t chose would be the day of it, Earless Gompatchi said.

Because you’d worry as it came closer? said the mat sweeper. But think how free you’d feel on all the other days. You could do anything, fight anybody.

I’ll drink to that, said the pistol man, and he drained his cup then refilled it.

But what a thing to know, said the rat-faced gambler, also dipping out more wine.

But knowing your death-year, too, said the mat sweeper, although they agreed that knowing the year of it would be less binding. 

Unless of course you keep hanging on and hanging on, said Gompatchi, autumn passes and winter arrives, then winter
settles
in and everybody else is paying off their debts and cleaning house and getting ready for the end-of-year celebrations…

But you don’t clean your house, said the mat sweeper.

The rat-faced gambler laughed. You’re just sitting there all alone. Hoping that maybe death forgot.

How could you do that? said the pistol man, his face pink with wine and his grin loose. That’s a stupid thing to hope.

You’d still hope it.

Still a stupid idea, he said, drinking.

Or like death got the year wrong, the senior mat sweeper said, a clerical error not caught in time; and they smiled at that idea then shoved the remaining cask slats onto their bonfire.

The man with the matchlock emptied his cup then dipped it full again, slopping wine over the edge. He held it out to Koda. Fellowship of the gang.

I don’t drink anymore.

Just one.

Koda said nothing.

One for you, said the pistol man, still pushing it towards him. Cheer you up.

Koda took the makeshift wine cup and held it then gave it back. Like I said.

You won’t sleep where we sleep. You won’t piss how we piss. And now you won’t even taste our wine?

Koda the Viper watched him but said nothing.

He said before he doesn’t like drinking, said Earless
Gompatchi
. All the more for you.

The pistol man held his cup as if trying to decide. Then he tilted it slightly and let a loose dribble splatter Koda’s feet. Sorry, he said.

By twilight they had reached a town large enough to sustain them. The gamblers set up a game in the local inn while the
bullies
and knife boys settled in an annex, ready to intervene should their skills be required.

Earless Gompatchi and Ishida brought Koda to the game site. You need to understand how to read the room, Gompatchi said. Separate the outside from the inside.

Koda said nothing, but he was listening.

There are occasions when unscrupulous types will try to rob us. They’ll usually have one or two in the game. You need to understand how it should be so you can recognise when it’s
going
wrong.

They ran that game until just before dawn then slept a few hours and started the next one in mid-afternoon. A few of the fighters and knife boys sat around the fire pit in the back,
distracting
themselves with a pot of cloudy rice wine that they warmed over the fire in the hopes of masking the sourness of it. Earless Gompatchi had continued to instruct Koda in the art of the way of the flower-cards, with Ishida adding comments occasionally. They ordered another pot of the cloudy wine and platters of titbits to go with it, and Koda slung his too-long sword across his back and went outside.

The sun hung low in winter mist above the western hills, spreading a reddish tinge throughout the cloud-wash there while the snow-covered slopes darkened with shadows. Koda crossed through the snow field then stopped and stood gazing at the streaks of red behind the blackness of the far hills, the pale aquamarine of the upper sky lovely, the water star low on the horizon.

Let’s have a shooting contest. The matchlock owner had come out behind him. He drove a patched ball into the firing chamber with his ramrod then primed the pan. The trunk of that dead pine down there. 

I told you I don’t like guns.

I didn’t ask what you liked.

The others had followed him outside, and Earless
Gompatchi
came out too. Put it away, he said.

The matchlock owner blew on the punk cord until it glowed then used both thumbs to ease the serpentine forward to
half-cock
. He chose an exaggerated firing stance, with his arm
extended
, pointing the pistol in the direction of the target. You have your skills and I have mine. Then he turned slowly as if he’d anticipated a response he wasn’t hearing, bringing his arm around too, not quite aiming at Koda but showing him what that might be like. You look a little worried now, he said,
enjoying
himself, twisting his wrist this way and that in a
demonstration
of bravado that was both a threat and the parody of one.

Then he sat down hard. His arm lay on the ground beside him, its hand still gripping the pistol. He looked up at Koda amazed. Blood flooded out of the stump where his arm had been. Then his face blanked white and his eyelids fluttered, and he lay back on the icy surface of trampled snow and sighed. He blinked his eyes as if to clear them from some irritation then sighed again and stopped blinking them.

Koda reached down and plucked up the hem of the dying man’s robe. He cleaned the edge of his too-long sword with it.

The others all stood there looking at him.

I don’t like guns, Viper Koda said.

Earless Gompatchi turned away, and the others followed him back inside, but Ishida stayed with Koda. That shouldn’t have happened like that.

Koda returned his too-long sword over his shoulder into its scabbard, the sweep of it sliding home like the sound of a door shutting. But it did. 

T
HE
N
ARROW
R
OAD TO
D
EWA

A
solitary rider came ambling across the autumn fields, accompanied by an entourage of insects that flared up all around him in the slanting orange light of late afternoon. The young warrior wore a sleeveless battle jacket studded all over with metal discs, but his two swords were shoved together through his sash in such a manner that the fist-protector of one might impede access to the other.

The rogue samurai Hasegawa Torakage sat under the eaves of a roadside inn and watched the rider’s approach.

That’s some bogey, said the innkeeper.

Yes, it is.

A primitive iron helmet protected the young warrior’s head, the kind of riveted old brain-roaster no sensible person would choose to wear, with the chin cords dangling disreputably, bits of travel debris caught in the metal plates of the neck guards, and the rusty stub of a snapped-off flange on the frontal plate indicating where some kind of heraldic device had once been mounted.

You think he has the right to carry those swords?

I don’t know, said Hasegawa.

Travel gear piled behind the young fighter’s saddle had been tied on haphazardly with rice-straw ropes, as if his
provisioning
had been organised by apes. A long wooden pannier hung
down awkwardly on one side, causing his horse to move with an oblique and staggering gait. He rode past the inn without
pausing
and turned up onto the road north to Dewa.

You think the Dewa-men might wonder about it?

Hasegawa said it was no concern of his what a man did. He ordered another flask of wine.

Hasegawa watched the sunlight on the fields and hills. He could have written about it but didn’t. Others had described such places. The world didn’t need him to repeat what had
already
been said.

It’s nice country, said the innkeeper; and Hasegawa finished his wine then counted out what he owed, placing the coins one by one in a row on the table.

The road north to the Land of Dewa led through paddy fields, the yellow-dry sea of rice shimmering in the warmth of the afternoon. Hasegawa thought he remembered what he was seeing from when he was a child, but he also thought maybe he just wanted to feel that way.

The road left the valley and climbed into the deep shade of a cedar forest. He came to an orange bird-perch gate. A flight of stone stairs led straight up to where a shrine would be. Pilgrims dressed in white were resting there. Vows written in bold
characters
decorated the fronts of their robes. Hasegawa exchanged greetings with them and shared thoughts on the weather and the topography and the pleasures of mountain rambling in
autumn
but didn’t linger, for they would be a slow-moving
company
prone to breaking out into prayer chants at the slightest provocation.

Hasegawa reached the next village just before sunset. The foolish young warrior was sprawled like a proprietor on a stack of rice-straw sacks that local farmers had prepared for the
harvest
. You want it? His horse stood with its rear hoof held off 
at an odd angle, the fetlock swollen and bloody. Save me the bother of killing the stupid thing.

You kill it you’ll be carrying your gear.

I guess I’ll find a replacement first.

You see many horses around here?

The young warrior shifted his sword handles forward. I guess I only need one.

Hasegawa looked at him then turned away and continued up through the village and back onto the mountain road. He walked at an easy pace, and when he came to the ruins of a fortress destroyed by the Tokugawa Shogunate he stopped. On the grassy ridge above it stood an immense ginkgo tree blazing against the clarity of the autumn sky like a geyser of
sulphur-yellow
flames. The defenders had been given an opportunity to record their true feelings, some adding poems and some
admonitions
; and each man’s document had been attached to his head cask for the trip back to Edo, where the shogun himself had agreed to participate in a formal viewing. Nothing was left of the buildings that had been there, and only rectangular sections of the granite foundation blocks remained, like abandoned
jetties
in a sea of autumn grasses.

Hasegawa built a small comfort-fire on the leeward side of one of the massive ashlars, soot from his smoke blackening that already there. The defeated garrison were local samurai who would have sought consolation. Perhaps they had mentioned the splendid ginkgo tree in their farewell letters, trying to
describe
what they saw even as they were waiting to be called out for the commencement of slaughter procedures.

Shit. I thought you were a bandit. The young warrior came up off the road, his absurd helmet worn so low over his eyes that he had to tilt his head back to see. I was about to get out my throat-cutter. 

He was on foot now and leading his gimpy horse, the gear as ineptly arranged as before, with rice-straw ropes wound around hither and thither in a comedy of incapability. Probably you’ve heard of me. He declared that he was known everywhere as Tarō, the Hell-kite of Edo, and that all men who met him soon realised he was a stone-cold killer with an icy heart and a
fondness
for the beauty of war.

The young warrior waited uncertainly at the edge of the camp site, acknowledging Hasegawa’s right of priority. Of course I guess we’re both up here for the same reason, he said.

I guess I don’t know what that could be.

The Hell-kite smirked, as if undergoing some obscure
hazing
ritual. Killing bandits, he said.

Hasegawa watched him but said nothing.

The Hell-kite seemed to detect no rebuke in the samurai’s silence. Of course I haven’t killed many yet. But I’m just getting started. He stood waiting so Hasegawa invited him to bivouac there and share his meagre rations. Unless you prefer to be on your own.

Usually I do, said the Hell-kite. It makes me more deadly.

The lone wolf.

The lone wolf all alone that strikes like sudden lightning!

All right then, said Hasegawa.

But since you’ve already got a fire going…

After they had finished their meal, the Hell-kite of Edo retrieved his elongated pannier. The box was hinged along one side and held closed by a pair of brass hook-and-eye latches on the other. Words written in the language of the butter
eaters
decorated the lid of this foreign box, and inside was a
new-design
harquebus, a weapon only just arrived in their country and said to possess a deadly accuracy. The gun had a long barrel with a single-leg shooting support that fitted into a brass socket midway down the length of it. The ramrod rode in a tube on the 
wooden stock under the barrel. The Hell-kite said there was no object anywhere in the world that he preferred to this wonderful new gun. A row of sealed canisters contained black powder, and a pair of small metal flasks held the fine-grain priming powder. There was a leather case with adjustable straps for carrying lead balls, and a jute sack filled with little squares of silk that were used to hold the ball in the breech. The Hell-kite told him he would not trade this gun for a golden Buddha statue big as a man. The weapon was fitted with its punk cord, and extra cords were coiled up and tucked inside the carrying box along with the tools needed for proper maintenance.

I can kill anything with it I can see, said the Hell-kite. He lifted the matchlock out of its case and cradled it on his lap then held up a lead ball the size of a sparrow’s egg. You can imagine the damage that does.

Hasegawa said nothing. But he could imagine it.

The Hell-kite demonstrated how a brass cover closed down over the touch hole so the priming powder wouldn’t spill out. I am particularly fond of the art of the way of the head-shot, he said. The punk cord was slotted into a serpentine-lever that cocked back against a spring and was held there by the toggle bar of the trigger release mechanism. The bandit’s standing there in the folly of his arrogance. Then, bam! Lightning strikes! And his brains are splattered all over the rocks and trees!

All right.

Or he’s on his knees weeping and pleading for his life but you just –

I said all right. Put it back in its box. And don’t show me again.

S
O HOW MANY MEN HAVE
you killed?

Hasegawa glanced back at the grinning youth but said nothing. 

More than a hundred?

They were keeping to a ridge, seeking terrain that would be easier for the horse to manage. Hasegawa had squared up his load better, but he was still favouring his hind leg.

More than fifty then?

That’s no kind of question.

Seems to me it’s the only one there is.

Hasegawa said nothing.

I haven’t actually killed anybody myself yet.

I thought you said you did?

What I meant was that I might have but couldn’t be sure.

You’d know.

Not with my big banger you don’t!

Hasegawa glanced back at him again.

I needed to get a feel for it. You know how you need to get a feel for a thing like that? It’s all very well shooting at trees. Or dogs. Except of course for how they run around so you have to tie them to something so if you miss the first time you can keep trying. But that’s not the same as shooting at a man. And you want to know you can trust your weapon in battle. So when I got into the hills, there was this gang of ruffians camped on the far side of a deep gorge. Troublemakers of the worst sort
probably
. So I worked my way around until I found a good spot and let it off on them. What a noise! Echoes in all directions!

And you hit one?

Probably.

You don’t know?

Well, no. I had to duck down so they couldn’t see where the shot came from.

They stayed just under the ridge line throughout the middle part of the day, climbing higher occasionally to avoid steep
inclines
. The shogunate constabulary had set up an outpost farther along on the road so whenever they reached an opening in the 
forest they would search for the pale wisp of smoke from the day-fire there and estimate their position by it.

You know, said the Hell-kite, probably we could have just stayed on the road and gone straight through.

Not with that gun.

That’s why it’s in its box. So you don’t know what it is.

What else would be in a box like that?

They came to an exposed slope of loose scree that descended steeply to a stream. The open sky was a hard flat blue with low clouds crowding the horizon, and the mountains and forests stretched out beyond them endlessly in all directions, green and blue-green, paling to grey. A sea eagle hung high in the autumn sky, adjusting itself with casual ease as it slid across sheets of empty air.

The Hell-kite stood watching it with him. What you do is you wait until it lands on its nest then shoot straight up through it.

They went down along the edge of the forest for the
better
footing that might be found there, then traversed back and forth until they reached the bottom. The stream had eroded its banks, and Hasegawa insisted on unloading the horse and carrying the gear across first. He led the horse down through the raw gully, gauging the angle of the slope; but he was
unable
to keep the animal from stumbling in a panic as the loose gravel broke up beneath him. The horse crashed into the stream and fell sideways then staggered upright and came up the far bank. Hasegawa got him on solid ground and calmed him. The Hell-kite began piling the gear on again, loading it without any thought or consideration. Hasegawa waited until he was
finished
then made him take it apart and do it right.

They were too low to see the constabulary men’s smoke now, and they had nothing to guide by other than sunlight filtering through the trees; so they cut straight across, trying to hold to 
an eastern line until they reached the Dewa Road again, well north of the shogunate outpost.

We should’ve just stayed on this road the whole time.
Anybody
says anything about my gun, we’ll just cut them down.

I thought your intention was to kill bandits.

I won’t let anybody stop me.

Not even the Tokugawa?

The Hell-kite lifted his helmet off the saddle and put it on, the formality of road travel apparently requiring such a display. I guess they piss the same colour we do.

The neck guards attached around the bottom rim of his old head-bucket bothered him, and he tried to angle the crown
forward
so the hanging iron strips wouldn’t chafe his shoulders. You can take them off, Hasegawa said, they unhook. But the Hell-kite thought the neck guards gave him a fierce appearance, and that was an advantage he would not willingly forgo.

They bivouacked at the top end of an alpine meadow and ate their meagre rations beside a scrappy bonfire, the evening wind soughing in the tops of the cedars and pushing clouds down across the mountains.