Ghost of the Bamboo Road

by Susan Spann

  Hiro gave the innkeeper a questioning look.

  “Mother wanted me to marry an innkeeper’s daughter—someone who had grown up learning to run a ryokan. She did not want to train a ‘useless fool’ like Kane, who came from a merchant’s family where she did not have to work before she married.”

  “But you fell in love with Kane.” Father Mateo smiled in understanding.

  “From the moment I saw her at her parents’ shop in Hakone during last year’s New Year festival.” Noboru blushed and looked down. Japanese men did not admit such foolishness. “We married a few weeks later, shortly before my father’s death.”

  “During the mourning period for your sister?” Hiro found that odd.

  “Mother insisted I take a wife to help her with the ryokan. She claimed she needed help before the summer—part of the reason she agreed to Kane in the first place.”

  “How did Mume come to marry Taso?” Hiro asked.

  Noboru looked up. “Perhaps you did not notice, but Kane’s sister is not. . .bright.

  “Kane’s parents agreed to let us wed as long as we could find a husband for Mume in the village. That way Kane could continue to help her sister. Taso had no wife, and was agreeable.”

  Noboru shrugged, as if this answered everything.

  “Does Mume require much help?” Hiro took another bite of rice. “She seems capable enough to me,” Noboru said. “Prone to suggestion and overly emotional, but then, many women are. I think she clings to Kane mostly out of habit.”

  “They spend a great deal of time together?” Hiro spoke as if the answer did not matter.

  “Not as much as Mume wanted. Mother disapproved of idle chatter, almost as much as she loathed laziness and sloppy work.”

  “Did Kane struggle with your mother’s rules?” Father Mateo asked. “Or with adjusting to such a demanding environment. . .”

  “My wife has had no problems.” Noboru spoke with unusual vehemence. “Her—”

  “Pardon my intrusion,” Hanako called through the door as she slid it open. “May I bring more tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Father Mateo bowed his head. “And thank you for taking such trouble, especially under the circumstances.”

  Hiro again looked for a way to ask about Emiko without sounding suspicious. Unfortunately, he failed. Samurai simply did not ask about unknown, unimportant teahouse girls.

  “Noboru-san,” Hanako asked, “may I have a word with you after the meal?”

  He refused to meet her gaze. “Regrettably, I have business at the ryokan.”

  “With respect,” she persisted, “the matter is important and should not wait.”

  Hiro stood up. “Thank you for your courtesy.” He met the Jesuit’s gaze and tipped his head toward the door. “We will see ourselves out, so you may speak alone.”

  Father Mateo looked puzzled, but did not argue. He stood up and bowed. “Again, we thank you for the delicious meal.”

  Despite his offer, Hiro was intrigued that Hanako did not escort them to the door. The breach of etiquette made him even more curious about her impending conversation with Noboru.

  On the teahouse veranda Hiro lowered his voice and switched to Portuguese, “Return to the inn. I want to find out what’s going on.”

  Before the priest could argue, Hiro stepped off the veranda and hurried around the side of the teahouse as if going to visit the latrine.

  Chapter 41

  Hiro slowed his steps as he approached the slatted window outside the room where Noboru remained to talk with Hanako. He crouched beneath it, grateful that the window sat where he could not be easily seen from the village. A person watching from the ryokan could still see him, but he doubted Kane spent much time gazing out in that direction.

  He hoped not, anyway.

  Voices drifted out between the window slats, muffled slightly by the oiled paper covering but still audible.

  “—claim it’s because you’re in mourning.” Hanako seemed to be crying.

  “I am in mourning,” Noboru said, “and with the silver gone, I can’t afford it.”

  “You never said that when your parents were alive.”

  “Things have changed.” Irritation crept into Noboru’s voice. “Kane needs—”

  “Since when do you care about her needs? What about my needs?”

  “Things cannot be as they were before. You want your money? Here it is.”

  Coins clattered on the wooden table.

  “Noboru!”—the location of Hanako’s voice shifted, as if in movement—“Noboru, wait! Please. . .”

  She said something unintelligible.

  Noboru’s answer was muffled, as if he had left the room and spoke back through the doorway. Hiro caught only, “. . .a week.”

  “You know that is not what I mean,” Hanako replied. “We could still come to an arrangement. Since you insist, we can even include Kane-san. Why don’t you bring her here tomorrow, for a meal, and we can talk?”

  “. . .the foreigner and his scribe. . .”

  “Yes. Their presence would make conversation difficult. Bring Kane for dinner after they leave the village.”

  This time, Noboru’s response was clear. “Only for dinner. No promises.”

  Hiro noticed movement in the trees behind the teahouse.

  One of the shadows shifted and took on a human shape.

  He blinked, and it vanished.

  Hiro peered into the forest, trying to decide if he had truly seen a person in the trees. And if so, who? Since the conversation between Hanako and Noboru seemed to have ended, he started toward the forest.

  As he reached the trees, he caught a glimpse of a dark robe disappearing into a stand of bamboo grass. The stalks shifted into place behind the departing figure, leaving no evidence of human passage.

  Hiro stopped and listened. He heard only the gentle rustling of the sasa and the distant cry of a crow announcing its territorial claims.

  He debated calling out to the running figure, but decided to follow silently instead. Despite the darkness of the cloak, Hiro suspected the figure was Zentaro, and wondered why the yamabushi had exchanged his pale clothes for a dark robe that allowed him to blend into the shadows. None of the explanations that came to mind boded well for the yamabushi’s innocence, and although Hiro had no plans to delay his stay in the village to catch the killer, he would not pass up the chance to unravel the mystery if he could.

  He parted the bamboo grass and followed the figure into the thicket. The sasa grew higher than his head and covered a house-sized space beneath the trees. By the time he emerged on the far side of the thicket, his quarry had disappeared.

  Once more, Hiro stopped to listen. As the sasa stilled, he heard faint footsteps heading up the mountain, roughly in the direction of the burial ground. He followed the sound, minimizing the crunch of his own footsteps on the icy ground to the extent he could.

  Before long, the figure came into view among the trees. Its size and breadth, and the foxlike way it leaped upward on the slope, looked like Zentaro, though the hooded cloak prevented confirmation.

  Hiro continued following at a distance.

  At the burial ground, the hooded figure wove between the monuments with purpose. About halfway across the yard, the figure stopped and bent to pick something up from the ground beside a grave.

  Hiro drew closer, ducked behind a tree, and watched.

  As the figure straightened, his hood fell back, revealing Zentaro’s face. The yamabushi held the halves of a broken rice bowl.

  “Dangerous,” he muttered. After a furtive look around that caused Hiro to draw back into the shelter of the tree, Zentaro continued across the burial ground.

  Hiro skirted around the graves, hesitating near the larger monuments where he could conceal himself if the need arose. However, Zentaro seemed unaware of the shinobi’s presence.

  The yamabushi left the burial yard and bounded up the mountain as if suddenly on an urgent errand. Hiro had to work hard to keep Zentaro in
sight without making too much noise.

  As he climbed the slope, Hiro suddenly had the sensation that he, too, was being followed. The hair on his arms and neck stood up on end.

  He crouched and looked around.

  The trees—a mixture of cedars and maples—grew fairly close together here. The cedars’ trunks remained devoid of branches to a height of at least ten meters, while the maples spread their arms considerably closer to the ground. Clusters of sasa grew between and beneath the trees, obscuring Hiro’s view of the middle distance.

  Overhead, a pair of crows exchanged avian insults through the trees. Aside from the noisy corvids, Hiro saw and heard no evidence of anything with eyes.

  Zentaro’s footsteps faded, but the feeling of being watched grew more intense.

  As much as he loathed ignoring potential threats, Hiro had to choose between shaking his own pursuer—if he had one—and losing Zentaro’s trail.

  He took one last look around and, still seeing no one, followed the yamabushi up the mountain.

  Zentaro’s path diverged to the left of the sacred clearing. About a hundred meters farther up the slope, the ascetic paused at the foot of a steep, rocky face that appeared to continue all the way to the towering summit far above. Exposed tree roots wove around and through the stones near the bottom of the face, creating a natural ladder, though the trees near the base of the cliff prevented Hiro from seeing how high the “ladder” reached.

  Zentaro looked around expectantly.

  Hiro stepped behind the thick, rough trunk of a towering cedar. The ancient tree was large enough that he didn’t need to turn sideways to conceal himself from view.

  One of the crows had ceased its calling, a fact that caused no small offense if the calls of the other were any indication. Somewhere nearby, a stream or waterfall chattered over rocks.

  “Hello?” Zentaro called. “Who’s there?”

  Hiro did not move.

  “I hear you among the trees,” Zentaro said.

  Hiro slowed his breathing. He pressed himself against the cedar’s trunk.

  “Come on out. I know you’re there.”

  Footsteps rustled the undergrowth to Hiro’s left.

  A fox the color of autumn leaves emerged from a cluster of bamboo grass a stone’s throw from the place where Hiro stood. It had a bushy auburn coat with black-tipped ears and charcoal-colored legs. The creature headed toward Zentaro, but froze, ears pricked attentively forward, when it noticed Hiro behind the tree.

  The fox lifted its muzzle to scent the air as Hiro willed the creature to ignore him.

  Instead, it took a step in his direction.

  Hiro held his breath.

  “Is something wrong, kitsune-san?” Zentaro called. “What do you see?”

  The fox regarded Hiro warily, took another step toward his hiding place, and barked.

  Chapter 42

  “What did you find, kitsune-san?” Footsteps crunched as Zentaro started toward the tree.

  Hiro tried to invent a reasonable explanation for his presence behind the cedar, but quickly realized that none existed. As he prepared to confront the mountain priest, the fox gave one last yip, turned away from Hiro, and trotted up the slope toward the yamabushi.

  “There you are.” Zentaro’s tone revealed his happy smile. “Are you hungry, kitsune-san? I have inarizushi waiting at the cave. Let’s go.”

  Footsteps crunched in the opposite direction, fading in volume as Zentaro moved away.

  Hiro exhaled slowly. He remained behind the tree for several seconds before risking a glance around the trunk.

  Zentaro walked away along the base of the root-strewn cliff. The fox trotted contentedly at his side, ears cocked as if listening to the human’s voice.

  A twig snapped in the opposite direction.

  Hiro spun around.

  The forest behind him was completely empty.

  Nevertheless, the sensation of being watched returned.

  Hiro had never known his instincts to be wrong on this particular point. Even so, he felt a burning need to see where Zentaro and the kitsune went. He did not believe the fox could speak, any more than he believed the yamabushi could converse with trees. Still, he wanted to see what happened when they reached Zentaro’s home.

  He set off after them, taking care to remain at the greatest possible distance, to reduce the chance of the fox noticing his scent or the sound of his footsteps.

  Less than a minute later, Zentaro paused near a crack in the cliff face.

  Hiro retreated to the relative shelter of a nearby cluster of neckhigh bamboo grass. He bent to conceal himself behind the stalks and peered around them.

  “Please wait here.” Zentaro said.

  The fox sat down and rested on its haunches.

  Zentaro bent almost double, stepped into the fissure in the cliff, and disappeared. A minute later, he reappeared with a wooden tray in his hands. A number of oblong, finger-sized rolls of inarizushi sat upon the tray.

  Despite his recent meal, Hiro’s mouth watered at the thought of delicately sweet, sticky rice wrapped firmly but gently in pockets of paper-thin fried tofu.

  The fox stood up and barked at Zentaro.

  “I know. Your favorite.” The ascetic smiled. “Your sister told me.”

  The fox licked its chops, gaze fixed on the tray.

  Zentaro set the tray on the ground.

  The fox devoured the food in moments and looked up expectantly. When no more sushi rolls appeared, it gave a quick, sharp bark and trotted off into the trees. Hiro held his breath, but the kitsune did not even look in his direction.

  Zentaro watched the fox until it disappeared. His hopeful expression changed to disappointment as he turned, bent down, and went inside the cave.

  Hiro remained perfectly still. The fox had not seemed unusual, let alone divine. However, Zentaro clearly thought otherwise. Numerous legends spoke of men bewitched by foxes, some of whom had even killed on a kitsune’s orders.

  Zentaro had mentioned instructions from Inari’s messengers.

  Hiro wondered just how far those instructions went, and whether the voices that delivered them came from Zentaro’s head, or from someone else.

  Before he decided what to do, Zentaro reemerged from the fissure carrying a wooden staff and set off down the mountain at a purposeful pace.

  Instinctively, Hiro crouched low to avoid detection, but the yamabushi’s gaze did not deviate from his route.

  Although tempted to follow, Hiro doubted the mountain priest intended harm to anyone, at least in daylight. The fissure in the stone—no doubt the entrance to Zentaro’s hidden home—was a far more interesting proposition.

  He waited behind the sasa for several minutes. When the yamabushi did not return and he could detect no other presence, Hiro hurried toward the opening in the cliff.

  When he reached the rocky face, he craned his neck upward. Twenty meters above his head, the cliff face disappeared into a cloud that seemed to sit directly on the mountaintop. A trickle of water, not strong enough to be called a fall, wound down the face like a liquid snake. Around it, ferns emerged from cracks in the stone, dotting the cliff with splashes of brilliant green.

  The rock wall seemed strangely out of place, rising vertically from the forest floor, until Hiro remembered the landslide that had altered the lower portion of the mountain earlier in the year. A far more ancient slide, or perhaps an earthquake, must have exposed this slab of bedrock when a portion of the mountain sheared away.

  Hiro lowered his face and turned his attention to the fissure. Had he not seen Zentaro enter it, he would never have guessed it led into a cave. The opening measured barely as tall as Hiro’s chest, and he had to twist his shoulders sideways to fit through it. He stuck his head inside. The opening curved away into darkness, preventing him from determining how deep the fissure went.

  With a last look over his shoulder to ascertain that Zentaro had not returned, Hiro bent even lower, twisted sideways, and entered the cav
e.

  As the light disappeared behind him, he kept the fingers of his right hand touching the rough stone wall. Maintaining contact with the wall at all times ensured that he could turn around, put his left hand on the wall, and follow it back out.

  After half a dozen steps, the tunnel entrance widened slightly and curved to the left. Hiro took four more steps around the curve and discovered himself in the entrance to a circular cavern three meters high and about four meters in diameter.

  He blinked in the unexpected light of the small brazier that lit the space.

  Flat stones nestled on the floor, so perfectly fitted that Hiro wondered at the time and effort someone had taken to pave a cavern—until it occurred to him that ascetics had a surfeit of both time and stones. Only the small, square earthen hearth at the center of the room remained unpaved. A worn tatami sat beside the hearth, with a wooden tray upon it. On the tray, a teapot and a cylindrical wooden canister rested beside a ceramic bowl and a pair of ancient-looking chopsticks.

  A vermilion Shinto shrine and an unpainted Buddhist altar sat against the wall of the cavern opposite the entrance. To their right, a bronze brazier cast a flickering glow across it all.

  The small paneled doors on the butsudan were closed, preventing him from seeing its interior. A broken bowl, perhaps the one Zentaro picked up at the burial ground, sat on a narrow shelf in front of the Shinto shrine, between two unlit candles and a pair of small stone foxes that stood guard over the sacred space.

  To Hiro’s right, a neatly folded futon and quilted blanket sat atop another old tatami. A small wooden chest, of the type most often used for clothing, rested against the wall beyond the bedding.

  To his left, a number of rickety wooden racks rested against the rough stone wall between the entrance and the altars. They held a collection of worn and broken items in various states of disrepair and mending. Brooms and bowls, teapots, cups, and lanterns lined the shelves, each neatly set in place with other objects of its kind.

  Hiro recalled Akako’s comment about Zentaro taking objects from the village.

  It appeared the yamabushi had been taking them to mend them.